Tag: piano

Monique Lapins and Jian Liu give consummate performances of Bartok and Debussy at St.Andrew’s

Posted on by Steven Sedley

St.Andrew’s on-The-Terrace Lunchtime Concert Series presents:
Monique Lapins, violin, and Jian Liu, piano

CLAUDE DEBUSSY – Violin Sonata in G minor L148
BÉLA BARTÓK – 6 Romanian Folk Dances
BÉLA BARTÓK – Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 1, Sz 75

St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace, Wellington

Wednesday, 26 May 2021

How privileged we are in Wellington to be able to go to a lunch time concert on a beautiful Wednesday and hear such consummate artists as Monique Lapins and Jian Liu of the NZ School of Music. They presented a challenging programme of Debussy and Bartók. The two violin sonatas were written within a few years of each other, Debussy’s in 1917 in the middle of the war, Bartók’s in the aftermath of the war and in the shadow of the Hungarian Commune. Both were groundbreaking works.

Debussy was very ill, dying of cancer when he wrote his Violin Sonata. It was his last composition, planned as one of six instrumental sonatas, of which he completed only three, his Cello Sonata, his Sonata for Flute Viola and Harp and this Sonata for Violin. It is in classic sonata form in three movements, but there the comparison with the great sonatas of Beethoven or Brahms ends. It is a short work, a third of the length of Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata, but though it is short, it is concise with a wealth of material. The first movement opens with chords on the piano which are then deconstructed, fragmented. The beautiful haunting melody, played on the violin has an oriental flavour with a tinge of sadness The second movement starts with a violin solo which breaks into a jocular passage that alternates with dark melancholy and then sarcasm as if saying ‘don’t take me too seriously’. The opening of the final movement starts with a nostalgic melody, then becomes triumphal with high spirits and playful accompaniment. The work lasts less than a quarter hour, yet it is full of contrasts, wit, charm, and transparent filigree passages, but also a sense of loss. It is a fragile piece that requires sensitive reading and Monique Lapins and Jian Liu did justice to this most beautifully.

Bartók’s Six Romanian Dances were an appropriate contrast to the Debussy Sonata. These are boisterous, folksy, a product of Bartók’s travels through the Balkans, collecting folk music with his fellow composer, Zoltán Kodály They are immediately approachable. They also present technical challenges, difficult double stops, harmonics, unrelenting strong rhythms. They also served as a bridge to Bartók’s musical world, his search for a musical language that broke away from the musical language that he was reared on, the language of Brahms and other great German composers. I couldn’t help thinking Monique Lapins and Jian Liu’s playing here perhaps a little TOO “masterly”, too controlled, in places needing more sense of the dances’ gay abandonment.

Bartók’s Violin Sonata No. 1, by contrast, is a difficult work, both technically and musically. Unlike the Debussy Sonata, which is brief, concise and at times whimsical, the Bartók Sonata is a long, passionate, disturbing piece. The first movement opens with rich chords on the piano, then the violin enters with a plaintive if discordant melody. The piano and violin complement each other with contrasting voices, but they don’t echo each other or share melodic or rhythmic themes. The piano captures the sound of the cimbalom, the violin the crying human voice. The strained harmonies highlight the tension between the two instruments. The second movement opens with a beautiful if discordant gentle violin solo that Monique Lapins played as beautifully as you are ever likely to hear, before the piano took over with sombre pensive chords. Jian Liu produced a rich palette of sounds on the piano, percussive when it was required, gentle, lyrical with a warm tone when that was appropriate. The mood of the movement was one of longing, heart rending sadness, played by the violin and supported by harp-like chords on the piano. The final movement opened with harsh percussive chords on the piano and this percussive beat continued to appear right through the piece, while the violin played with manic energy. Hungarian rhythms intruded in the midst of the seeming mayhem. Then the piece broke down into grotesque dance rhythms interrupted by brief lyrical episodes on the violin. The work ended with passionate energy. This energy and passion carried the audience with it, reflected by the wild applause that followed, an applause seldom heard at the end of a lunch hour recital.

This sonata is a challenge for violinist and pianist alike. It is a difficult monumental work which Monique Lapins and Jian Liu played with rare zest.

It was a memorable recital. The Bartók Sonata is rarely heard, perhaps because of its exceptional difficulties. Those who were at the concert were fortunate have had the opportunity to hear it in such an exceptionally fine performance.

 

 

Michael Endres (piano) – a journey from classical to romantic at Waikanae

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Waikanae Music Society presents:
MICHAEL ENDRES  IN RECITAL
Music by Mozart, Schubert and Schumann

MOZART – Piano Sonata in B-flat Major, No. 13 K.333
SCHUBERT – “Wanderer Fantasia in C Major, D.760
SCHUMANN – Etudes Symphoniques Op.13

Michael Endres (piano)

Memorial Hall, Waikanae,

Sunday, 2nd May, 2021

I was particularly anxious to get out to Waikanae to hear Michael Endres give this recital as it had been a long time since I last heard him play – upon subsequently checking “Middle C” I discovered it was in 2013, and also at Waikanae  – and on that occasion he presented a programme that combined range and scope with judiciously matched entities, Schubert leading to Chopin in the first half and Ravel leading to Gershwin in the second.

This time, though perhaps not as widely-ranging repertoire-wise, the journey we were taken on by the pianist spanned the very different worlds of Mozart and Schumann via a “revolutionary“ work by Schubert, each piece demonstrating something of the expressive potential of the keyboard at the time of writing. Even Mozart’s piano (he owned an instrument made by Anton Walter) with two octaves less than a modern piano and lighter and smaller than Schubert’s or Schumann’s instrument would have been, would have spoken for its time with eloquence and character in its own distinctive voice.

I enjoyed without reservation Endres’s playing of both of the two Romantic works on today’s programme, Schubert’s outlandishly virtuosic “Wanderer” Fantasia, and Schumann’s profoundly expressive “Etudes Symphoniques”. And I enjoyed the pianist’s Mozart playing as well, (the B-flat Sonata K.333), though without feeling as though the notes and phrases had for him the same consistency of ownership or through-line identification that marked his playing  of the other pieces. The Mozart had some beguiling sequences, with some especially fleet-fingered and gossamer-toned playing at the outset, but we were unfortunately denied further exploring of these impressions by the lack of the first-movement repeat. The development provided some compensation by “getting down to business”, with minor-key stresses ruffling and clouding the ambiences, resulting in a certain wistful return to the sunniness of the opening, and by way of balance, a touch more emphasis given to certain details.

The slow movement seemed to me surer in its characterisations, Endres catching the charm and depth of feeling of the opening’s spacious operatic dialogue, and moving the music into darker regions almost nonchalantly at first, but gradually registering the “deep waters” referred to in the programme notes. I enjoyed the wonderfully expansive feel to the chromatic progressions that suspended time and motion in its drift back to the opening, this time through all lavishly decorated. Everything was beautifully-voiced, conveying that flow of expression in the music’s substance so very tellingly.

