Tag: St Andrew’s lunchtime concert

Politically coloured vocal contest settles the score between baritones and bass-baritones

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s lunchtime concert
The First Annual Battle for the Barithrone, presented by S-Crew

Contestants: James Henare and Joe Haddow (bass-baritones) and Will King and William McElwee (baritones)
Heather Easting (piano)

Songs and arias by: Jerome Kern, trad., Sullivan, Sondheim, Cilea, Verdi and Mozart

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 16 November, 12:15 pm

Both Rosemary Collier and I found ourselves at what turned out to be an unexpectedly amusing recital. We were both held up by late trains and non-functioning lifts and so missed whatever introductory remarks might have illuminated the nature of the ‘contest’. So disadvantaged, we decided to pool our impressions in the hope of making some sense of the unusual scenario that was being enacted.

However, the four biographical notes gave some clues about the issues dominating it.

Former tenor William McElwee was attempting to defeat ruling baritone title-holder Will King while bass-baritones Jamie Henare and Joe Haddow were competing as master and pupil.

An uncredited Simon Christie (disguised as ‘S-Crew’) acted as commentator and, on occasion, referee and conciliator in the vicious struggles for ascendancy.

The only candidate properly dressed for the occasion was McElwee – black tie in the noon-day sun (and rain). Others trusted to their talents, best described as ‘barihunkishness’.

There were four rounds: Spirituals, Alliances, Comic Duets and Arias

Will and William sang, competitively, though equally committed, ‘Old man river’, demonstrating the challenging nature of McElwee’s elevation (or descent) from tenor to baritone.

Another river ruled the two bass-baritones, as Joe Haddow and Jamie Henare dreamed of freedom across the ‘Deep River’; the latter singer displayed some evidence of miscasting – is he in fact a bass?

Three of the contestants entered into an obscure G&S triple-alliance, ‘With wily brain’, for the two baritones and a solitary bass-baritone – Haddow. The words might have been a travesty of the text in Utopia Limited: the penultimate collaboration between increasingly antagonistic librettist and composer. It’s a pretty odd subject for an opera of any kind – a satire on the recent enactment of a law creating the limited liability company – the triumph of free-market capitalism and laissez-faire.

Sullivan featured again in the Comic Duets class, with ‘Kind Captain’ from HMS Pinafore engaging the two bass-baritones. It might have been a role for the confused by-stander to award the laurel.

Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods provided the arena for the contest between baritones William and Will in ‘Agony reprise’; the voices blended excellently well, not, presumably, what the venomous contestants intended.

In the Arias round William McElwee explored obscure opera again with an aria from Cilea’s ‘other opera’, not Adriana Lecouvreur, but L’arlesiana’ (the opera version of the Daudet play that Bizet wrote wonderful music for). The black tie was clearly designed to sway the judges, though his fine voice might have been enough, in spite of its tenorial traces. Was his rendition perhaps a little too loud for the fine acoustic of St Andrew’s? However, his high notes and phrasing were exemplary.

Jamie Henare remained with Italian in ‘Il lacerate spirto’ from Simon Boccanegra, the great opera that the Festival bravely mounted in 2000, with a splendid Vladimir Vaneev singing Henare’s vengeful role of Fiesco. A promising Verdian here, especially with an attractive voice of such natural bass character. His words were well articulated and he brought emotional colour to his voice; his deeper notes were thrilling.

Baritone Will King, now vying for the crown as King Will, accepted here the lesser nobility of Mozart’s Count, determined to beat Figaro in a final round to get the first go, as it were, at Susanna. Will’s voice carried the steel though his demeanour could have expressed greater determination. His singing and his Italian were outstanding, especially considering the fast tempo.

And then Joe Haddow, again in Mozart, with a great robust voice, leafs through Leporello’s Catalogue, allowing his voice to dim slightly, with fine natural acting. He used his resonant voice dramatically in an accomplished manner with plenty of light and shade; a fine Leporello!

Unscheduled, all then sang the ‘Song of the Volga Boatmen’, in Russian, heavy in Jamie’s splendid bass solo but with lighter colours from the higher baritone registers of Will and William.

But remember, this is a contest, like the one across the Pacific a week ago. Referee Christie was on the phone to the invisible judges and announced the election (er… singing contest) result, generally approved, but a few seconds later another call came in, overturning the popular vote and confirming a shocking upset result from the Singing Electoral College: William McElwee the winner, Jamie second, and Joe and Will 3rd equal: Chaos!!!

Regardless of result, we were delighted hear four fine voices, all different. Heather Easting’s accompaniments were classy and conspicuously supportive.

Mostly German folk songs: droll, dark, disassociative duets from Linden Loader and Roger Wilson

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Linden Loader (mezzo soprano), Roger Wilson (baritone) and Julie Coulson (piano)

Solos and duets by Brahms, Mahler, Farquhar and Elgar

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 2 November, 12:15 pm

The advertised programme was slightly modified in the absence of Lesley Graham. It was called A Concert of Conversations: some lovers, others indifferent, contemptuous or hostile. Perhaps the Brahms folk-song settings were much the same as originally planned but the inclusion of five of songs from Mahler’s cycle drawn from the huge folk song collection, Des Knaben Wunderhorn was a response to the change from three to two singers.

Brahms’s setting of folk songs, Deutsche Volkslieder, were collected as a work without Opus number, WoO 33 – there are 49 of them – published a couple of years before his death. Both his, taken from a collection published in 1840, and Mahler’s from Wunderhorn, published around 1810, undoubtedly included songs that were invented or embellished by the collectors. In both cases the songs are transformed from simple popular tunes into works of art.

Brahms: Deutsche Volkslieder
Roger Wilson opened with ‘Mein Mädel hat einen Rosenmund’ for him alone. His voice is in great shape and his gift for droll, laconic hints that sometimes distanced the singer from the song, sometimes involved him completely. It will probably embarrass him to confess that there were moments when I could hear Matthias Goerne.

