Tag: students

Wellington Youth Orchestra’s final, tumultuous concert for 2014

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wellington Youth Orchestra presents:

BEETHOVEN – Symphony No.7
WAGNER – Overture “Die Meistersinger”
J.STRAUSS Jnr. – On the Beautiful Blue Danube

Wellington Youth Orchestra

Hamish McKeich (conductor)

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

Tuesday 21st October 2014

Richard Wagner described Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony as “the Apotheosis of the Dance”, referring to the dominance of rhythm over melody throughout much of the symphony’s duration. Yes, the tunes are there, but, apart from some lyrical sequences in the work’s introduction, and throughout the trio of the third-movement Scherzo, the melodies are constantly dancing, stamping or galloping about!

If ever a work by Beethoven demonstrated the composer’s own euphoric description of his art – “I am the Bacchus who presses out this wine which makes men spiritually drunk!” – it’s this uninhibited riot of a Symphony – though not as epic as the Third or Ninth Symphonies, nor as heaven-storming as the Fifth, the Seventh Symphony gives an elemental display of god-like exuberance that leaves its listeners exhilarated and its performers spent through giving their all.

It had an enthusiastic contemporary reception, even though most of the acclaim that followed the very first concert in 1813 went to the composer’s gimmicky “Wellington’s Victory”, with which it shared the program. But once the novelty of the “battle piece” had worn off, the symphony began to assert its well-nigh irresistible appeal, with the second, Allegretto movement in particular capturing its listeners’ imaginations – this movement was in fact played alone for a time more often than was the complete work.

Beethoven’s efforts did not, however, find favour with some commentators, whose sensibilities were obviously affronted by such unseemly demonstrations of raw energy! Friedrich Wieck, father of Clara (Schumann), was present at some of the rehearsals and observed that the composer of such music must have been in a “drunken state” when writing the work. And Beethoven’s great contemporary, Carl Maria von Weber, thought that parts of the first movement alone qualified the composer as “fit for the madhouse”. Even a decade later, a London critic wrote of the work, “Often as we have heard it performed, we cannot yet discover any design in it, neither can we trace any connection in its parts.”

Posterity has reversed these opinions, though a dissident echo was provided by the legendary conductor of more recent times, Sir Thomas Beecham (no great lover of Beethoven’s music, even though he recorded several of the symphonies) – after giving a typically riotous performance of the Seventh, Beecham drolly commented, “Well, what can you do with it? – it’s like a lot of yaks jumping about!”

Such criticisms and comments missed the point of the “excessive” nature of the work’s rhythmic character, one which Beethoven had touched on more generally with his “I am the Bacchus” comment, and which the work brought to a kind of apogée in terms of constant energy and momentum. And these qualities were at the heart of what Hamish McKeich and the Wellington Youth Orchestra players were able to achieve in their recent performance.

The players clearly felt the import of the symphony’s “introduction” here – no mere symphonic throat-clearing, or “getting the pitch of the hall”, but a statement of intent containing the seeds of what was to follow – thus the tensions were built up via the strings’ dovetailing of the scales, the lower echelons “digging in” with point and focus on each occasion, the winds and brass intensifying the harmonic ambiences, then nicely terracing the tensions, keeping us in a suspended state for what was to break forth. Something much more than Viennese “gemütlich” was obviously on the agenda.

The allegro was taken at an urgent clip – the flute led the way magnificently, well-supported by the strings, while the first big tutti was a riot of energy and colour, the brass a bit approximate in their note-pitching, but the impulses were right where they ought to have been. Early on, a feature of the playing (as it needed to be in this symphony) was the work of the orchestra’s timpanist, whose command of both propulsion and dynamics right throughout was, I thought, exemplary. But everybody hove to – the winds were sonorous, the brass exciting, even when fallible, and the strings kept the rhythms a-tingling.

The beginning of the development brought some anxious ensemble moments with those treacherous dotted rhythms, the winds further unnerving things by being temporarily awry with an entry. But they made amends by steadying the rhythm leading up to that wonderful, exhilarating reprise, together with the brass getting those shouted dotted interjections bang-on! By this time the interactive support between the sections was kicking in nicely, so much so that there was a wonderfully delighted squawk from a young child in the audience during one of the pauses before the coda!

What followed was like an encounter with the elements – the lower strings caught the “vortex” aspect of those incredible “churnings”, from which the rest of the orchestra, by a sheer act of will gradually pulled us upwards from and into the light – though the horns struggled a bit with their triumphant “whoopings” the rhythms had oceans of momentum, and caught the exhilaration at the movement’s end.

I thought the second movement arresting at the outset, the lower strings purposeful, the violins sharing theme and counter-theme, stoically supported by the winds, brass and timpani. The trio, too, was nicely focused, the theme by turns tender and expressive, with lovely clarinet work. A somewhat weedy start to the pp string fugato broke the spell momentarily – the strings seemed happier when playing with fuller tones. But apart from the surprise of the clarinets seeming not to enter with one of their phrases right at the end, the movement’s gravitas was strongly maintained.

Which was the last thing that sprang to mind with the explosive beginning of the scherzo! – instead, boisterous fun was the order of going, the music’s triplet rhythms a whirl, and the winds and strings managing their “giggles” at the end of each of the sections. By contrast the trio’s solemn lay rang out lyrically (winds) and then majestically (strings and brass), with the timpani again a tower of strength in conjunction with the latter.

I confess that I momentarily gaped at the hectic pace the conductor adopted following the finale’s two opening flourishes – this was a REAL allegro con brio and the young players certainly bent their backs to the task, whether exuberantly stamping the rhythms out or whirling through the figurations. Conductor and players kept the momentum going splendidly through the lighter passages, and made a great fist of things like the leaping string unison exchanges and the whooping brass calls – hair-raisingly exciting in places, as were the timpani’s splendidly focused and detailed energies.

And so it continued, through the powerful thrustings of the last big orchestral build-up before the coda, and into the furious vortex of scarily shifting, droning harmonies from winds and lower strings, leading up to what Sir Donald Tovey called the “Bacchic fury” of the work’s coda. Perhaps the winds might have lost their footing momentarily with their tricky angular entries and syncopated harmonic shifts amidst the maelstrom of sound and fury that the composer was building up, here – but somehow, it added to the effect of this elemental, inchoate material being imbued with energy and propulsion as to burst out with unparalleled power and splendour, everybody pulling together to bring off those final, whiplash chords in properly thrilling and conclusive fashion.

