Tag: song recital

Spring hailed in impressive exhibition of 20th century French choral songs by Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir conducted by Karen Grylls
Salut Printemps!
Accompanied by Rachel  Fuller with Catrin Johnsson, vocal consultant

French music for Springtime: Debussy, Mark Sirett, Lili Boulanger, Jean Adsil, Poulenc and Donald Patriquin

Cathedral of the Sacred Heart

Saturday 21 October,  7:30 pm

Here was a concert to which many of us attended, blind. The publicity had mentioned Debussy and Poulenc (and these were indeed the only well-known composers) and “romantic chansons and a quirky song-cycle”. It was dedicated totally to songs in French, mostly by French composers.

I guess the programme was assembled through the wonderful resources of Google and Wikipedia by searching ‘vocal music for Springtime’; though perhaps I underestimate Karen Grylls’ encyclopaedic familiarity with the entire choral repertoire through all ages and all countries! .

Instead of printing the words and their English translations in the programme leaflet, the person I took to be the choir’s ‘Vocal Consultant’, Catrin Johnsson, recited translations in an admirably clear and well-articulated voice from the front, before each song. My shorthand was not up to noting the salient points, and so, here and there, I have also had recourse to the Internet.

On the whole, French choral music from the late 19th to mid-20th century is not very familiar, and so, the only music that was at all familiar to me were the pieces by Poulenc. Nor was all the music by French composers: Sirett is Anglo-Canadian and Donald Patriquin, from Quebec. Jean Absil was francophone Belgian.

Debussy’s Salut printemps
It began with the eponymous piece by the 20-year-old Debussy, a setting of a poem by Anatole de Ségour. He may have been a rather obscure poet, but this poem was also set by other composers, suggesting that he was not unknown. Almost everything Debussy wrote in his early years was vocal, songs, and this looks like his first choral work, for female voices with piano accompaniment. It was certainly a charming evocation of Spring – light in spirit, and with a sympathetic piano accompaniment that at times was a little too prominent in the cathedral’s hard acoustic. The unnamed soloist made a particularly lovely contribution.

Mark Sirett turns out to be a Canadian, though not Québéquois, who’s got a high profile as composer and conductor in Canada. He was born in Kingston, Ontario in 1952, educated in Iowa, but returned to work and teach in Alberta and Ontario.

He wrote Ce beau printemps, a bright, optimistic, a cappella piece based on a poem by the great 16th century poet Pierre Ronsard. It was a predictable song for mixed choir celebrating love in the Springtime; somewhat more thoughtful and less full of delight that one might have expected; just rather lovely.

A group of Trois chansons by Debussy followed. The Old French (Dieu! qu’il la fait bon regarder!; Quand j’ay ouy le tabourin; Yver, vous n’estes qu’un villain) gave them away as Renaissance poems, by Charles d’Orléans. Again, an unaccompanied group, and another solo female contribution was very attractive; she sang the words while the choir performed wordlessly. Markedly wintery sounds emerged during the third song denouncing Winter (‘Yver’ – Hiver).

Lil Boulanger used to be referred to as Nadia’s (the remarkable teacher of numerous famous 20th century composers) less-known sister; but it was Lili who was the gifted composer and her fine music has gained a firm foothold in recent years. Her three songs: Hymn au soleil, Sirènes, and Soir sur la plaine, settings of different poets, were most imaginative, and to me, among the most colourful and delightful of the concert. The first and third were for mixed choir while the men retreated for the particularly gorgeous Sirènes. (the poet, Grandmougin). The last, Soir sur la plaine, by the noted symbolist poet Albert Samain (c.f. Verlaine, Mallarmé, Rimbaud), was an impressive, minor theatrical piece, with exchanges between male and female soloists, and the body of the choir, splendidly performed.

Le bestiaire was a group of songs, no doubt those referred to in the promotional stuff, as ‘a quirky song cycle’. It was a minor zoological foray, the little poems by Apollinaire, dating from 1911, set for unaccompanied mixed choir by Belgian composer Jean Absil in 1944. That was a long time after Saint-Saëns’s Carnival of the Animals, which might have remained lurking in the background, perhaps nourished by Erik Satie in the meantime. Would serve as useful revision for your French zoological vocabulary. They were sung in the true spirit of the words as well as Absil’s settings which were both clever and droll.

Two groups of songs by Poulenc came next, not in the least the same spirit as the Absil songs; Nos 2 and 3 of his Quatre petites prières de saint François d’Assise. They took us to the heart of Poulenc’s singular religious awakening in the 1930s, though they were composed in the 1940s. ‘Tout puissant’ and ‘Seigneur, je vous en prie’ were settings for a cappella male voices, and Poulenc’s marked individuality was immediate, melodically confined to a rather limited range of notes.

The same composer’s Les Petites Voix is a set of five songs from 1936 for unaccompanied women’s voices; they sang three: La petite fille sage, Le chien perdu and Le hérisson (hedgehog). The droll verses were theatrically narrated, lines clear, amusing and well balanced, and as with everything in the concert, pitched with a keen ear to the acoustic character of the church (as usual with Karen Grylls).

Finally, Donald Patriquin, a Québéquois, though his biography (McGill and University of Toronto) and list of compositions are evenly balanced bilingually. The choir sang J’entend le moulin, amusing, with dancing, dotted rhythms, prancing up and down, sexual differentiation between men and women singers. Fast, energetic, hypnotic in its incessant rhythms and melodic phrases. It made a fine finish to a highly impressive concert.

 

Entertaining concert, mixing symphony with jazz and a witty film score from Wellington Chamber Orchestra

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Wellington Chamber Orchestra conducted by Justin Pearce

Mozart: Symphony No 25 in G minor, K 183
Mussorgsky: Songs from The Nursery ( with soloists; Janey MacKenzie and Luka Venter
Jazz standards: Chatanooga Choo-choo and Nature Boy, sung by Cole Hampton
Prokofiev: Lieutenant Kije Suite

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday 24 September, 2:30 pm

One might have considered this an unorthodox programme, starting with a well-known Mozart symphony, ending with Prokofiev’s delightful Lieutenent Kije Suite and in between, songs by Mussorgsky and two jazz standards.

The Mozart symphony is known as the ‘Little G minor’ Symphony to distinguish it from the big one, No 40. But it became easier to distinguish after its arresting opening was used as the introduction to the fictitious, misleading film on Mozart and Salieri, Amadeus (based on Shaffer’s play). It’s unusual in being scored for four horns, as well as the usual strings and pairs of oboes and bassoons. The four horns proved something of a burden, as I had to assume, charitably, that there’d been inadequate time to rehearse. I even came to think that it might have been better to strip the horns back to two or to replace them with clarinets, or other instruments. However, some of the problem could well have been the unforgiving St Andrew’s acoustics.

