Tag: string quartet

New Zealand String Quartet’s second Beethoven 250th Anniversary concert

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The New Zealand String Quartet presents:
BEETHOVEN 2020 – NZSQ National Tour
Programme Two –  INNOVATOR

String Quartets – Op.18 No. 2, in G Major (1801)
Op. 74 in E-flat Major “Harp” (1809)
Op.59 No.2, in E Minor “Razumovsky” (1808)

New Zealand String Quartet –
Helene Pohl, Monique Lapins (violins), Gillian Ansell (viola), Rolf Gjelsten (‘cello)

Seatoun Village Hall and St.Christopher’s Church, Wellington

Sunday, 13th September, 2020

Though it doesn’t seem to me all that long ago that the NZSQ (well, THREE of the members of the present quartet!) were previously “wowing” us with their brilliant, uniquely engaging interpretations of Beethoven’s most significant and searching set of works, I suddenly felt, amidst the frisson of excitement and intoxication which rippled through the audience at Seatoun’s St.Christopher’s Church during Sunday’s concert, as if we had all actually been covertly harbouring a desperate need for a fresh “Beethoven update” from these players! – and, of course, what better occasion than a 250th birthday year for the composer in question in which to undertake (and celebrate!) such a renewal?

These works are, of course, iconic representations of a whole genre of music, and as such well-known to audiences everywhere – but as with the NZSQ’s previous traversal of the same music (far longer ago, incidentally, than I’d remembered), it seemed as if we were here being invited by the players to “reimagine” these sound-worlds as pertaining to the “here and now”, just as one would respond to an old friend whose by-now familiar aspects, expressions and attitudes had vigorously and healthily moved with the times! So the immediacy of contact established at the concert’s outset allowed these familiarities to lead us directly towards a freshly-minted process of rediscovery, one of the ensemble’s by-now established trademarks,.

The quartet’s strategy in grouping certain individual works together over the concert series seems to be one of thoughtfully illustrating stages in the composer’s creative process which suggest awareness, discovery and fruition. While I’m not one for being drawn to music events on the strength of their often adopting as pulicity glib (and in some cases ridiculously banal) “titles” – the recent labelling of conductor Gemma New’s NZSO concert as “Passion” I thought a particularly vacuous example of “event-speak”, for instance! – I could easily cope with the Quartet’s somewhat more apposite use of the title “Innovator” for this particular trio of works, given that, in most cases with Beethoven, his works were almost constantly breaking new ground, with even his “throwback” works such as the Eighth Symphony, the Op.110 Piano Sonata and the Op.135 String Quartet pouring new life into older forms.

Fortunately, with this group any such business is soon relegated to relative insignificance when set against the actual concert experience – one of the joys of encountering these musicians thus is listening to their freshly-conceived and invariably thoughtful remarks concerning the music they’re about to play – in this case, Helene Pohl, Rolf Gjelsten and Monique Lapins in turn gave us a number of at once spontaneous-sounding and penetrating insights into the music and its context in the composer’s life at the time of each separate work’s creation – I liked also their “personalising” in each case of the effect of actually performing the works, giving us a somewhat more visceral account of what coming to grips with this music actually meant for the performer – it couldn’t help but enhance our own involvement no end in the music-making!

First up was Beethoven’s Op.18 No.2 in G Major, one of a set of six quartets  published in 1801, but whose composition dates are at variance with the opus numberings – so this G major work was actually the third to be composed. The set was commissioned by the Bohemian Prince Lobkowitz, who became the dedicatee (it was at Lobkowitz’s palace that the “Eroica” Symphony, also dedicated to him, received its first performance, the Prince subsequently becoming a patron of the composer in the form of a pension paid up to Beethoven’s death). Helene Pohl in her introduction emphasised the composer’s awareness of his hearing’s deterioration at the time of writing these works, and of the devastation it would have caused him (as reflected in letters to his friend, Karl Amenda, such as one dated July 1st – “….For two years I have avoided almost all social gatherings because it is impossible for me to say to people “I am deaf!”…..if I belonged to any other profession it would be easier, but in my profession it is a frightful state…..”

No such angst seemed to trouble the music at first, the quartet’s playing of the work’s opening rather like an involuntary sigh, leading to an awakening and a sequence of fully fledged stretches in the impulse’s direction. It was a “now, the day can begin” kind of ritual, leading to a poised, almost courtly second subject whose barely contained sense of fun bubbled up and over with the first violin’s mischievously off-the -beat repeated note-soundings, rounded off by a “well, that’s that!” D major phrase – except that, after the opening’s repeat, that same rounding-off phrase was then reiterated in the minor, and we soon found ourselves in the company of what seemed like a ghostly conglomeration, a world of eerily floated thoughts wondering how it was that everything had gotten so gloomy! And then, what a splendidly assertive arousal it was, from “cello and viola, urging a whole-hearted return to the opening theme, the “sigh” now a full-blooded statement of resolve, and the stirring commitment to the cause unassailable, the occasional minor-key hesitation aside – came the movement’s coda, however, and to our surprise ‘cello and viola were suddenly sounding a sober note of circumspection, hearkening back to those earlier spectral lines, the movement thus concluding “not with a bang, but with a whimper”…..

Had one but world enough and time, of course, one could relive the variegated pleasures of the entire concert thus, except that this is a mere review, not a performance! But such was the focus and concentration of these players, their music-making readily gave rise to thoughts and feelings which one found oneself throwing down on note-paper in frenzied, scarcely intelligible form, carried away with the up-front engagement of it all! The above account I hope gives some idea of the degree to which the musicians were able to make Beethoven’s music speak throughout the entire concert, their words being a mere adjunct to the business of investing the notes with life. The slow movement’s hymn-like opening allowed the first violin to decorate its line over sonorous supporting voicings, the phrasings beautifully terraced, as if preparing for the most soulful of dissertations – how disconcerting to suddenly have a kind of “party” breaking out, a garrulous affair with all voices having their say! Just as peremptorily the solemn mood was returned, the violin’s decorations this time echoed (almost “ghosted”) by the ‘cello, to richly-wrought effect. The sprightly Haydnesque Menuetto cast no shadows, either with its leaping opening figure (tossed about with great abandonment by the players) or its deceptively artless-sounding Trio, whose rising four-note motif gave rise to all kinds of adornments  from all the instruments; while the finale, set in motion by the ‘cello, allowed only one or two brief moments, by turns introspective and dark-browed, to cloud the music’s high spirits, the players carrying all before them with truly infectious energies.

Of course, both of the quartets remaining in the concert were conceived very much under the “cloud” of Beethoven’s by then obviously failing hearing, though Rolf Gjelsten in his spoken introduction to the first-played of these, the “Harp” Quartet No.10 in E-flat Major, Op.74, outlined for us some of the outside events, favourable and otherwise, which also played their part in “colouring” the composer’s world at the time. He invited us to imagine for ourselves the potential effect of these happenings  – to name but two highly-contrasted ones, the granting of an annuity to the composer for life by a group of Viennese nobles, and the war between France and Austria (Beethoven’s well-known “Les Adieux” Piano Sonata, also in A-flat, dated from the same time as his “Harp” Quartet, and shared some of the same characteristics).

Nicknamed “Harp” (by Beethoven’s publisher) because of the quartet’s frequent use of pizzicato in the first movement, the work with its opening “yearning” quality was beautifully articulated from the outset by the players, riding the top of a crescendo into the confidently stated three-note motif which the famous pizzicato notes replicated with great vigour, both here, and more elaborately in the later development sequence. I loved how the exhilarating “tow” of the first violin’s incredibly gutsy running figurations carried us irresistibly along to the “motto” theme’s statement which so dominated this movement. The Serenade-like second movement generated plenty of rapt concentration, with the violin at one point rivalling the viola in deep-throated expressiveness, though reclaiming its lighter voice before the movement’s end. But, after this, what an almost frightening contrast the scherzo’s opening made! And with what relentless drive did the musicians plunge into both the repeat of the opening and the “whirling dervish “ Trio! Such vertiginous energy! But then, I was riveted by those scalp-prickling, spectral tones the players took on over the final stretches of the ride, holding us in thrall! – at the end of it by rights the abyss should have been waiting to receive us all! – simply astonishing!

Of course, the said abyss was an illusion,  the spectral aspect gradually receding into the strains of a deceptively innocuous-sounding set of variations,  among them a lovely solo from the viola played cheek-by jowl with rumbustious “jolly hockey-sticks” enthusiasm by the ensemble, the music continuing to alternate similarly contrasting moods to the point where a precipitous slide became a mini-stampede of tumbling old-fashioned excitement, with its satisfied honour upheld by two quietly concluding chords!