We needed an interval after that! – so, having enjoyed a breather, everybody was back for the second half’s intriguing mix of Wagner and Johann Strauss. FIrst up was Wagner’s Overture “Die Meistersinger”, an item I was looking forward to immensely, because I had played the cymbals in a performance during another life, many years ago!  Here, the brass rang out the first four notes gloriously, setting the scene for a carnival atmosphere of polyphonic largesse, the same players getting slightly ahead of the rest of the orchestra in one place in their eagerness to impress. Hamish McKeich favoured fairly brisk tempi, even through the transitions containing fragments of the opera’s more lyrical moments, which made for a breathless effect, as we were quickly plunged into the “entry-music” for the Mastersingers from Act Three, which, incidentally, went with proper pomp and ceremony.

I thought McKeich could have relaxed a little with the central section’s lyrical sequences – the playing wasn’t allowed to expand vocally, in the way that the tunes do in the opera itself, though perhaps the conductor wanted to keep the ensemble “tight”! However, the winds trotted in merrily during the “apprentices” section, managing a cheeky trill at the end of their sequence, as did the strings in places, the odd precarious-ensemble-moment smartly manoeuvered back into place within a few measures!

As for the famous “trio of themes” at the end – well it was a joy! The tuba sounded terrific, especially his concluding trill, while the brass gave warning of their “en masse” arrival in sonorous fashion, helped by the timpani the second time around. It all came across as properly festive, even if I felt the cymbal player was a little overawed by the occasion and didn’t “sound” his instruments as resplendently as they could have been.

After such rumbustiousness, the Johann Strauss piece was lovely! – it was really the waltz “On the Beautiful Blue Danube”, but played in a way as to imitate a loosely-strung set of waltzes – I suspected it was also to enable the players to turn their pages comfortably!  A gorgeously-played horn at the beginning presided over magical ambiences, passed adroitly by some moments of hesitant ensemble, and, gathering in a solo ‘cello, led us into the dance. To my delight the players made a great fist of the Viennese “lilt”, obviously well-schooled by their conductor, the ensemble sounding in places for all the world like a well-drilled Viennese dance-band! Another surprise for me was the repeat of the opening “waltz-sequence”, which I’d never heard done before. Right up to the nostalgic coda, with its trumpet solo and trilling flute, the players caught the idiom of the piece with great style, readily communicating to us their pleasure of performance.

But there was more! – in fact the final item set the seal on the afternoon’s music-making brilliantly, via a tremendously exciting performance of the “Waltz King’s” well-known “Thunder and Lightning Polka”. It was put across with such panache, such energy and exuberance, with the percussion having the proverbial field day! At one point in the work’s middle section I wanted (once again!) the cymbal player to bash his instruments more vigorously, but it must be said the player made up for his reticence in the closing measures of the work. I would have loved to have taken part in such a performance myself – what a blast it seemed to be for all concerned!

Very great credit to the inspirational Hamish McKeich, and to his hard-working, talented instrumentalists. To my mind conductor and players can look back on some singular achievements this year, their successes auguring well for seasons yet to come. On their showings throughout 2014 it’s my opinion that they’re becoming an orchestral force to be reckoned with, a stimulating and valuable contributor to the capital’s enviable array of orchestral concerts.

 

 

Soloists add distinction to NZSM Orchestra concert

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Te Kōkī NZ School of Music presents:
FROM GENEVA TO KNOXVILLE

BRAHMS – Tragic Overture
TCHAIKOVSKY – Violin Concerto in D
BARBER – Knoxville: Summer of 1915
BARTOK – Dance Suite

Xin (James) Jin (violin)
Amelia Berry (soprano)
New Zealand School of Music Orchestra
Kenneth Young (conductor)
Sacred Heart Cathedral, Hill St., Wellington

Thursday October 2nd, 2014

In the wake of a couple of crackingly good recent concerts given by the NZSM Orchestra and its intrepid conductor, Kenneth Young, I found myself eagerly looking forward to this particular evening’s presentation. The programme followed the orchestra’s policy of mixing the familiar (Brahms, Tchaikovsky) with the less-frequently performed (Barber, Bartok), the repertoire obviously designed to present the student musicians with a wide range of technical and stylistic challenges.

For a number of reasons, it seemed a nicely-balanced choice of items. The documented love-hate relationship between Brahms and Tchaikovsky as personalities gave the concert’s first half an extra frisson of contrasted expression. Then, the excitement and exhilaration of difference continued throughout the second half by a shift of focus twentieth-century-wards, with Barber and Bartok.

The prospect of hearing an exciting young soloist  Xin (James) Jin play a popular work like the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto would have drawn many people to the concert; and while Samuel Barber’s music (apart from his ubiquitous Adagio) wouldn’t have perhaps quickened pulses in the same way, the presence of ANOTHER soloist (soprano Amelia Berry) would, I’m sure, have been enticing – a singer or instrumentalist performing with an orchestra has a theatricality which is always of interest, in addition to whatever it is they’re performing.

Well, as it turned out, the concert was fabulous in parts – and interestingly enough the “soloist-and-orchestra” sequences stole the show! The concerto got one of the most exciting performances of the solo part I’ve ever heard from Xin Jin, while soprano Amelia Berry’s rendition of Barber’s achingly nostalgic setting of childhood memories “Knoxville: Summer of 1915” touched our hearts in a completely different way.

Neither performance was perfect in all respects – in the concerto, the orchestral support for the soloist was heartwarming in the lyrical passages, but didn’t really ignite in some of the more vigorous “brandy-on-the-breath” parts of the finale. In the Barber work the unfortunately overbearing acoustic of the venue meant that Amelia Berry’s words were often hard to decipher, the very “up-front” tones of the orchestral playing working against vocal clarity, gorgeous though her singing “sounded” throughout.

As for the two other works on the programme, the playing was in places spectacularly fiery, but again, thanks in part to the acoustic, had an uncomfortable “unrelieved” quality – I found the Bartok, in particular, hard going in places for this reason, the orchestral sound too confrontational for comfort, to my ears. A pity that both of this orchestra’s recent concert venues, the Cathedral and St.Andrew’s Church, are simply too “tight” – both acoustically and physically! – to accommodate orchestral performance easily,  and full-on works like the Bartok Dance Suite exacerbated the problem.