The next five were duets, or at least taken by the two voices. Some are deliciously naughty, like the song in the Kölsch dialect, ‘We kumm ich dann de Poots eren? (Kölsch is a dialect found among many inhabitants of Köln {Cologne} and surrounding Rhenish areas). As the girl finally advises her lover to take his shoes off as he makes his way to her bedroom, Roger does just that. And the tone of the song and its performance tells us the rest.

Some of the songs reflected more conventional notions of fidelity and chastity like ‘Feinsliebchen, du sollst mir nicht barfuss geh’n’, which, though also involving bare feet, ends with lover taking a golden ring from his pocket.

‘Ach, englische Schäferin, erhöre mein’ Bitt’ had me wondering how Germans manage the different meanings of ‘englisch’ (‘angelic’, and the people who derived from the region on today’s German North Sea coast who were 8th century migrants in England). Anyway, endlessly melodic, it passed from one singer to the other in the most charming way.

The next song entitled ‘Schwesterlein’ brought a melodic interference from the lovely aria from Die Fledermaus – ‘Brüderlein, Schwesterlein’ (I have a shameful weakness for J Strauss II’s masterpiece). The Brahms setting, ‘Schwesterlein, Schwesterlein, wann gehn wir nach Haus?’, however, is a strange little song with a black ending, emotionally obscure.

‘Da unten im Tale’ is another enigmatic tale of the ending of love whose gentle swaying ¾ rhythm rather belies the sense that the singers captured as they might.

Finally, there was Linden Loader’s solo opportunity, with ‘In stille Nacht’, one of the more familiar songs in which her voice, true and unostentatious, was an attractive fit.

The set was a chance to hear songs that tend not to be much sung; it’s a conclusion one can draw these days, seeing that no performances have found their way on to YouTube. Yet the songs presented here and my recollections of occasionally hearing others in Brahms’s arrangements have generally delighted me at least as much as his original compositions do.

Mahler: Des Knaben Wunderhorn
Mahler’s handling of an earlier collection of German folk poetry, Des Knaben Wunderhorn, alongside Brahms’s, demonstrate their kinship, not just in treasuring the folk song tradition, but in the humour and perceptiveness of the naïve element in the ‘non-artistic’ style common to both composers. Though all five songs are from Arnim and Brentano’s famous collection, two of songs, ‘Aus! Aus!’ (‘Heute marschieren wir’) and ‘Starke Einbildungskraft’, are in another of Mahler’s song collections, Lieder und Gesänge, though the poems themselves also came from Des Knaben Wunderhorn.

‘Aus! Aus!’ of course carries nasty associations with a latter-day version: ‘Raus! Raus!’, and indeed it’s an abrupt order that she get out; that he is going off with the army and will not be coming back. Wilson did the heartless bit very well. The other song from the same collection, ‘Starke Einbildungskraft’, features another arrogant Knabe: she has expected marriage but he simply announces that she belongs to him already, as in “what’s the problem?”.

The other three are from the collection that Mahler attributed directly to Des Knaben Wunderhorn. ‘Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt’ uses the fish as symbol of mankind which pays no attention to preaching. It’s quite strongly characterised, treating the matter with serious flippancy in disrespectful Ländler rhythm.  ‘Verlor’ne Müh’ (meaning something like ‘Love’s labours lost’, I guess) is another rough male response to feminine love and Wilson handles his friend somewhat contemptuously.

Finally, the folk poet and Mahler find a touch of gentleness in the yet worrisome ‘Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen’, a fine song, sung entirely by Loader, in which the young man is off to the wars amid dark presentiments expressed in a military march by the piano. And I must remark on the ever-faithful accompaniment by Julie Coulson that offered sensitive and vivid comment, colour, narrative embellishment for every song.

In English
The tone was not altogether changed by leaving German in favour of English as Wilson sang David Farquhar’s setting of Lord Randal, the much-composed border ballad, for here too the voice takes on a bleak, ironic note that reflected the enigmatic tale.

The last note was left to Linden Loader, in one of Elgar’s cycle, Sea Pictures, ‘Where corals lie’, in which we could leave the threatening darkness that seemed to dominate both German and Scot, for the pretty and sentimental settings. However, it was a lovely vehicle for the indelible ease of Loader’s voice.

 

 

Maaike Christie-Beekman with Rachel Thomson in admirable song recital

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Wednesday Lunchtime Concerts

Maaike Christie-Beekman (mezzo-soprano) and Rachel Thomson (piano)

Debussy: Trois Chansons de Bilitis
Samuel Barber: Hermit Songs
Poulenc: Banalités

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 31 August 2016, 12.15pm

A recital entirely of song-cycles is perhaps a little unusual, but it made for a very satisfying concert.  Maaike Christie-Beekman introduced each in a lively and informative way, giving a summary of the words of each song.  Even though she was not using a microphone, most of what she said could be heard clearly.

The Debussy cycle used poems by Pierre Louÿs, which the latter claimed were translations of the Greek, but were in fact his own work, based on Greek styles and in some cases, sources.  The first, ‘La flûte de Pan’, was dreamy in character, with the enchanting flute written into both voice and piano parts in unmistakable French style.  It was a gorgeous song, sung by a gorgeous voice, with its very expressive, beautifully controlled range of dynamics.  ‘La Chevelure’ (head of hair), the second song, was livelier, with the French language pronounced with clarity.

The third, ‘Le tombeau des Naiades’ became quite excited, but ended in a quiet, contemplative mood.  The piano was always sympathetic and eloquent.