Their fanfare-type opening was not a happy affair, and the accompanying strings were asked to play with excessive force, no doubt to balance the horns. Most of the later passages for horns were somewhat more restrained, but still problematic. Those elements apart, subsequent playing by strings and woodwinds was very nice and in all other respects the orchestra handled the score with considerable finesse; the subsequent movements, especially the Andante second movement, were very well played, with a charming, placid feeling.

Chattanooga Choo Choo
A set of songs followed, all arranged by conductor Justin Pearce: Chattanooga Choo Choo, made famous by the Glen Miller Band during the Second World War. Then five of Mussorgsky’s songs from The Nursery and finally a song new to me, Nature Boy which has a rather curious provenance.

The railway theme remains significant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, a half million population city on the Georgia border. In keeping with the fame that the city derives from the song, there’s the fine Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum and a well preserved Terminal Station, now a hotel, though like most of the United States, there are no trains either in the city or intercity connections – how miserable for the visitor – even worse than New Zealand!

A big band was assembled for the occasion, the winds somewhat reflecting Glen Miller, though with only one saxophone. But we had strings, as well as trumpets, trombones, the four horns (now happy enough), plus a tuba. The amplified singer, Cole Hampton, was somewhat outclassed by the band, though I doubt whether it would have helped simply to turn up the volume. So the words, charming to any train buff, narrated a young man’s journey from Philadelphia through Baltimore and (North) Carolina, to meet his life’s partner at Chattanooga (at which one of the city’s several terminals?), were rather lost.  Pressed all my buttons: I enjoyed it.

The Mussorgsky of Boris Godunov doesn’t at once prompt thoughts of nursery songs, but these are a delightful, beguiling set that evokes childhood, demonstrating the composer’s multi-facetted genius. They were shared between soprano Janey MacKenzie and tenor Luka Venter; at once they created an intimate, slightly droll atmosphere, viewed through the eyes and ears of particular children. For some of the songs the orchestra proved rather too weighty though it might have been justified in the encounter with the beetle. Both singers involved themselves happily in the little tales.

The last song, again from the jazz world, was unfamiliar to me. Nature Boy was composed by one George McGrew who adopted the name eden ahbez, all lower case, e e cummings-style. Nat King Cole made it famous in 1948. I felt that, again, the orchestration was out of keeping with the subtle and atmospheric character of the song and my impression was rather supported when I read, in the usual source of information, that the arranger for Nat King Cole’s recording for Capital Records used flute and strings. In the context of jazz or pop music of the time it was unusual and an interesting discovery, for me.

Lieutenant Kije
To perform Prokofiev’s delightful Lieutenant Kije suite (drawn from the music for the eponymous 1934 Soviet film) was great idea. I doubt that I’ve heard it performed live before. My first hearing was as background music to a 1958 film, The Horse’s Mouth, based on the Joyce Cary novel, directed by Ronald Neame and featuring Alec Guinness. I’d have seen it shortly after its release and it immediately grabbed me of course, both on account of that characteristic British post-war, comedy film era, as well as its subject – a zany story of an eccentric artist; and the music.

I can’t help reproducing a quote from a website that I found, seeking to check my memory.

It’s by Ian Christie, Professor of Film and Media History at Birkbeck College: “… [The Horse’s Mouth] sparkles with conviction and eccentricity—at least that’s how it struck this avid young provincial filmgoer, who had never been inside a pub, let alone heard any of Prokofiev’s music, in 1959. It stayed in my memory, but only later did I come to realize why the qualities that distinguish it are the very reasons that the film remains neglected by British film historians.” And later in the essay he describes the film : “…as part of an English tradition of revolt against cozy middle-class philistinism.”

Lieutenant Kije has, of course, also been used in many later films, but one’s first experience is usually the most memorable. By the way, its spelling doesn’t comply with normal transliteration from the Russian, Киже which would be ‘Kizhe’ – sounding as in ‘measure’; The ‘j’ is the letter used in French transliteration of the sound, as it had been first published in France.

The performance was surprisingly polished and re-created the character of the delicious music much more successfully than I’d thought likely from an essentially amateur orchestra. Right from the start, with a solo trumpet (Neil Dodgson I suppose) sounding from behind the scenes, I was aware of something special. The very particular orchestration was captured, and I have to express delight at the horn playing: it was as if the music’s eccentricity had inspired skills and a singular affinity. Double basses held the limelight for a few bars; the tenor sax struck the right tone and there were nifty remarks from the xylophone. Most striking of course is the sleigh ride – Troika – a term sadly, forever blackened by the harshness of the intransigent trio of torturers working their financial austerity, from the IMF, ECB and EU Commission of recent years. But the real thing transcends that unfortunate borrowing.

The performance was a small triumph for the orchestra and conductor, and a delight for the audience.

 

NZSM voice students in admirable and highly varied recital at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

NZSM Classical voice students
Emma Cronshaw Hunt, Nino Raphael, Eleanor McGechie, Garth Norman, Pasquale Orchard, Joe Haddow
Piano accompanist: Mark Dorrell

Songs and arias by Debussy, Fauré, Bellini, Schumann, Franchi, Dring, Mozart, Britten, Berlioz, Rachmaninov, Loewe, Lloyd Webber

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 20 September, 12:15 pm

We are at that time of the year, when music students are welcomed at St Andrew’s to given them some public exposure in connection with their end-of-year assessments. Here we heard six students at varying stages of their studies. Most of them had been seen in the past year or so in the school’s and other opera productions, particularly in the recent Cunning Little Vixen which had such a large cast of curious, minor characters.

Emma Cronshaw Hunt opened the recital with songs by Debussy and Fauré; her voice is attractive and seems produced with ease, though the ease tended towards some gentle scoops that detracted slightly, but they were certainly within acceptable bounds. In some quarters scoops, or portamenti, are anathema, but the technique has its place, when used tastefully. Her two songs were Debussy’s ‘Aimons-nous et dormons’ (modesty constrains a translation) and ‘Adieu’, which she sang in comfortable French, alive to the songs’ mood and meaning. In Fauré’s ‘Adieu’ there was a touch of sadness.

Nino Raphael sang one of Bellini’s gorgeous arias, ‘Vi ravviso’, from La sonnambula. He’d recently honed his opera skills as the Priest and the Badger in the Vixen. And last year he sang Leporello in Eternity Opera’s Don Giovanni. While I’d enjoyed those performances, here I detected slightly shakey intonation here and there. He followed with four short songs from Schumann’s Dichterliebe; though he caught much of the pithy characterisation and emotion, they were not, understandably,  invested with quite the intimacy and depth of feeling that the songs of the wonderful Dichterliebe cycle delineate. But that calls for considerable maturity.

Eleanor McGechie sang three songs in English: the first by New Zealand composer Dorothea Franchi – Treefall and then two by mid-century English composer Madeleine Dring whom I’d come across only last year in a St Andrew’s lunchtime concert. All three were approachable, written with a clear aim to entertain an audience, and McGechie knew how to present them in a lively and colourful way.