The experience reinforced my feelings of frustration and anxiety regarding the present non-availability of the Town Hall for orchestral concerts of this kind. These musicians’ efforts deserve far better than having merely makeshift venues in which to perform, in short, places in which they can be heard to their best advantage, instead of being compromised.

So it was that I found the performances hard to accurately judge in some aspects – for example I found the central section of the Brahms “Tragic” Overture too insistent-sounding, missing that sense of quiet, stricken numbness, an almost spectral tread of growing unease which swings like a pendulum between despair and dignity, and which provides a contrast with the outer parts of the work. I did think that Ken Young pushed it along dangerously quickly as well – the results were certainly tense and knife-edged, but any “inner” reflection of tragedy wasn’t brought out, and the music for me lost some expressive breadth as a result.

The acoustic wasn’t so much of a problem in the Tchaikovsky work, as the composer’s orchestral writing is relatively lean in any case, allowing his soloist’s tones to readily come through – although Young and the orchestra certainly took pains to facilitate this quality throughout most expertly. I thought the first two movements brilliantly successful, the excitement generated by all concerned towards the end of the first movement positively scalp-prickling, and deserving the spontaneous burst of applause at the movement’s end!

We got some beautiful solo playing in the slow movement from both the violinist and the accompanying wind players – but when it came to the last movement, I thought Xin Lin’s astonishingly expressive energies and spontaneous irruptions weren’t sufficiently matched by the orchestra, though I did appreciate Ed Allen’s horn-playing in the “Russian Dance” sections. Somehow the whiplash timing of the orchestral interjections didn’t come off with enough élan, and that cumulative tutti just before the soloist’s final entry unfortunately hung fire – it’s all rhythm and timing, the players needing to throw themselves at the notes and be damned to the consequences! Still, the response of the audience to it all (and particularly to the soloist) was rapturous at the end, and deservedly so.

The Barber work, “Knoxville: Summer of 1915” is something of a concert rarity, here – I know Leontyne Price’s recording, but had never before heard the work live. It’s a setting of passages from author James Agee’s novel “A Death in the Family”, depicting a small boy’s recollection of summer evenings at home with the family. Barber described his work as a “lyrical rhapsody” and dedicated the music to his own father, who was ill at the time the piece was being written. It was premiered in Boston in 1948 by the singer Eleanor Steber.

I caught some beautifully vocalized sequences from the soprano, almost all in the quieter passages – the opening descriptions of people sitting on their porches, rocking gently, the gentle depiction of the night as “one blue dew”, and the very wind-blown Elgarian orchestral passages  during which the singer describes the family spreading quilts and lying under the stars. We clearly heard the heart-rending “May God bless my people”, and, at the return of the lullaby the comforting “Sleep, soft, smiling, draws me to her”.

Throughout the rest I registered the music’s emotions but couldn’t hear what was being sung – Amelia Berry’s voice, sweet and bright as it was, simply couldn’t couldn’t free itself from the orchestral fabric whenever the dynamics increased. We needed those words! – they would have fitted onto a single program page, avoiding any kind of disruptive turn-over – or else they could have been projected onto a screen. It would have increased our enjoyment of the performance hugely, even though the general nostalgic mood of the piece was movingly caught and held by soloist, conductor and players.

Bartok it was, to finish, and it certainly made an impact! The orchestral playing in places was some of the best of the evening – just as well, because when projected outwards with any kind of force it was a pretty unrelenting sound-picture! The first piece had more of a droll aspect, dark, galumphing rhythms alternating with big, blowzy textures, reminiscent of the “drunken peasant” depictions in the same composer’s “Hungarian Sketches”. The infamous second movement, with its laser-beam brass glissandi, nearly lifted the cathedral’s roof, an onslaught relieved only temporarily by the harp in conjunction with strings and winds. I liked the “Hungarian hoe-down” aspect of the third movement, and appreciated the respite afforded our sensibilities by the “molto tranquillo” fourth movement, with its nicely-realised exotic, almost Iberian atmospheres.

But golly! – what a riot of a finale! As I’ve said, it was almost too much in places, though undeniably exciting, the rhythms, textures and colours changing without warning, the overall mood of the piece capricious and volatile. It left us a bit winded, I think, everything in the sound-picture a bit claustrophobic in effect, but still exhilarating, in between gasps! There was no doubting the commitment and skill of the players, spurred on by Ken Young’s boundless energies – perhaps it wasn’t the most elegant finish to a concert, but the sounds were those which stirred the blood most satisfyingly. In all, great stuff from the NZSM Orchestra!

Saxophone feast from the New Zealand School of Music

Posted on by admin

New Zealand School of Music Saxophone Ensembles
Artistic Director: Debbie Rawson

J. S. Bach Aria: Erbarme dich, Mein Gott for Saxophone Sextet (Arr. R. A. Moulds)
Soloists: Reuben Chin, Katherine Maciaszec
Nigel Woods Schwarzer Tanzer for Saxophone Quintet
Karen Street Tango for Saxophone Quintet
T. Albinoni Concerto in D Minor for Soprano Saxophone: Grave-Allegro-Adagio-Allegro.(Arr. D. Rawson)
Soloist:  Reuben ChinJean Rivier Grave and Presto for Saxophone Quartet (1966)

W. A. Mozart Rondo Alla Turca for Saxophone Sextet (arr. M. Mijan)

Sopranos: Reuben Chin, Debbie Rawson
Alto: Kim Hunter
Tenors: Katherine Maciaszec, Nick Walshe
Baritone: Graham Hanify

Old St.Paul’s lunchtime series, Wellington

Tuesday 30th September 2014

The Bach aria which opened this concert must be one of the most sublime vocal duos ever written, and it has been sung with breathtaking beauty by all the great oratorio artists. Hence it has to be a very demanding challenge to achieve a successful transcription for saxophones. The power of the original is such that I found it impossible to banish that version from my mind, and hear the saxophone transcription entirely on its own merits. However, it was very adequately played by both soloists and others, and Reuben Chin’s soprano sax tone was smooth and pleasant, never hinting at the sharp edge that is commonly heard in pop sax playing. But the music did seem somewhat hurried to do justice to the grace and beauty of its melodic lines. I wondered if Reuben had listened to some of the great vocal renditions, shaped as they are by periods of piano relief, with each phrase delineated by those momentary breaths, both physical and musical, that allow each phrase to be absorbed and confirmed by mind and spirit.

