Tag: St.Andrew’s lunchtime concert

Geoffrey de Lautour Remembered at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Karen Saunders in association with The New Zealand Opera Society Inc. (Wellington Branch) and the Wellington members of NEWZATS (New Zealand Association of Teachers of Singing)

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 7 July 2010, 12.15pm

Geoffrey de Lautour: opera singer, teacher of music in schools, private singing teacher, raconteur, was remembered, ten years after his death. Fellow Dunedin-born singer Roger Wilson introduced the concert with a brief biography of de Lautour. The latter’s involvement in opera in New Zealand, following a career in Britain, has been outlined in his autobiography. Wilson emphasised the hands-on work of the old New Zealand Opera Company, where everyone multi-tasked: driving, loading and unloading sets, singing, overcoming emergencies etc.

He saw the concert, involving nine young singers, as celebrating both de Lautour’s career, and his teaching at the former Hutt Valley Memorial Technical College. A charming photo of the man was printed on the front of the programme.

The singers varied in age from 14 to 20. This meant that some had almost mature voices, while others still had children’s voices.

Of the former, the outstanding singer was Tom Atkins, whose attractive and promising tenor voice we heard in a duet from Beethoven’s Fidelio with soprano Amelia Ryman, and again in the serenade from Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. Atkins’s pitch was wayward a couple of times, but here is a dramatic tenor in the making.

Ryman’s voice had a surprising amount of vibrato for a young singer, but she had plenty of volume and confidence, and depicted her roles (she also sang a Handel aria) intelligently, using her voice well, especially in the drama of the Beethoven.

All items except the Beethoven were accompanied by Julie Coulson, always a tasteful and supportive pianist, never having to ask the question ‘Am I too loud?’ Mark Dorrell accompanied the Beethoven with flair.

Two younger singers sang arias from Edward German’s Merrie England. The second singer, Chloe Garrett, was older than Lauren Yeo, and this showed in her tone and her more musical performance. Both had good intonation and enunciation.

Matthew Ellison sang Handel’s ‘Where’er you walk’ accurately enough and with clear words, but it was a very dull performance, with no feeling. He tended to swallow the tone; his voice needed more projection.

A trio of Chloe Garrett, Nicole Petrove (there were variations in the spelling of her name in the printed programme) and Lauren Yeo sang an arrangement of the traditional Irish ‘Johnny has gone for a soldier’ in a rather restrained fashion, but they managed the rather complicated arrangement, including key changes, well.

Sophia Ritchie, singing ‘Vieni, Vieni o mio diletto’ by Vivaldi, revealed a good voice, especially in the lower register, although more projection is needed.

Mark Newbury, in Giovanni Legrenzi’s ‘Che fiero’ costume exhibited a mature voice of considerable promise; his intonation was unfortunately rather variable. However, a he made a good job of this aria.

Natasha Willoughby performed the traditional English folk song ‘Waly, Waly’ very attractively with clear words, but wayward pitch at times. At her age (15) lack of volume is not a concern, but the song was too low for her in places.

Tosti’s La Serenata is not much heard these days, but Nicole Petrove’s small but pleasant, attractive voice made good work of it. Her Italian pronunciation was commendable.

As a finale, all the singers sang an unaccompanied (and unconducted) arrangement of the Welsh air ‘All through the night’. This was very fine, showing excellent tone, balance and blend.

It was good to hear so many young people learning singing, and confident enough to perform in public. They all showed the results of good teaching, and it is to be hoped they will all carry on, building on their present skills.

Students’ lunchtime string-along at St. Andrew’s

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

String students of the New Zealand School of Music

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 16 June 2010

Five string students, with the emphasis on the viola, performed a varied programme.  First up was Megan Ward, playing the Suite no. 1 in G for solo cello on viola.  Bach was well served by this performance.  Megan Ward, playing the seven movements from memory, produced a lovely rich tone, which seemed so well suited to the acoustics of the church. She had superb control, accurate intonation and brought out the variety in the work through her use of dynamics and phrasing.  This was a splendid start to the concert.