The finale’s light, tripping opening gathered playfulness and energy as the music unfolded, with a degree of impulsiveness “catching” the playing in places, serving the music well during the minor-key episodes, whose harmonic shifts resulted in some surprising twists and turns, our ears being taken on quite a journey! The “way back” to the opening sounded a trifle helter-skelter in places before a cadenza-like passage refocused the excitement, as bravura and delicacy by turns brought the music home.

Having said all of this, I thought it was when Endres began the concert‘s next item, Schubert’s “Wanderer” Fantasia D.760, that I realised what I was finding hard to fully “get” in his Mozart playing – right from the arresting opening chords there seemed to my ears a certain depth of focus, an intensity of  involvement with the music. Reading my review from the 2013 concert at which I last heard Endres play (also at Waikanae!), I commented then on the “characterful and flavoursome” Schubert-playing – and so it was here, even in a work whose essence couldn’t have been more of a contrast to the Impromptus he gave us on that earlier occasion.

Reckoned to be a real virtuoso challenge – and from all accounts one beyond its composer’s ability to perform adequately – the work here found an interpreter who possessed both the virtuoso “roar” and the recreative temperament that would encompass the work’s immediately contrasting qualities of heroism and capriciousness, the latter charmingly expressed in the second subject as a kind of insouciant “whistling on the trail” feeling in between the more urgent irruptions of energy, and the whole conveying in all of its contrasting parts that seemingly endless forward movement which defines the music.

What rapt stillness accompanied the transition into the work’s slow movement! – Endres’s playing filled the ambient spaces with such breadth of feeling, merging classical strength with romantic longing, opening up the music’s depths with bass tremolandi before seeming to pacify the ensuing agitations with a gorgeously “sung” major key version of the movement’s opening. How poignantly we were then taken between major and minor throughout this sequence, with the play of filigree decoration developing into positively Lisztian torrents of impulse! Endres held us spellbound with his command of the ebb and flow of sonorities, the ensuing calm suggesting a somewhat volatile balance of light and darkness via brooding atmospheres and dark-browed modulations.

The third movement sprang from the luftpause a little uncertainly, I thought, but soon established its audacity, with great, downward-swinging dotted-rhythm flourishes suddenly giving way to an almost carefree theme, the equivalent of the second subjects in the previous movements, one frequently “set upon” by darker forces, Endres giving us a “no-holds-barred” sense of turmoil, here. Being a “scherzo” we got a Trio section whose melody seemed here to be spontaneously improvised by the player, as did the Lisztian musings which accompanied the melody’s gradual decommissioning……certainty seemed to return with the taking up of the dotted rhythm once again, but   our sensibilities were then plunged into turmoil with what seemed like the work’s most tempestuous sequences thus far, flinging great roulades of notes every which way and modulating in what appeared like an alarmingly anarchic manner – marvellous stuff!

Two crashing chords and the fugal finale was upon us, the pianist straightaway giving us the music’s utmost in terms of energy, intoxication and wildness, and in doing so appearing to physically and recreatively become as one with both the notes and his instrument – astonishing! Nothing at the music’s conclusion would have done other than what did take place – a rapturous reception in fair tribute to what we had heard, followed by the wonderment of witnessing at first-hand such an overwhelming performance (and all of this before the interval!)……

Thrilling though Endres’ Schubert was as a “stand-alone” presentation, the concert’s second half “clinched” for me the reasons I love piano recitals, quite apart from the uniquely indispensable greatness of much of the repertoire – the unity of response from a lone performer drawing all of the music’s threads together, the intimacy of exchange between this performer, the music and listeners, and (especially) the formative and alchemic process of activation of the instrument’s characteristics (another way of saying I LOVE the sound of the piano!) all incline me by nature and circumstance towards such events.

Here, Endres appeared to very much carry on from where he had left off with the Schubert, his choice for the concert’s final item being a fruition, if you like, of certain elements of the latter’s music into full-blooded Romanticism, though still employing classical structures – Schumann’s Etudes Symphoniques Op.13. The excellent programme notes accompanying the concert summarised the history of the work and the various “editions” that appeared after Schumann’s death – in this case, Endres chose the most commonly-performed version of the work, which inserts five additional variations that Schumann himself had removed for the first publication.

My first experience of this music was via a recording made in the 1960s by Vladimir Ashkenazy, one which helped popularise the work, though in the light of performances by other interpreters I’ve since heard, such as Sviatoslav Richter, the Ashkenazy now sounds less remarkable to me as an interpretation – certainly Endres’ playing of the work on this occasion seemed to me on a different plane of emotional involvement with the music, a few “quirks” involving repeats apart.

As with the Schubert work in the first half, our attention was arrested right from the outset with the opening chords of the “theme”, the sounds sharply-focused and in places the dynamics steeply-graded, as with the “ascent” in the first half of the melody, and the octave leap at the same place I the second half. I don’t propose to go through the work analysing each variation as heard here (which would become tiresome to read), but suffice to say that, despite/along with a somewhat arbirtrary attitude to repeats in certain places, every note Endres played seemed to have a “living” quality which contributed to the structural and emotional effect of that particular variation.

Throughout, the pianist’s concentration and involvement had the effect of the music seemingly recreated on the spot – nothing seemed left to chance, but was delivered in a wholeheartedly focused manner, involving the listener in a fascinatingly kaleidoscopic amalgam of structure and spontaneity. I loved, for example, the almost Prokofiev-like angularities of the fourth variation, the phrases accented and sharp-edged rather than dainty, with some of the accents almost percussive!

The playing seemed inclined to fully explore the sonorities each variation suggested, heightening our reactions to the music, a particular example being the Brahmsian  “Stars coming out at night” variation near the end (not unlike the first of the latter composer’s Op.119 pieces), the music almost completely transcending the theme, and creating a great stillness (Schumann very much in a Beethovenian mood, here) – and the repeats so enhancing our experience on this occasion, that the whole hall seemed entranced! This piece led to the penultimate variation, Endres creating a kind of  agitated suggestiveness here with a tremolando-like introduction and a ”worried” thematic figure as only Schumann could write. It was all played with every ounce of feeling that the pianist could muster up to the point where he simply eased the tension and focus and let the emotion gradually go – an amazing sensation of some kind of essence simply draining away to nothing (such great playing!).

So to the finale of the work (Schumann had borrowed a different theme for this from one of Heinrich Marschner’s operas), the opening of which was resoundingly muscular and heroic, with a gentler “reply” following. Ignoring a strange audience irruption at one point, Endres plunged undeterred into the different world of the second part of the piece, the “variation” theme then appearing as fanfares calling to and answering one another, the pianist performing orchestral-like miracles of sonority at the keyboard – later this “second episode” was repeated in a different key, leading to one of the Marschner theme’s highest notes being unexpectedly sharpened and the pianist going into what seemed like overdrive during the final pages. We were all duly swept away in a veritable deluge of notes and sounds, and, upon reassembling our sensibilities at the end, gave Michael Endres the standing ovation his playing richly deserved! An encore, most appropriately, Schumann’s “Traumerei” restored us to our lives, but piano playing of such commitment and splendour will, I’m certain, not be easily forgotten.