The Nigel Woods number, translating as “Black Dancer”, recalled the idioms of Kurt Weil and the Berlin nightclub scene of the 1970’s. The schmaltzy tunes were passed between the various instruments, with Graham Hanify’s baritone sax melodies being particularly throaty and seductive. The group obviously relished the music, and it offered a completely different perspective from the previous work on the possibilities for sax ensemble writing.

Karen Street’s Tango also sat very comfortably for the quintet, displaying the benefit of her own wide professional experience as a sax player. The score captured very successfully the laid back, louche mood of the tango, but she cleverly interrupted this with a brief central, highly animated section before lapsing back into slow seduction. Again the players drew the listeners into their obvious enjoyment of the music.

The Albinoni Concerto was a transcription Debbie Rawson did in 1979 after she heard overseas a riveting trumpet solo performance. Her saxophone version proved remarkably effective, with Reubin Chin giving a very polished delivery, marked by sensitive slow movements. The solo part sometimes needed more “space” to be heard through the supporting ensemble in the first allegro, but the balance in the final allegro was good.

Jean Rivier is a noted French composer whose contributions to the classical saxophone repertoire are much prized by players. The harmonic idioms in this work are very interesting, and the opening Grave was given due elegance and style by the players. The Presto makes considerable technical demands, with some very tricky rhythms, challenging unison sections and high speed passagework, all of which were pulled off with exemplary skill.

The transcription of Mozart’s Rondo Alla Turca took off at an almost hectic gallop, possibly fuelled by exam nerves which tend to ramp up the tempo! (This concert was being assessed as part of university course requirements). Much to the players credit, there was barely a concession to snatching a breath, and most of the notes made it! It was a spirited end to an excellent, entertaining concert, offering a window into a repertoire that I imagine few regions of the country have the opportunity to enjoy. Wellington listeners clearly appreciate this, as there was an excellent turnout on a day when many might have been tempted to soak up the wonderful spring sunshine  outside.

Debbie Rawson is once again to be congratulated on the way she is nurturing and expanding young talent in this tertiary course, not to mention all her numerous other endeavours in the woodwind and band worlds.

 

 

 

Old St.Paul’s lunchtime series, Wellington

Tuesday 30th September 2014

NZSM Classical Guitar students square up to a challenging recital

Posted on by admin

New Zealand School of Music presents:
NZSM Classical Guitar Students

Lunchtime Concert Series
Old St.Paul’s, Wellington.

 Tuesday September 23rd, 2014

This brief concert was a welcome opportunity to hear again the talents of the NZSM Classical Guitar students under the tutelage of director Dr. Jane Curry. The full ensemble consisted of fifteen players, of whom four were guest members from the School’s pre-tertiary programme. The recital comprised a wide variety of works that spanned the “Golden Age” of Elizabethan lute music, the Baroque, and the 19th and 20th centuries.

The initial work, for full ensemble, was Three Distractions by Richard Charlton (b.1955). The first two short numbers involved lots of complex, irregular and syncopated rhythms, while the third was  marked by angular atonal writing with many percussive effects. It was a challenging piece, where the complexities were well handled and the integration of the large ensemble was excellent.

Then followed two duo numbers, firstly The Flatt Pavan and Galliard by John Johnson (1550-1594) who was one of the fathers of the “Golden Age” of English lute music. The characteristic graceful Elizabethan writing was well balanced by George Wills and Jake Church, with musical phrasing and good dynamic variation. The following Jongo for Two Guitars (1989) by Brazilian composer Paulo Bellinati was a total contrast where rhythmic complexities and clever percussive effects were also very effectively realized.

The bracket was completed by a duo version of Manuel da Falla’s unmistakable Spanish Dance which was given a very competent reading, though the quietest dynamics tended to disappear in the church’s acoustic, and some slightly untidy passagework popped up occasionally between the two players.

The next bracket comprised works for guitar quartet, with players Royden Smith, Dylan Solomon, Amber Madriaga and Christopher Beernink. The first work was Toccata by Leo Brouwer (b.1939), a Cuban player-composer who often combines “traditional forms with energetic, rhythmic flare resembling Cuban folk and street music. Brower’s compositional style is unique, consisting of a multitude of different sounds, techniques and cultures.” (programme notes). The Toccata was certainly busy with all of these, yet it somehow failed to grasp me in an integrated experience  that engaged the ear and led one on a musical journey. Its technical challenges were certainly met head on by the quartet, but some essential dimension seemed to have eluded the composer’s pen.

The next work was a transcription for guitar quartet of the opening sinfonia from Bach’s Cantata BWV 29 Wir danken dir, Gott, wir danken dir. Bach himself wrote three versions of this movement – the first for solo violin (in BVW 1006), then the cantata sinfonia scored for orchestra, and finally a transcription for solo lute (BVW 1006a). I have not heard this last, but I felt that this guitar version was simply not able to do justice to the wonderful contrapuntal writing. Its very life blood derives from the gutsy, incisive attack and timbre offered by bow, reed or trumpet, and the guitar can simply not produce this.

There may well be merit in pedagogic versions that test the technical capacities of players (which were very adequately demonstrated here), but it does not sit comfortably in a concert programme. However, this particular recital was serving as an assessed element of the university course, so the parameters are somewhat different.

Spin by Andrew York (b.1958) was next on the programme. It was a work that challenged the players with tricky rhythms shifting between 7/8, 3/4 and 4/4, and with complex busy writing, all of which they handled with technical aplomb. I felt however that the intricacies of Spin would have been given greater shape and meaning by a wider dynamic range and more thoughtful phrasing.

The final work in the programme was Folguedo by Afro-Brazilian guitarist/composer Celso Machado (b.1953). Scored for guitar orchestra, it was billed as “a gem of a piece [in] the canon of large guitar ensemble repertoire”. It proved to be just that: the first of the two movements was immediately attractive, featuring a guitar solo introduction which then blossomed into ensemble writing that was presented with pleasing balance and dynamics. The second movement involved a considerable complexity of rhythms, textures, interweaving lines and harmonies, which were all handled pretty competently. Once again I felt that the challenge of the technical demands tended to be uppermost in the performers’ minds, whereas a greater exploration of the dynamic possibilities would have considerably enriched the music.