Garth Norman sang Figaro’s ‘Se vuol ballare’ in which he gained in confidence as it went, and then Britten’s ‘Seascape’ from From this Island. Britten can be given to accompaniments that are excessively detailed and harmonically clever and here was a case, where Mark Dorrell’s piano overwhelmed rather. But this was an attractive rendition nevertheless.

Pasquale Orchard has caught my ear several times, as Susanna in Eternity Opera’s Figaro recently, and most strikingly as the Vixen in the school of music’s Janáček production in July. ‘Le spectre de la rose’ from Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été, is a gorgeous song and I’d been very predisposed to enjoy it: I did for the most part, but Orchard’s voice in inclined to lose dynamic control towards the top and it interfered slightly with the dominant ‘spectral’ spirit of the music. However she navigated its sense and tone with great sensitivity. Her second song was early Rachmaninov: ‘O never sing to me again’ from Op 4. It was a little too loud at the start, and I wasn’t sure for some time what language she was singing it in, until certain distinctive syllables identified it as Russian. I sense that I’d have perceived that at once if the intensity of her voice had been modified a little.

Joe Haddow sang another Rachmaninov song: ‘When yesterday we met’, from Romances Op 26. His words were very distinct and even though my Russian is a bit rusty, the emotions were clear enough, and sensitively expressed. His control of tone and dynamics right across the range, are excellent.

I’m not very familiar with Lerner and Loewe’s Camelot. Haddow sang ‘If ever I would leave you’ which surprised me by starting in French (it’s from Lancelot, and showed how rusty my knowledge of the Arthurian legends is, too), but continues in another language and a familiar tune. Haddow performed it in authentic style.

Haddow stayed there and Pasquale Orchard then joined him to sing a duet: another ‘musical’ number, this one a French story but in English: ‘All I ask of you’ from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera. The two engaging young voices were vividly contrasted, but in a convincing manner.

The concert was an interesting way to get a different impression of promising young singers who have been more familiar recently in staged situations.

 

Diverting three-quarter hour of flute-flavoured song: Barbara Graham, Rebecca Steel, Fiona McCabe

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Songs at Old Saint Paul’s
Barbara Graham – soprano; Fiona McCabe – piano; Rebecca Steel – flute

Pieces by Handel, Saint-Saëns, Caplet, Mozart, Massenet and Ravel; John Dankworth arrangements of songs of Canteloube, Sondheim and himself

Old Saint Paul’s

Tuesday 19 September, 12:15 pm

For a somewhat bigger-than-average audience including, I gather, a contingent from a retirement village, all three performers contributed commentary mixing erudition with light-heartedness. So we began with references to Handel’s ode, or oratorio, L’Allegro, Il Penseroso ed il Moderato, sung by Barbara Graham. The oratorio was based on Milton’s poem of a century earlier, entitled ‘L’Allegro-Il Penseroso’, which was enlarged at the prompting of Handel’s friends, with a portrait of the ‘moderate’, shall we say, sanguine man: someone at the centre, more rational, less ideological perhaps, in keeping with the ‘Enlightenment’ of the 18th century.

Handel’s colleague and librettist Charles Jennens, who compiled/wrote several other oratorio texts, including Messiah), decided that, in addition to introducing a ‘moderate’ figure, Milton’s poem would become a dialogue, mixing lines from each of the two parts to create a more dramatic scenario.

The air ‘Sweet bird’ which Barbara sang is in Part I (‘L’Allegro’) of Handel’s work, but it is found at line 60 of ‘Il Penseroso’, the second part of Milton’s pair of poems. It is followed in the oratorio by ‘If I give thee honour due’, given to a bass singer, and that is from Milton’s ‘L’Allegro’. (Once upon a time this stuff was familiar in secondary schools; and the entire Milton poem is in A Pageant of English Verse which was a set book in my 6th form English class: I’ve still got the volume; something sad seems to have happened to secondary school syllabuses in the meantime).

Her singing was splendid: strong, well characterised, with perfectly judged vibrato and no sign of strain as she rose higher, expressing a touch of melancholy (bearing in mind that the lines are from ‘Il Penseroso’). Rebecca Steel’s flute wove charmingly around the voice; when the line rose, there was no strain; and pianist Fiona McCabe contributed a thoroughly supportive accompaniment.

Two French songs followed, with the flute as the subject; first a late song by Saint-Saëns, ‘Une flûte invisible’, with a lovely vocal melody which is echoed or supported by the piano and flute, sometimes reaching high, decoratively, yearningly.

André Caplet was a friend of Debussy and orchestrated several of Debussy’s works. His ‘Viens! … Une flûte invisible’, by Victor Hugo, was not so bird-like, or perhaps this was a sadder bird, more enigmatic in mood. It’s an enchanting song, not far removed from Debussy in character, again with its indispensable flute embellishment, all enveloped by the subtle piano. I confess to making use of YouTube to gain more familiarity with music I haven’t run into before. This delicious little song is sung by that remarkably feminine French counter-tenor Philippe Jaroussky. Though the real feminine voice of Barbara Graham was almost his equal; and there’s nothing like a live performance.

Then came an aria from Mozart’s little-known opera Un re pastore, ‘L’amorò, caro costante’. Again, in an arrangement that allowed the flute prominence, it offered Graham the chance to display dramatic powers, even though the ‘opera seria’ idiom sounds conventional to our ears. But not bad for a 19-year-old.

More French song followed: Massenet’s Élégie, for cello and orchestra, from his incidental music to Leconte de Lisle’s verse drama, ‘Les Érinnyes’ (also spelled Les Érinyes). Treating a facet of the story of the Mycenian family of Agamemnon and Menelaus, Klytemnestra, Elektra, Iphigenia, Orestes and the rest, caught up in the aftermath of the Trojan war. It’s a lovely melody that I first encountered as an easy enough cello piece; Massenet later added words which is what we heard: a little search suggests it was probably ‘Ô doux printemps d’autrefois’.

That was followed by Ravel’s ‘La flûte enchantée’ from his Shéhérazade (note, the French do not adhere to the German way of representing the ‘sh’ sound – ‘sch’ – which English for some reason has slavishly followed in this name. Though normal French spelling for that sound would be ‘ch’). Ravel was in part inspired by Rimsky-Korsakov’s brilliant four-part suite; the words are by Tristan Klingsor. It’s an exquisite melody, in which the flute proved an important contributor, much in its warm lower register, and again, Ravel’s piano part, in Fiona McCabe’s fluent hands, was very much worth attending to.

Then came three songs, arranged or composed by John Dankworth for his wife Cleo Laine; the best-known (thanks in part to Kiri), Baïlèro, from Canteloube’s Songs of the Auvergne. I’m afraid I was not especially taken with the Dankworth version which seemed to me to have quite abandoned, apart from the flute accompaniment, the shining luminosity of the Auvergne region.