NZSO launches into 2021 determined, with a splendid, dynamic programme to evade Covid 19

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hamish McKeich with Stephen De Pledge – piano
First concert in ‘Podium’ Series: entitled Carnival

Ravel: La Valse and Piano Concerto in G
Anna Clyne: Masquerade
Stravinsky: Petrushka Ballet (1947 version)

Michael Fowler Centre

Friday 26 March, 6:30 pm

The first of the NZSO’s main concert series, which is entitled the “Podium Series”, proved a conspicuous triumph. Though it might have seemed difficult to account for the name “Carnival” which was given to this particular concert, it was vividly illuminated in Feby Idrus’s colourful and well-informed programme notes, indirectly with La Valse, but quite specifically with Petrushka, where the word relates directly to Stravinsky’s setting of the first tableau of the ballet – Carnival or Shrovetide which precedes Lent.

However, it was a near full house, marking an encouraging change from audiences in the past year or so; it also marked the steadily rising reputation and popularity of the orchestra’s Principal Conductor in Residence, Hamish McKeich.

The programme booklet was free: an excellent move, considering the intelligence and illuminating character of Feby Idrus’s writing.

There were two distinctive aspects to the programme: two of Ravel’s most distinguished works and one of Stravinsky’s first ballet scores: Petrushka which retains its undiminished popularity as a vivid and colourful ballet as well as being a brilliant, luminous orchestral masterpiece.

La Valse
I must seek vindication for the pleasure I get from Ravel’s La valse, in live performance compared with a recording, since I’ve recently been enjoying a personal Ravel festival, recapturing CDs, recordings of Ravel from the SKY Arts channel, and on the ubiquitous You Tube on the Internet. This music reflects both Ravel’s and my love of the Viennese waltz, especially of the Strauss family, Waldteufel, Offenbach, Kalman, etc.

This performance illuminated the music’s dynamism and rhythmic energy through Ravel’s remarkably colourful scene of a Viennese dance-hall which, in her programme notes, Feby Idrus captured beautifully. She related not only the scornful reaction by ballet impresario Diaghilev to Ravel’s piano performance of the score, but an illuminating description of the evolution of the music and its ‘growing wildness’, depicting a ‘heartbeat fraught with panic’. They were words that vividly described this frenzied yet disciplined performance.

Ravel’s piano concerto (for both hands) is a profoundly different work, with the piano part in the hands of one of New Zealand’s leading pianists, Stephen De Pledge. It emerged with clarity and the careful application of rhythmic energy, even in the jazz coloured Adagio movement with its extended solo piano opening: idiomatic but essentially classical in character. To quote again from the programme notes, the concerto as a whole ‘remains aerated by jazz’s sweet perfume’. After several returns demanded by the audience, De Pledge played Couperin’s fairly familiar song La Basque with a lively spirit; though its translation from the clarity of the harpsichord to the modern piano is not quite the same.

Masquerade 
The second half began with what I assume was the first New Zealand performance of a rowdy piece written for the Last Night of the Proms in 2013 by 40-year-old English composer Anna Clyne: Masquerade; inspired by the kind of music played in London’s 18th century pleasure gardens, such as the famous Vauxhall Gardens; judging by its spirit and liveliness it would have been a hit there, as it probably was at the Proms. Boisterous and constantly varied as it was, it hardly matched Stravinsky’s melodically and rhythmically inspired ballet music that followed.

Petrushka 
Stravinsky revised the 1911 original version of Petrushka in 1946 (performed in 1947) for a slightly smaller orchestra, altering certain instrumental features, but partly because the original was not covered by copyright in all countries, and thus delivered the composer no royalties. The orchestra played that later version, probably detectable to no one but the relative instrumentalists and conductor.

Of course, the theme of the ballet doesn’t demand music of a profound character, but it is nevertheless a unique score, quite as remarkable as The Right of Spring which rather outshone Petrushka two years later with its violence, rhythmic and thematic complexity. The score derives its profundity by means of its unique, half-hour-long musical inspiration.  Yes there were moments of a certain ensemble smudginess in Petrushka, but the overwhelming energy and passion were dominant throughout the entire performance.

But if you’d like to see and hear a very remarkable, yet somehow genuine performance of the composer’s Three Movements for piano, look at Yuja Wang on YouTube.

What a splendidly successful way for the orchestra to open its year!

 

End of the musical year for Wellington Chamber Orchestra with an Emperor and Franck’s symphony

Posted on by Steven Sedley

Wellington Chamber Orchestra
Conductor and piano soloist: Andrew Atkins

Verdi: La Forza del Destino overture
Beethoven: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No.5 in E flat major. op.73 ‘The Emperor’
César Franck: Symphony in D minor, FWV 48

St. Andrews on the Terrace

Sunday, 13 December 2020

Verdi: La Forza del Destino overture
The overture to Verdi’s opera, ‘The Power of Fate’ is much more popular than the opera itself. It encapsulates the drama of the opera, its lyricism and its wonderful melodies. It opens with three unison chords for the brasses, followed by repeated agitated phrases by the lower strings, which foreshadows the tragedy of the drama to follow. A beautiful mournful theme from Act 3 of the opera is introduced by the winds, followed by the haunting prayer of Leonora, the heroine of the story, played by the strings, and towards the end of the overture a theme from Act 2 is played by the oboe and winds, suggesting the emotional resolution and redemption before Leonora death. It was a great opening for the concert, testing all sections of the orchestra. Some beautiful playing by the wind solo stood out. This was a colourful lyrical reading of the piece. Andrew Atkins conducted with graceful movements and a clear beat.

Beethoven: Emperor Concerto
This concerto, Beethoven’s longest and arguably his most dramatic, is a challenge even for seasoned pianists who play it repeatedly on international concert tours. For a young musician without the benefit of such opportunities and conducting from the keyboard, this is bordering on chutzpah. But from the very beginning, the opening runs on the piano, it was evident that Andrew Atkins was up to the challenge. His playing was sensitive, lyrical, and confident.

The orchestra provided a sound support notwithstanding the distraction of the conductor jumping up and down from the keyboard during the tutti passages. The chorale of the second movement, with the fine interaction between the soloist and the orchestra stood out for its sensitivity. The last movement reflected the sense of joy of the performers. To the great credit of soloist and orchestra, every note sounded carefully considered, yet this did not detract from the natural flow of the music. For an encore, Andrew Atkins played a beautiful meditative piece, Liszt’s Consolation No.3, with the flair of a fine pianist and with a true love of music.

Franck: Symphony in D minor
César Franck’s Symphony is a difficult nut to crack. It is an amalgam of the German tradition of Wagner and Liszt, it quotes late Beethoven, yet has a certain French sensitivity. In its form it differs from the classical symphonic model of Haydn to Brahms. It is in three movements which are interrelated. The opening themes keep recurring in modified form as they modulate throughout the symphony. It is one of the landmarks of the symphonic repertoire. It starts with a hardly audible pianissimo on the lower strings, echoing the Muss es sein? (Must it be?) phrase from Beethoven’s Op 135 String Quartet, then a piercing cor anglais solo introduces the main theme. This theme recurs throughout symphony in different forms, slow and fast, expansive and agitated.