But having said that, the work was presented with a verve and enthusiasm that was shared by all the ensembles heard in this recital, a feature which has marked all the concerts I have heard from this tertiary programme. The Old St. Paul’s venue offered a very suitable acoustic and ambience which further enhanced the privilege Wellington audiences enjoy from hearing the fruits of this excellent NZSM endeavour.

 

 

 

NZSM’s “A Night at the Opera” generates a feast

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music presents:
A NIGHT AT THE OPERA

Arias, Ensembles and Scenes from Opera
performed by the NZSM Classical Voice Students

Katrina Brougham, Alicia Cadwgan, Emma Carpenter, Declan Cudd, Georgia Fergusson
Jospeh Haddow, Elyse Hemara, Jamie Henare, Rebecca Howan, Luana Howard
Rebecca Howie, Hannah Jones, Brooks Kershaw, Aluapei Kolopeaua, Priya Makwana
Olivia Marshall, William McElwee Katherine McEndoe, Nino Raphael, Tess Robinson
Olivia Sheat, Daniel Sun, Christian Thurston, Shayna Tweed, Luka Venter.

Director: Frances Moore
Music Director: Mark Dorrell
Repetiteur: Heather Easting
Designer: Alexander Guillot
Lighting: Lisa Maule

Adam Concert Room, Kelburn Campus
Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music
Victoria University of Wellington

Friday 19th September 2014

Earlier last week I had the good fortune to catch Radio NZ Concert’s “Upbeat” interview with Margaret Medlyn, one of the tutors of Classical Voice at the NZ School of Music in Wellington. She spoke about the then oncoming “Night at the Opera” presentation involving the voice students and featuring arias and ensembles from well-known operas and operettas. She said that the concert’s semi-staged aspect with costumes and lighting was especially valuable for the younger students, as it gave them a chance to experience a theatrical context in which to perform and to put into practice what they had been studying. But she also thought that all the performers as well as the audience would relish the theatrical aspects of the presentation, adding value and interest to the musical experience.

The presentation was in the capable hands of director Frances Moore, a former first-class-honours student at the School of Music here, and subsequently a Fulbright Scholar at New York University, while working as an assistant director with the Manhattan School of Music’s Summer programme. She’s returned to New Zealand to continue studies at Toi Whakaari, and pursue a career as a director of opera. Here, she certainly made the most of the depth and diverse range of talents among the student performers, encouraging them to relish their opportunities by singing out and giving themselves up entirely to their characters and their interactions. She was aided and abetted by Alexandra Guillot’s inventive set and costume designs, and Lisa Maule’s very appropriate, on-the-spot (sic) lighting, both helping to bring the different scenarios of each item to life.

I’d recently attended and much enjoyed “Der Rosenkavalier” in a “scaled-down” performance edition out at Days Bay, courtesy of music director Michael Vinten, so I was more than usually receptive to the similar treatment accorded tonight’s items – the normally orchestral accompaniments were by turns brilliantly realized by pianists Mark Dorrell and Heather Easting, giving the singers, whether solo or in ensemble, complete security of support at all times, the playing’s energy and sense of fun creating many delightful and alchemic moments. I couldn’t see the pianist(s) from where I was sitting in the Adam Concert Room, but I understood that Heather Easting provided the Britten, Mozart, Donizetti and Puccini accompaniments.

Technically, the items went with a hiss and a roar, with only a handful of unsynchronised ensemble moments disturbing the flow, and which the performers simply pulled together again with confidence and élan. The concert began with an excerpt from Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld, sung in English, and designated as “Act One – finale” in the programme – as I later found, trying to pinpoint that same sequence on a “complete” recording I had of the operetta led to all kinds of discrepancies and confusions which suggested that the work had been mercilessly “hacked about” over the years, and with all kinds of “performing editions” emerging from the fracas. Comparing notes on this matter with Mark Dorrell a day or so later considerably relieved my confusion, and restored my faith in my ears!

The gods as presented here were a rum lot, indeed, with delightfully ungodlike characteristics shining forth for all to savour – each singer relished his or her opportunities, most notably Alicia Cadwgan’s delightfully kittenish Diana and Christian Thurston’s suitably machoistic Jupiter, the perfect foil for the suave Pluto of Declan Cudd, whose manner, apart from his highest notes, was easeful and insinuating, causing a sonorous and forthright rebellion among the ranks of Olympus’s celestial inhabitants! It made me long to see and hear a performance of the complete work, whatever the edition and its corruptions and inconsistencies!

From the fripperies of Offenbach’s satire to the stark realities of Britten’s “Peter Grimes” was a quantum leap for the sensibilities, a “plunge-bath after a sauna” effect, whose marked contrast worked extremely well. This was the quartet sequence “From the gutter” from Act Two of the opera, showcasing the voices of Olivia Marshall, Hannah Jones, Rebecca Howan, and, as Ellen Orford, Katherine McEndoe. Olivia Marshall in particular, as Auntie, impressed with the beauty and steadiness of her line, ably supported by her nieces Hannah Jones and Rebecca Howan; while Katherine McEndoe as Ellen engaged our attention with her strength and focus of utterance. The voices in ensemble readily conveyed that stricken, passionate quality called for by the music – beauty of a disturbing, intensely-wrought kind.

Intensities of a different order were generated by the Act One “Padlock” Scene from Mozart’s The Magic Flute, leading to those exchanges between Tamino and Papageno and the Three Ladies that must be among the most beautiful of all operatic moments. First we had Luka Venter as Papageno with his powers of speech bound by enchantment, his frustration and eventual relief at being released warmly and amusingly conveyed. The Three Ladies, Shanya Tweed, Elyse Hemara and Georgia Fergusson, were terrific! – in fact, a little too much so, in fact, as they needed more light and shade, more ease in their singing – but they were still admirably focused, direct and transfixing in their impact.

Declan Cudd as Tamino, along with Luka Venter, his Papageno, gave us a bit more of the lightness of touch that the music needed – but I was waiting (as I always do) for that lump-in-throat moment begun by the wind instruments in complete performances of the opera, when the women sing about the Three Boys who will guide Tamino and Papageno along their appointed journey. Here, I thought the utterances from all concerned were too rushed, wanting the air and space which would generate a certain “charged” quality, as if, for a moment, creation had paused to witness here a kind of celestial laying-on of hands. The scene still worked its magic – and I did like the appearance of the three “Knaben” high up in the balcony at that point, opening the vistas in a way that the music so beautifully suggests.

