Tag: song recital

A feast of Shakespeare with Megan Corby (soprano) and Craig Beardsworth (baritone), who trade as ‘Voxbox’, with Catherine Norton (piano)

Old Saint Paul’s

Tuesday 19 June, 12.15pm

Here was a splendid recital by two polished and practised singers, grasping a theme that lends itself to a varied programme. Well, varied if I ignore the fact that the only non-English settings were by Strauss.

The songs were shared, roughly, alternately between the two, starting with Megan singing two early settings (except that the first, said to be anonymous 16th century, overlooked the fact that Othello, from which the Willow Song came, wasn’t written till about 1604).

However, Megan began as she would continue, singing without the score in front of her, in a bright, attractive voice, well articulated, with clear diction.

Two settings of several songs were offered. Craig’s first was ‘Orpheus with his Lute’ from Henry VIII (one of the last plays believed to be a collaboration with John Fletcher), set by Arthur Sullivan. His high opening note emerged in a remarkable falsetto, beautifully controlled, that increased in volume, and continued in phrases that demonstrated impressive discipline over tone colours and dynamics.

The same words reappeared later from Megan in a setting by American composer William Schuman, neither especially memorable nor unmelodious, but given a thoughtful performance.

‘Blow, blow, thou winter wind’ from As you like it also appeared in two settings: Thomas Arne’s of 1740 from Megan and Roger Quilter’s of around 1922 from Craig, an open-voice alternating with more conversational tones, ending with striking dramatic notes.

From the same composer came the setting of ‘Take, o take those lily lips’ from Measure for Measure (perhaps more famous among music-lovers as the play Wagner’s early Das Liebesverbot was based on); and again Craig’s velvety voice found a fruitful role in it.

Megan sang the deeply moving dirge, ‘Fear no more the heat of the sun’ from Cymbeline, composed by Ian Higginson (to me unknown, though the Internet tells me he was born in Merseyside and works around the Midlands) , in tones that reflected the emotion, though the quite elegant setting didn’t, for me, match the power of the words (the greatest, best-known poetry is the hardest to set to music, for nothing can improve on the way the poet himself has used the rhythms and sounds of words to convey the intellectual and emotional force of beautiful poetry, which is why, many believe, Schubert set so many poems by poets of the second rank).

However, Gerald Finzi’s setting of that poem does approach it more nearly, and it appeared in the group of Finzi songs that Craig sang later. That group was a highlight of the recital, and that, probably the most striking performance, with the slow rise and fall of dynamics, and the piano’s contribution that somehow evoked the presence of death. And it must be recorded that Catherine Norton’s playing was far more than simply appropriate, sensitive and supportive.

Twelfth Night also yields some of the most poignant lyrics such as the concluding ‘When that I was a little, tiny boy’, ‘O Mistress mine’ and ‘Come away death’. The latter two, as well as ‘Who is Sylvia’ from Two gentlemen of Verona and ‘It was a lover and his lass’ from As you like it, were also in the beautiful Finzi group.

The latter song, from Megan, also appeared in a setting by Frederic Austin, a singer/organist/composer of the early 20th century.

It leaves the penultimate group, sung by Megan: Strauss’s Three songs of Ophelia (from Op 67) from Act IV, scene 5 of Hamlet, in which he conveys the girl’s growing madness, in tones that found acute expression of the unhinged mind.

She sang them most persuasively, from memory, in excellent German: ‘How should I your true love know’, ‘Tomorrow is Saint Valentine’s Day’, and ‘They bore him barefaced on the bier’.

[And as I load this about 1.45pm, I listen to RNZ Concert broadcasting Patricia Wright, accompanied by Rosemary Barnes, singing these very songs, beautifully, though perhaps with not quite the degree of mental disorder that Corby brought to them].

The concert ended with the duet, ‘Sigh no more, ladies’ from Much ado about nothing (this one the basis of Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict) by one Sally Albrecht (born in Ohio in 1954), in jolly, galloping 3/8 rhythm, befitting the servant Balthazar’s ditty that Benedict at once ridicules. The pair, inauthentically perhaps, but most agreeably, brought things to an end with a droll note of cheerful cynicism.