The orchestra rose to the technical challenges of the work, but somehow the tempi sounded driven and variable. I felt that the brass were not given the space to fly, or the strings the air to let the music sing. The subtlety of the symphony was somehow missing, The listeners should have been left sitting on the edge of their seats. But let this not detract from the laudable effort of every single musician in the orchestra. Just mastering this complex work deserves credit.

The concert reflected the objective of the orchestra, to ‘enjoy the experience of creating live music together’. Whatever reservations I might have had, it was great to have the opportunity to hear these wonderful works live in Wellington on a Sunday afternoon. We value the talent in our midst.

 

 

RNZAF Wind Quintet plus piano, in diverting programme closes Marjan van Waartenberg’s era at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s Lunchtime concert
RNZAF Wind Quintet: Rebecca Steel – flute, Calvin Scott – oboe, Moira Hurst – clarinet, Vivien Reid – horn), Oscar Lavën – bassoon; with David Codd – piano

Giulio Briccialdi: Wind Quintet, Op 124 (the Allegro marziale)
Poulenc: Sextet for piano and winds, Op 100
Bizet: Jeux d’enfants, arranged by Gordon Davies: 1. Trompette et tambour, marche; 2. Petit mari, petite femme; 3. La toupie
Zequinha de Abreu: Tico-tico (‘Bird in the cornmeal’)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 9 December, 12:15 pm

Not only was this the last in the 2020 St Andrew’s lunchtime concert series (not counting the church’s Christmas carol service next Wednesday, 16 December); but the last concert organised by Marjan van Waardenberg at St Andrew’s: a voluntary job she has done since 2005. The concerts have been transformed dramatically during the time she has led them, from short series of concerts through the year to an unbroken series usually starting in February, sometimes twice in a week, apart from their disturbance in the face of pandemics. The church’s generous role in allowing free use by musicians, without fees, dependent solely on donations, has also been singular. Such is their support by musicians that there’s often a waiting list for performance dates. Free concerts are a valued benefit for many audience members who might be unable to afford to pay for weekly concerts.

There is no comparable series of free, weekly concerts anywhere else in the country. They have become a very significant concert series in the city, enhancing the Wellington’s reputation as a leading musical centre; in particular, providing excellent opportunities for students from Victoria University School of Music to be heard in a down-town venue.

Marjan’s organisational role will be taken by Kristina Zuelicka while actual hosting of each concert will be done by other individuals; the programme encouraged ‘concert host’ volunteers to approach Jillene Everett in the church office; office@standrews.org.nz.

The concert 
The last appearance by the RNZAF Wind Quintet at St Andrew’s was reviewed in July 2019 by Steven Sedley. This, led again by flutist Rebecca Steel, with the same colleagues, elegantly dressed in formal air force uniforms attracted a bigger-than-average audience to this memorable recital.

There were two rather unfamiliar names among the composers represented at this week’s concert: the mid-19th century Italian, Giulio Briccialdi and the Brazilian composer, Zequinha de Abreu (really known solely for the popular Tico-tico), who lived in the early 20th century.

Briccialdi was a distinguished flutist and composer, and the melodious piece with which the recital began makes his popularity during his life very credible. Though the flute was prominent, it was far from the dominant instrument in the piece, which, apart from the repetitive bassoon motif, offered attractive passages for the other three instruments.

Poulenc’s Sextet
The main work was Poulenc’s Sextet for piano and winds, probably written in 1932. Its most distinctive feature is its variety in the treatment of musical ideas as well as the variety offered each instrument at various times. The first such case was a dreamy solo from the bassoon, more than compensating for its treatment in the earlier piece, and the horn enjoyed occasional solo episodes. The music typified Poulenc with its almost rude dissonances, but which actually delight, not merely because they shift suddenly into a reflective mood but because it’s wit that characterises them.

No movement remained consistent. Though the second movement starts quietly, its title Divertissement soon took over with the reappearance of first-movement liveliness. Unfortunately, the church’s teasing acoustic occasionally interfered with clarity, blurring the amusing character of both individual instruments and ensembles. So the most satisfactory parts were those in which only one or two instruments led the way. Though the third movement, Finale, is marked ‘Prestissimo’ it is only partly accurate as there’s a sudden slowing of speed halfway through, allowing the three treble clef instruments to be heard with closer, more rewarding attention.

Its last few minutes are both surprising and charming, as the mood – the tempo – suddenly changed: enigmatically. In spite of little shortcomings this performance was a delight.

I realise I haven’t mentioned the piano: that’s simply because David Codd’s playing integrated so well with the wind players. Poulenc was in fact a fine pianist and chamber pieces for piano and various solo-string and wind instruments are significant though not numerous.

I’ve been a Poulenc captive since my late teens, when I heard the witty ballet Les biches on the radio. It could still be worth an airing.

Jeux d’enfants  
Three pieces from Bizet’s Jeux d’enfants provided music that is somewhat related to Poulenc, and these twelve purportedly children’s pieces rested interestingly alongside him, making one aware how Bizet’s Mozart-aged death was such a tragedy for far more than simply opera. Though I can’t remember who played them, I can recall quite a while ago hearing the full suite of twelve piano pieces played in Wellington. And of course, apart from piano and chamber music there’s the evidence of a gifted symphonist in Bizet’s now famous, eighteen-year-old Symphony in C, lost for eighty years in the Paris Conservatoire archives.

The quintet played just three of the Jeux d’enfants: La toupie, Trompette et tambour and Petit mari et petite femme (in their published order).

Trompette et Tambour was an appropriate opening: a nice arrangement of this prancing, jaunty piece while Petit mari, petite femme, a dreamy middle movement, featured the horn nicely; and the brief but lively Toupie was a well-chosen conclusion. The quintet justified their appropriation of Bizet’s piano duet original, or its orchestrations by Bizet and others, very persuasively.

Finally, perhaps a time-filler, was Tico-tico, once familiar on radio in all sorts of versions. It proved a lively arrangement for the wind quintet’s closure.

Marjan: “duizendmaal dank”.

 

 

NZSO with three widely varied works: two masterpieces and a charming, approachable New Zealand concerto

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Gemma New with Stephen De Pledge (piano)

Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
Anthony Ritchie: Piano Concerto No 3
Sibelius: Symphony No 5 in E flat, Op 82

Michael Fowler Centre

Friday 20 November, 6:30 pm

The audience at this concert would have been intrigued, as they took their seats, to see some orchestra members finding their way to a row of music stands in the gallery above and behind the orchestra: two players each of first and second violins, violas, cellos and one double bass.  The rest – strings only of course – were in their normal places

Vaughan Williams with Tallis
The position of players was for Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. As the programme note explained, the two groups reflected, not a sort of concerto grosso as it might have been reflecting the music of a century later, but the two fundamental manuals of a pipe organ: the Great and the Swell.