We “used well the Interval”, digesting what we had heard, and discussing our thoughts with our “distanced” neighbours, by way of preparing for the concert’s final work, the Op.59 No. 2 Quartet in E Minor, here introduced by Monique Lapins, who re-emphasised the on-going impact upon Beethoven’s life and work of his hearing loss, and his determination (expressed by the earlier Heiligenstadt Testament, written to his brothers but discovered only after the composer’s death in 1828) to fulfil all that he felt called upon to produce. She drew parallels between the music for the “Eroica” Symphony (with its famous opening chords) and similar gestures (minor-key versions) in the quartet, and then got her fellow-players to illustrate the “Russian theme” given to Beethoven by Count Razumovsky and used by the composer in the work’s Allegretto movement (a theme which also occurs in Musorgsky’s opera “Boris Godunov”).

Thus primed, we were plunged into the maelstrom of trenchant attack, fiery exchange and brooding resonance of the E Minor Quartet’s first movement, the drama of confrontation and conflict all too palpable, the music driven excitingly, almost scarily fiercely by the players, the occasional repetitions of the searing opening chords holding us in thrall, and the dynamic vortex-like passages  drawing us into what seemed like the clamour of creation amidst burgeoning fire and tumult! The second movement’s long-breathed utterances, long-equated with Carl Czerny’s assertion  that Beethoven was evoking “the music of the spheres” in this music, felt to me in this performance to speak of ageless things, akin to a child’s feelings towards people and places that seemed “forever”, punctuated by specific fascinations whose essence was “felt” rather than comprehended – the violin’s ascending sequences, for example, or the ensemble’s two extraordinary chordal utterances, both breathcatching moments…..

But what can one say about the two final acts of the drama that the music itself doesn’t render superfluous? – and especially when delivered  in performance as “organically” as here, by these players! – after the almost Schumannesque insistence of the Allegretto’s determined “dancing with a crutch” aspect, I found the playful festivity of the “Russian” tune a welcome infusion of colour and variety, if almost tipping over into clangour In places! And (we were warned beforehand, but didn’t care!) the tensions built up by the finale’s driving dotted rhythms didn’t let up for a moment, the musicians’ surge of energy at the coda bringing our hearts into our mouths at the abandonment of it all! If music-making was about anything, we felt we understood and relished something of what it was, at that moment! Bravo, NZSQ!

 

 

 

 

 

Beethoven 250th anniversary: first concert from New Zealand String Quartet

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Beethoven: First concert of the complete string quartets

String Quartets:  Opus 18, No. 3 in D; Opus 18, No. 1 in F; Opus 59 ‘Razumovsky’, No. 1 in F

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Friday 11 September, 7:30 pm

This was the first of six concerts this month of all 17 of Beethoven’s string quartets (17 includes the Grosse Fuge, the original last movement of Op 130). They are being played in largely chronological order of publication, modified a bit to help in the appreciation of Beethoven’s developing genius: for example, here were the first two quartets alongside the first of the Op 59 (Razumovsky) group. While in the fourth concert, we will hear representatives from all three periods.

It would have been interesting for the programme notes to have mentioned the quartet’s earlier explorations of Beethoven’s quartets. My memory is of a complete series round about 2000. More easy to identify (in Middle C’s archive) have been performances of some of them in 2012, including all three of the Razumovsky quartets. But surely NZSQ have played the Op 59 quartets since then? Remarkably, I heard this one, Op 59 no 1, in a fine performance by the Aroha Quartet at Lower Hutt a few days ago!

I find it curious that the sort of rather obscure scholarship regarding the order, not merely of publication, but when Beethoven is believed to have simply ‘completed it to his satisfaction’ is such common knowledge. The equivalent knowledge of the chronology and revisions and printings in quarto format of Shakespeare’s plays, might be familiar to graduate students of English literature, but hardly to the great majority of theatre-goers.

Op 18 No 3 
So we began with Op 18 No 3, at once announcing the kind of psychological subtleties that our quartet had familiarised themselves with and were delivering the famous rising seventh at the beginning, expressing such sensitivity, delicacy and expectancy for the secrets to be uncovered over the next half hour. Fluctuating tempi and dynamics prepare you for the arrival of the true Allegro; the fleeting motifs might seemed to be tossed off but their playing remained always clearly purposeful and deliberate.  The second movement shifts from D to the key of B flat major, a somewhat remote key, almost hinting at the arrival of the minor mode. And there was an exploratory feeling in the quartet’s playing, every phrase carefully enunciated, quite deeply felt and purposed.

Further departures from the normal come with the third movement: not a conventional Minuet though in triple time, and with contrasting sections that fell back from D major to D minor. Their playing of the third movement seemed careful not to undermine the emotional character of either the preceding Andante, or the following optimistic, almost joyous Presto that followed. It was almost frenzied in this performance, but it never suffered from blurring or lack of precision. It was relentless with only brief rallentandi or perhaps more accurately ritardandi,

To play the first quartet straight after the end of the third, had the effect of drawing attention to the emotional difference between the two keys, a minor third apart (and, not having perfect pitch I don’t mean any intrinsic character that those claiming perfect pitch recognise in different keys: it’s just the pitch difference that has an emotional impact). This particular contrast made the F major piece, moving up by a minor third, seem more sombre, perhaps even with a touch of tentativeness.

Op 18 No 1
So the character of No 1 seems more serious and dramatic, though the first movement is marked Allegro con brio which did in fact characterise it. But I felt it was a ‘brio’ of a distinctly serious kind. That might have led to my hearing contrasts between the roles and the playing of each instrument that seemed more evident in No 3; for some reason I found myself paying more attention to those aspects in the second work. As often, the differences in tone and mood between the two violins, part no doubt, the instrument, part the personality differences between players, are always interesting to contemplate and to enjoy.

If the first movement is quite long, the second movement is even more protracted (nearly ten minutes) graced with a more deliberate title than usual: Adagio affettuoso ed appassionato. Such details always tilt one’s expectation to read particular qualities into a performance. It’s in a rather slow triple time, 9/8, meaning nine quavers to the bar. The programme note records thoughts allegedly exchanged between Beethoven and a tutor, one Karl Amenda, who was employed by Beethoven’s patron at the time and dedicatee of the set of quartets, Prince Franz Josef Maximilian von Lobkowitz. Beethoven is recorded saying that he thought of the second movement as in the burial vault scene of Romeo and Juliet. Such an observation tends to colour what one hears.

The third movement is a normal Scherzo, sprightly through its repeated dotted rhythms and staccato octave leaps. Only about three minutes long, it is enough dramatically to change the listener’s view of the whole quartet that is reinforced by the scampering finale, a plain Allegro in 2/4 time dominated by semi-quavers in triplets. Though Beethoven gives very balanced roles to all four instruments in his quartets, viola and cello often seemed more prominent and the vivid playing by Gillian Ansell and Rolf Gjelsten continued to command attention.

Op 59 (Razumovsky), No 1
A link with Beethoven’s next ‘period’ came with the first of the three quartets of Op 59, written for Count Razumovsky, Russian ambassador to Austria (by the way, it’s Разумовский in the Cyrillic alphabet: ‘з’ is ‘z’, not ‘s’). Its contrast with the two Op 18 quartets lies not so much in their melodic character as in the adventurousness of harmonies that quite soon seem to lose sight of the original key as they explore expanding tonalities quietly, secretively. And the cello again seemed to have a conspicuous role in this.

The second movement, which might seem a substitute for a Scherzo, marked Allegro vivace e sempre scherzando, finds its emotional contrast through its move to the subdominant key of B flat, which seems to calm the vivace and scherzo-ish character. The playing seemed to emphasise the ritual thematic development process, though the persistent treatment of the themes was a constant delight, as if Beethoven was teasing us into recognising that he was obeying the rules.

The slow movement, Adagio molto e mesto, is in F minor, which created a more serious, even sorrowful (‘mesto’ means sad) tone and is indeed at the heart of the quartet. It offered all players opportunities for some profoundly felt elegiac passages; it lasts around 12 minutes. It felt to me, as I’m sure Beethoven intended, to hold its audience transfixed, through non-ostentatious but ever-changing musical patterns and modulations. Even though there are no conspicuously flamboyant passages, here it was the seriousness and poignancy of the playing by each of the four musicians that impressed so deeply. The movement’s conclusion is a remarkable demonstration of Beethoven’s ability to shift the mood, subtly, teasingly, and at astonishing length, to introduce us without a break to the very different character of the last movement. In this movement, named Thème Russe: Allegro, Beethoven obliged Razumovsky by including a Russian tune. The players had illustrated it at the beginning: a quite slow, unremarkable theme. But Beethoven felt free to play fast and loose with it, turning it into a vivacious tune which gave him sufficient material for a joyous seven or eight minute finale which gave the players plenty of scope for their virtuosity and mastery of Beethoven’s intentions, to toy endlessly with his material particularly one of his deliciously prolonged codas. The NZSQ proved itself again completely in command of this wonderful composition.