It was interesting to observe that hardly any of the plays that opera composers have drawn on were among these, mainly the comedies, that song composers are attracted to. So we got no Bellini, Thomas, Gounod, Verdi, Britten…

American songs by Copland, Barber, Ives, and William Schuman, Richard Hundley, Paul Bowles, Richard Hageman and Jason Robert Brown

Craig Beardsworth (baritone) and Megan Corby (soprano); Hugh McMillan (piano)

St Mark’s church, Lower Hutt

Wednesday 14 September, 12.15pm

It’s a few years since I heard either of these singers in a solo recital of any kind. This lunchtime concert was such an enterprising and attractive event that I felt real regret that the audience was so small, though not very different from the audiences that usually come. The real sadness is the failure of the Lower Hutt City Council to save the Laing’s Road Methodist Church where these concerts used to be held, usually attracting more people.

Introducing the concert, Craig Beardsworth sort-of apologized to those who might have expected a recital of American music to present names like Porter, Rodgers, Kern and Gershwin. But unapologetically, he made it clear that some sort of distinction was to be seen between American ‘songs’ and commercial Broadway music, just as there is between Schubert and Schumann, and the world of the West End musical and the Beatles.

By no means undervaluing the lighter varieties of music, I thought the two proved their case very well.

They took turns, generally singing songs that matched the sexes. They were well prepared, their presentations polished and accompanied by gestures that did much to bring the mini-dramas to life, as well as to entertain. Speaking of accompaniment, Hugh McMillan handled the wide variety of styles, from the country rhythms of Paul Bowles’s Lonesome Man to the complexities of Charles Ives, with skill and a distinguished facility with the style and character of each.

American accents were employed judiciously, hardly audible in many songs, but full-blown elsewhere, as in Beardsworth’s arresting performances of ‘The Dodger’, ‘Lonesome Man’ and ‘The Greatest Man’.

Megan Corby opened with an aria, ‘Laurie’s song’, from Copland’s opera The Tender Land, easing us into American song through a work with clear European sources, yet flavoured with Jerome Kern and Irving Berlin. Richard Hundley was a name new to me; his two songs, ‘Sweet Suffolk Owl’ and ‘Come ready and see me’ revealed a composer, thanks to Corby, with an ear for notes that were just right for the words. Her Barber songs – ‘The Monk and his cat’ and ‘The Crucifixion’ – presented a composer less committed to a popular style, more in tune with the art song of France or England, yet with American contours. She sang them with real polish.

I realised from what was said about Paul Bowles that my education had been neglected (most of his life he acted as a sort of one-man American cultural out-post in Tangier by the sound of it), and the four songs, evenly shared by the two singers, richly tuneful, not the least hackneyed or sentimental, were among the most enjoyable of the concert. In ‘Sugar in the cane’ Megan, southern twang and all, showed her impatience with the constraints of her condition; while in ‘Do not go, my love’ by Richard Hageman, her anguish at her looming loss was real. Her final song, the 1996 setting by Jason Robert Brown of ‘The Flagmaker’, touching a War of Independence tragedy, was both poignant and dramatic.

Craig’s share of the partnership began strikingly with two of Copland’s familiar folk song arrangements: ‘The Dodger’ and ‘At the River’ – the first satirical and mocking, a bit outrageous, the second rotundly pious, also mocking. Perhaps his biggest challenge was with the three Ives songs, with which he used his interesting voice to great effect. The studied way he put down the score, to start in a quasi-lecturing way, to narrate his tale of ‘The Greatest Man’  was the mark of a highly accomplished performer; there and in ‘The Circus Band’, the voice and the droll, evocative gestures seem to call for him to have much more exposure.

It was a admirable recital that deserves to be enjoyed in other parts of the metropolis.

Janet van Polanen, Hannah Catrin Jones and Lydia McDonnell –
sopranos

Love Songs: traditional and popular, and opera arias

Old St Paul’s, Mulgrave Street

Tuesday 19 July 12.15pm

Three sopranos whose taste and dispositions span the song repertoire from classical through the musical and film hits to old-fashioned ballads and folk songs took their turn at Old St Paul’s regular Tuesday lunchtime concerts.

The early part of the concert included a few opera arias.
None of the three singers would lay claim to polished operatic voices that would meet the expectations of the professional world of opera, though all have studied professionally, but they were nicely placed in a concert of this kind.

Lydia McDonnell sang Cherubino’s aria, ‘Voi che sapete’ from The Marriage of Figaro, charming, though it might not quite have caught the tone of that randy adolescent boy; later she sang most agreeably, Schubert’s Serenade (from his final song cycle, Swan Song).