The nine concertino players, standing high at the rear, handling the “Swell” part, entered first, sounded singularly remote and ethereal (at least from my seat middle stalls) while the ripieno section, the remainder of the strings reflecting the “Great” organ sounded normal; and each took turns at articulating the Tallis melody.  To have been intrigued by this disposition suggested that I had perhaps not heard the piece played live before, or certainly not in this arrangement, and I was enchanted.

After a few minutes during which my attention was drawn to the singularly expressive gestures from the conductor Gemma New; then to a warm solo viola in the main orchestra introducing solos by other strings. New inspired the orchestra to such vivid playing, with such commitment that the entire work had the audience transfixed. The music lends itself to such treatment of course, though I can imagine that not long ago many conductors and audience members of a critical disposition might have found her intense, large-scale gestures excessive. But if it brings the music to life in such a remarkable way, then what’s to criticise?

I have been heard to lament that RNZ Concert’s Settling the Score has, I suspect through unfamiliarity, not placed the Tallis Fantasia at No 1 place instead of the Skylark. The entire audience here could be guaranteed to vote for it in 2021, if possible in this wonderful account under Gemma New.

Ritchie’s Piano Concerto 3
Anthony Ritchie’s Third Piano Concerto could hardly have been a more singular contrast. It was written in 2008 for Emma Sayers and the Manakau Symphony Orchestra and has been performed several times and been recorded by SOUNZ with its dedicatee Sayers and the APO under Uwe Grodd. Stephen de Pledge’s piano opened quietly, creating a peaceful, pensive spirit that lasts about three minutes. It’s followed by a traditional Allegro whose purpose is to be playable and enjoyable rather than an exhibition of either the composer’s cleverness or the pianist’s virtuosity. There were no suggestions of its composition by a disciple of Schoenberg or Boulez, and the end of the first movement had a piano part that could be by Rachmaninov.

The orchestral score, written for a semi-professional orchestra, creates no impossibilities, though there are striking opportunities for brass phrases. The vividness of the orchestral playing was conspicuously the result of New’s understanding of its unpretentious character.

Much of the slow second movement is for piano solo (hardly a ‘cadenza’), with orchestral instruments such as a bassoon participating quietly. The entire movement is based on a recognisable melody which develops in a charming, meditative way; as the programme notes explain, it’s in modal keys, but it’s essentially melodic and any departure from conventional harmony is for the attention of musicologists. It created a charming experience that New and De Pledge handled with great sensitivity. The last movement, much shorter, was bright and playful, offering the pianist attractive opportunities to be both demonstrative and congenial.

As an encore, De Pledge played one of Grieg’s Lyric Pieces – the charming Nocturne in C, Op 54 No 4. Is it still as well-known as it always seemed to me?

Sibelius Fifth
The performance of Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony was the climax of the concert where, having got a taste of Gemma New’s dynamism and influence over the players, there was no doubt that this great symphony would be a thrilling experience. For one thing, the performance immediately created a sense of the music’s originality; every phrase, the opening horns and woodwinds, seemed to be both a fresh perception and a new revelation of a long-loved masterpiece.

New revealed a talent for building Sibelius’s several accelerating climaxes as if an entirely new experience. The climax at the end of the first movement created an outburst of applause and shouting that could in no way be ascribed to new-comers’ ignorance of the shape of the symphony. And the deliberate slow movement created suspenseful, deeply felt experience; rhythmically firm and compelling, endlessly repeated motifs that were steadily hypnotic as they accelerated.

The shift into the last movement without any sense of a missing Scherzo is the norm, but it’s always interesting to listen to the fade-out, the moment’s pause and then the clap of the timpani that begins the last movement. It created at once an expectation of the extraordinary suspense of the endless repetition and evolution, sometimes a mere whisper, of the monumental theme that cohabits with the dancing woodwind tune; but eventually takes charge into the glorious, suspenseful finale.

Again the applause was long and serious, celebrating a concert that in its imaginative entirety was a huge success.

 

 

Unfamiliar music given a chance to shine in characterful performances at St. Andrew’s

Posted on by Steven Sedley

St. Andrew’s Luchtime Concert Series presents:
Music for Flute and Piano

Aaron Copland: Duo for Flute and Piano
Claude Debussy: En bateau
Mel Bonis: Sonata for Flute and Piano in C-sharp minor

St. Andrews on the Terrace

Wednesday, 18 November 2020

One of the great joys of the lunch time concerts at St. Andrews on the Terrace is that these provide opportunities to hear some of the talented artists living among us, the other is to hear music that otherwise is seldom performed. Rebecca Steel is one of the most experienced flautists around, having played with orchestras both overseas and here in Wellington and Christchurch. Kris Zuelicke moved from Germany to New Zealand. Here she added to her skills as an accomplished pianist a doctorate in harpsichord performance. The programme they presented is largely unknown. Mel Bonis, though a prolific French composer, who studied with César Franck and wrote some 300 works, is largely forgotten. Writing music was not a respectable profession for a woman at her time. Copland has a regular place in the repertoire, but the Duo for Flute and Piano, though a substantial work, is not often played. Debussy is, of course, a major figure, but his popular En bateau is better known in its original four-hand piano version as part of the Le Petite Suite, than in this arrangement for flute and piano.

Copland’s  Duo for Flute and Piano opens with a haunting flute solo, that sets the mood which is typical of Copland – an evocative distant, lonely American prairie sound. Think of the Call of the Wild. The second movement is melancholic, well suited to the timbre of the flute. It is intense, touching music. As a contrast, the last movement is spirited, joyful. It is a challenging work for the flute, that requires clarity of phrasing and articulation.

Debussy’s En bateau is a sweet, charming little piece, suggesting gently undulating waves on some peaceful water. Played on the flute it has a special endearing quality.

Bonis’s Sonata for Flute and Piano, published in 1904 is a major work that reflects the music of Bonis’s better known late romantic contemporaries, Franck and Faure. Bonis, a very talented young woman, who shared a bench with the young Debussy at the Conservatoire, gave up composition for some years when her life was devoted to bringing up the children of her 25 year older widowed husband and children of her own. Late in life she returned to composition. Her many works include chamber music, music for piano solos, orchestral, religious and organ music, and music for children. The Sonata for Flute and Piano  is founded on the interplay of the rich harmonies of the piano and an appealing melodic line on the flute. The four movements projected the four different elements of the work, a passionate Andantino followed by a contrasting Scherzo, a moving adagio, and finally a Moderato summing up the mood of the piece. The performance was notable for the passionate playing of the piano and the somewhat cool, clear, restrained playing of the flute.

Hearing these pieces in a live performance was specially rewarding. It is to the credit of these two experienced musicians that the audience at this lunch time concert was given an opportunity to get to know these unfamiliar works.