Three Beethoven string quartets from brilliant Ébène Quartet: part of their world-wide project

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Ébène Quartet
Pierre Colombet, and Gabriel Le Magadure – violins; Marie Chilemme – viola, Raphaël Merlin – cello

Beethoven Live
String Quartet No 2 in G, Op 18 no 2
String Quartet No 11 in F minor, Op 95 (‘Serioso’)
String Quartet No 10 in E flat, Op 74 (‘Harp’)

Michael Fowler Centre

Friday 25 October 7:30 pm

The concert by the Ébène Quartet was probably the most looked forward to concert of the 2019 Chamber Music New Zealand series, though Middle C this year is not really in a position to make a comprehensive comparison. We missed at least a couple of concerts, including that by the Brodsky Quartet in May.

Ébène is a quartet with far more strings to its bows than merely hard-core classical stuff. They are alleged to be equally at home in jazz and film music, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they ventured into heavy metal and hip-hop too.

One cannot shield oneself altogether from the influence of overseas critiques of prominent groups or from occasional hearings on RNZ Concert; and it was clear from the very first notes there was something remarkable here. The French quartet have, this and early next year, devoted themselves to celebrating Beethoven’s 250th birthday (December 2020) by performing all his string quartets around the world. And they are recording a 7 CD box for Erato Warner.

Opus 18 no 2 in G
They had the secret of making each of the three quartets chosen for New Zealand (one  other concert, in Auckland) sound like an extraordinary masterpiece, and furthermore, sound as if one had never heard the piece properly before. Op 18 no 2 opened in the most fragile and delicate way imaginable.  But nothing was so febrile that it didn’t emerge meaningfully, with clarity and wide-ranging emotional liveliness and depth, – particularly the interesting development section. The hesitant refinement of the Adagio cantabile seemed to be a matter of delicacy rather than lyricism, though the uniqueness of the second movement comes with the unexpected Allegro that bursts uninvited on the movement’s predominant spirit, and just as abruptly reverts to the character of the first section again.

In the sparkling Scherzo it struck me that in places there was a curious contrast between the melody line and the lower strings; and even though it’s one of the early instances of the Minuet movement being replaced by a Scherzo, Beethoven fills it with unexpected twists that the players exploited with taste and wit.

And the last movement sustains the spirit of what G major is thought to suggest: spirited, perhaps rustic, though such notions strike a cynic, without perfect pitch, as fanciful. Nevertheless, the Allegro molto finale met these expectations with special delight and imaginativeness.

No 11 in F minor – ‘Serioso’
The other two quartets were Nos 10 and 11, labelled as ‘late middle period’, and they are the last before the final five ‘Late Quartets’. This was probably written in 1811, first performed in 1814. If you’re paying attention to the spiritual nature of keys, this F minor quartet seems to fill the bill for F minor: grieving, melancholic; though the first movement is nevertheless full of energy, with abrupt dynamic changes, and the players highlighted these, emphasising the despair suggested by its quiet disappearance at the end. I’ve never heard the second movement, marked Allegretto ma non troppo, played with such hesitancy in spite of the second violin’s long staccato accompaniment that seemed to dominate the mood as others uttered quiet gestures that didn’t really consist of melody. The third movement is also entitled Allegretto, but ‘assai vivace ma serioso’, rather than Scherzo – which it emphatically is not. Its unchanging, intense disquiet was here expressed with more than usual subtlety and other-worldliness. The last movement opens with the most ‘serioso’ feeling of all – it’s marked Larghetto espressivo and even though it accelerates, a feeling of frenzied insecurity dominated the performance, and was alleviated by startling refinement. One is left uneasy even after the final frantic bars at high speed.

The Harp Quartet, Op 74
The title ‘Harp Quartet’ has always seemed to me an odd misnomer as the odd passages of pizzicato are hardly of critical significance in the score, in spite of the case made for them by the writer of the programme notes. The players began the Poco adagio introduction to the first movement with an infinite, remote subtlety that seemed to lie somewhere between the confidence of the Op 18 work and the sombre ‘Serioso’. But the Allegro itself departed at once from any hesitancy with an ebullient lyricism as well as, in this performance, almost a feeling of turmoil; though always with feet on the ground. The second movement, soberly labelled Adagio ma non troppo, has been variously characterised: it’s simply meditative and beautiful, and they played the long quiet passages with a dreamy unease.

Then the third movement, Presto, which Beethoven again avoids using the word Scherzo to describe, was strangely passionate, almost furious in its seriousness especially, after a couple of minutes, with the dynamic cello-led, chaotic sort of chase.  If it wasn’t for the tempo change from triple to common time, it’s easy to overlook the arrival of the last movement, which follows with hardly a pause, and which might be heard as something of an elaboration, emotionally, of the Presto.  It’s a protracted, complex movement, even though formally, it’s merely an old-fashioned theme and variations. The players invested it with a wonderful feeling of ease and ethereal richness; and the quirkiness of the final accelerated bars seemed to epitomise the wonderful range and expressive variety that this quartet could bring to performances of the greatest music.

 

Kiwa Quartet takes enjoyable, interesting journey through 125 years of quartet repertoire for Wellington Chamber Music

Posted on by Steven Sedley

Kiwa Quartet: Malavika Gopal and Alan Molina (violins), Sophia Anderson (viola), Rolf Gjelsten (cello)
(Wellington Chamber Music: Sunday series)

Haydn: String Quartet Op. 76 No. 2 ‘Fifths’
Webern: Langsamer Satz
Janáček: String Quartet No.1 ‘Kreutzer Sonata’
Mendelssohn: String Quartet No. 2 in A minor Op. 13

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday 26 May 2019, 3 pm

Listening to string quartet music is a delightful way of spending a Sunday afternoon. We have had the privilege of hearing three excellent string quartets over the last three weeks, the New Zealand String Quartet, the Aroha Quartet, and now the Kiwa Quartet.  It is fortunate for Wellington to have such an abundance of talent around.

The Kiwa Quartet was formed in 2015 as part of a project supported by the NZSO Professional Development Grant. What a great investment that Professional Development Grant was!  Investing in the four musicians who formed the Kiwa Quartet certainly paid handsome dividends. First violin, Malavika Gopal, member of the NZSO, studied with the Alban Berg Quartet and was part of a prize winning quartet; Alan Molina, came from America to the NZSO with a wealth of orchestral experience; violist, Sophia Anderson is the Principal Viola of Orchestra Wellington; the cellist, Ken Ichinose had unfortunately injured his finger and was replaced by the very seasoned cellist of the New Zealand String Quartet, Rolf Gjelsten. The four make up a confident, balanced ensemble playing with a rich, beautifully and blended sound.

The concert began with the second of Haydn‘s ‘Erdödy’ quartets, Op. 76, No. 2. This is late, mature Haydn. He was 65 and had developed the art of the string quartet from light background music into substantial music with a wide scope for drama and emotion that leads to the later quartets of Beethoven. This quartet got its nickname ‘Fifths’ from the descending fifth of the first movement, which gives the movement an air of gravitas. The second movement is a charming Andantino, which was played with just the right amount of lightness. The Menuetto had a stomping of peasants’ dance quality typical of late Haydn, and the last movement, Vivace ended the work on a cheerful rollicking note. These Haydn quartets are a challenge for musicians, both technically and musically. There are a lot of rapid notes that have to be articulated clearly and the Kiwa players did this admirably.

For me the surprise of the programme was Webern‘s Langsamer Satz. This is no Second Viennese School of dissonant music that Webern is associated with. This is a lush romantic piece. ‘Langsamer Satz’ means Slow Movement. It was the first composition exercise assigned to Webern by his teacher Schoenberg. The work is in one movement built on three lyric themes combined in different ways and taken to a conclusion of great intensity. It provided solo opportunities for each of the members of the quartet and in particular, the viola. You could wallow in their beautiful sound. The impetus for the work, Webern wrote, was his walk in the Austrian woods with his cousin, Wilhelmine Mortl, with whom he was in love. It is a recollection of a happy time. The music was lost and only discovered many years after Webern’s death. This was probably no accident. Although the music is beautiful, it was not what Webern wanted to be remembered by.

By contrast, the Janáček String Quartet is a tempestuous affair. It depicts psychological drama that  contains moments of conflict and emotional outbursts. Janáček wrote that he was imagining a poor woman, tormented and run down, just like the one the Russian writer Tolstoy describes in his Kreutzer Sonata. The work is in four movements. They are all con moto driven, disturbed. The musical language is typical of Janáček, which almost abandons traditional harmony, homophony and counterpoint and makes use of contrasting textures. It may be a reflection of the insecure world of Europe after the First World War. It is a unique string quartet with none other like it.