The performers turned next to the English language and Samuel Barber.  The poems were translations of Irish poems written from the 8th to the 13th centuries, and translated by W.H. Auden and others.  Most had religious themes, starting with a spiky ‘At Saint Patrick’s Purgatory’.  Here again, in English, Christie-Beekman’s words were for the most part very clear.  ‘Church Bell at Night’ was much more mellow, like the bell.  ‘St. Ita’s Vision’ followed.  I had never heard of this Irish saint, but apparently she lived a virginal life in the fifth century.  The song began in declamatory fashion, and then flowed into euphoria.

By contrast, ‘A Heavenly Banquet’ sounded like a very a jolly party. ‘The Crucifixion’ focused on the drama and pain, expressing grief.  ‘Sea-Snatch’ was fast and furious, like the action of a stormy sea, while the brief ‘Promiscuity’ was angular, questioning whether someone was sleeping alone.  ‘The Monk and his Cat’ contained delightful meows and other feline features, particularly in the lovely frisky accompaniment.  ‘The Praises of God’ was also short – and powerful.  Finally, ‘The Desire for Hermitage’ was solemn and flowing.  The sustained notes were beautiful.  All were characterised, and sung with appropriate feeling and clarity.

Banalités is Poulenc’s setting of poems by Guillaume Apollinaire (real name Wilhelm Albert Vladimir Apollinaris Kostrowitzky); this was the last in the tri-cycle.  Its opening number was ‘Chanson d’Orkenise’.  Not the Orkney Islands, but a village in France.  It was a fast, spirited song in a set all about love and heartbreak (but banal?).  The second , ‘Hôtel’, was more thoughtful, with a lazy mood.  The poem was about a young man who just wanted to stay in his room and smoke.  ‘Fagnes de Wallonie’ concerned a wander through the woods in Wallonie in Belgium – but sounded more like a quick trot.

‘Voyage à Paris’ was described by Christie-Beekman as ‘Carmenesque’.  It began with decisive chords from the piano, and the words confidently described ‘gay Paree’.  Finally, ‘Sanglots’ (sobs).  It was quieter and more introspective, but developed dramatically, having a sublime ending.

The singer conveyed lovely tone throughout a wide tessitura.  All the songs were sung in a thoroughly accomplished and comfortable manner.  Moreover, Christie-Beekman gave a lesson in fine presentation.

 

Cellist Rebecca Turner with intriguing and entertaining music on carbon-fibre cello

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s Lunchtime concert

Rebecca Turner (cello) with help from electronic tape

Music by Christopher William Pearce, Carl Vine and Pêteris Vasks

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 3 August, 12:15 pm

There are certain benefits in forming habits, and the weekly lunchtime concerts at St Andrew’s are among the less sinful of what I’m prepared to confess to. Well, there was the weather. But I was there and though we (Middle C Incorporated) had not assigned the reviewing to anyone, Rebecca Turner’s performance of a totally unknown composer soon had me reaching for pen and notebook.

It was by a composer friend of the cellist, 42-year-old American, Christopher William Pearce, and involved things that I often find pretentious, alienating, uncalled for, even disguising a lack of ideas. Sometimes the involvement of electronics or wacky instruments are a turn-off, but by setting aside prejudice, one can be surprised and delighted.

The first adventure however, was her cello, a black instrument without the traditional shape, but rather the shape of a large acoustic guitar. It delivered a warm and perfectly well projected sound. In spite of a normal wood-like sound produced when she hit the side of the cello, it was made of carbon-fibre which has become widespread in sports equipment and in the popular music field. It’s been accepted more recently in the non-classical field, but is still looked at askance by most classical musicians. I might have believed that too, before becoming increasingly uneasy at the madness of the multi-million dollar Stradivarius market; though I have given up claiming to detect a difference between a 1700 model and a well-made one of yesterday. There are in fact differences in the sound produced, but I suspect the untutored ear would only hear a louder and richer sound.

Rebecca played Pearce’s Variations on Wondrous Love, based on a ‘folk hymn’ from the American South, not familiar to me. It began normally, but slowly started to be interfered with by Asian sounds, a drone at the bottom end of the cello, eerie harmonics at the top, hypnotic sequences, hints of pentatonic tonality, trills and fancy efflorescence. Towards the end she parked her bow and attacked with pizzicato, which developed into a hair-raising technique as the plucking was linked with quick stroke down the string which created a sort of bowed effect. I found myself increasingly intrigued and amused (if that’s an emotion permitted of a reviewer of classical music).

The second piece was by Australian Carl Vine, some of whose music I know: not particularly main-stream.  Rebecca Turner gave some details about how it was to work. It involved a microphone placed near the cello and the activation of a tape that the composer prepared and supplied with the score. That was a bit mysterious to me; I found it hard to see or hear how she activated the tape and controlled its behaviour; how her playing actually engaged with and kept in line with the accompanying tape (and at one point with a not incongruous police siren on the street). The tape later became increasingly dominant, leaving her as an unequal contestant, threatening to obliterate the cello’s mere human-created sounds.  The sounds became increasingly complex, vying with each other, but the cello recovered its confidence and eventually subsided, as the main player, into rather gentle, lyrical music that even had touches of beguiling charm.

It did not annoy me and I had confess that for all its machine-driven aspects, the cellist’s skill in keeping abreast with the tape’s formidable demands, and the actual sounds produced, both impressed and delighted me.

Rebecca Turner, by the way, comes from Wellington – Tawa College, then a bachelor’s degree from Canterbury University, masters from Johns Hopkins and a doctorate from Goldsmiths College, University of London (where she was taught by the late cellist, Alexander Ivashkin, whom she’d followed after he left Canterbury), and where she now teaches.