 

Warm response for an innovative “Seen-and-Heard” Kristallnacht Concert at Wellington’s Public Trust Hall

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The Holocaust Centre of New Zealand presents:
Kristallnacht Concert 2020

Music – Korngold, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Waxman, Weinberg, Toch, Rozsa, Bechet, Zorn

Excerpts from films with music  – “Robin Hood” 1938 (Korngold), “Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde” 1941 (Castelnuovo-Tedesco), “Rebecca” 1940, and “Bride of Frankenstein” 1935 (Waxman),  “The Cranes are Flying” 1957 (Weinberg), “None Shall Escape” 1944 (Toch), “Ben-Hur” 1959 (Rozsa), “It Must Schwing!” (The “Blue Note” Story) 2018 – various composers and artists

Musicians: Inbal Megiddo (‘cello), Jian Liu (piano), Jenny Wollerman (soprano), David Barnard (piano)
Martin Riseley (violin), Yury Gezentsvey (violin), The New Zealand String Quartet (Helene Pohl, Monique Lapins violins, Gillian Ansell viola, Rolf Gjelsten ‘cello), Dave Wilson (clarinet), Callum Allardice (guitar), Phoebe Johnson (double-bass), Hikurangi Schaverein-Kaa (drums), Daniel Hayles (keyboards)

Concert presenter: Donald Maurice
Speaker, Holocaust Centre of NZ Chair: Deborah Hart

Public Trust Hall, Wellington

Monday, November 9th, 2020

I was surprised to find, upon arriving at the Public Trust Hall a good quarter-of-an-hour before the concert’s scheduled starting time, at least three-quarters of the seats already filled, and the queues still bringing people in – by the time I got my ticket sorted I found myself almost at the back of the hall, and was left wondering how I could possibly get from such a position a reasonably “filled-out” sound that would do justice to the performances.

I need not have worried, because the acoustic of the hall (a place where I’d never previously attended a concert) seemed by some alchemic means able to convey enough brightness, body and clarity of detail, even at a distance, to bring the musicmaking well-and truly to life. It was partly that the performers were such a stellar bunch whose “business” as performers was obviously the expert conveyance of the essence of whatever they were currently playing – but I simply had no qualms throughout the evening regarding any perceived lack of projection, character and personality on the part of any of the musicians. How lucky were both the concert organisers and we, the audience, to be able to enjoy such a “line-up” – and in such a venue!

We had been promised an out-of-the-ordinary kind of presentation this evening, along with the live music-making, one involving both the medium of soundtracked film, and the participation of a jazz combo paying its own tribute to a US record label called Blue Note, founded by two Jewish refugees in 1939, for which many of the great black jazz musicians recorded in the 1940s and 50s after being shunned by the more ‘establishment” record labels – we were able to enjoy a 2018 documentary film called “It must Schwing!” along with those clips from films whose soundtracks featured music written by those among the concert’s “composer roll-call”.

Concert host Donald Maurice began the proceedings by welcoming us to the hall, before introducing the chairperson of the Holocaust Centre of NZ, Deborah Hart. She spoke of the original Kristallnacht events and their commemoration by this concert, her words serving the purpose of reminding us afresh of the on-going nature of oppression fuelled by racial prejudice and cultural bigotry world-wide. She then thanked everybody, musicians and audience members, for their attendance and participation in this evening’s event.

Opening the presentation part of the concert was the music of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, firstly via an excerpt from the 1938 film “Robin Hood” for which he wrote the music (we were treated to the scene where Robin and his adversary, Guy of Gisborne, fight to the death, in tandem with the followers of both men similarly battling it to the end – the “separated” conflicts rather like contrasting individual instrumental lines in an orchestral work with tutti passages!) What a film! – still with the power to engage a good sixty years since my last viewing of it!

We then welcomed ‘cellist Inbal Megiddo and pianist Jian Liu to the platform to perform Korngold’s ‘Cello Concerto” a thirteen-minute long work itself written for a film “Deception”, and a piece that packs a lot of incident into its brief span. It was made the most of by Megiddo and Liu, who most surely characterised all of the piece’s contrasting episodes, the work’s “singing” quality being as well-rounded as the spikier, more agitated episodes were made sharp-edged and impactful. In a piece so condensed one felt almost cheated when the end came, so glorious here was the music and its making!

Italian composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s “classic horror” contribution to the 1941 film “Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” was then highlighted, followed by a performance by soprano Jenny Wollerman and pianist David Barnard of music in an entirely different vein, the same composer’s “Three Sephardic Songs”, whose text was Labino, an old form of Spanish. The poetic declamations of the first song betrayed its origins, with strongly-focused vocal lines and  ambient support from the piano, while the second song was gentler, expressed with a gentle, folkish walking-gait, and a beguilingly light touch. It was music that seemed to “entice” us into the countryside, the characterisations from singer and pianist creating a distinctively ambient world of expression.

Next we saw two contributions to film from German composer Franz Waxman, who famously wrote the music for the first full-length German film in the 1930s, “The Blue Angel”, but, on leaving Germany went to the US where he wrote many film scores, among them “Rebecca” (1940) and “Bride of Frankenstein” (1945) – the excerpts featured a range of musical evocations, from the romantic to menacing (Rebecca) to downright blood-curdling (Frankenstein)! An entirely different matter was his “Carmen Fantasy” for solo violin, here played with jaw-dropping virtuosity (what can a listener do but desperately cling to cliches when one is stunned?) by violinist Martin Riseley, with pianist Jian Liu hair-raisingly hanging onto the violinist’s coat-tails throughout!

Polish-born Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s music began the second half of the concert, beginning with excerpts from the 1957 Soviet film “The Cranes are Flying”, set at the time of the Second World War, the clips showing sequences with hugely contrasting emotions of love and despair, each conveying a different kind of compelling intensity. We then heard, courtesy of the New Zealand String Quartet, two movements from Weinberg’s Fifth String Quartet Op.27, written in 1945 in the Soviet Union, to where Weinberg had escaped (and remained) after the Germans invaded Poland. First came the opening “Melodia”, music which not surprisingly seemed to express uncertaintly and discord, a ‘cello solo towards the end leading to a kind of concourse of quiet despair. The Scherzo movement was, by contrast, a wild dance integrating quixotic and fiercely desperate passages with fraught unison passages sorely seeking a kind of liberation – very exciting playing from the ensemble, with an “over-the-top” solo violin part fearlessly presented by the Quartet’s leader, Helene Pohl.

Like most of the composers mentioned, Austrian Jew Ernst Toch left Nazi-controlled Europe for the US during the 1930s. He found some work as a film composer, though he also maintained his academic career as a teacher of Philosophy and Music in California, and as a composer of concert music. The 1944 film “None shall Escape” was a projection of the post-war trials of individuals responsible for wartime atrocities, Toch’s opening music there suitably authoritative, but a later excerpt was warmer-sounding, and more reminiscent of Ernest Bloch’s Schelomo. Pianist Jian Liu then played Toch’s Tanz und Spielstücke Op.40, the opening gentle and lyrical, the lines floating, and alternating as if “looking” for one another – the music gradually convinced itself it was allowed to “animate”, though it all remained very spare and unadorned, strange, gnomic music, the occasional impulse apart, appearing to “sit upon” its own character and not give anything away.