Hannah Catrin Jones also sang a Mozart aria, Zerlina’s comforting song to Masetto, ‘Vedrai carino’, from Don Giovanni, offering him balm for the injuries the Don has inflicted, with a degree of the coy suggestiveness that the words make plain. Hannah’s second aria was from La Bohème – Musetta’s ‘Waltz Song’ – ‘Quando me’n vo’ which she sang nicely though she took it rather slowly and it was arch rather than simply flighty and self-admiring.

Janet van Polanen’s classical song was the evergreen 18th century aria, ‘Se tu m’ami’ by Alessandro Parisotti (which was one of the many pieces published under the more famous name Giovanni Pergolesi). Though her brief précis of the song was delivered too quietly for most of the audience to hear (the church’s acoustic is not generous for most speaking voices) she caught its sentiment very well.

Janet had opened the recital with a song that was more the predominant style – a charming and still popular song ‘Where do I begin?’, from a classic film of its kind – Love Story – with its soundtrack composed by Francis Lai: it was slightly uneasy, as an opening piece often is, but idiomatic. Later, Janet sang other songs in similar vein: ‘Out of my dreams’ from Oklahoma and Max Steiner’s ‘My own true love’ that became and remains a favourite after appearing in Gone with the Wind.

Hannah Catrin Jones opened her own contributions with Vaughan Williams’s setting of D G Rossetti’s ‘Silent Noon’ from his song cycle The House of Life. She at once displayed an attractive voice, confidently, though the acoustic again made her words a bit indistinct and a mishap with a page of music would have unsettled her.

In a charming, unaffected way Hannah sang At Dawning (‘I love you’), a song by Charles Cadman that became famous in the 1920s; Cadman’s early reputation derived from his interest in and promotion of American Indian music. And later, reflecting her Welsh ancestry, Hannah sang Joseph Parry’s ‘Myfanwy’, with her father Conrad McDonnell accompanying on the guitar: well done. All the other songs were sympathetically accompanied by David Trott at the piano.

After her Mozart and Schubert songs Lydia McDonnell’s later songs included Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Love changes everything’, the best known number from his musical Aspects of Love, a sort of narrative song that she handled rather nicely. And then unaccompanied she sang with touching conviction her last solo – the traditional Irish song ‘My Lagan Love’ dating from the time of harsh English repression.

Together, the three gave the audience an agreeable, rather different experience, with the three voices blending interestingly: ‘Love can build a bridge’, a somewhat sentimental country ballad that had its hour of fame in the early 90s; then ‘Cockles and Mussels’ and finally ‘Pokarekare Ana’, which brought a well-planned and charmingly executed recital to an appropriate end.

Liederabend: A recital of Schubert, Wolf and Strauss

Margaret Medlyn and Richard Greager, accompanied by Bruce Greenfield

Hunter Council Chamber, Victoria University

Thursday, 23 June 2011, 7.30pm

An enthusiastic and appreciative, though not large, audience greeted these three very experienced and accomplished musicians.  It was a treat to have a substantial lieder recital like this – and only a day after senior students of the New Zealand School of Music performed lieder at St. Andrew’s on The Terrace.

The programme began with Richard Greager and Bruce Greenfield performing six of Schubert’s songs: some well-known, such as the opening An Sylvia and others less familiar.

In the carpeted Hunter Council Chamber, and with such experienced performers, the piano could be played with the lid on the long stick, in contrast to the different situation at St. Andrew’s on The
Terrace the previous day.

Greager sang An Sylvia apparently effortlessly, in most a musical performance, though perhaps lacking a little subtlety in this German translation of Shakespeare’s incomparable words.

The next song, Lied eines Schiffers an die Dioskuren (Boatman’s song to the Dioscuri) featured the lovely darker colours of Richard Greager’s lower notes, while Greenfield brought out much in the marvellous accompaniment.  It was interesting that this and three others of the six songs featured water, a point of comment in regarding the Schubert , the previous day.

Im Frühling sounded a little prosaic – as if the singer had seen many springs.  In contrast, I found latter part of the performance a little too operatic at times for an innocent song such as this.  Nevertheless, Greager demonstrated amply how to use words as part of the musical expression, yet not interfere with the flow of the music.

Fischerweise (Fisherman’s ditty) had both performers (Greager and Greenfield) giving a thorough exposition of the words, as set by Schubert, of another watery song – in subject, not in presentation.