The song from Sondheim’s Anyone Can Whistle, was more akin to the Dankworth jazz idiom; both flute and piano had attractive parts, creating a thoughtful, slightly despairing spirit. Dankworth’s own ‘Play it again Sam’, had integrity, in its conception and style, and Barbara Graham’s voice and facial and other gestures created a delightful impression. That’s what a little 5-year-old thought too, standing on the pew a couple of rows in front of me, and facing back towards me, her head and hands moving in lively and engaging response to the rhythm and spirit of the song.

The three musicians had delivered a charming ¾ of an hour of music.

Kent McIntosh, Bianca Andrew with Catherine Norton: German and Swedish songs and Janáček’s remarkable cycle

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Diary of One Who Disappeared by Janáček

Kent McIntosh (New Zealand tenor, resident in Australia), Bianca Andrew (mezzo), Catherine Norton (piano)

And songs by
Wolf: ‘Auf einer Wanderung’
Mahler: ‘Wer had dies Liedlein erdacht?’
Alfvén: ‘Skogen sover’
Sibelius: ‘Flickan kom ifran sin äisklings mote’ and ‘Var det en dröm?’
Kurt Weill: ’It never was you’

Adam Concert Room, New Zealand School of Music

Saturday 19 August, 7:30 pm

The first half of this recital – Lieder – was given to mezzo Bianca Andrew while the Janáček was sung (mainly) by Kent McIntosh.

To devote the song part to Lieder in German and Swedish (and an American-German) was to lend it very comforting variety, and filled the time to an hour. It might have been decided that Janáček could be accompanied by other Czech or Slavonic songs, which could have been interesting, but this programme was very nicely composed.

What was more of a problem was the atmosphere of the venue. There was a sadly small audience; it was a cold, wet evening; lighting was bright and unforgiving, and the combination of rather serious, though in some respects quirky and droll, songs, with the quite unique Diary, labelled a ‘song cycle’ made for an unfamiliar, though in the end, stimulating programme.

Bianca Andrew and pianist Catherine Norton performed the Lieder scrupulously, with great insight.  Hugo Wolf felt a special affinity with Möricke and set 53 of his poems. ‘Auf einer Wanderung’ is typical in its capricious mood shifts reflecting the changing thoughts and reactions of the young man in a new town. Her penetrating, appealing voice remained in perfect balance with the piano.

Mahler’s ‘Wer had dies Liedlein erdacht?’ comes from his collection of settings of the hundreds of folk songs published in the first decade of the 19th century by Arnim and Brentano, Des Knaben Wunderhorn. This one is typical of the sometimes bizarre and irrational little tales they tell. The piano begins with a peasantish dance introducing the first care-free moments, then cautious and finally a bit of nonsense, beautifully sung.

The other songs were in Swedish, the first by Hugo Alfvén, best known for his Midsommarvaka, his Swedish Rhapsody. ‘Skogen sover’ is a nocturnal song, clearly influenced by German Lieder, yet distinctive, with a piano part depicting night personifying the poet’s sleeping lover. And two Sibelius songs (almost all he composed were in Swedish, the language his family spoke). In the first, ‘Flickan kom ifran sin äisklings mote’, the piano was even more emotional, even ferocious than the voice which rose to a shrillness that yet remained within the bounds of taste. The line was more legato in ‘Var det en dröm?’over a rippling piano, again in a song that handled moods that shifted from unease to despair and finally ecstasy.

Bianca Andrew’s last song was from Kurt Weill’s Knickerbocker Holiday: ‘It never was you’, which she has made something of her own. It was a song that continued the theme common in her other songs: the theme of enigmatic love lost and found, doubted and fleetingly attained, and her singing of this elusive number showed why it’s become a signature for her.

Catherine remained at the piano and played an introductory note at which dark-suited Kent McIntosh emerged from behind the audience. Janáček’s The Diary of One Who Disappeared is described as having a dramatic character, and it is sometimes staged, costumed, in a simple way, though some directors have gone as far as to simulate sex: thankfully that temptation was resisted. The performance thus had little in the way of alleviating elements that might have shifted audience attention to the story and the narrator’s dilemma rather than demanding so much of the singers, whose every note, inflexion, gesture and movement was the sole focus.

Though McIntosh is essentially a chorus singer (with Opera Australia), he has given a number of song recitals over the years (though I don’t recall an earlier one in New Zealand).

His tackling of the Janáček cycle (it can be compared to Schubert’s two cycles in that it tells a story, but its individual sections are hardly songs in their own right) was a brave undertaking. McIntosh’s tenor voice has colour and intensity and he succeeds generally in the challenge of negotiating the terse language of the Czech poems (though of course, in translation), and musical line creating a credible predicament, the denouement of which, one senses, can only be tragic.

Here and there one felt a loss of narrative flow in the first eight poems, but it’s a welcome respite when the Gypsy girl (Bianca) enters and the story gains through the tension that this encounter injects. It is here where a certain amount of staging might have enlivened the presentation.

A very singular interlude is the Intermezzo, where the singers disappear and the piano alone suggests the impending outcome through music of awful desolation. Similarly, the interjection of three female singers in the balcony to the rear, was highly evocative.

As with so much else of Janáček, this is a singularly unusual work, hard to characterise; though quite short, it succeeds in creating a vivid psychological dilemma, exploring cross-cultural, class and family issues that might normally be the substance of a full opera. Much shorter than Winterreise of course, it traverses comparable emotional territory, though handling a tragic tale of far greater depth and complexity.

It was a brave and largely successful enterprise that deserved a bigger audience.

Beautiful Lieder recital from Maaike Christie-Beekmann, viola and piano

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s Lunchtime concerts

Maaike Beekman-Christie (mezzo soprano) with Rachel Thomson (piano) and Chris van der Zee (viola)

Brahms: Two songs for mezzo, viola and piano:Op 91: Gestillte Sehnsucht and Die Ihr schwebet or Geistliches Wiegenlied
Schumann: Frauen-liebe und -leben (the first six songs)
Wolf: three Mignon songs (not performed)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 16 August, 12:15 pm

I wondered whether it was quite appropriate to review this recital, because, before she began, mezzo Maaike Christie-Beekman had explained that a voice problem might not allow her to get very far through the published programme.

I think her tactics were sensible when she began with the two Brahms songs, rather than with Schumann’s eight-song cycle which she then approached. And she abandoned Wolf’s Mignon songs (from Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister) altogether.

Brahms Zwei Gesänge, Opus 91
Here were two of Brahms most beautiful and spiritual (allowing that he was an agnostic) songs, which were composed with an obbligato viola part. The opening of the first song which might be translated ‘suppressed’ or ‘stilled longing’, began with the rather singular sound of viola and piano – the particularly gorgeous tone of Chris van der Zee’s instrument, and Rachel Thomson’s more familiar, insightful piano – that captured the somewhat sombre tone of the song in a very arresting way. Whether it was her being careful with her voice or her sensitive response to the nature of the poems and their settings, I don’t know.