All of this was in stark contrast to the music of Hungarian composer Miklós Rózsa, whose fame has up until recently rested on his many film scores, but whose concert music is now achieving more frequent hearings – particularly renowned are his scores for the films “Ben Hur” (1959) and “El Cid” (1961).  We saw the well-remembered opening of the legendary chariot race from “Ben Hur” (suitably Respighi-ish in effect) as well as the dramatically-underlined confrontation scene between Ben-Hur and his boyhood friend Messala, when politics put an end to their friendship!  After all of this, violinist Yuri Gezentsvey and pianist David Barnard played a transcription of Rózsa’s music for the “Love-Scene” from “El Cid”, its sweetness and romance beautifully held in check at first, then allowed to expand and unfold with the utmost feeling – a beautiful piece of concerted playing!

Being  somebody whose knowledge of jazz could be summed up on the back of a postage stamp, I somewhat nervously approached the final segment of the concert, a tribute to the German Jewish refugee pair of Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff, who developed a jazz label called Blue Note Records, a company dedicated to furthering the careers of non-establishment (usually black) musicians, such as Sidney Bechet, Art Blakey and Thelonious Monk, and later signing up and  working with Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, John Coltrane and Quincy Jones.  Wayne Shorter called the “Blue Note” pair “The Lion and the Wolf”, bent on realising their vision of creating a platform for musical talent to express itself without prejudice of any kind getting in the way.

A film made in 2018 “It must SCHWING”, reputedly the motto of Alfred Lion, directed by Eric Friedler, made clear, in the excerpts we were shown, the positive feelings of people who were associated with these “glory days” concerning the leadership of Lion and Wolff, the family atmosphere they created, and the fairness with which the musicians were treated. Following this the jazz musicians came together to perform a 1993 work by American composer John Zorn “Shtetl” (Ghetto Life) taken from an album entitled “Kristellnacht”, succeeding it with a tribute to clarinettist, saxophonist and composer Sidney Bechet, playing his 1939 work “Blues for Tommy”.

To my uncultured ears, the playing of the members of the jazz combo was above reproach, the lament-like opening of the music they began with coloured by the character of each of the instruments, the clarinet mournful, the piano philosophising, the double bass dark and resonant, the guitar anecdotal and chatty – the clarinet sounded like a cantor calling the prayers while the drummer at the back jazzed and spiked the rhythms.  Together, the instruments generated a processional quality that I related to Gustav Mahler’s First Symphony (in particular, the “Frere Jacques” movement), before the clarinet suddenly skipped into “swing” which sounded not unike “Ida, Sweet as Apple Cider”! At its swingin’ height the music suddenly dissolved into more and more abstracted realms, with the guitar playing a chiming kind of ostinato, supported by the drums “kicking into” the same repeated pattern, and the clarinet taking up a kind of valediction…….for some listeners I imagined it would have been a truly sentimental journey……

It was left to Deborah Hart to thank us once again for attending the concert, and thanking also the musicians who contributed their services, besides paying tribute to the owners of the Public Trust Building, Kay and Maurice Clark, for their generosity in making the venue available to the Holocaust Centre – appreciative words which were readily supported by all in attendance at this remarkable and heart-warming event.

 

 

Wellington vocal trio delights its Whanganui audience with a “charmer” of a programme…..

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wanganui Music Society presents:
A Concert of Part-Songs
Lesley Graham (soprano),  Linden Loader (mezzo-soprano), Roger Wilson (baritone)
Phillipa Safey (piano)

St.Paul’s Hall, Cooks St., Whanganui

Sunday 8th November 2020

This delightful concert was the second of three concerts I was scheduled to attend and review over three consecutive days – and now, looking back at the three events while writing the notices for this second one , I’m suddenly reminded of Franz Liszt’s description of the Allegretto movement in the middle of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Op. 27 No. 2, commonly nicknamed the “Moonlight” Sonata. Liszt called the movement “a flower between two abysses”, which is something of how I feel about this particular concert in relation to the other two on either side of it. It was, in fact an absolute joy to attend, as far as I could discern, giving pleasure to all, participants, organisers and audience alike.

It’s not that the other two concerts weren’t enjoyable in their different ways, with each of them achieving great things in providing their respective audiences with plenty of excitement and deep satisfaction. But this one’s pleasures were singular in that there was a beguiling ease, a sunniness of disposition, a joyful relaxation in the music-making which reflected the programme’s delight in simple pleasures of life and love. True, the programme’s second half charted more varied emotional territory, with the four Mozart Nocturnes for vocal trio dwelling on love’s pangs as much as its bliss – and the real “elephant in the room” which somewhat counters the effusive tone of my warblings above, was Carl Loewe’s setting of the grisly Scottish ballad “Edward” – here, put across by Roger Wilson and Phillipa Safey with plenty of menace, growing horror and blood-curdling relish, the singer’s Caledonian inflexions convincingly adding to the impact of the performance!

The concert was performed in a lovely space, a hall adjoining the magnificent St.Paul’s/St.Mark’s Church in Cooks St. – the hall afforded a clear and responsive acoustic, enabling listeners to enjoy the finely-modulated balances between the three voices themselves and with the piano. Even sitting at the back of the four-fifths-filled hall, I could clearly hear each of the contributions of the individual singers, with the piano a judiciously-balanced partner.

These balances were immediately apparent in the concert’s opening number, a deliciously presented ”Dashing away with the smoothing iron”, the first of the half’s exploration of English, Irish and Scottish part-song settings – I don’t propose to comment on each individual item, but this one’s performance encapsulated all the virtues of the concert’s first half – the overall lightness of touch from all concerned being the framework of strength that allowed full play to the constantly-shifting impulses of emphasis, light and colour along the way of the song, the freedom and spontaneity of it all totally beguiling! “My gentle Harp” was another to impress, with beautifully stratospheric opening work from soprano Lesley Graham and gently-undulating support from the others.

Teamwork was winningly apparent in “Tis the last rose of summer”, with lovely ensembled singing, the restraint from all adding to the glow of nostalgia, reinforced by the piano’s murmuring tones to gorgeous effect. But not only the gentler, more poetic songs came off well – things like the jolly, rollicking “The De’il’s awa’ wi’ the’ Exciseman”, and the “Scottish snap” evident in “The Dance” were given full rein, both tonally and rhythmically, with the enjoyment of it all readily conveyed to the audience. The defiant “strut” of “The Dance” splendidly energised the music, with Roger Wilson’s “hummed” lines adding a rustic touch to the textures, like a “ground bass”.  Finally, Beethoven’s arrangement of “Charlie is my darling” brought the half to a good-humoured close, the performance replete with rhythmic and dynamic detailings which brought it all to pulsating life.

I hadn’t ever encountered the three Shakespeare duet settings that began the second half, the first (“Ye Spotted Snakes” by Frederick Keel) again featuring some beautifully-negotiated “snow-capped” vocal work from Lesley Graham, supported most ably by mezzo Linden Loader, with the concluding reiterations of “lullaby” from the two so very dream-like and ethereal. In the first of Vaughan Williams’ two settings (“It was a lover and his lass”) the composer’s gentle major/minor alternations expressed something so elusively English about the sounds, while the third (“Fear no more the heat o’ sun” from “Cymbeline”) gave each singer solo lines before the concluding “Like chimney-sweepers, come to dust” beguilingly blended the two voices. This was something of a “find” for me for which I was so grateful, both music-and performance-wise.