For this work, as for all the items, there were excellent programme notes; however, I would like the students to know that there is an English word ‘recurs’ – no need for the clumsy ‘reoccurs’.

Next up was an unfamiliar piece: Viola concerto in C minor, in the style of Johann Christian Bach, by French composer Henri Casadesus (1879-1947).  Apparently Casadesus was in the habit of passing off his works in baroque and classical styles as being discovered pieces by composers of those eras.  This was played by Leoni Wittchou, viola, with Douglas Mews providing piano accompaniment; his support was always that of a first-class partner.

The work was interesting though not an outstanding composition.  The violist’s tone was quite different from that of the previous performer – not as rich. this may be at least in part due to the different instruments – violas vary a lot more than do other stringed instruments.  Leoni played without the score, but made a false start.  There were not infrequent lapses in intonation, and phrasing was sometimes untidy.  However, while at times she exhibited beautiful tone, there was nevertheless unevenness of tone.  The charming last movement featured strong, rich playing, especially in the cadenza.

The third violist, Eva Mowry, played Robert Schumann’s Maerchenbilder (Fairy Tales).  She seemed somewhat tentative in the first movement, Nicht schnell (played using the score), but the second, Lebhaft, really caught fire, and the competing piano and viola parts were fun. The same player followed with Henri Vieuxtemps’s Capriccio.  The work did not seem particularly capricious – perhaps it was played too slowly?  It was rather a difficult solo viola piece, but was played with care and good tone.

The final piece was the first movement, allegro serioso, from Zoltan Kodaly’s Duo for violin and cello, performed by Vivian Stephens (volin) and Lucy Gijsbers (cello).  This was difficult music exceedingly well executed, in fact to a professional standard.  The interplay between the performers was superb, and they were obviously well inside the music.  The cello sound, particularly, was gorgeous, and the phrasing of both players was immaculate.   thoroughly accomplished performance.

All the performers played to a very high level, and demonstrated how expert is the tuition they are receiving.  It was interesting to have a number of viola works, but perhaps a little unfortunate that this enabled comparisons to be made between the players.

St.Andrew’s concert – Messiaen: Poèmes pour Mi

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Felicity Smith (mezzo-soprano)

Michael Stewart (piano)

Wednesday, 9 June 2010

The performers were brave to tackle a difficult and unusual work such as this cycle of nine songs, and perhaps it was not only the recent bad weather that deterred some from attending the lunch-time concert.

However, it proved to be an interesting and worthwhile recital.

Messiaen’s songs were written in 1936 for his wife, violinist and composer Claire Delbos, whose nickname was Mi.  He wrote the words himself, with Biblical influences, and also those of the surrealist poets.  The songs celebrate the sacrament of marriage, and as in the Bible itself, the service of Holy Communion and the metaphysical poets, use marriage as a symbol of the union between Christ and his church.  They are very varied in style, with the first and last drawing on plainchant, while others use impressionist styles; nevertheless, most of the composer’s music is very much uniquely the composer’s own.

The performers both gave full rein to the intensity and contrasting subtlety in the writing.  The words were absolutely clear, as befits a graduate in French, as Felicity Smith is.

The use of the printed score by the singer was quite understandable, given the complexity and variety in both words and music which would make them difficult to memorise, but it did create a barrier to communication with the audience.

The accompaniments were beautifully played by Michael Stewart; technically difficult, they were full of exquisite impressionistic phrases and images.  He was totally ‘in synch’ with and supportive of the singer.

The titles of the songs convey their content quite well: their translations are Thanksgiving; Landscape; The house; Terror; The bride; Your voice; The two warriors; The necklace (Le Collier!); A prayer granted.  In the fourth song, Terror, the performers certainly conveyed the emotion strongly.

Your voice was a quite lovely song, while The two warriors contained very evocative writing. The necklace featured a sublime ending.