The poems had quite different origins. ‘Gestillte Sehnsucht’ by Rückert who, for the musical, is best known for Mahler’s settings of a small group of poems; while ‘Geistliches Wiegenlied’ (its first line, ‘Die ihr schwebet’), was a paraphrase by Emanuel von Geibel of a poem by famous 16-17th century Spanish playwright and poet Lope de Vega (a contemporary of Shakespeare). Geibel was a lesser poet of the Romantic period, a bit younger than Heine and Möricke. That poem was later set by Hugo Wolf, in his Spanisches Liederbuch.

Brahms set them with viola obbligato for his violinist friend Joachim, who was particularly fond of the viola, to mark the birth of Joachim and his wife’s first child.  I found a different slant to the story about the pair of songs in programme notes for the Los Angeles Philharmonic (on the Internet of course):

In 1863 violinist Joseph Joachim married the distinguished mezzo-soprano Amalie Schneeweiss. Both were important musical partners for Brahms, as well as close personal friends. They later had a son, named Johannes in honor of Brahms. The composer wrote an enchanted cradle song (“Geistliches Wiegenlied,” Sacred Lullaby) for his namesake, which Amalie could sing with Joseph playing the viola, Brahms’ favorite string instrument.

But the marriage became troubled by Joachim’s paranoid delusions about an affair he imagined Amalie had with Fritz August Simrock, Brahms’ publisher. Hoping to bring them together, Brahms reworked the lullaby and wrote a new song, “Gestillte Sehnsucht” (Stilled Longing). Blissfully domestic as the song was, it failed to repair the rift, and when Brahms testified on Amalie’s side in the subsequent divorce proceedings brought by Joseph, the violinist extended the broken relationship to include Brahms as well.

The second song began in a similar vein, reaching somewhat higher, it seemed, and here and there with a little more intensity. I think Brahms songs (all songs really) bloom with singing that pays more attention to simple modesty and unpretentiousness, and where the singer succeeds in telling the listener that (s)he finds sheer delight in their performance. That rather rare quality probably explains why I tend not to feel the sort of affection and delight in Brahms that I do in Schubert and Schumann. These quite overturned that feeling.

Frauenliebe und -leben
Then the Schumann cycle: among my dozen desert island discs. I was enraptured by them very early – say my late teens, as a result of one of the rather few rich and happy experiences at secondary school. Both my German masters for the compressed courses in the sixth and upper sixth forms loved music and used songs to embed the sounds of the language in our heads. Though I didn’t hear these particular songs at college the passion I’d developed for both German Romantic poetry and Lieder, led to a lot of eager exploration in my university years, where I continued with German (though without a lecturer with much interest in music). So I encountered poems by all the main poets, including Rückert and Chamisso (the poet of the Schumann cycle), and of course, Goethe and Schiller, Hölderlin, Tieck and Novalis, Uhland, Eichendorf, Müller (of Die schöne Müllerin and Die Winterreise), the two who collected the folk song collection, Des Knaben Wunderhorn (Arnim and Brentano), Möricke, Heine, and Geibel (of the second Brahms song).

I remember it struck me then that Germany had far more poets of the Romantic era that one knew about, than Britain, though I surmised there might be some difference in intellectual and literary quality at the less remarkable end of the German school.

Here endeth lesson in German Romantic poetry.

Schumann’s cycle has been subject to strange, perverse comments (hardly to be called ‘criticism’): a male purporting to write from the female perspective has to be either dishonest or sentimental since the feminine psyche hardly warrants serious study, or something of that kind… Such can be the charges against both poet and composer. In other words, only a female can hope to have the slightest understanding of the emotions depicted in poems about a woman’s life and love. I’ve always considered that nonsense; though I confess I’d have trouble hearing a male sing them (there are some or record).

So of the eight songs in the cycle, Maaike Christie-Beekman managed six. ‘Seit ich ihn gesehen’ quickly had me feeling quite weepy: the combination of the sentiments in the song and sudden impact of hearing the hushed sincerity that this gifted singer brought to it, and to the later ones. The sort of emotion that Janet Baker creates, not over-precisely articulated, merely expressing with genuine sensitivity and emotion what the words are saying.

‘Er, der Herrlichste von allen’ more open and confident, even ardent, and again the fact that she was guarding her voice enhanced the otherness of the song. A jumpy, hesitant feeling came with ‘Ich kann’s nicht fassen’: her disbelief that he can really love her so!

And then the one that took root first for me, and probably others: ‘Du Ring am meinem Finger’ where she’s married, and there’s a trace of disbelief amid her ecstasy and wonderment. And all these emotions seemed so genuinely present in her voice.

‘Helft mir, ihr Schwestern’ describes the preparations for the wedding, excitement, trepidation, over rolling piano chards. And as with so many Schumann songs there’s an enchanting postlude, a sort of commentary by the piano on what the singer is really trying to say!

‘Süsser Freund’, with its confusion between her beloved’s face and that of a hoped-for baby; the sort of song that would probably have seemed quite beyond the pale in 19th century Britain!.

And there she stopped, clearly aware of the greater demands of intensity demanded from the next two songs, particularly ‘An meinem Herzen, an meiner Brust’, describing the ecstasy at her first baby, and the heart-wrenching last song describing her grief at her husband’s death. There’s much in the last three poems, at least, that probably struck stiff-upper lip English readers and critics as excessively mawkish and sentimental. I simply think they’re moving and beautiful poems and their settings incomparable.

Perhaps it was as well to go out on a happier note. Even abbreviated, it was a wonderful little recital, and I long for the whole thing from Christie-Beekman. And the Wolf and lots more….

 

Rich and diverting recital of songs by Takiri vocal quartet and piano at Waikanae

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Waikanae Music Society
Takiri Ensemble: Anna Leese Guidi (soprano), Maaike Christie-Beekman (mezzo), Cameron Barclay (tenor). Robert Tucker (baritone), Kirsten Robertson (piano)

Schubert: Songs from Schwanengesang;
Songs and ensembles by Fauré, Ravel, Somervell, Quilter, Vaughan Williams

Waikanae Memorial Hall

Sunday, 2 July 2017, 2.30pm

The reviewing of this concert was shared by Rosemary Collier and Lindis Taylor.
First part: Rosemary Collier 
Two years ago the ensemble sang for the Waikanae Music Society; on that occasion the mezzo was Bianca Andrew and the tenor Andrew Glover.  That programme also began with a bracket of well-known Schubert lieder, then progressed to Schumann (I’m embarrassed to say his songs were the Spanische Liebeslieder, which in a very recent review of another ensemble I said I was unfamiliar with).  The programme continued with New Zealand composers, then Britten and Vaughan Williams.