Another excursion into the unorthodox was Pêteris Vasks’s Pianissimo. (Latvian: I have a special, irrational affection for Riga, a lovely, art nouveau-rich city with a splendid opera house where I got to four operas in a week, and Wagner worked in his twenties).  It is the second movement of a piece called Book. Rebecca also described some of the experimental aspects of this, helping her cause by allowing a secretive smile to appear once or twice. The excitement here was an accompaniment, not from machine but from the cellist’s own voice, as she pursued a gentle contrapuntal line, her voice nicely modulated to accommodate the cello’s strenuous line, and long sinuous glissandi down the A string. In fact, her singing voice carried quite well, though I had some difficulty catching all she said in her introductory remarks.

Though there was no mention of using tape material in the Vasks piece, there were times when the high line carrying the decorative melodic sounds were accompanied by a low drone that I couldn’t imagine could have come from an adjacent string. But in fact, it did – fingering high on the D string, accompanied by the open G string.

Here was a recital where the existence of electronic elements and fairly unusual techniques seemed really at the service of music rather than, as I have too often felt, being experiments for their own sake. In any case, I enjoyed all three pieces for their musical interest and the impressive skill and musicality of the cellist.

 

 

Woodwind students deliver a delightful variety of lunchtime music at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Works by New Zealand composers (mainly)

Woodwind students of Te Koki New Zealand School of Music; accompaniments by Hugh McMillan (piano)

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 27 July 2016, 12.15pm

Head of Woodwind at NZSM, Deborah Rawson, introduced the students taking part in the concert, and said she had asked them to find suitable works by New Zealanders.  However, the unavoidable absence of a few students meant that several played more than one piece, the latter ones in each case being by other composers.

Perhaps the cause was the rather more esoteric nature of the programme, but there was a smaller audience than is often the case at these lunchtime concerts.  First up was Winter for saxophone and piano, by Natalie Hunt.  It was performed by Kim Hunter.  The saxophone part was interesting, employing the full range of the instrument, but I found the piano part rather tum-te-tum; the overall effect of the piece was somewhat dreary – perhaps the composer’s view of winter.

Next came one of the several clarinet players: Laura Brown, playing Sonatina for clarinet and piano, by Douglas Lilburn.  Laura explained that the piece was not played frequently, and that Lilburn himself had decided that he did not like it, and put it aside.  Here again, the accompaniment was not very interesting, though it livened up in the second movement.  However, the composer exploited most of the considerable range of the woodwind instrument and its capabilities.  After a quiet opening, the sonatina developed into a tuneful and expressive work.  There were gorgeous effects and fresh-sounding melodies. The sudden ending was a surprise.  Laura Brown played with excellent phrasing.

After Lilburn, we had a performer-composer; in fact, we witnessed a world premiere: Peter Liley’s ‘Trees’, for solo saxophone.  Peter was the only male among the day’s performers.  The piece was unaccompanied, and moved through several short episodes, which the composer explained to the audience.  (It was good to see all the players using the microphone, so that their descriptions could be clearly heard).  The episodes were to do with birds, insects, the fantastic woods, and a great beast.  Peter’s sound was bigger and more brassy than that of the other sax player.

He introduced into his piece extended techniques such as over-blowing, thus producing different and multiple tones.  However, I found that the practice of starting each phrase of the melodies on the same lower note became a little tedious.  Very loud sounds were followed by high chirping bird-like tones.  Considerable musical gymnastics were performed as part of the piece.

Next up was clarinettist Leah Thomas, playing Gareth Farr’s Waipoua, a contemplation of the great kauri forest, and especially of the giant Tane Mahuta.  It was an attractive piece, played in a controlled but evocative manner.  There was good interplay between clarinet and piano.  Dynamics were handled very well.

The only bassoon on show was played by Breanna Abbot. She gave us ‘Three Pieces’ by Edwin Carr.  The first was contemplative, the second bouncy and impetuous, but rather like an exploratory journey, while the third had features of both the other movements.  They were played with clarity, and pleasing tone.

Kim Hunter returned to play ‘A flower who never fully bloomed’ by Michelle Scullion, a New Zealand flautist (or flutist, if you prefer), composer, and multi-tasker in the arts.  Although Kim’s instrument was again the alto saxophone, this piece began with the lower register of the instrument, giving quite a different effect.  The unaccompanied piece again demonstrated the player’s excellent control of dynamics and lovely tone.  Suiting the title, the piece had a mournful character.

We then turned to the classics: firstly, the appassionata movement from Brahms’s Sonata Op.120 no.2, played by Laura Brown.  It has to be said that the confidence and experience of this great composer was most obvious in this gorgeous piece.  Rippling passages on both instruments were a notable part of the movement.  The piano was in no way left in the background; it was essential.  There was an attractive variety of tonal colours and dynamics from both players; a thoroughly satisfying performance.

Last was Poulenc; like so many French composers, he was a lover of woodwind.  His allegro con fuoco was the last movement of his Sonata for clarinet and piano, which was one of the last works he wrote, in 1962, the year before he died.  Leah Thomas treated it as typically spiky Poulenc, fast and jolly and one could imagine Poulenc playing this in a Paris night club.  There was plenty of variety in the piano part as well as in that for the clarinet:  lots of fun and the players gave it life.  It made an excellent ending to an interesting and varied concert.

Interesting variety of arias and songs from NZSM voice students

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Songs by various composers

Voice students of Te Koki New Zealand School of Music, accompanied by Mark W. Dorrell (piano)

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 13 July 2016, 12.15pm

A variety of voices was heard at today’s concert, and a great variety of songs from 18th, 19th and 20th century composers – interesting repertoire.

Stefano Donaudy (1879-1925) was a composer new to me; he was Italian-French, and a resident of Palermo in Sicily.  He composed mainly vocal music, including operas, and is known today for a number of songs, of which ‘O del mio amato ben’ is one.  It was sung to open this student recital by Olivia Sheat (soprano), a fourth year student.  She has admirable voice production and her tone was beautifully sustained.  Along with well enunciated words and inaudible breathing, she made great work of this aria, as indeed with the utterly different ‘I shall not live in vain’ by Jake Heggie (b. 1961), where she characterised the splendid words of Emily Dickinson aptly and mellifluously.  However, I found Mark Dorrell’s accompaniment in the first song, and elsewhere in the recital, rather too loud at times.