I was delighted that we got the chorus “Comes a train of little ladies”  from Sullivan’s “The Mikado” as well as the “Three Little Maids from School” – in the opening chorus the voices truly caught that sense of rapturous wonderment at the words “And we wonder, how we wonder….”, with marvellous surges of tone, and a beautiful dying fall at the end. It was the perfect foil for the “three little maids”, Hannah Jones’s Yum-Yum strong and focused, but the others (Katherine McEndoe and Rebecca Howan) closely in attendance. Their three-pronged exuberance  mischievously nudged and poked at the figure of the bemused Pooh-Bah, who declined (perhaps by way of protesting a little too much!) to “dance and sing” as the three girls confessed (“So, please you Sir, we much regret”) they were, by nature, apt to do. Jamie Henare, strong-voiced as Pooh Bah, had a fine time not quite completely evading their clutches!

The first-half closer, appropriately enough the finale of Act One of Rossini’s “Il Barbiere di Siviglia”, was an ambitious piece of singing and staging which, thanks to plenty of energy, wit and engaging vocal characterisation, backed up by strongly-focused direction and presentation, came across to us most entertainingly. William McElwee’s Count Almaviva was delightful, dramatically outlandish and vocally sweet, if just a bit coloratura-shy in places, while Brooks Kershaw’s Bartolo/Barbaro/Bertoldo responded with plenty of appropriate puzzlement and stupefaction at the count’s appearance as a drunken soldier. Alicia Cadwgan’s Rosina charmed us from the beginning with her quicksilver responses regarding the “letter business”, the characters readily catching the “spin” of the composer’s interactions in their adroitly-dovetailed ensemble.

The arrival of Figaro (Christian Thurston), along with Don Basilio (Jamie Henare) and Berta (Tess Robinson) properly galvanised things to the point where the police were called, and an exciting, tarantella-like ensemble swept us all along, emotions bubbling, simmering and seething with everything ranging from pleasure to bewilderment, ensemble thrills and spills treated as part of the experience. As its riotous way unfolded we were thoroughly engaged by the goings-on – I don’t think the most polished professional presentation could have given us more pleasure than we got here from these exuberant and fearless young performers!

A different kind of sophistication awaited us after the interval with Sondheim’s “A Little Night Music”, the scenario allowing Emma Carpenter’s voice to shine as Anne, both solo, and combining nicely in duet with Alicia Cadwgan’s Petra. Hannah Jones turned in an alluring Desiree, while as a couple Christian Thurston’s robust Carl-Magnus and Tess Robinson’s stratospheric Charlotte also gave pleasure. The performance caught the piece’s essentially “chic” surface nature while allowing us glimpses of the characters beneath the precarious facades – most enjoyable.

“Donizetti’s wonderful Don Pasquale” read the programme-note, and the music certainly lived up to the effusive introduction – this was a committed, no-holds-barred performance of the duet “Tornami a dir” (Tell me once more), which the composer styled as a “nocturne”, performed by Declan Cudd and Olivia Marshall. The former’s tone was freer and fuller in his lower register, though none of his high passages were shirked – while his opposite, Olivia Marshall, brought a confident and secure voice to the music given Norina, his sweetheart. For me, at any rate, the couple’s fervour and commitment easily carried the day.

Back to Mozart and his “Magic Flute” we went, this time with the Three Boys (Olivia Sheat, Luana Howard and Rebecca Howie) very much in vocal focus, delightfully attired in “Davy Crockett from Bavaria” style hats, and turning their tones in well-wrought ensemble towards dissuading Pamina from taking her life over her Prince Tamino’s apparent rejection of their love. As with the excerpt from “Peter Grimes” Katherine McIndoe impressed upon the memory with her focused commitment to the character, conveying her confused emotions with plenty of force and immediacy.

I thought the Rossini ensemble as we saw and heard just before the interval would be hard to beat, but the company at least matched its earlier achievement with the evening’s concluding item, a colourful and heartfelt delivery of the Waltz-Song and Soldiers’ March from Act Two of Puccini’s “La Boheme”. It all came vibrantly together – Tess Robinson’s appealing Musetta floated the insinuations of her melody quite irresistibly, at first angering her estranged lover, Marcello (Christian Thurston), and then winning him back over, to the annoyance of her elderly escort  Alcindoro (a lovely cameo from Nino Raphael), and the amusement of the watching Bohemians.

Though there wasn’t much for them to do as spectators, William McElwee’s Rodolfo and Hannah Jones’s Mimi looked and sounded lovely together, while Luca Venter’s Schaunard and Jamie Henare’s Colline amply completed the Bohemian contingent. Then as the military band approached, it was indeed “half the population of Paris” which seemed to be milling around on the stage as if on holiday, the contingent then marching off to the concluding bars of Puccini’s music in grand style.

All credit to the NZ School of Music’s Classical Voice Faculty and to the students whose performances this evening would have richly justified their tutors’ efforts – it was a great show, whose creative flair and sense of occasion lifted it far above the conventional hotch-potch method of random assemblage of  “vocal gems”, and produced something really worthwhile and memorable. I’m sure Margaret Medlyn, for one, would have been delighted.

Inspiring concert by young students of Donald Armstrong

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Lunchtime concert at Old Saint Paul’s

Andrew Kelly – Brahms: Violin Sonata No 3 – First movement
Claudia Tarrant-Matthews – Elgar: Violin Sonata, Op 82 – First movement
Melanie Pinkney – Bruch: Violin Concerto No 1 – First movement.  François Schubert: The Bee
The Elegiac Trio (Andrew Kelly, Josiah Pinkney – cello, Claudia Tarrant-Matthews – piano) – Rachmaninov: Trio élégiaque No 1, in G minor
Catherine McKay was the accompanying pianist for the three violinists.

Old Saint Paul’s church

Tuesday 29 July, 12:15 pm

This concert, in the regular Tuesday lunchtime series in the former Pro-cathedral, was the last appearance of The Elegiac Trio before they took part in the final stage of the Schools Chamber Music Contest, held this year in Christchurch on the coming Saturday. It proved a remarkable exhibition of young talent by the three members of the Trio as well as the 12-year-old violinist Melanie Pinkney. All three violinists are tutored by NZSO associate concert-master Donald Armstrong.

Andrew Kelly established at once what could easily be felt as the prevailing quality in the violin playing: a warm and even tone that provided the foundation for playing that was rich in dynamic subtleties; in which the central section of the Brahms sonata was so magically hushed, demonstrating the composer’s essentially romantic and emotional character, though cast within broadly classical shapes. It prepared the audience thoroughly for his role in Rachmaninov’s elegiac trio at the end of the concert.