After the Janáček, the Mendelssohn Quartet returned to the string quartet tradition. In 1827, when Beethoven died Mendelssohn was eighteen years old. His second string quartet was modelled on Beethoven’s late quartets, and is influenced by them. Chuzpah, you might think, an eighteen year old trying to take on Beethoven’s mantle, but Mendelssohn was an amazing prodigy and produced a major work that could stand alongside the great masterpieces. Despite its official number, this was Mendelssohn’s first mature string quartet, although he had written a number of quartets before as well as his Octet.

The String Quartet No. 2 in A minor borrowed the structure of the late Beethoven quartets, and in particular, Op 132, and even some of the Beethoven motifs appear in Mendelssohn’s piece, but the language is distinctively Mendelssohn’s. The first movement starts with a dramatic, slow introduction that quotes the tender love song ‘Frage’, Op. 9/1 which he wrote for a young woman he might have taken a fancy to, a theme that keeps recurring, and this is followed by a spirited passage. The slow movement opens with an extended melody, which devolves into a fugal section echoing Beethoven. The Intermezzo has the lilting melody that is like his Midsummer’s Night music, but also like a simple song he might have overheard in a fair ground. The final movement starts with dramatic chords, again reminiscent of Beethoven and then develops into light filigree music that often characterises Mendelssohn’s, interrupted with sudden contrasting themes as they do in Beethoven, among them even a theme that resembles one from the Ninth Symphony. It is an enchanting work. It is a pity that Mendelssohn’s quartets are not heard more often.

The Kiwa Quartet took us on a long and interesting journey from Haydn in 1797 through Webern in 1905, Janáček in 1923 and back to Mendelssohn in 1827. It was a thoroughly enjoyable voyage. The Kiwa is a fine quartet that can stand alongside the best of New Zealand’s chamber music groups.

 

A memorable concert from the Aroha Quartet: exciting Ligeti and a Beethoven masterpiece

Posted on by Steven Sedley

‘Metamorphoses’
Aroha Quartet (Haihong Liu and Konstanze Artmann – violins, Zhongxian Jin – viola, Robert Ibell – cello)

Mozart: String Quartet No. 17 in B flat K 548 ‘Hunt’
Ligeti: String Quartet No. 1 ‘Metamorphoses Nocturnes’
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 13 in B flat Op. 130

St Andrew’s on the Terrace

Tuesday 7 May 2019, 7:30 pm

With concerts by two string quartets, the New Zealand String Quartet and the Aroha Quartet within two days, the Brodsky quartet on the 20th and the Kiwa quartet on the 26th of May seems like a festival of string quartets. With so much music, it is the works that challenge that makes these concerts memorable.

The Aroha Quartet played Mozart and Beethoven, beautiful but familiar music, but it was György Ligeti’s First Quartet that stood out and made one think. The piece was written in 1953/54. Ligeti was 30 years old. He had survived the war in which he served in a Jewish labour service unit, while both his brother and father died in concentration camps. In the years after the war he studied with renowned teachers at the Budapest Music Academy, Kadosa, Veress, and in particular, Kodaly. He was making a name for himself as a composer of choral pieces and settings of folk songs. His early works were often an extension of the musical language of Bartók. But some of his pieces could not be played under the Communist regime of Hungary: too difficult, too cerebral. His First String Quartet was not performed until he fled Hungary in 1956 and settled in Vienna. He called the piece Metamorphoses; it is a transfiguration, the changes of a four note theme, G, A, G sharp, A sharp over a chromatic bass played by the cello into a series of variations like distinct segments. These segments include vigorous rhythmic sections, peasant dances with heavy stomping of boots, passages that recall Bartók’s night music, gentle, melodic, surreal There are huge dynamic contrasts, barbaric dance themes, humour, sarcasm, buzzing mosquito passages. At the end the piece returns to the four notes it started with. It is an exciting work and we should be grateful to the Aroha Quartet for introducing it to us.

Beethoven’s Quartet No. 13 in B flat is a colossal piece in six movements. It encompasses a whole world of emotions, from the noble opening Adagio followed by an energetic contrasting section, then to the simple children’s playground theme of the rollicking Presto in which voices taunt each other, there is humour, there is the courtly dance of the Andante, the jolly rhythm of the Alla danza tedesca, and ultimately the quartet culminates in the haunting Cavatina that brought tears to Beethoven’s and probably many listeners’ eyes, which is finally resolved in a light-hearted Finale. The great architecture of this work is assembled from simple, at times naïve parts. The Aroha Quartet played it with passion, with beautiful tone and meticulous clear phrasing.

The concert opened with Mozart’s ‘Hunt’ Quartet, one of the half dozen he dedicated to Haydn. Although it shares the key with the Beethoven work, it comes from a different world. Written in 1784, it reflects the last years of the ancien régime, a perceived stability in which all was orderly. It is a beautiful work and The Aroha Quartet captured its spirit.

This was a memorable concert and the Aroha Quartet are one of the great musical assets of our city.

 

 

New Zealand String Quartet produce joyousness and profundity for Wellington Chamber Music

Posted on by Steven Sedley

Wellington Chamber Music
New Zealand String Quartet

Beethoven: String Quartet in A Op. 18 No 5
Jack Body: Bai sanxian (2009)
Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 10 in A flat  
Brahms: String Quartet in A minor Op. 51

St. Andrews on The Terrace

Sunday 5 May, 3 pm

A concert by the NZ String Quartet is always an event to look forward to. This is the quartet’s 32nd season, and over the years they have gained an international reputation. In this concert they covered a broad period of the musical development of the string quartet.

In 1798 Beethoven was a budding piano virtuoso, who had moved to Vienna and was gradually making a name for himself as a composer. He lived in the shadow Haydn. Like Haydn, he published his first set of quartets, Op. 18, as a set of a half dozen. No. 5, in A major, is playful, with a touch of humour and Haydn-like surprises, a graceful dance movement and an extended set of variations that explore the potential of a simple theme. This piece received an energetic sparkling reading, but for this listener at least, some of the charm, the light touch was missing.

Jack Body’s Bai sanxian was something entirely different. The music of Asian cultures is a recurring theme of Jack Body’s work. He deliberately and provocatively stepped outside the main stream of Western music. This short piece comes from a collection of transcriptions and arrangements of music from some of the Chinese minority nationalities of Yunnan province in South-West China. The string quartet imitates the Chinese traditional instruments, the first violin and cello plucking their instruments while the second violin and the viola carry the melodic line. The music challenges the listener to explore unfamiliar musical traditions, to listen carefully and perhaps ask questions about the universal nature of music.

Shostakovich is a controversial composer. William Walton described him as the ‘greatest composer of the 20th century’, while Pierre Boulez dismissed him as ‘the second or even third pressing of Mahler’. There is certainly a special Shostakovich sound and a Shostakovich perception of what music is about. He is the Holy Fool, who witnesses all the terrible as well as all the joyous things around him. The overall character of the 10th String Quartet is dark, in some places sinister and fearful. It opens with a four note motive played by the solo violin, then the other instruments join in one at a time. An unanswered question hangs over the movement. This is followed by a furious second movement played fortissimo. At one moment the viola and plays on the bridge of her instrument to create the effect of a sinister Mephistophelean laughter. The Adagio is a mournful passacaglia that gradually turns darker. The final movement breaks away from the mournful character of the earlier movements and is jaunty and carefree at the beginning, but then returns to the melancholic air of the whole piece. Life was tough in Shostakovich’s Russia, but he implies that there is light amidst the gloom, life must carry on.

The final work in the programme was Brahms’s Second String Quartet, Op. 51, No. 2. Beethoven’s colossal final quartets weighed heavily on Brahms. How could one write a string quartet that could follow up these works. He had a number of attempts at writing a string quartet and destroyed all of these, until at the age of 40 he published, after numerous revisions, two works with which he was satisfied. Brahms worked in the idiom he inherited and used the language of German folk music, but he deconstructed these haunting themes, broke them up, turned them into deep, meaningful conversations between the four instruments. There is light and joyousness in the second movement and grace in the third, Minuetto, but Brahms never abandons himself to a rollicking good time. In the last movement he revisits the Hungarian czardas that provided many happy themes for his music, but notwithstanding all the jollity, the music is subdued. This was a profound performance.

It was a very satisfying afternoon of music, enjoyed by a large and knowledgeable audience. The quartet’s many years of playing together was reflected in their seamless, smooth playing. May they keep this up for many more years and enrich Wellington’s musical life.