Auf Der Bruck (At Bruck), being about a ride on a horse, naturally had the clip-clop of horses’ hooves in the accompaniment.  It was a strong and vigorous interpretation of this demanding song, from both musicians, who reached a considerable volume, compared with some of the more contemplative songs, such as the final Schubert one, Der Jüngling an der Quelle (The youth by the spring).  This was a real contrast.  Although the tenor’s voice is perhaps not what it was, the song was performed with real artistry.  The accompaniment, as elsewhere, was very descriptive and quite beautiful, though apparently simple.

After the break we moved to Hugo Wolf’s settings of Eduard Mörike’s poems.  Wolf was far from being the only composer to set his perceptive and sensitive poetry. The music entailed a considerable change of character from that of Schubert.  Expressiveness poured from every syllable of Margaret Medlyn’s performance of Der Genesene an die Hoffunung (A convalescent’s address to hope). The clarity of the piano part was particularly notable.  Medlyn employs more facial expression and gesture than does Greager, and it seemed to me that this did not suit the songs well, nor did these songs suit her as well as did the later Strauss lieder. Richard Greager sang the following
Auf eine Wanderung (On a walk) with great liveliness.  The modulations in the piano part were largely responsible for making this a very varied song.  It was a wonderful, accompaniment,
walking quickly along with the singer; both introduced a variety of different colours.

The words of Gesang Weylas (Weyla’s song) spoke of radiance. Medlyn’s voice summoned that radiance as much as the arpeggio accompaniment did. Greager sang Der Tambour (The drummer boy); a highly wrought song that made me wonder if Wolf did not rather over-modulate, creating a fevered effect.  Greager sang the words so meaningfully that the audience was drawn in – a sign perhaps of his long experience as an opera singer.  He continued with Gebet (Prayer), which created a wonderful atmosphere through its solemnity, stillness, and four-part harmonies.

Margaret Medlyn returned with An den Schlaf (To sleep), in which the accompaniment pointed up the ambiguity of the words about sleep, dying and living.  She followed this with Elfenlied (Elf song), which featured rapid elfin-like steps in the piano part, requiring a lot of rapid finger-work.  Medlyn made the humour of the song very clear: the elf’s foolish mistakes because he had not had enough sleep.

Richard Greager’s Neue liebe (New love) in its contemplation of a relationship with God, I found rather too loud in the relatively small auditorium.

A very dramatic presentation by Margaret Medlyn of Erstes Liebeslied eines Mädchens (A girl’s first love song) seemed rather too biting for a first love song; I thought it should have been rather more innocent.  Granted, it had a startling accompaniment. Questioning innocence in both the
accompaniment and in Richard Greager’s eyes featured in Peregrina I, while in Peregrina II, there was the same questing figure in the dreamy accompaniment.  The singer used his breath as an expressive device to good effect.

The final song, Im Frühling (In the Spring) had an interesting piano part, easily as important as the voice’s music.  Medlyn was in great vocal form, the subtlety of her singing matching the
subtlety of the words and music.

Now for something completely different: Richard Strauss songs, all sung by Margaret Medlyn.  As her programme note pointed out, the piano parts seemed to be ‘conceived with an orchestral palette in mind.’  Who better than Bruce Greenfield, accustomed over many years to playing orchestral reductions of operas, to be the accompanist? Befreit (Release) had the singer carry the lines forward most beautifully.  The third verse, about being freed from sorrow at the death of the spouse, was very emotional, and very well sung.  The next was a more straightforward song: Gefunden (Found).  Like the other Strauss songs, this suited Medlyn.  This one gave lovely opportunity for her to journey through her vocal range.

In Blindenklage (Blind man’s lament) a dramatic song, I found Medlyn’s acting out the drama with gesture a little hard to watch; I would have preferred less gesture.  Greenfield displayed masterful playing of these difficult Strauss scores.

Mit deinen blauen Augen (With your blue eyes) was sung quite beautifully, and was a welcome pause between the two highly dramatic and fervent songs around it.  It was much simpler melodically and in the piano part, but quite delightful.  As elsewhere, Medlyn sang with emotional generosity.

Finally, we had Frühlinsfeier (Spring celebration).   The conflicting emotions portrayed were emphasised with switches between major and minor tonalities.  This made for complicated music, and operatic-style anguish.  The final sensational lines on the death of Adonis was an appropriate point of finality at which to end the recital.