Claudia Matthews, 16, is a little younger than Andrew, but showed greater confidence, though their playing was invested with very similar degree of painstaking care and finesse in handling the bow. Elgar’s sonata is not nearly as familiar to most people as Brahms’s three sonatas: perhaps it does not have the same immediate melodic charm and memorable character; it’s one of those works whose beauties are slower to become embedded in the mind. Claudia’s confidence, firmness and accuracy matched her ease in navigating Elgar’s particular way with the notes, bending them secretly, creating an air of remoteness and gentle drifting, speaking of a maturity that seemed well beyond her years.

Melanie Pinkney is only 12, and I imagine I was not alone in feeling that her musical gift was in the class of the musical prodigy. The Bruch concerto in G minor is a truly grown-up masterpiece; it opens with Catherine McKay’s piano, capturing the orchestra’s character hypnotically, drawing the audience mysteriously towards the memorable first theme by the violin.

Melanie planted her notes with mature assurance, giving no suggestion that it presented any difficulties, since it all lay so comfortably under her fingers. She dealt with every musical colouring and decoration as if she was improvising, yet also with beguiling musical feeling that held you spellbound.

The fine Bruch structure was followed by a little Schubert piece that I haven’t heard for many years. Yes, it IS by Franz Schubert, but he goes under the French version, François – and that’s because it’s a fellow born in 1808 in Dresden, not Vienna, and died in 1878 and though he lived more than twice as long as the eponymous Viennese musician, he didn’t gain immortality. Though The Bee, from his Bagatelles, Op 13 (No 9), named in French, L’Abeille, published in the 1850s, survives.

In any case, it offered another display of a wonderfully fluid bowing arm that produced perfect tone.

After all this precocious virtuosity, one might be surprised at nothing, and that was the case with Rachmaninov’ first piano trio – he wrote two, both called Trio Élégiaque. This first is in G minor while the second in D minor, which is much longer, was inspired by the death of Tchaikovsky.

The tremolo opening of the piece seemed to emerge mysteriously from the dim timber recesses of the church, as the arrival of each instrument each seemed in turn to pick up the same emotion and tonal character of the previous one. They seemed to have paid scrupulous attention to each other’s sound; as the violin took up the theme from the cello it seemed simply to be an extension upward of the latter’s sound, not a different instrument.

Admittedly, this is a gorgeous acoustic for chamber music, but the raw material needs to be there for it to flourish. These musicians seemed not only to have worked together to integrate their sound but also to have judged successfully how their playing needed to be adapted to the space.

Much credit is due to the teacher of the violinists, Donald Armstrong, who oversaw the concert as a whole, but also to Andrew Joyce who coaches cellist Josiah Pinkney and Claudia Tarrant-Matthews’s piano teachers.

 

Engaging lunchtime concert by woodwind students

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Woodwind students of the New Zealand School of Music

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 23 July, 12:15 pm

Five students under head of winds Deborah Rawson at the school of music gave a delightful recital on a cold day which saw a slightly smaller audience than usual at St Andrew’s.

As usual the standard of the performances was remarkable, resulting in several revelations of unfamiliar music. The first was a movement from Saint-Saëns’s clarinet sonata, one of his last pieces, written in the year of his death. Hannah Sellars played its second movement, Allegro animato, not without slight blemishes but with interesting variety of tone and an easy fluency in the runs and other decorative elements.

A second clarinettist was Patrick Richardson, rather more confident both in his presentation and his execution; he played two pieces, the first a successful arrangement of Debussy’s La fille aux cheveux de lin, and then the Allegro from Stamitz’s 2nd clarinet concerto (while the programme had J (for Johann) Stamitz as composer, Richardson said correctly that it was by Carl, Johann’s son; Johann wrote only one clarinet concerto). The Debussy was limpid and fluid, every note entranced by the girl’s beguiling hair, the piano part only slightly diminished in its importance; the concerto movement by the son of the genius of the Mannheim school which so influenced Mozart, was a happy experience, chosen no doubt to exemplify the stylistic contrast between the classical clarinet and the late romantic. The clarity of tone, the player’s firm confidence carried him through the decorative phrases and cadenzas, with striking support by pianist Rafaela Garlick-Grice.

Harim Oh was a third clarinettist; he chose a piece that represented a very different challenge: the first movement, Lento, poco rubato, from the solo clarinet sonata by avant-garde Soviet composer Edison Denisov, born in 1929 and died in 1996. Littered with tricky pitches, micro-tones, note bending and smudged trills, this was a fine performance of a famously seminal piece, defying Soviet orthodoxy.

Two other instruments featured: Annabel Lovatt’s oboe and Peter Lamb’s bassoon. Annabel’s presentation was slightly hindered by nervousness compounded by a non-functioning microphone; however I did hear her say that the CPE Bach piece for solo oboe was originally for flute – no doubt for his patron the flute-playing Prussian king Frederick. One of the really significant revelations of recent decades has been the discovery of Bach’s oldest son’s genius, replacing the earlier view of him as a merely talented odd-ball. This piece made its way through an Adagio with an intriguing, twisting melody, short varied pauses and odd tempo changes; then the Allegro, a show-piece that was just as inventive and entertaining, punctuated by unexpected pauses, which Annabel played with considerable accomplishment. It may well have been more difficult on the oboe than on the flute.

Peter Lamb played a short suite for bassoon and piano by Alexander Tansman, who came alive for me when I visited the city museum in Lodz some years ago to find it largely dominated by Arthur Rubinstein and Tansman, both born there – Tansman 1897–1986. Since then, Tansman’s music seems to have emerged interestingly. This suite explored the instrument’s great and highly contrasted range in sunny melodies that engaged the piano (always played so splendidly by Garlick-Grice) in a real partnership. There seemed to be four movements, varied in a neo-classical manner. Not only does his music avoid modernist tendencies (in Paris in the 1920s, he declined an invitation to associate with Les Six) and certainly the serialists, but there is little to suggest any kinship with his compatriot Szymanowski, 15 years his senior. So this was an engaging, and interesting work that the two played with affection and commitment. It’s time for more serious exploration (by RNZ Concert?) of Tansman’s impressive oeuvre.

Comments later confirmed my impression of a particularly engaging concert.