Our present concert followed a similar structure, but no New Zealand composers were performed.

While some of the songs were in a sad mood, many were not, so I was sorry to see the women of the ensemble dressed entirely in black.  However, the singers conveyed the moods of the songs very well, and not necessarily in sombre fashion (some connection with a certain sports event?).

Anna Leese Guidi opened the programme (and was the only one to sing her solos without a score), with the first of the Schwanengesang songs: Liebesbotschaft, with a beautifully rustling brook from Kirsten Robertson on piano.  What a gorgeous voice this soprano has!  It seemed to me that her voice has more shine that it used to have.  Her dynamics were subtle, and the words beautifully expressed and shaded.

Frühlingsehnsucht was sung by Cameron Barclay.  He sings with a splendid, forward tone, energy and urgency.  His singing of the repeated word ‘Warum’ had real feeling.   Ständchen is one of the composer’s best-known songs, and Maaike Christie-Beekman’s singing of it was simply lovely.  It was sung slower than I have usually heard it, but was none the worse for that.  It was interesting that the superb accompaniments from Kirsten Robertson were all played with the piano lid on the short stick, even the quartets, whereas at the recital I attended on Wednesday, the lid was on the long stick.

A quicker song was Abschied, sung by the tenor; he had a tendency sometimes to slip off, or onto, the note.  It was followed by Der Atlas, was sung by Robert Tucker very dramatically with a strong, rich sound and excellent words.  This is a demanding declamatory song.  An uncertainty about one entry was resolved without breakdown between himself and his accompanist.

Das Fischermädchen was a charming song in the capable hands of Maaike Christie-Beekman, while Robert Tucker gave a very accomplished rendition of Der Doppelgänger.  He treated the text with due solemnity, intensity and emotion not to mention a wide range of dynamics.  Finally we had Die Taubenpost, sung deliciously by Anna Leese Guidi; a light and bright song to end the cycle.

Next were three ensemble song by the same composer.  Der Tanz was performed by quartet; a jolly piece, followed by a duet from Leese and Barclay: Licht und Liebe.  It was very appealing – calm and thoroughly pleasant, and beautifully sung.  Last in this half was another quartet: Gebet.  It was rather Ländler-like (folk-song).  Each singer entered in turn, with a little solo passage, the quartet demonstrating excellent blend.

The large audience thoroughly enjoyed the Schubert, and hearing four voices of character and accomplishment.

Second part: reviewed by Lindis Taylor
The second half of the concert was devoted to non-Schubert, French and English songs.

Before the concert I had rather expected a group of real French songs by Debussy, Duparc, Fauré, Berlioz, Poulenc, Ravel and so on. But the French offerings were limited, arrangements, and outweighed by English.

It opened with a Fauré song: Lydia, the poem by Leconte de Lisle, one of Fauré’s earliest, Opus 2. I hadn’t come across the poem either in collections of French poetry or among Fauré’s songs.

It had been arranged by the pianist Kirsten Robertson, for all four voices. Kirsten spoke engagingly about the song and its transformation. She also remarked on Fauré’s using the title as a reference to the Lydian mode – the ancient Greek mode that amounts to a scale on the white notes beginning on F.

This may have been in sympathy with the poetic movement led by De Lisle called les Parnassiens, who rejected romanticism and personal emotion, returning to the notion of ‘art for art’s sake’ in the literature of classical antiquity.

So, this was a song that was cool in character, treating a classical theme of love culminating in death.

As I’ve written before, I have misgivings about arrangements but, as before,  I have finished up being surprised at having so enjoyed them. This was the case here too. Nothing about it detracted from its essential Fauré-esque quality, on either the vocal line or its harmonies.

As earlier, Anna Leese Guidi’s voice contributing descant passages, stood out in the second stanza, perhaps outshining the others at times, but what could she do about that?

The other Fauré song was a duet, Pleurs d’or (Tears of gold), a setting of a poem by a much more obscure poet, Albert Samain, and again not a song I knew. It was sung by the two women (though I’ve now encountered it by soprano and baritone). I confess, not my sort of poem and perhaps that’s why Samain isn’t up there with Baudelaire and Verlaine. Their voices were attractively contrasted and the piano rippled unobtrusively under them.

The next song was a real curiosity – an arrangement by English baritone and composer Roderick Williams of the second movement of Ravel’s piano concerto in G. It proved a singularly lovely candidate for such an arrangement: the original was for eight voices and several French verses, which the programme did not identify; the vocal part was based on the orchestral score while the piano solo served as the accompaniment. The effect was more than a little entrancing, though I suspect eight voices would have been even better.

Then France was abandoned (as the British seem wont to do) and we heard a song by one Arthur Somervell to Twist me a Crown of Wild Flowers, a poem by Christina Rossetti who was associated, with her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti with the Pre-Raphaelites, that somewhat effete brotherhood of writers and artists that included Holman Hunt, Millais, Burne-Jones, Waterhouse, William Morris, Ruskin, Swinburne and so on… It was a rather charming, languid song, sung by all four.

Roger Quilter came second to Schubert in the number of his songs (six) in the recital. Shelley’s Love’s Philosophy sung by Anna alone, her brilliant top handled the setting admirably. And then Tennyson’s Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal, offered mezzo Maaike a contrasting song, handling the more subdued music very sensitively.

Quilter himself wrote the words for the next song, Summer Sunset, and the two men sang it, a harmless, sleepy piece in which the two found a happy accord.

The poem by one Norah Hopper, Blossom Time, was for the two women, a feather-light song, rather melancholy perhaps, but occasionally, Quilter goes a bit deeper than he is wont to do. And those moments were arresting.

Cameron Barclay alone sang an anonymous song, Weep you no more, Sad Fountains, which I thought didn’t do him any favours, as it drew attention to a certain inability to project characterfully.

Finally another anonymous 16th century song: Fair House of Joy where Robert Tucker suddenly revealed a stronger and more colourful voice than I’d been hearing earlier. Perhaps because the song plumbs rather greater depths and it drew a more dramatic strain, fuller, and well projected.

The concert ended with a song that was arranged by Robert specifically for the ensemble: Vaughan Williams’s, Silent Noon, a sonnet by the above-mentioned Dante Gabriel Rossetti (interestingly, originally written in Italian). Appropriately, this very well loved song was for the full complement, each voice taking its turn at the beginning, but soon the four voices came together, and here was truly exposed the strengths of a quartet of professional voices, and compelling admiration for the arrangement. In response to the audience reception the quartet sang Vaughan Williams’s Linden Lea: these two great songs establishing the real qualities of the English song tradition.