 

Janacek and Beethoven String Quartets from the amazing NZSQ at Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music presents:

The New Zealand String Quartet
JANÁČEK– String Quartet No. 1
BEETHOVEN – String Quartet No.16 Op.135
NATALIE HUNT – Data Entry Groove (2014)

New Zealand String Quartet –

Helene Pohl, Monique Lapins (violins)
Gillian Ansell (viola) / Rolf Gjelsten (‘cello)

Adam Concert Room,
Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music
Victoria University of Wellington
Friday, 15 March 2019

(Reviewer’s note: I’ve deliberately left off publishing this review until now to allow a week or so’s worth of air and space to blow into and around things concerned with the horrific events that took place in Christchurch on the same day of the concert. It’s a small gesture set against happenings in a vast and unpredictable world, but I’d nevertheless like to dedicate these words to those whose lives were so tragically ended by what took place in those Christchurch mosques that day, and to all those people who responded, both immediately and over the days that followed, to the needs of fellow-New Zealanders of all persuasions with kindness and understanding that helped restore some hope and faith in a future whose bright dream had been suddenly darkened……)

Monday 25th March 2019

It all seemed too good to be true – here we were at a FREE CONCERT at the Adam Concert Room up at the University, about to be enthralled by the country’s most prestigious string quartet in two major works from the genre’s repertoire, one from the nineteenth and the other from the twentieth century, plus an additional piece from someone who’s proving to be a most interesting member of a stimulating “new  wave” of young New Zealand composers – as close to a “something for everybody” scenario as one could perhaps get at an hour-long concert by a single group!

Beginning the concert was the first of two string quartets by Moravian composer Leoš Janáček, one bearing the sub-title “Kreutzer Sonata”. In a letter, written by the composer to a much younger married woman, Kamilla Stösslová, whom Janáček regarded as his “muse”, writing her over 700 letters, he revealed his music’s purpose: “What I had in mind was the suffering of a woman, beaten and tortured to death, about whom the Russian author Tolstoy writes in his Kreutzer Sonata”. Of course, Tolstoy (who ironically didn’t much care for music!) used the title of one of Beethoven’s most famous chamber works to intensify his story’s emotional “charge”, that of a woman in a loveless marriage caught up in the passions of the music when playing the work with a handsome violinist, and as a result being beaten to death by her jealous husband.

Violist Gillian Ansell nicely anatomised the music’s terrain beforehand, introducing musical examples played by the group that resembled incredibly burgeoning slices of raw emotion. It was obvious straightway how the group possessed the temperament, confidence and technical skill to be able to enter wholly into this tortured world, one marked by the composer’s penchant for extremes of both expression and technical address, and with the players aware of how such music worked best via a suitably no-holds-barred approach.

Here the ensemble infused these extremities and razor-sharp contrasts with the utmost concentration, making it all sound as if each member was “living” the frenzied outbursts and tortured trajectories of the music’s narrative – as one commentator’s description succinctly puts it, expressed in writing that’s “less melody than compelling, emotionally-charged talking”. Like Mussorgsky before him in Russia, so Janáček wished to catch the realism of his countrymen’s speech patterns in his writing with all their angularities and astringencies, and, in this context heightened by extremes of feeling.

The second movement’s sharp contrasts between the dancelike motifs and the searing coruscations of emotion here simply conflagrated the textures, having a simultaneous “stunning” and “drawing-in” effect on the listener, the playing remarkable in its candid impact. By contrast, the third movement began with a melancholic duet-like passage from first violin and ‘cello (a quotation from Beethoven’s work, used to highlight the “illicit” rapport between the two players in the story), nastily punctuated on a number of occasions with scintillating shards of sound, here all remarkably coherent in an overall expressive sense while disturbing in their own realm of impulsiveness. Still, the performers had, one sensed at all times, a “grip” on the overall design that allowed the stridencies free rein to shock and unnerve without straying from the whole.

A brooding calm hovered over the finale’s opening, the lyricism heart-rending and bleak-sounding (shades of Sibelius’ Fourth Symphony)! until the viola began pulling the violins along agitated stretches of territory, the music building and sharpening its tensions as an incredibly intense dotted rhythm sequence piled “Pelion upon Ossa” in its anger, fright and menace – the “moment of murder” then suddenly seemed to dissolve the music’s substance, leaving little more than crumpled, exhausted shadows – so very enigmatic! – and here, so heart-stopping in its searing execution by these intrepid players…….

I’d always regarded Beethoven’s last quartet as a kind of roller-coaster-ride as well, actually, but of a different kind to what we had just heard, alternating the visceral with the playful and enigmatic, as opposed to Janacek’s relentless assault. Here were Olympian forces at play, with whatever moments of stress and angst suggested (in the work’s finale) defused as systematically as they’d been developed, like the inevitable movements of cosmic bodies through the heavens, leaving we earthbound listeners gaping in bemused astonishment!

‘Cellist Rolf Gjelsten here emulated Gillian Ansell’s penetrative introductory remarks regarding the Janacek, entertaining us greatly with his theories regarding Beethoven’s famous “question-and-answer” passages at the finale’s beginning, and provoking amusing responses from the other quartet members. Thus enlightened and emboldened, we began our listening, with the lower strings right at the start posing a question or remark answered by a pithy, increasingly insistent exclamation from the violins – “Pardon?” – or perhaps “You’re joking!” Straightaway, this fusing of the portentous and the commonplace – the fabulous with the ordinary – set the tone for the rest of the work. Not a note was wasted, the effect an amazing sense of freedom in simplicity.

By contrast, the scherzo had us on the edges of our seats, the players alternating jovial muscularities with spectral mutterings, punctuating the proceedings with off-centre sforzandi, and grim-humoured rebeginnings, building up to the notorious “madcap trio”, three whirling dervishes trying to catch the lone violin mid-flight – a fearful symmetry gone berserk! The occasional “wildness” of intonation to my ears sounded appropriate – what would a perfect, “squeaky-clean” rendition of this music do except reduce the untamed, out-of-control exhilaration of the whole, anyway?

Gorgeously rich and deep-toned at the slow movement’s beginning, the melody was “sung from within” at first, before being lifted aloft for us by the first violin – we then were left to “reimagine” its contourings, prompted, it seemed, by the harmonies alone, as if the music had almost lost its way in the dark, as if bereaved. Rapturously, the music then reinvented itself, the ensemble heart-warmingly playing into and out of one another’s figurations, leading to the first violin’s “taking wing”, supported by upward arpeggios from the others, allowing the long-breathed statements to drift naturally into a grateful communion of silence at the end.

Came the enigma of the finale’s opening, with cello and viola “asking the question”, leaving the violins to muse over a response to begin with, then burst impassionedly forth as if hanging by a thread waiting for assistance or illumination – a terse three-note response to the opening three-note question, the well-known “Muss es sein?” (Must it be?) phrase which the composer inscribed in the score.

How exhilarating, then, that sudden onrush of joyful energy accompanying the reply, again inscribed by Beethoven in the score – “Es muss sein!” (It must be!) – the release of tension here brought out most tellingly an inevitability, a mark of greatness to do with force of personality, with depth of acceptance and with single-mindedness of purpose! Beethoven’s intoning of a Rasumovsky Quartet-like second melody then threw the vistas open, including the world at large in this paean of acceptance of life! How vigorously the players gave themselves over to this energetic release – and how terrifyingly they then mirrored its sudden reversion to a nightmare of doubt and anxiety with the return of the “Muss es Sein” motif! – the violins sounded particularly “spooked” at the reappearance of “the question”!

Almost defiantly, the allegro reasserted itself, pulling all the music’s strands out of their state of transfiguration and thrusting forth once again. Part of the rehabilitation of surety came with the “Rasumovsky-like” tune, its open-hearted aspect here seeming to include all of us in a kind of anthem-like circle of strength and resolve. Throughout, the musicians remained strong and steadfast, bring forth playing whose confidence uplifted our spirits further, culminating in the enchanting pizzicati that led to the final, emphatic gesture of belief in simply being. Fantastic!

Though I would have happily regarded what we’d experienced as “cup runneth over” stuff, I couldn’t begrudge a young composer’s music the chance of a hearing – and so it was that we heard Natalie Hunt’s 2014 work “Data Entry Groove”, a delicious piece of music-theatre depicting the workings and interactions of computers and operators. A jazzy, nicely off-beat set of opening trajectories involved various cyber-rhythms (Rolf Gjelsten and his ‘cello) and personalised responses to the machine-like routines from the other three players, involving sliding notes and inventive textures and timbres, including a “time for a break” section (violinist Monique Lapins did what looked to my untutored eyes to be some Pilates!)…..returning to their work-routines the players busied themselves with various engagingly off-beat energies, all of which led to a surprise ending of droll and insouciant finality. Definitely a work to enjoy in the “seeing” and “hearing” rather than in the “describing”!