Olivia Sheat’s third contribution was the wonderful ‘Mi tradi’ from Mozart’s Don Giovanni.  It was notable that the singer’s spoken introduction to the audience was very clear, and loud enough (without microphone!).  She did not drop her voice, after starting, as so many do.  The aria was sung very dramatically.  She will make a fine opera singer; presence, voice and interpretation were all in line.

Nicole Davey, another soprano (second-year), has a lighter voice, but she gave it plenty of variety.  A problem I find with a few quite noted singers is that although they have voices of fine quality, and sing accurately, they do not vary the timbre or even the dynamics very much.  A Pergolesi aria from his Stabat Mater suited Nicole well, and her ‘Vedrai carino’ from Don Giovanni was sung with very pleasing tone; she phrased Mozart’s lovely music splendidly.  Appropriately, the singer adopted a different vocal quality for ‘Bill’ from Jerome Kern’s Showboat.  In any case, it was set low in her voice.  Not all the English words were clear.

The opposite was the case with mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Harré’s singing of ‘The shearer’s wife’ by Dorothea Franchi, a New Zealand composer (and harpist), who died in 2003.  Here, the English words were clear and precise.  It was interesting to hear a voice so different from the previous singer’s.  Harré’s darker, deeper tone suited her first song: ‘Au cimetiére’ by Fauré.  This was very accomplished singing from a second-year student.  Her legato singing was superb, and her French pronunciation excellent.  It was a very touching performance.

Her final offering was ‘Smeton’s aria’ from Anna Bolena by Donizetti.  The lilting character of this aria was well portrayed.

Another soprano was Elyse Hemara, a third-year student.  She displayed a wide vocal range in her songs, with a rich tone throughout.  Her first song, the lovely ‘Lilacs’ by Rachmaninoff, started low in the voice, while the second, the same composer’s ‘How fair this spot’, was quite high.  Both were sung in Russian, and both, as befitted Rachmaninoff, the great pianist and composer for that instrument, had gorgeous accompaniments, beautifully played.  Her third aria was by Massenet, from his opera Herodiade: ‘Il est doux, il est bon’.  Hemara’s mature voice and good French pronunciation made a good job of it; one could imagine her singing it on an operatic stage, but she would need rather more facial expression and characterisation.

Here, as elsewhere, Mark Dorrell was required to play some complicated accompaniments when substituting for an orchestra, in the operatic arias.

The last singer was another third-year student, baritone Joseph Haddow.  His first song was ‘Die beiden grenadiere’ by Schumann, a setting of words by Heine that needs to display the irony in both poet’s and composer’s views of Napoleon and of war.  Haddow has a strong voice, and sang this song with suitable bravado and panache.  His habit of poking his head forward rather, needs to be overcome.  For ‘Ah! Per sempre io ti perdei’ from Bellini’s I Puritani he adopted a more dramatic tonal quality that suited the aria well.  This was fine singing: he has plenty of volume, but used subtlety as well.  There were one or two slight lapses of intonation – the only ones I heard throughout the recital.

It was a pleasure to hear fresh, new voices; I think that the opening singer was the only one I had heard before.  All were obviously well-taught, and gave intelligent and musical performances.  Naturally, their skill levels varied somewhat, but I think all present would feel pleased with what they heard.

 

Emma Sayers – piano recital of connections, dedications and premieres

Posted on by Peter Mechen

St.Andrew’s Lunchtime Concert Series presents:
CONNECTIONS, DEDICATIONS – a piano recital by Emma Sayers

W.A.MOZART – Variations on “Unser dummer Pöbel meint” K.455
JACK BODY – Five Melodies (1982) – No.5
ROSS HARRIS – For Judith Clark (2011)
DAVID FARQUHAR -Telephonic No.13 (721-230) – Eve Page
DOUGLAS LILBURN – 9 Short Pieces – Nos 1,2DAVID FARQUHAR – Black, White and Coloured – (Homage to G.G.)
ANTHONY RITCHIE – Three Pieces for J.A.R. – Fanfare / Aria for Anita / Perpetua

Emma Sayers (piano)

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

Wednesday, 22nd June 2016

Emma Sayers began her recital with the Mozart Variations, then spoke briefly to us by way of welcome, outlining how the remainder of the program had come about. She had been approached by composer Anthony Ritchie to perform a set of pieces written in memory of his parents, the whole (Three Pieces for J.A.R) named for his father, John Ritchie, with one of the set (Aria for Anita) remembering the composer’s mother. Incidentally, the work was originally commissioned by (and dedicated to) Margaret Nielsen, a long-time friend of John Ritchie.

Almost straightaway the pianist was, she told us, reminded of other music written by people either associated or contemporaneous with John Ritchie, which she thought would “sit alongside well” in a larger tribute – hence the “Connections, Dedications” title of the recital. The Mozart Variations on “Unser dummer Pöbel meint” was, however, a separate goal marking a return to solo public performance, and put in an amusing context by the pianist as, in her own words, “something I couldn’t manage when I was pregnant, because my tummy kept getting in the way of the arm-crossings”.

I was surprised that it had been such a long time (May 2005) since I’d last written about an Emma Sayers solo recital – her playing of the Variations certainly underscored the things I wrote about her then, and served to remind us of what we had been deprived on in the interim. That particular solo appearance was prior to Middle C’s formation, so I feel justified in quoting from my notes for the radio review, regarding her playing of Bartok’s Op.6 set of 14 Bagatelles – “…Sayers took us on a marvellous journey through what seemed like the “landscape of a musical mind” with all its individualities and influences….” as those words applied equally to what she gave us here of Mozart’s at St. Andrew’s.