Sometimes in the first half (the first four songs) the singer’s sound was rather breathy, and not only between phrases.  This was less so in the second half.  Her voice has a very pleasing quality, and the right kind of tone for French song.

The performers are both to be congratulated on attempting and bringing off this difficult cycle; it was a most accomplished performance, and illuminating to anyone who, like me, was unfamiliar with the songs.

Gems of German Baroque at St.Andrew’s

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Music by Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Philipp Telemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach

Calvin Scott (oboe)

Margarte Guldborg (‘cello)

Ariana Odermatt (harpsichord)

St.Andrew’s Lunchtime Concert Series 2010

Wednesday, 3rd March

Here, throughout this lunchtime concert at St.Andrew’s, was old-world charm and sensibility aplenty, a kind of “window in time” feeling, adding to the pleasure of it all. The music was delivered by three skilled musicians bringing varied instrumental voices and markedly different temperaments to play in their combinations, of the kind that nicely brought out that “baroque” sensibility of contrasting conversation and elaborate soliloquy. A sensitive, small-toned harpsichord threw into bold relief a bright, cheery oboe sound, while the ‘cello took a middle course, now soft-grained, now penetratingly nimble in passagework, always alive to what was suggested by the other two instruments. Contrary to my expectations regarding this composer’s music, the CPE Bach work that began the programme was more than usually urbane and straightforward, played here by oboist Calvin Scott with plenty of warmth and feeling, though I thought harpsichordist Ariana Odermatt took a while to warm up at her instrument, producing steady, but overtly mechanical playing throughout the first movement. The Adagio second movement brought out a more expressive manner, with flexible pulsing from both players and some admirably sustained notes from the oboe. Not even in the finale did CPE Bach reveal his sometimes peppery and idiosyncratic side, apart from a certain insistence in the music’s repeated, stuttering notes at one point, the music remaining highy engaging in a conventionally conversational manner, nicely brought off by both instrumentalists.

The next two items came from “Old Bach”, a Prelude, Fugue and Allegro in E-flat major (BWV 998) for solo harpsichord, followed by a sonata written for viola da gamba and harpsichord in G major (BWV 127). The harpsichord solo established a stately, gracious mood at the opening, the formalities being allowed to nicely “unfold” in Ariana Odermatt’s hands. The player seemed not to be inclined to use the upper keyboard of the instrument, except for the occasional “echo effect” in the last movement. With the sonata for viola da gamba (played here on the ‘cello by Margaret Guldborg), the music’s expressive capacities moved upwards several notches – the opening Adagio, though surprisingly light on its feet, was given a soft-grained and sensitive performance. This was followed by an Allegro in which the players again brought out the lyrical than the rumbustious aspects of the music, which might have been thought by some a little too much of a good thing by the time the subsequent Andante had finished – but I loved the way the “held” notes from the ‘cello allowed the harpsichord’s voice to decorate the linear spaces. Happily, the concluding Allegro moderato sparked exchanges of gaiety between the instruments (“gambolling” I wrote), with some skilful rapid passagework by the ‘cellist.

Calvin Scott returned with his oboe for a Sonata in E Minor by Georg Philipp Telemann, for oboe and basso continuo – he produced a lovely, creamy sound in the opening Largo, and set the tone for fine teamwork in the following Allegro, stimulating a skilful give-and-take between the instruments.The brief pastoral Grave was an idyllic moment between two separate energies, the Vivace finale going at a great lick, but with the players finding a balance between driving energy and boisterous spirits – delightfully adroit phrasing from the oboe, and some telling touches from the ‘cello, solidly supported by the harpsichord.An eloquent conclusion to the concert was provided by a sinfonia from one of JS Bach’s cantatas, No.156 “Ich steh’ mit einem Fuss im Grabe” – a heart-easing performance,with musical touches in every register – oboe lyrical and plaintive, ‘cello gently purposeful, and harpsichord tastefully colouristic and decorative.