 

Adam Chamber Music Festival in Nelson: the first days

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Grand Opening Concert

Mozart: Horn Quintet in E flat, K 407    Sam Jacobs – horn, Helene Pohl – violin, Gillian Ansell – viola, Monique Lapins – viola, Rolf Gjelsten – cello
Brahms: Three Intermezzi from Op 118 (Nos 1, 2, 6)    Dénes Várjon
Prokofiev: Sonata for two violins, Op 58    Anthony Marwood and Nikki Chooi – violins
Brahms: String Quintet No 2 in G, Op 111    Jerusalem Quartet (Alexander Pavlovsky and Sergei Bresler – violins, Ori Kam – viola, Kyril Zlotnikov – cello), with Gillian Ansell – second viola

Nelson Centre of Musical Arts (Nelson School of Music)

Friday 1 February 2019, 7:30 pm

This was the first festival for five years that has been able to move back to the now magnificently enhanced Nelson School of Music (now called the Nelson Centre of Musical Arts). That, as well as the line-up of many top international musicians, saw the early sell-out of all but one of the nine superb evening concerts. That’s attributable also to the festival’s international reputation, attracting many people from around New Zealand and increasing numbers from overseas. My frequent comment that for the past 20 years, it’s been the finest classical music festival in New Zealand bears reiterating: its only earlier competitor was the three weeks duration New Zealand International Arts Festival in Wellington which has long ceased to be one of the richest classical music festivals in the world.

The first concert on Friday 1 February happened to be the birthday of the festival’s most important and longest standing sponsor, Denis Adam, who died last October. In their opening remarks former minister for the arts, Chris Finlayson, as well as festival chair Colleen Marshall, paid deeply-felt tributes to his 25 years of support.

The opening concert was an opportunity to show-case most of the artists scheduled in the early days of the festival. So the New Zealand String Quartet plus NZSO principal horn Samuel Jacobs opened this first concert with Mozart’s Horn Quintet in E flat, one of several challenging pieces that Mozart wrote for his horn-playing friend Joseph Leutgeb; it’s an unusual work, made more curious by employing two violas instead of two violins. The quartet’s second violinist, Monique Lapins, switched to the viola. It enriched the sound beautifully, even though in the beginning there was some imbalance between horn and strings in this very clear acoustic; the players soon settled to a performance of great delight.

Returning Hungarian pianist Dénes Várjon then played three of the Six Pieces, Op 118, some of the many small piano pieces that Brahms wrote near the end of his life. Intermezzi nos 1, 2, and 6 of the set are sharply different in spirit and style, and they whetted the appetite to hear Várjon playing Beethoven and other music during the week.

Brahms’s 2nd string quintet and three intermezzi
There was a connection between the three intermezzi and the Jerusalem Quartet’s performance in the second half of Brahms’s second String Quintet (this time, the second violist being Gillian Ansell of the New Zealand String Quartet). Though he intended that the quintet would be his last composition, as his health was failing, its great success encouraged him to write a lot more chamber music in his last years, specifically the 20 pieces of opp 116 to 119. They were three well-contrasted pieces in which Várjon found subtle and interesting characteristics, No 6 traversing a sad, reflective mood that grew suddenly more exciting, even overwhelming by the end. I rather wished he’d played more of them.

The quintet is not one of Brahms most familiar pieces, but this performance made it easy to understand the warm reception its premiere in Vienna in 1890 received; somewhere described as ‘a sensation’. And this performance, celebratory and confident, with all five players producing a rapturous first movement with warm, heart-felt, sometimes boisterous playing promised a similar response. The second movement may be rather more enigmatic, but there was no lack of unanimity in their playing, particularly in the uniform warmth and richness of tone that they drew from their instruments. Although the last movement might not have seemed as spirited and moving as the first, at the end the audience responded with a sort of hushed awe.

The 20th century was represented by a not-well-known piece by Prokofiev, his Sonata for two violins, Op 58. Its four movements, vividly contrasted, and ferociously challenging were played by Canadian Nikki Chooi and British Anthony Marwood. Though alternating in musical sense and mood from phrase to phrase, seeming to speak different languages, ultimately an astonishing integrity and a shared purpose was revealed both in the music itself and its performance.

 

Saturday: Meeting the artists and discussing the music

The Jerusalem Quartet, talking with Gillian Ansell

Bartók’s music in the Festival: members of the Jerusalem Quartet, Dénes Várjon with Helene Pohl and Monique Lapins

Nelson Centre of Musical Arts

Saturday 2 February, 10 am and 2 pm

Talking with the Jerusalem Quartet 
The day had started with a morning appointment in which NZSQ violist Gillian Ansell talked with the four members of the Jerusalem Quartet. It was one of those occasions when the public gets to glimpse the sort of relationship that exists between those musicians who appear to the audience as rather super-human beings. The light shone not just on the four Israelis, but also on the normality of their rapport with at least one other musician of comparable gifts and insight: here, Gillian Ansell.

Their lives: the two violinists born in Kiev in Ukraine, the cellist from Minsk in Belarus, and violist Ori Kam who was born of Ukrainian parentage in California. While the other three were original members, he joined the quartet in 2009. Their various backgrounds have naturally become of special interest through the political and military activities that have forced on the rest of the world, some understanding of cynical post-Soviet adventurism and the unwise behaviour of the Ukrainian and Belarusian regimes. Each revealed careers that existed before and continued after the formation of the Jerusalem Quartet, when the players were about 17. And their careers have been troubled by reactions to their evident nature of their relationship with the Israeli Government.

No doubt because of his fluency in English, Ori Kam tended to lead entertainingly, with interesting detail about his own and the quartet’s background.

Bartók
In the afternoon, Dénes Várjon, members of the Jerusalem Quartet, and Helene Pohl and Monique Lapins, talked about the three Bartók pieces to be played in the following days. The relevant works discussed and illustrated were the Suite for piano, Op 14, written in 1916, on Sunday evening, the second violin sonata, written in 1922 on Tuesday evening, and the 5th String quartet played after I’d left Nelson. Várjon spoke in some detail about the Suite and the influence of his early exploration and recording of folk music in Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Algeria. He mentioned Bartók’s own comments in the recordings which had a singular impact.

Monique Lapins was given space to play excerpts from, and talk about Bartók’s violin sonata; I found her presentation rarely illuminating, especially through her near-seductive movements that created an almost balletic interpretation of the music. The excerpts chosen from several movements of each work were a revelation, preparing the ground so illuminatingly for all three. I heard the full performances of only the first two works, neither of which I was familiar with.   Like many others, I find Bartók a gritty composer, his music not especially engaging, though it richly repays perseverance and close attention.

The members of the Jerusalem Quartet then discussed Bartók’s fifth string quartet to which all contributed, though it was violist Ori Kam who tended to lead the way, guiding the quartet’s playing of significant passages, pointing to bits that reflected the folk music of this or that Balkan people, even Turkish, and he remarked on the readiness of the Balkan Christian population, even when faced with imminent Turkish invasion, to enjoy Turkish music. He contributed encouraging remarks like, “Cool, isn’t it!”.

Saturday evening: Schubert, Dorati, Schumann and Brahms

Schubert: Violin Sonata No 3 in G minor, D 408    Alexander Pavlovsky – violin and Dénes Várjon – piano
Antal Dorati: Three pieces for oboe solo – La cigale et la fourmi, Lettre d’amour, Legerdemain    Thomas Hutchinson – oboe
Schumann: Piano Quartet in E flat, Op 47    Helene Pohl – violin, Gillian Ansell – viola, Kyril Zlotnikov – cello, Dénes Várjon – piano
Brahms: Horn Trio in E flat, Op 40    Sam Jacobs – horn, Anthony Marwood – violin, Dénes Várjon – piano

Nelson Centre of Musical Arts

Saturday 2 February, 7:30 pm

The Saturday evening concert opened with the first of one of the festival themes: the four Schubert sonatas, three of them called sonatinas in their first publication, after his death. Indeed, they are not heavy-weight in length or tone. Each was played by a different violinist: the first, No 3, D 408, played here by Alexander Pavkovsky and Várjon. There might have been a lingering trace of Bartókian urgency under the warmth and delight that the first movement produces, and one might have thought about the very short distance between Vienna and Budapest, or towns in which Bartók lived as a child, such as Pozsony (now Bratislava in Slovakia). The violin produced a sound that had the burnished glow of Rimu.

Prize-winning New Zealand oboist Thomas Hutchinson chose an unusual solo piece for his offering in this recital of huge variety: a set of three pieces by composer Antal Dorati, who was also a conductor of considerable distinction: a Hungarian (to keep Bartók company).  Bartók taught him at the Franz Liszt Academy and he conducted the world premiere of Bartók’s viola concerto. To modern audiences his fame rests substantially on his complete recordings of Haydn’s 104 symphonies with the Philharmonia Hungarica, an orchestra created from refugee musicians who fled Communist Hungary after Soviet troops invaded to put down the 1956 revolutionary attempt.

Hutchinson’s oboe was rich and virtuosic in the performance of the three sharply contrasted pieces, ending with beautifully articulated playing of the fast, highly imaginative last piece, Legerdemain.