I’ve already waxed lyrical regarding Roger Wilson’s splendidly evocative and theatrical performance of Loewe’s setting of the gruesome “Edward”. In order to minimise the possibility of nightmare-ridden sleep that night for hapless audience members after being exposed to such ghastly happenings, the musicians finished the afternoon’s concert with some rather more ingratiating sounds which those more susceptible to such things might well have put to good use to “paper over the horrors”!  For whatever reason, we all welcomed this set of four Mozart “Nocturnes”, again all new to me, and perhaps all the more delightful for it!

I loved the comment in the programme notes regarding the texts of these songs – “The rather stylised Italian poems, possibly by Metastasio were translated into equally inconsequential German” – (Pietro Metastasio 1698-1782 was the most famous opera librettist of his time but whose formulaic style of writing soon became out-dated). Mozart’s music transcended the somewhat high-flown, idealised sentiments of the verses, inspiring the quartet of musicians to give finely-honed, exquisitely gradated performances, my notes while listening replicating phrases like “beautifully balanced”, “perfectly focused”, “finely poised” and “deliciously turned” – altogether, a most mellifluous ending to a satisfying and entertaining programme.

Admirable Waikanae chamber music from friends of a non-existant Wilma Smith

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Waikanae Music Society
Wilma’s Friends: Martin Riseley (violin), Jian Liu (piano), Nicholas Hancox (viola), Andrew Joyce (cello)

Mahler: Piano Quartet in A minor (the single movement)
Schumann: Piano Quartet in E flat, Op 47
Dvořák: Piano Quartet in E flat, Op 87

Waikanae Memorial Hall

Monday 26 October, 2:30 pm

This concert was to have been given by ‘Wilma and Friends’ – that is Wilma Smith, the former concertmaster of the New Zealand and Melbourne symphony orchestras; she lives in Victoria and was prevented from travelling; Martin Riseley, head of violin at the New Zealand School of Music at Victoria University stepped in, as did cellist Andrew Joyce and violist Nicholas Hancox from the NZSO.

‘Wilma and Friends’ has not been a consistent ensemble in the past: earlier, different groups have appeared at a previous Waikanae concert in September 2017 and there was a different programme at St Andrew’s on The Terrace in October 2017; a piano trio was at the Chamber Music Festival in Nelson in February 2019, and the next month in Wellington; with none of the players heard at the present concert.

These players formed at remarkably congenial ensemble, with admirable balance between piano and strings.

Mahler
The opening piano passages of Mahler’s 16-year-old single movement certainly hint at its orchestral aspirations with its triplet crochets, though it leads to the prominent emergence of Riseley’s meditative violin, though Hancox’s viola often has an equal part to play. Jian Liu’s piano was the perfect accompaniment, moving between the conspicuous and the discreet while Andrew Joyce’s cello always seemed a singular balance between subtlety and the essential of fulfilment.

It’s a sophisticated and imaginative piece that doesn’t outlast its ten or so minutes.

Interestingly, I came across a YouTube comment on the Schnittke elaboration of Mahler’s sketches for the second movement, to the effect that Mahler had left his manuscripts in the archives in Dresden which were destroyed by the terrible Allied bombing at the end of the war. In other words, they’d remained unstudied in Dresden for 35 years. Perhaps copies will eventually turn up in Vienna.

Schumann (not a single one of whose works found a place in Concert FM’s Settling the Score 100, in spite of surprising, quite frequent broadcasts of the symphonies on Concert FM recently) wrote only a few chamber pieces, and the piano quartet and piano quintet are among the best.

This was likewise a lovely performance; the three strings were again in remarkable accord right from the sombre opening in which the piano planted the most discreet remarks. The repeated, contrasting episodes spoke of typical Schumann discretion and genius, and the players knew how to express it, not preparing the audience for Schumann’s unceremonious ending.

The secretive Scherzo too was carried off with a sense of novelty, avoiding any expectation of what a Scherzo usually expresses, just a lot of interesting ppp piano passages leading to the two Trios that are decorated by the fleeting piano-driven insertions of the triple quavers of the Scherzo itself. They again enlightened any non-Schumannesque listener expecting more conventional developments.

Cello and viola take prominent, moving roles again in the Andante and both rewarded attention, and the shift from E flat to G flat minor – not a close relation – might have carried a subtle warning about flawed audience expectations.

It pays to recall Schumann’s literary references to the mythical creations, Eusebius and Florestan, whom he employs in his compositions, and these might illuminate the varied spirits that emerge in each of the movements, particularly in the mostly-Vivace finale.

One of the interesting effects of this performance was to question my normal feeling that Schumann’s piano quintet was more delightful than the quartet.

Dvořák
I had slightly the reverse experience with Dvořák’s Piano Quartet No 2, also in E flat. (Dvořák too wrote a very popular piano quintet – Op 81 which does rather remain a couple of degrees more delightful. Nevertheless, given the fairly limited number of great piano quartets, this one is still among the top five).

The piano is immediately prominent, even emphatic; here, calling for no needless restraint or subtlety. So I refrain from noting that my scribbles might suggest otherwise. Nevertheless, the first movement has frequent, typical Dvořák’s characteristics such as delightfully decorated instrumental parts, countless varied themes; these players exhibited both a singular affinity with the music and a mastery of its playing.  The unusual modulation from E flat to G major might have had, no doubt as intended, the injection of seriousness, of unpreparedness, creating a rewarding listening experience.

In the course of this, something brought to mind a common musicological opinion that pianos and string instruments are in fundamental conflict; Dvořák did not think so, nor do I; after all, he was primarily a string player though also a fine pianist.

Cellist Andrew Joyce created a beautiful atmosphere at the start of the long, Lento second movement, which again evoked a meditative feeling, even a disquiet at times. It is not till after about five minutes that it’s possible to agree with the programme notes remark about seriousness and intensity, but the performance complied then, movingly. I was interested to note that, as with Schumann’s third movement (and this obviously comes from reading the score), there’s a modulation from E flat minor to G flat major, which seems to draw warmth from the music, and one wonders how much attention Dvořák had paid to Schumann’s key shifts.

The third movement, which doesn’t follow the tradition of a Scherzo, though it is in triple time, hinting at the Austrian Ländler, opens with a touch of seriousness, not quite an Allegro moderato, serioso perhaps. Nor is the last movement unalloyed joyousness, with substantial subdued passages, that drew attention to Hancox’s’ viola for example, that gently advance towards energetic episodes; occasionally I felt there was too playful a touch, almost flippancy. But there was still a uniform spirit in the playing that did superb justice to this hugely popular piece (again, commenting on Settling the Score, there was indeed a serious scarcity of great chamber music like this; no Beethoven or Haydn or Bartók string quartets – and no Haydn or Bartók at all).

However, this concert and its splendidly attuned musicians was fine consolation for the shortcomings of Monday’s exposure to the limitations of popular knowledge of and affection for such vast quantities of great music.