The first thing which struck me was her playing’s vivid and forthright character, contrasting the contained, tasteful treatment of the theme with the full-blooded flourishes of the first variation’s phrases, done with flair and theatricality. At the risk of thumping a particular tub of mine, I feel compelled to venture the opinion that this was “timeless” Mozart-playing in an entirely appropriate grand piano context, the piano used to “orchestrate” the music in a way that the composer could well have imagined himself, though never actually experienced as sound coming from his own instruments.

Again and again I found myself marvelling at Sayers’ ability to invest her phrasing with some ineffable impulse of characterization which compelled one’s attention, at one and the same time realizing and transcending the composer’s “classical” context and bringing into play something intensely and universally human about the music. It all seemed so “free”, so spontaneous and alive – and yet Mozart was always Mozart, even if such energy and physicality might be thought more the preserve of Clementi or even Beethoven. By way of “exploring” the theme rather than merely decorating or prettifying it, Mozart employed a range of expression here brought out by the pianist in as direct and unmannered a way as seemed possible.

If it seemed like a recital of two, or even three parts on paper, in practice there was no lessening or burgeoning of intensity in Sayers’ playing from the Mozart throughout to the home-grown items assembled to “connect with” and pay tribute to John Ritchie and his music. Beginning with the last in the set of Jack Body’s Five Pieces for Piano, we were taken by the music to a world of light and shade, its components turning and flickering like a magic kind of kaleidoscopic wheel, and bearing our sensibilities unobtrusively but gradually into different realms, from which we emerged changed, our delight replaced by sobriety at the transitory nature of things, at the piece’s end.

Ross Harris’s work For Judith Clark, was written by its composer for the 80th birthday of one of Wellington’s foremost piano teachers (and, appropriately enough, played here by an ex-pupil, who had also played the piece at her former teacher’s’s funeral, in 2014). It’s a beautiful, sonorous piece, taking shape like some kind of frozen soundscape being brought into view and explored from different points. Deeply-rooted frameworks were laid down, and set against the play of light on the various surfaces, the pianist ensuing the serenity of the hues were occasionally enlivened by volatilities, an evocation of a goddess whose aspect occasionally flashed and scintillated, giving fair warning to those in close proximity.

Next we heard a work Sun and Shadow by David Farquhar, one of a number of pieces called Telephonics that he composed for various friends and associates, using their telephone numbers as a basis for the pieces’ composition. Farquhar stressed that the pieces were intended as a series of “musical offerings” rather than as “portraits” of the people involved. This was a piece dedicated to the artist Evelyn Page, and, by association, her husband Freddie Page, who established the Victoria University Music Faculty in 1945, which Farquhar himself was to join in 1953 after his return from a period of study at London’s Guildhall. The music conjured up an impressionistic effect, with resonantly flowing harmonies and brilliantly-etched flashpoints, Sayers allowing their interactions plenty of room to “play out” and eventually subside within the piece’s enfolding silences.

The last time I heard Emma Sayers at an actual keyboard was when she gave a performance of Douglas Lilburn’s Nine Short Pieces in conjunction with Stroma, who performed responses by various composers to each one of the pieces. Here, she revisited the first two of the Nine Pieces by way of paying tribute both to the composer and to Margaret Nielsen, to whom Lilburn in 1967 gave a bundle of unpublished pieces of piano music, collectively labelled “Crotchety at 51!” along with the words “See what you can make of these”. Nielsen was, of course, Lilburn’s “preferred interpreter” of his piano music, and had given the premieres of many of the individual works, so it seemed logical that he would entrust her with the task of creating some order from the apparent chaos.

Sayers in her notes talked about the “searching quality” and the “quirky character” of the pieces, and her remarks were borne out by the performances we heard, the first piece epic, jagged and far-flung, the second impish, angular, questioning and wryful. Again, it was the “character” of each piece which was unequivocally presented to us – under Sayers’ fingers, the music in both instances seemed to know exactly what it was doing.

David Farquhar’s music again featured, this time a piece from a different collection of pieces, entitled Black, White and Coloured. This was one called Homage to G.G. (George Gershwin) – a brilliant transcription of the song I got rhythm, flavoured by the technique of writing for one hand on the white keys of the piano, and for the other on the black, resulting in some ear-catching sonorities. Sayers gave the accented phrasings just the right amount of “ginger”, bringing out the piece’s drolleries at the beginning and unerringly building the music’s trajectories towards the bluff humour of the ending.

And so to Anthony Ritchie’s commemorative Three Pieces for J.A.R. – music intended by the composer to reflect different aspects of his father, John Ritchie’s life. Before the pieces were played, Anthony RItchie spoke briefly and movingly about Margaret Nielsen’s friendship with and support of his father over the time of their association. The first part of the work, Fanfare, marked John Ritchie’s long involvement with brass players, both in bands and orchestras, using a simple, chant-like figure at the beginning subjected to all kinds of different harmonic modulations, some progressive, others all elbows and knees, harsh and abrupt. A deep-toned, briefly sounded sequence made a humourful ending to the piece.

The second piece, Aria for Anita, brought Anita Ritchie, John’s wife into focus – making reference to her soprano voice, Anthony RItchie quoted part of Solveig’s Song from Grieg’s Peer Gynt, one of her favourites. The music’s recitative-like opening suggested a high voice at first, then varied the line with an alto-like response, the phrase-ends coloured at several points with the interval of a fifth. The music seemed to accrue its own ambient warmth, figures sounded out and then left to resonate as a context in which newer motifs could appear – a deep, rich bitter-sweet climax grew out of the exchanges,  as a strummed accompaniment to the soprano/alto voice exchanges allowed the music to deepen and linger before gently disappearing.