Schumann’s piano quartet
Two major chamber works followed: Brahms’s Horn Trio and Schumann’s Piano Quartet. The latter was played by the NZSQ’s Helene Pohl and Gillian Ansell with cellist Kyril Zlotnikov from the Jerusalem Quartet. Várjon emerged the hero however; though the balance between piano and strings was admirable and all the most remarkable aspects of Schumann’s genius were there to delight us. It is not an everyday experience to hear such an impassioned performance; and one’s attention kept shifting from individual string players to the ensemble sounds and then realising that I was not listening attentively enough to Várjon at the piano, playing with the sort of passion that’s more characteristic of eastern European musicians than to those of the western countries; after all, Schumann was brought up in Saxony (in Zwickau), very close to the Czech border.

Brahms’s Horn Trio brought back Samuel Jacobs and Anthony Marwood, again with Várjon. I found Marwood’s demeanour a little distracting, weaving about excessively, in contrast to his perfectly restrained performance with Nikki Chooi in the Prokofiev sonata for two violins on Friday. However, it detracted not at all from the sense of delight that his omnipresent violin produced. There was perfect accord between the three musicians, with the result that impressions from my earlier hearings of the trio when I had never been wholly persuaded that Brahms had succeeded in creating an intimate threesome, had to be revised. In fact, Brahms here seemed to have absorbed entirely the character of the horn and the way it could most naturally be blended with two other very distinct instruments. The energy of the first and last movements was remarkable. Though the piano might have been visually in the background, and risked being heard merely as providing accompaniment, I’ve never been so engrossed by the work, particularly in heartfelt passages in the gorgeous, elegiac third movement.

Sunday: Várjon in Beethoven and Bartók

Beethoven: Piano Sonatas No 29 in B flat, Op 106 ‘Hammerklavier’ and No 32 in C minor, Op 111
Bartók: Suite for Piano, Op 14

Nelson Centre of Musical Arts

Sunday 3 February, 7:30 pm

I did not go to the Sunday afternoon concert, even though I would certainly have loved to hear Monique Lapins play the third violin Sonata of Schubert, with Izabella Simon at the piano, and probably the pieces by Lohei Mukai and New Zealanders John Rimmer and Simon Eastwood.

Perhaps I felt that I needed to conserve my listening energies for the extraordinary Beethoven project in the evening. The mere thought of playing the Hammerklavier in the same programme as the Op 111 seemed to demand physical and spiritual preparation and calm.

The Hammerklavier
There were no preliminaries to prepare for the big one: Várjon opened as he clearly intended to carry on, with an attack of unbridled power that gave no room at all for gentility or decorum. In fact, it spoke at once to prompt the first scribble in my notebook about ‘the rough and tumble’ opening in which he attacked the keyboard with abandon, with no apparent concern about the inevitable fluff that listeners bothered by such trivia might have spotted. But any of that was utterly unimportant in the overwhelming strength and compulsion that drove Várjon’s playing.

It recalled a comment that I’d come across in a YouTube recording I’d listened to a few days before: “weird, titanic, gnarled, joyous, grief-stricken monster that is the Hammerklavier”. Though the recording in question was courteous and disciplined in comparison to what I heard from Várjon. Confirmation of the wild character of the performance came right at the start, with the sudden modulation, mid-measure, from B flat to D within the first minute, which seemed a far more rebellious act than one had ever encountered before.

At the beginning of the development section, following an unresolved cadence, there are several pauses which Várjon held for what seemed unusual length and which further sustained the sense of ferocity and recklessness. And unusually long pauses continued to characterise the development section, and particularly the recapitulation, always with extraordinary dramatic effect.

The contrast with the brief Scherzo was perhaps more than usually striking: bright and clear, yet with these more restrained rhythmic and tonal shifts Várjon maintained the dramatic mood of the first movement. Then the Adagio sostenuto offered an extended, painstaking retreat to a peaceful, contemplative quarter hour, certain passages feeling as if the pervasive 6/8 tempo has turned it into a Ländler, though Várjon seemed to treat it as if Beethoven was struggling, painfully to find some sort of equilibrium.  Throughout the last movement which starts in deathly quiet, he continued to illuminate the composer’s determination to exploit every possible disturbing and dramatic element that could be found in it.

The last movement is no ordinary fast and sunny affair. It opens in deathly quiet, and gradually accelerates to regain the spirit of fierce determination that had dominated the first movement. Many performances seem to recover a feeling of peace and acceptance, but by the end that spirit was scarce; I simply knew that I’d never heard such a tumultuous, wildly Romantic performance of this masterpiece. And I loved it.

Bartók’s Suite for piano  
The programme notes point out that although Bartók was a fine pianist, he wrote little for the piano; this Suite, Op 14, written in 1916, and a later sonata are his only significant piano pieces. It is in four shortish movements: Allegretto, Scherzo, Allegro Molto and Sostenuto. The first sounds like a folk dance, though none of the themes in the suite are said to be taken from his collection of folk tunes. It’s spiky, unmistakably Bartók, as are the other movements; both the second and third are also fast and only the fourth, Sostenuto, relaxes to allow a feeling of calm to descend, though Várjon never allowed us to relax, persuading us that the work deserved to be much better known.

Opus 111 
The recital ended with Beethoven’s last sonata, Op 111 and although separated by the Bartók from the Hammerklavier, it felt very much from the same source, providing just a rather more metaphysical, less ferocious version of the earlier work, though in the Op 111 Várjon sought to find comparable unease and power. Its long second movement, Arietta, which Beethoven carefully describes as Adagio molto semplice e cantabile, all hardly departing from C major throughout the 20-odd minutes of its five variations, builds the most profound musical creation starting with several slow, repeated passages, then minutes of rolling triplets, before breaking out with a sort of ecstatic episode with rising and falling arpeggios in dotted rhythms (you don’t often find time signatures like 9/16). Várjon built this marvellous movement steadily, creating a near-hypnotic state, ecstatic and profoundly spiritual. His playing seemed never really to return to earth as feathery phrases went on and on, long sequences of trills, all elaborating a profoundly moving melody that is spun endlessly, coming to a simple ending that called for and got a long held silence before an immediate standing ovation.

 

Sending it up on the double bass and sparkling at the piano, plus other strings

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Chamber Music New Zealand
Piers Lane (piano) and Hiroshi Ikematsu (double bass) and members of the New Zealand String Quartet: Monique Lapins (violin), Gillian Ansell (viola), Rolf Gjelsten (cello)

Schubert: Adagio and Rondo Concertante in F, D. 487
Piano Quintet in A Major, D. 667 (“Trout”)
Rossini: Duo for Cello and Double bass in D Major
Ross Harris: Orowaru (CMNZ Commission for the Quintet]

Michael Fowler Centre

Thursday 11 October, 7:30 pm

This concert in Chamber Music New Zealand’s subscription series had an unusual character.

It featured two international-class musicians alongside three of the members of the New Zealand String Quartet. Piers Lane has made several visits to New Zealand, including at least a couple of times to the Adam Chamber Music Festival in Nelson. As in the present concert, both pianist and bassist have often been in combination with chamber music ensembles. This was such a concert, made especially diverting through the involvement of bassist Hiroshi Ikematsu.

Schubert: mock ‘piano quartet’
They began with a piano quartet by Schubert which I’d never come across. It was written in 1816, when he was 19 or 20, his only piece for piano and string trio, and one of the first pieces for that combination. (Mozart had written two that are well known, in 1785-6; Beethoven wrote three (WoO 36) in his mid teens, in the same year as Mozart’s; Weber wrote one in 1809; Mendelssohn’s first three opus numbers are piano quartets, written typically, in his early teens, 1823–1825 aged about 15).

But Schubert’s is not formally a piano quartet for it has only two movements and presents itself as something of a showpiece, with a piano part that doesn’t sound designed for himself to play, at least not in the Rondo Allegro (he didn’t consider himself a concert pianist). However, the first movement, Adagio, offered genial, lyrical tunes that weren’t very sophisticated and one rather looked forward to perhaps a more mature, interesting Allegro movement. The second movement certainly lent itself to a more vivid and showy performance; its phrases were generally short-winded, and avoided any suggestion that Schubert’s intention was to compete with the pieces by Mozart which he might have known. Beethoven’s were not published till after his death. Piers Lane’s approach to the piano part was flamboyant in its fluency and dynamism, building towards the end with an extended Coda which gave the piece a stature that might have evaded other players.

But it hardly created a feeling that Schubert might have flourished as a composer of concertante music, such as a piano concerto.

Rossini’s Duo for cello and double bass
Hiroshi Ikematsu’s presence was explained by the Duo for cello and double bass by Rossini, written during a lucrative London visit in 1823 for a distinguished Italian bass player working in London, Dominico Dragonetti.