 

Schumann song programme – solos, duets, quartets – everything admirable except the relentless clapping

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Songbook: Schumann in Spain

Imogen Thirlwall (soprano), Jess Segal (mezzo), Declan Cudd (tenor), Daniel O’Connor (baritone), Catherine Norton (piano), Fiona McCabe (piano)

Songs for soloists and ensembles by Robert Schuman

Adam Concert Room, New Zealand School of Music

Wednesday 28 June 2017, 7:30 pm

A single song and two cycles of songs were performed to a small but appreciative audience; it was marvellous to have an all-Schumann concert.  After applause following the first ‘stand-alone’ song, the audience then applauded after virtually every song in the cycles; frustration at this breaking up of the continuity of the cycles showed at times in accompanist Catherine Norton’s body language.

The first song, ‘Der Hidalgo’ was appropriately a love song sung by the baritone, posing as a swashbuckling young Spanish man; appropriate, because it was written on the day in 1840 when the court ruled that Robert could marry Clara Wieck, despite her father’s objections.  Daniel O’Connor sang it very expressively, in excellent German.  His voice was strong, with attractive tone.

I was a little surprised to see that the piano lid was on the long stick, given that the room is not large, and the floor is of polished wood.  However, despite finding it a little too loud in the first song, it did not bother me later – either I adapted, or the pianist did!  However, I did frequently find the singers too loud; they must adapt their volume for each venue in which they are singing.  I began to long for some pianissimo.

The Spanisches Liederspiel  Op. 74 is the first of Robert Schumann’s two song cycles based on Spanish folksongs, and, like the second (Spanisches Liebeslieder, Opus 138), it was drawn from a collection of German translations of Spanish poets by Emanuel Geibel.  Like the second cycle, it combines songs for solo voices with duets and quartets.  Both were written in 1849.  I was not familiar with any of these wonderful songs, and it was great to hear duets and other vocal ensembles, which we very seldom do.

The first cycle began with ‘First meeting’ (I give the titles in English.  The songs were sung in German; English translations were printed in the programme).  It was a lovely duet for the two women.   Their voices were well-matched, and their singing was always together, in impeccable German.  Appropriate, given the song was about a young man by a rosebush, there was a vase of flowers on a small table next to the singers’ seats.

Next was ‘Intermezzo’, a duet for the two men.  Their tone was attractive, and their vowels were beautifully matched, as they demanded the girl come, even through the deep river.

The women returned for a gorgeous duet: ‘Love-sorrow’.    Scores were used by all the singers, but it was a pity that most of the time, heads were buried in them; only Declan Cudd looked up at the audience more than just occasionally.  Next was a song that began as a solo by Imogen Thirlwall: ‘In the night’, and it was here that I began to find the singing a little to loud for the space.  The tenor joined in after being seated at first.  There were several items with this kind of, shall we say, choreography, which was very effective.

After a quartet, Imogen returned to sing ‘Melancholy’.  As throughout the recital with all the singers, the German language was clear and with excellent pronunciation.  Her projection and expression were both fine.  A melodious duet, ‘Message’ from the women followed, then ‘I am loved’ was a very jolly, sprightly offering from the quartet; a change from the character of most of the earlier songs.  Appealing harmony, some of it quite complex, had the singers nevertheless all absolutely spot-on together.

Two gypsy songs completed the set, both entitled ‘Little gypsy song’.  The first was from Daniel O’Connor, who sang very directly and strongly about how he was dragged from his dungeon, but fired the first shot himself.  Jess Segal followed with a quite different character, and a sad ending.  Throughout, Catherine Norton’s accompaniments were splendid.

The second cycle was lighter in tone, even amusing at times.  It began with a piano duet Prelude.  The two pianists proved to be good duettists (a genre I don’t always enjoy) – they were absolutely together, which is not always the case with two pianists accustomed to playing on their own.  All the songs were accompanied in this way, played with impeccable taste, dynamics and musicality.

Imogen Thirlwall gave a good rendition of ‘Deep within my heart’, in suitably doleful tones.  She was followed by the tenor ‘O how lovely the maiden is’, sung forcefully with excellent expression of the words, for example ‘Tell me, proud knight, you who walk in shining armour’ and ‘Tell me, shepherd lad, you who tend your flock… whether the meadows, or even the mountains could be as beautiful’.

The women sang ‘Cover me with flowers’.  The poem talks about death and the grave; surely some pianissimo would have been appropriate here?

‘Flood-rich Ebro’ (river) was sung by the baritone; one could hear the river bubbling by, in the accompaniment.  This was followed by a piano duet ‘Intermezzo’, which had a lively, bouncy character in the first part, then a quieter, more thoughtful last section.

Declan Cudd’s singing of ‘Alas, how angry the girl is!’ was delightful; he expressed the words in an innocent , piquant manner, which he conveyed well, by looking frequently at the audience.  ‘High, high are the mountains’ was Jess Segal’s next contribution, then the men sang ‘Blue eyes the girl has’ (though I prefer the translation ‘maiden’).  This slightly mocking song was sung with masterful timing.

Finally, there was a very effective quartet ‘Dark radiance’, that portrayed the opposing emotions of love, ‘peace and war within a single heart’.  It made a thematically appropriate end to the cycle, and the recital, which was pleasantly out-of-the-ordinary.

It was pleasing to have a programme printed in a large enough typeface to be read easily, and it was planned so that there was no need to turn pages during individual songs.  It would have been enhanced by a few programme notes.

 

And now for something different – another song recital at St.Andrew’s!

Posted on by Peter Mechen

St.Andrew’s Lunchtime Concert Series presents:
Song Recital : Megan Corby and Craig Beardsworth,
with Catherine Norton (piano)

Works by Grieg, Debussy, Brahms, Verdi,
Kurt Mechem, Paul Bowles, Kurt Weill and Larry Grossman

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

Wednesday, 26th April, 2016

Such is the range and scope of song as an art-form that daily programmes such as this beautifully-designed compilation might easily be put together without duplication for eons of time to come. Two of the items presented here could be said to have some kind of well-known currency – Edvard Grieg’s “Jeg elsker dig” (I love you), and Giuseppe Verdi’s duet “Dite alla Giovine” from the opera “La Traviata – the other items may have been familiar to aficionadoes, but seemed less well-known in general, though no less attractive and entertaining for all of that!

So, full marks to these musicians for giving us such an unhackneyed programme, whose content was here put across with the utmost conviction -though I thought their performance of the duet exerpt from “La Traviata” which concluded the presentation almost surprisingly inhibited, after what had gone before – for me the performance somehow lacked the sympathetic glow and sharpness of dramatic focus that I suspect a more theatrical context would have straightaway provided, but which I felt eluded them here.

The rest of the items, though, crackled with dramatic commitment – in fact, just occasionally too much so, as neither singer held back when emphasis and forcefulness was called for, causing some hardening and spreading of their tones at some of the climaxes. I enjoyed more the subtleties both singers brought to the quieter passages of their various songs, and the obvious enjoyment of both word-pointing and sequential phrasings evidenced by both in gesture and facial expression as well as in voice.