From the silence came Perpetua, the final movement, the upward-thrusting opening shared between the hands before changing into an attitude-driven march rhythm whose insistence scintillated into cascades of figurations, the repetitions making their own rhythmic patterns in lime with the “perpetual motion” suggested by the piece’s title. Having scattered all before it, the music then irradiated the textures with Ravel-like scintillations, even-handedly defining the heavenly vistas while at the same time plumbing the depths. Anthony RItchie in his notes alluded to the old prayer which included the phrase “perpetual light”, suggesting the soul’s continuing journey through what the composer called the “starry nothingness” of the ending.

All of this was delivered by Emma Sayers with what seemed and felt like complete identification with the music’s natural, spontaneous outpourings. Nothing in the music was forced or unduly amplified, but allowed instead by the pianist its own range of mellifluous voice-soundings which readily  put across the composers’ intentions. In a relatively short time we had been taken through an exploration of some magnitude across the face of people’s lives and sharply-focused creative achievements. I felt at the end of it all we couldn’t have had a more inspirational guide at the piano throughout our journey.

Another hearing from wonderful cellist Khamidullin, at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Rustem Khamidullin (cello)

J.S. Bach: Suite no.3 in C for cello solo, BWV 1009
Gaspar Cassado: Suite for cello solo (1926)

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 15 June 2016, 12.15pm

Obviously many of the people in the large audience at St. Andrew’s – perhaps most – had heard this brilliant young cellist play with Orchestra Wellington last Saturday night (I did not), and were delighted at the chance to hear him playing solo.

This amazing young man has just turned 27, but has the accomplishment of a much more experienced performer.  His was a demanding programme carried off with great musicality, but no flashiness or histrionics.  He comes from Ufa in Bashkortostan in Russia.  I have to confess that I had heard of Ufa, but not Bashkortostan; Wikipedia reveals that Ufa is a city of over a million people.  Rustem is the son of a pianist mother, and his grandfather was a leading cellist.

In addition to Rustem’s playing last Saturday and today, he is to play at Paekakariki on Sunday, and we have another cellist, Johannes Moser playing the Lalo cello concerto with the NZSO on Friday.  For lovers of this magnificent and versatile instrument, it is a feast.  Today’s music was all based on dance forms.

The Bach Suite is a necessary, but difficult, part of the cellist’s repertoire.  Throughout, this cellist produced a fine tone, and his interpretation was varied and not at all routine.  While he had the score in front of him, he only looked at it in a couple of the later movements; most of the work was played from memory, while for much of the time Rustem’s eyes were cast upwards.

Within the beautifully phrased music there was much subtlety of dynamics.  Mostly, one was not aware of the difficulties, such was the fluency and elegance of Rustem’s playing, not only in the phrasing, but also in the double-stopping, and the rapid bow movements between strings.  It goes without saying that this winner of the Gisborne International Music Competition (2014) and of numerous European prizes had impeccable intonation.

The rendition we heard of the dance movements (prélude, allemande, courante, sarabande, bourrée I and II and gigue) had colour, variety, delicacy and panache.  The sarabande was distinguished by rich and soulful playing, whereas the two bourrée movements had a light, playful touch.  The gigue was fast, despite all the challenges it presents.  The loud passages set  the strings ringing.  This was exemplary cello playing.  Rustem expressed Bach’s wonderful music like a seasoned professional; very impressive.

Gaspar Cassado (1897-1966) was a name I did not know.  He was a Catalan cellist and composer.  His suite was played from memory.  Naturally, it was more romantic than Bach’s music, but also, being twentieth century, was more daring harmonically.  Passages in the opening movement, Preludio-Fantasia based on  Zarabanda (yes, the Spanish origin of the word ‘Sarbande’) were played very high on the finger-board; the piece used the cello to the extent of its possibilities.  It was not technique for technique’s sake, though.  Much of the music was soulful, and almost always the tone was exquisite, although I found the number of times the lower strings slashed the finger-board rather excessive.  The use of harmonics created, as usual, an ethereal sound, but with this player, the tone of these notes was superb.  The playing shared with the Bach its intensity and variety.

The second movement, Sardana, was based on a Catalan round dance of that name (Google shows pictures of it being danced in the open) began very high-pitched, and indeed was very dance-like.  Considerable variation followed.  Nuances abounded.  There was rapid passage-work alternating with soft, pensive, melodic lines.

The third movement, Intermezzo y Danza Finál, was ‘a Jota…a waltz-like dance originating in Aragón’.  A strong opening was followed by pizzicato, then rapid fingering all over the fingerboard.  This is a virtuoso piece indeed, but Rustem was right up with its demands, which were sometimes extremely great.  Despite the numerous technical issues, it was always music that emerged.

A most appreciative and attentive audience heard a phenomenon; someone who is in for a big career.  We were glad to have heard such an outstanding artist at a lunchtime concert.

 

Happy concert from the New Zealand School of Music saxophone ensemble and soloists

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s lunchtime concert

NZSM Saxophone Orchestra directed by Simon Brew (Kim Hunter, Reuben Chin, Geneviève Davidson, Peter Liley, Giles Reid, Frank Talbot, Graham Hanify)

Music by Piazzolla, J S Bach, Debussy, Peter Liley, Milhaud, Johann Strauss Sr.

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 1 June, 12:15 pm

The woodwind (more specifically, the Saxophone) department of the New Zealand School of Music has become a fairly conspicuous player in the school’s activities. It’s led by Deborah Rawson, who, as well as being a clarinetist often seen in professional orchestral ranks, plays saxophone, usually the soprano sax.

While she introduced this lunchtime concert, the ensemble was directed by Simon Brew, an ‘artist teacher’ in the school.

The concert began with a piece by Astor Piazzolla which has become very popular, Histoire du Tango: the second movement, Café 1930. Originally for flute and guitar, it exists in several arrangements (evidently none for bandoneon, surprisingly), this time for Kim Hunter, soprano saxophone and Dylan Solomon, guitar. It starts secretively, plaintively, and becomes lively in the middle section as it moves from the smoky Buenos Aires café seemingly into the open. It was nicely played though it could have survived a little more seductiveness.