Rossini and Ikematsu were a perfect fit; both delighted in exploiting the potential of music to raise a smile, sometimes almost to give in to laughter. The bassist is one of those beings with the talent for exploiting the funny aspect, even sometimes not intended, of musical gestures, through a facial expression, his stance, and obviously what he does with his arms and hands. The kind of thing that in less intelligent and gifted musicians could seem crass and crude. But much of the wit was there in the music itself, but only if the player(s) can exploit it, and Gjelsten perfectly matched his companion in a slightly less riotous wit. If you need proof that it’s possible to play the piece straight – beautifully certainly – but without the jokes and japes, look at one of the YouTube recordings like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqzuuOdKsAg&start_radio=1&list=RDtqzuuOdKsAg&t=67.

Ikematsu, without disrespect to Rossini, sometimes seemed to mock his own or the cello part, suggested that as the cello sounds were actually disappearing off the top of the A string, a quick scratch of the nose… He toys with the audience’s expectations that this is the end of the first movement… he fails, tries again, misses again, and so on.

They subtly send up the slow movement (and Rolf Gjelsten played his part immaculately, with his own subtle humour), making the combination of cello bowing and bass pizzicato hilariously absurd; one is hard pressed to understand just how they do it. And towards the end Ikematsu secretively creates ethereal sul ponticello sounds with a weird posture; it leads to another protracted Rossini-style finale send-up.

Harris: Orowaru
Then the scene changed dramatically; all five players assembled for Ross Harris’s newly-commissioned work, Orowaru (the rippling sound of water). There’s no scope here for mockery or visual or musical jokes.

Harris has created a delicate tapestry of sound that suggests very evocatively not just the literal sounds of running water, specifically in three trout-fishing rivers round Lake Taupo: Hineaiaia, Waipehi and Tongariro. It also picks up rather more metaphysical or religious aspects of the sacred art of trout fishing; for here was the crux of the concert. Ikematsu, in addition to his bass talents, is a gifted trout fisherman, and legends about his preternatural skills which are evidently attaining the status of miracles in the mysterious world of fishing, even though it involves a non-indigenous fish. Obviously, it connects with the last piece in the concert, Schubert’s Trout Quintet, and Orowaru employs the same instruments.

The piece rather successfully creates, not just specific watery sounds that may or may not be music, but the play of and between the five instruments, the appearance of recognisable musical motifs, and a sense of shape and change in the way a normally constructed piece of music does, held the attention through musical processes rather than mere imitation of the sounds of water.

And no, I didn’t pick just when we moved from the Hineaiaia to the Waipehi river, but did feel that the scene had changed after a little while. But the bell-bird (?) at the end was audible enough.

Then the Trout Quintet. After the careful and discreet performances by all five players in Orowaru, this was a performance that, perhaps significantly influenced by the very conspicuous musical personality of the pianist, was boisterous, extravert, not the least reflective; and it was again the opportunity for Ikematsu’s bass to express it’s player’s love of surprise and the slightly unorthodox.

Nevertheless, in spite of the occasional feeling that there was a distinct difference in the spirit of the performance between the full quintet and strings alone, without piano, it was easy to recognise a very conspicuous rapport among all five.

I put it down to the fact that Schubert wrote more naturally for the piano than for strings, though the character of his last quartets and the two piano trios make that a doubtful remark.

The spirit of the playing and at times the unexpected brevity of movements made me wonder whether a repeat had been passed over; though I had intended to check that with a score, my own miniature score is missing, and so… In the light of Schubert’s tendency to extend his material, in his later works, almost excessively, nothing here outstayed its welcome; the Scherzo was a singularly exhilarating case.

The Trout itself, in the fourth movement, was varied and colourful, perhaps not giving much opportunity to lament the eventual fate of the fish (does Ikematsu have ambivalent feelings here?). It was here in particular that in contrast to Helene Pohl’s luminous tone, Monique Lapins’ presence as violinist was less arresting, but warmer.

The finale was a splendid, piano-led romp, that tempts applause before its time but ended quite unscathed. A delightful concert.

 

Aroha Quartet with animated, robust, delightful evening concert at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Aroha String Quartet (Haihong Liu and Anne Loeser, violins; Zhongxian Jin, viola; Robert Ibell, cello)
‘Light and Dark’

Haydn: String Quartet in C, Op.76 no. 3 ‘Emperor’
Ross Carey: Elegy (Toccatina)
Shostakovich: String Quartet no.11 in F minor, Op. 122
Dvořák: String Quartet no.12 in F, Op.96 ‘American’

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 26 September 2019, 7:30 pm

It was most unfortunate that this concert had had to be rescheduled; this made it clash with another chamber music concert in the city, which was presumably responsible for the rather small audience.

Anne Loeser substituted for the regular second violinist Ursula Evans, the latter having had an injury.

The two older works on the programme had been played By this group at a St. Andrew’s lunchtime concert less than a year ago (see Lindis Taylor’s review, Middle-C, 6 December 2017.)  The Shostakovich was played at lunchtime two months ago; see Lindis’s review, Middle-C, 26 July 2018.  The Ross Carey, too, had been played before by the Aroha Quartet.  See Peter Mechen’s review of 26 October 2016.

Accuracy you expect from an experienced quartet such as the Aroha, but the animation of their playing is noteworthy, also the subtle shading of dynamics, and the warm, often mellifluous tone, and excellent balance.

The Haydn quartet’s first movement (allegro) was robust and delicate by turns as required, making for both exciting abd pleasurable listening.  The second movement is famous for the theme, which became the Austrian national anthem, and is widely used as a hymn-tune.  The four variations each feature a different soloist from the quartet.  The first variation has the second violin to the fore, its rendition of the melody embroidered by the first violin’s arpeggios and runs.  The other instruments have a rest.

The second variation features the cello, with counterpoint from the violins, and a few comments from the viola.  The playing was rich and sonorous from the cello.  The third variation is for the viola, playing a restrained version of the melody with the violins floating above, finally joined by the cello halfway through.  The first violin takes over for the last variation, with the other instruments playing a harmonic accompaniment.

The minuet and trio third movement is of a much more jolly nature.  A few hairy notes early on did not really detract from a delightful performance.  The trio, initially in a minor key, gave a complete contrast.  The repeat of the minuet brought back the bouncy theme, with its wonderful interplay of parts and instruments.  The finale is fast and dynamically varied, incorporating shades of earlier movements, mainly the first.

The piece by New Zealander Ross Carey was not long, and was written in memory of an Australian Aboriginal singer.  Its lively opening featured a repeated dotted rhythm; a perpetuum mobile with a dark melody on viola.  It moved to the second violin and then the first violin.  The cello introduced a new melody on the upper reaches of the strings.  What a different timbre this produced compared with a violin playing notes at the same pitch!  The first violin then took over this quieter section, which had a Mendelssohnian quality.  The insistent rhythm from the beginning returned, then solemn, slow passages ended this attractive work.

Shostakovich’s 11th quartet is in seven short movements, played without pauses between them.  It was written in memory of his violinist friend, Vasily Shirinsky, in 1966. The first movement is ‘Introduction – Andantino’. It began somewhat portentously; slow, chromatic phrases, glissando flourishes  on violin and cello.

After the ‘Scherzo – Allegretto’, the following ‘Recitative – Adagio’ has a harsh introduction, and features a first violin solo that includes passages of double-stopping. over the top of the other instruments’ accompaniment.  Then comes ‘Etude – Allegro’ with fast runs for first violin and cello.   Later movements introduce more dissonant chords, and restrained melody from the first violin.

Following the ironically named ‘Humoresque – Allegro’, the sixth movement ‘Elegy – Adagio’ is calm and profound, leading to the final movement, which recapitulates earlier themes.  The end comes as quite a shock (Finale – Moderato).

The popular ‘American’ Quartet by Dvořák ended the concert.  The melodic and rhythmic invention of the composer is a constant source of delight.    One of the melodies (third movement) was based on an American bird, a picture of which Robert Ibell showed the audience, and the first violinist played its song for us.

The rich opening viola solo set the tone for a joyful experience, and brought home to me how much better it is to hear a live performance rather than a recording, no matter how good the latter.  This first movement was taken at quite a spanking pace compared with other performances I have heard (allegro ma non troppo).  The melody that follows the opening section was sublime.  Then there is a repeat of the first melody, with pizzicato accompaniment, followed by a return of the second subject, with lovely harmony underpinning it.  The whole is full of delightful and even ingenious touches.

The second movement (lento) introduces a fabulous melody, which is especially so when played by cello – ravishingly beautiful, while the third movement’s molto vivace has a folksy feel to it, like a country dance in the composer’s native Bohemia, with everyone having a good time.  The harmonies were most satisfying, as was the finale: vivace ma non troppo; a very cheerful and melodic movement, even more like a country dance than the previous one.

While it was excellent for the printed programme notes to acknowledge the sources of information, I think it was a mistake to fit it into the same format as that used for the lunchtime concerts: a folded A4 sheet.  With a much longer and more substantial musical offering, the space required forced the splendid notes into a tiny font which I for one could not read in the church.  All things are possible but not all things are expedient.