This was a beautifully put-together programme of contrasting composers’ settings of fine poetry.  The singers used the printed scores for the most part.  But this in no way inhibited their fine performances.  The printed programmes contained translations of all the songs – and it was good to see the translators credited as well as the poets. 

The singers had also provided interesting notes about each of the three composers and their songs.  Illustrations comprised portraits of the three composers, and two apt paintings by Caspar Friedrich (1774-1840).  The recital represented  a tour de force on the part of accompanist par excellence, Bruce Greenfield.

Schumann: Frauenliebe und -leben
Duparc: L’Invitation au voyage, Chanson
Triste Tosti: Quattro Canzoni d’Amaranta
John Carter: Cantata

Aivale Cole, soprano, Sharolyn Kimmorley, piano

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Saturday, 12 March 2011, 7.30pm

It was delightful to hear Aivale Cole singing lieder and other songs, but it was a great pity that so few thought so. Insufficient advertising may be partly to blame, since I have discovered that several people I thought would be interested in these artists and the programme were unaware of the performance. Certainly the Schumann song cycle was heard recently, sung by Joanna Heslop, at the National Portrait Gallery, but such a wonderful sequence of songs is worth hearing again, especially when sung by a singer with such a different style of voice.

I regretted the advertised Debussy and Hahn songs were no longer on the programme. Duparc was certainly an ample substitute.

One of the great things about this recital was that there were brief programme notes, and all the words were printed (including the words of a verse in the sixth song that Schumann did not set – he may have felt too embarrassed to set words about pregnancy that translate as ‘About the signs I have already asked Mother; my good mother has told me everything… she has assured me that by all appearances, soon a cradle will be needed.’)

Again, we had a superb accompanist who produced no clatter from the St. Andrew’s platform floor.

Aivale Cole’s voice and presentation were warm and lovely, with beautiful nuances. Early on, breathing was a little noisy at times, but this was overcome. She produced an exemplary precision with words, and lots of expression, but neither detracted from the flow or the tone. Consonants fitted in their place, but were never over-emphasised. She was never too hurried; always the words and mood came across without fuss. Cole used the scores for most of the music, except the Carter, but was never tied to them.

The performers were thoroughly rhythmic; the rhythm was not too strict, but always illuminated Schumann’s gorgeous music and the poet’s romantic words.

The beautiful piano postlude to the work was played in a restrained manner, more quietly than usual, portraying perhaps the resignation of the protagonist following the death of her husband – conveying the final words ‘I withdraw silently into myself, the veil falls, there I have thee and my lost happiness, O thou my world!’

It was a delight to hear two of Duparc’s incomparable songs. These were beautifully sung, but not quite as expressively as I have heard them. In the first, ‘L’invitation au voyage’ there was not the sense of delighted surprise that is represented in the words. Cole’s French pronunciation was as good as her German.

In the languorous ‘Chanson Triste’, the singer caressed the sensuous words beautifully (though ‘genoux’ did not come out quite right). I could happily have listened to more Duparc, or Fauré, or Debussy, but we turned now to Italian, and Tosti.

The four songs were new to me. Aivale Cole’s thrilling tone and delivery made them very effective, if sentimental. I found the postlude to the songs a little over-pedalled, especially through the rests, for my taste, as indeed was the Schumann postlude. Sharolyn Kimmorley is a very still pianist, and turns all the pages herself.

John Carter’s cantata brings together four Negro spirituals: “Peter, Go ring o’ dem bells”, “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child”, “Let us break bread together”, “Ride on King Jesus”. These settings were very lively, and set in different ways. The first was imaginative, but contained a lot of repetition. There was a magical sustained top note. The second was set, and sung, with much feeling, while the fourth was very jazzy with a very fast and complicated accompaniment. It made for a dramatic ending to the recital, in English, the fourth language to be used.

The range of the programme was good, and the execution superb.

My friend and I left the church well satisfied. What was our surprise to hear someone calling ‘Excuse me!’, and to find running after us along the footpath Aivale Cole (in mufti now), who thanked us for attending, and said she wanted to speak to everyone! She told us that she is off to London next month. We wished her the very best for this venture, and hope that she will get the opportunities she so richly deserves in what is now a difficult economic environment, with opera houses closing, contracts not being fulfilled, and fees dropping rather than increasing.

Go well, Aivale!