Then came an arrangement of the Allegro movement of Bach’s concerto for two violins (in D minor, BWV 1043), nicely translated to soprano saxes of Reuben Chin and Kim Hunter, together with the five-piece saxophone ensemble (consisting of soprano, alto, tenor and baritone saxophones). The foreign sound took a moment to adjust to, and even though Bach’s music is generally very adaptable to all manner of treatments, it was perhaps just a fraction too far from its origin: interesting rather than convincing, but very nicely played.

Debussy’s Petite Suite survived the process much more successfully, perhaps because Debussy worked in an environment that was host to the saxophone family (he wrote a Rhapsody for alto saxophone and orchestra). Petite Suite was an early work, c 1889, originally written for piano four hands, but was transcribed for orchestra, presumably with Debussy’s concurrence, by Henri Büsset; that has given licence for a number of other transcriptions. The ensemble, now seven after the two soloists in the Bach joined the ranks, played all four movements. The range of saxophones provided quite a lot of variety of tone as well as spanning several octaves, and the four interestingly contrasted parts proved very listenable. Cortège was bright and tumbling in character, successfully disguising any imperfections. It contrasted well with the more 18th-century sounding Menuet where the saxophones did seem a little anachronistic; on the other hand, the accents of the inner lines of the piece still identified it as belonging around the turn of last century.

One of the players had composed the next piece: Waltz for Saxophone Ensemble by Peter Liley. He introduced it in mock seriousness, employing the pretentious expression “world premiere” with nicely judged drollery. It was an engaging little piece, with hints of the charm and playfulness of Satie or Ibert; I’d guess it could have a life after its premiere – a rarer event than a premiere.

Two pieces from Milhaud’s delightful suite, Scaramouche, were arranged by Debbie Rawson for the ensemble with alto sax, which suited the music beautifully and was probably much easier to listen to than to play. The popularity of this music, Modéré and Brazileira, irritated Milhaud after a while as there were endless demands for arrangements, one for 16 saxophones. But I wasn’t inclined to sympathise with Milhaud, as music that people love and don’t get tired of is not in oversupply, especially of music written lately.

Things ended in the same way as Vienna’s New Year’s Day concerts in the Musikverein, with Strauss Senior’s Radetzky March, where Simon Brew invited the audience to clap, as is the custom in Vienna; incidentally, Brew exhibited singular panache as conductor, not only in Radetzky, but in all the lively and attractive music that this happy band of musicians played.

 

Viola central to an interesting programme of student performances from three centuries

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Viola Students of NZSM
Gyahida Ahmad, viola, Ashley Mah, piano; Elyse Dalabakis, viola, Laura Brown, clarinet and Hana Kim, piano; Laura Barton, violin; Grant Baker, viola, Catherine Norton, piano

Schubert: ‘Arpeggione’ Sonata, second movement
Max Bruch: Pieces for clarinet, viola and piano, Op.83
Bach: Partita no.2 in D minor for solo violin, BWV 1004 (four movements)
George Enescu: Concertstück

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 25 May 2016, 12.15pm

My apologies if I have not got the first performers’ names correctly; they were not in the printed programme, but were announced at the beginning of the concert. However, a person behind me was talking on a cellphone at the time, and I could not hear them properly. I made enquiries at the end of the concert, but this has meant my interpreting another person’s handwriting – possibly not correctly.

The item these two students played was not in the printed programme. Their playing of the slow movement from Schubert’s sonata (originally written for a rather short-lived instrument, the Arpeggione, a bowed guitar) was lacking in confidence at the beginning, and the viola intonation was ‘off’ in several places. Perhaps their inclusion in the concert was somewhat premature for their stage of musical study.

The Bruch pieces were a different story. Four of the composer’s eight pieces were performed. No obvious disadvantage in that, but it made for a rather slow and sombre sequence, since two were marked andante, one allegro con moto, and the last (no. 6) andante con moto. Parts of the movements were Brahmsian in character. Of the movements left out, numbers 4 and 7 would be considerably faster, judging from their tempo markings.

All three players are fine musicians, confident and very competent. The viola tone was lovely and mellow, the clarinet was played with panache and sensitivity, and the pianist judged her part just right as to volume and intensity, so that she neither drowned out the other players, nor was too submissive in rendering her part. It was a fine performance for a well-judged combination, and they played an attractive set of pieces that showed off the instruments.

Bach’s solo violin music is a sort of bible for violinists, but maintaining momentum, accuracy, tempo and so on is not easy. Laura Barton made a beautiful job of the first four movements of the chosen Partita. She is a highly skilled player, negotiating all the turns and twists in the music with ease, it seemed, and at least in the early stages, hardly looking at the score. She is secure technically, and after commendable Allemanda and Corrente, her Sarabanda, double-stopping and chords involving several strings, was handled adroitly. In the flowing, dancing Giga her tone was bright, with every note in place, and the character of the piece was portrayed very well, in lively fashion. One could imaging people in the 18th century dancing to the music. Inevitably perhaps, though she used a baroque bow, the modern strings made inappropriate sounds at times.

Last up was Grant Baker, accompanied by the immaculate Catherine Norton, playing a work for viola by George Enescu (1881-1955), teacher of the great violinist Yehudi Menuhin, whose 100th anniversary was marked on radio the other day. The Concertstück required a number of demanding techniques, but Grant Baker took these in his stride and did not draw attention to them, playing throughout in a musical and expressive way. His instrument and his playing gave out a warm tone, but lighter than the dark, mellow tone of Elyse Dalabakis’s in the Bruch work. Baker’s viola pitch was a little wayward in places, but both musicians brought off a difficult work in fine style.