Remembering how condescendingly Debussy had put down Grieg’s music at some stage (“a pink bon-bon stuffed with snow”) I thought it revelatory to hear the music of these two composers cheek-by-jowl as it were, with neither having to “draw back” from one another with embarrassment in the other’s company – even if the latter’s name reverted to its Scottish origins as per programme on this occasion!

Craig Beardsworth floated his lines exquisitely at the beginning of Grieg’s “Ein Traum”, supported by beguilingly liquid phrasings from Catherine Norton’s piano, which were flecked most exquisitely with occasional impulses of light – some raw vocal production at the song’s climax didn’t spoil the music’s overall effect, as was also the case with Debussy’s Romance, the singer conveying to us the text’s “celestial sweetness” in the sensitivities of his word-pointing and the jewelled focus of his tones.

Though Megan Corby’s voice was apt to spread when put under pressure, she demonstrated a beguiling sensitivity during the introductory phrases of Grieg’s well-known “Jeg elsker Dig” (I love you), and again during some of the sex-soaked musings of Debussy’s “Le Jet d’Eau” during which the pianist’s colourings and insinuating phrasings couldn’t help but draw one into a kind of sensual trance. An even quieter ecstasy, I felt, from the singer, in places, would have further heightened the suggestiveness of the words and their setting – her pianist was consistently “showing her the way”, opening up the vistas to new and wider musical worlds.

Occasionally Craig Beardsworth’s softer, ultra-focused tones evoked a Gerard Souzay-like vocal quality, which the Brahms “Von ewiger Liebe” particularly brought out at the song’s beginning – the line, the ebb and flow of emotion, and the hint of vocal colouring gave one a lot of pleasure, even if, as the song’s more declamatory sections took over the tones became too harsh to fully enjoy.

I thought both singers revelled rather more in the programme’s more “upbeat” second half, beginning with the heartfelt “Dear Husband, come this fall” from Kirke Mechem’s 2008 opera “John Brown” – Megan Corby’s singing delved deeply into the aria’s world of desperate uxorial devotion, risking hardness of tone with her impassioned delivery, but getting the message across to us with considerable force. The “Blue Mountain Ballads” by Paul Bowles, required less force and more gentle lyricism, which enabled those qualities to come through in Corby’s performance of “Heavenly Grass”, while another song “Sugar in the Cane” responded to rougher, more earthy treatment well.

Craig Beardsworth gave us the other two Ballads from the set, affecting a droll mid-west accent for “Lonesome Man”, his laconic manner abetted by the piano part’s rag-time inclinations, and then relaxing into a more ballad-like style for “Cabin”, wry and nostalgic. Next was Kurt Weill’s “Lonely House” from his stage work “Street Scene”, also given an atmospheric, backward-musing air of decadent old-world charm, supported by a sultry, wryly sentimental piano.

Not so the brash, up-front “Where was I when they passed out luck?” aria from Larry Grossman’s “Minnie’s Boys, which was brilliantly acted out by Beardsworth – “experienced” as much as “sung”, I thought – the almost painfully-insistent tones at the end not inappropriate to the song. As I’ve said, the Verdi duet was, after these energetic outpourings, a bit of an anti-climax – I thought it needed, as I’ve said, more patiently-poised intensity from both the singers and from a strangely inert accompaniment – difficult, of course, to “catch”, away from the through-line of its stage-context.

Moments of delight, then, from all concerned, making for an entertaining and thought-provoking lunchtime sojourn.

Göknil Biner and Tom McGrath deliver delightful recital of Schubert, Schumann and Fauré songs, plus Scriabin piano piece

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Tom McGrath (piano) and Göknil Meryem Biner (soprano)

Songs by Schubert, Schumann and Fauré; piano music by Scriabin

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 1 March 2017, 12.15 pm

It was a pleasure to have out-of-town performers at the lunchtime concert; this married couple are from Dunedin, where Tom McGrath is on the staff of the University of Otago.

The programme consisted of some familiar Schubert and Schumann lieder and songs by Fauré, and others less familiar.  All the words were printed in translation, and the authors of the poems were given.

The first Schubert lied was An die Natur, written when the composer was still a teenager.  Simple musically, the song was nevertheless delightful, and given an appropriately artless performance.  It was followed by Geheimes, and then Das Rosenband (though these were printed in the translations in the wrong order).  The former was brighter than An die Natur, but also with simple melody, plus a rocking accompaniment.  It dates from 1821.  The latter was another charming love song, from 1817.

With Die Forelle we were into more familiar territory.  It is thought to have been composed in 1817 also.  The brook was indeed bright, and the darting fish therein made for a much livelier, swifter song and accompaniment.

Erster Verlust  was in a more doleful mood, describing the first love that was now over in the words of Goethe.  The song dates from 1821.  The performers brought out the sad mood very well.

The bracket was completed with the well-known Gretchen am Spinnrade, based on Goethe’s Faust.  With its agitated lines for the singer and the constant evocation of the movement and sounds of the spinning wheel in the piano accompaniment, it is an amazing composition for a 17-year-old.  The lovely quality of the singer’s voice was particularly notable in this song, and the variation of dynamics from both musicians.  Elsewhere, the slight edge to the voice was not always suitable to the songs.

We moved to a piano solo: Poème-Nocturne Op.61, by  Alexander Scriabin.  This ‘dreamy and elusive masterpiece’ (as the programme notes described it) was played without the score.  There were many colours in the piece, giving it an impressionistic flavour.  It was well played, but I have to confess the composer’s music does not appeal to me.

Then came Schumann lieder, several concerning flowers; firstly, his well-known Widmung, with words by Friedrich Rückert.  Here, the drama of the accompaniment was well exposed.  The familiar song was done full justice by the musicians.   However, I do object to the translation using the word ‘Oh’, as in ‘Oh you are my pain’.  The ‘O’ of invocation is not to be confused with the mild exclamation ‘Oh’.  This misuse occurred again in the translation of Fauré’s Nell.  Impassioned lovers do not say ‘oh’ to the objects of their affection.

Heinrich Heine’s Die Lotusblume received a gentle setting from the composer.  Biner used the words beautifully in her performance.  Jasminenstrauch and the longer Märzvellchen were both charmingly sung; the piano accompaniments were impeccable.

Now for a complete change of style: Fauré’s settings of poet Paul Verlaine and others. Fauré’s music so appropriately sets Verlaine’s poetry.  The aim of the Symbolist poets was ‘to evoke moods and feelings through the magic of words and repeated sounds and the cadence of verse (musicality) and metrical innovation’ according to Wikipedia; poetry so different from that set by Schubert and Schumann.  Still romantic, but in quite a different style. The performances of Mandoline, Green, C’est l’extase langoureuse, Nell and Notre Amour were enchanting.  These were brilliant songs for both singer and accompanist.

I trust it is not demeaning to suggest that it is significant that McGrath teaches at Otago University, where resides the incomparable accompanist Terence Dennis.