Tawa’s orchestra tackles substantial programme under lively young conductor

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Tawa Community Orchestra conducted by Andrew Atkins and Laura Barton (violin)

Mozart: Symphony No 25 in G minor – first movement: Allegro con brio
Wieniawski: Violin Concerto No 2 in D minor, Op 22
Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture

Tawa College Hall

Sunday 8 June, 2 pm

There are several community, amateur orchestras around Greater Wellington; their major role is probably to enable local musicians to get orchestral experience; not to lay any claim to offering dazzling musical revelations. Most of the audience no doubt comprised friends and family members. Many of those have a genuine interest in music of the classical kind, and no matter the level of accomplishment, it is always interesting, sometimes pleasantly surprising, to be at such concerts.

My connection was as family member, but I was more than a little interested to hear how the players would cope with pieces that were one hundred percent solid classical repertoire.

The first movement of Mozart’s ‘Little G minor symphony’, No 25 (distinguishing it from the other one, No 40) would have resonated with many, as the urgent music, with arresting syncopation, that opened the film Amadeus. While the opening bars were an interesting exhibition of the meaning of ‘balance’, demonstrating the challenge of getting an integrated sound from the varied instruments of the orchestra, which are by nature so incompatible. More striking however was the energy that the young conductor, Andrew Atkins, a graduate student at the New Zealand School of Music, brought to the job. He imposed a professional tempo and sense of momentum on the performance that to a good extent masked any weaknesses of ensemble and technical competence in the players. Nevertheless, the real Mozart showed through, the spirit and the melodic genius.

It was the next piece that had me intrigued. While the Mozart employed a fairly limited orchestra – horns the only brass instruments – Wieniawski, writing about a century later, called for the full Romantic orchestra, double woodwinds, horns and trumpets, three trombones and timpani.

Here too the presence of several guest players, including many from the School of Music, strengthened strings and brass, in particular.

Though I knew both Wieniawski’s violin concertos, I cannot recall hearing either played live, though it would be surprising if the Michael Hill Violin Competition had not thrown one of them up at some stage. The concertos of instrumental virtuosos tend to be denigrated or ignored, though Paganini’s, Vieuxtemps’s and Wieniawksi’s remain in the repertory. However, this one is well-wrought, melodic, interesting; but it would hardly have survived an amateur performance without a pretty competent soloist.

Violinist Laura Barton is a student at the New Zealand School of Music.  After getting through the formal and not uninteresting orchestral introduction, with a certain tentativeness, Barton’s first phrases sounded as if she was feeling her way, but she very quickly hit her stride, playing without the score in front of her, though there remained, very understandably, a degree of tenseness. But if the audience still had to be convinced of her credentials, the first movement cadenza demonstrated an accomplishment that banished any doubts.

The gentle second movement, Romance, demonstrated an unsentimental lyricism and true musicality in the violinist. While Barton despatched the last movement, with its exciting gypsy rhythms, with an aplomb that not only confirmed a fine violinist in the making, but an orchestra that did not disgrace the performance.

The last work was even more of a challenge, written about the same time as the concerto, a product of Tchaikovsky’s early years, it is a colourful and vivid symphonic poem after the manner of Liszt, depicting three episodes of Shakespeare’s play.  No one could have expected a particularly polished performance from the orchestra, yet the energy and zest that young maestro Atkins drew from it, the poignant, lyrical music of the love scene, produced a performance that was quite engaging. There was a palpable feeling that the entire orchestra was giving more than they might have believed possible, and they as well as the audience were being rewarded accordingly.

 

Aspects of nature, life and love, from the NZSM Orchestra

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Te Koki New Zealand School of Music presents:
RURAL ROMANCE

LILBURN – Overture “Drysdale”
FAURÉ – Pelléas et Mélisande
BEETHOVEN – Piano Concerto No.3 in C Minor
DVORAK – Symphony No.8 in G Major

Jian Liu (piano)
Kenneth Young (conductor)
New Zealand School of Music Orchestra

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

Wednesday 4th June, 2014

It was the sort of programme I would have travelled miles and miles, over hill and dale, thru fog and storm, and braving accident and ambush to see and hear – with distance lending enchantment, as is often the case. But even without the distance, the enchantment remained – this was music by turns exciting and evocative, so very typical of each composer’s work, even the relatively early Overture by Lilburn, but still, as were the other pieces, treasure!

To my great delight, the bringing about of it all by these youthful players and their conductor had many magnificent moments, for most of the time triumphing over the difficulties posed by the venue. The chief problem was the “in-your-face” character of the St.Andrew’s acoustic, which gave the performance sounds an insistence which wasn’t altogether the doing of the players.

It underlined and set in bold the importance for Wellington of having the Town Hall restored to its former glory as soon as possible, with both performance venues in that building currently out of circulation and sorely missed. I recall over recent times a number of youth orchestra performances in the main auditorium of the Hall whose qualities were underlined by the acoustic’s warmth and focus, a marked contrast to the somewhat overbearing, almost raucous immediacy of the St.Andrew’s sound.

My thoughts regarding the performance of the engaging Drysdale Overture of Lilburn’s were thus coloured by that acoustical context. I found a lot of the playing in what was otherwise a splendid performance lacked dynamic variation – the “great waves of sound” referred to in my notes regarding the piece’s opening gestures scarcely abated during the more vigorous working-out of the different motifs in the composer’s “sunlit rondo”.

Fortunately, the sounds did give space for the various appearances of  the “nostalgic theme”, and the unanimity and focus of the strings in places such as their sudden reprise of the opening figure, just before the final sequence. But this was due as much, if not more, to conductor Kenneth Young’s control and the skills of his players, the oboist in particular delivering the lovely melody with all the feeling for its context that the composer might have wanted.

Thanks to Fauré’s (or rather, his pupil, Charles Koechlin’s) somewhat gentler scoring, three of the Pelléas et Mélisande exerpts from the composers’ s incidental music for Maeterlinck’s play made a lovely impression throughout – Young and his musicians didn’t hold back the emotion, the string-playing in the Prelude having plenty of juice, and the clarinet work outstanding, really making something of the sequence just before the strings’ final phrases.

Fauré’s music doesn’t have the astringency of Sibelius’s for the same subject, and nothing like Schoenberg’s evocations of unease and darkness in his 1903 symphonic poem, also inspired by the play. This feeling was underlined by the exclusion of the fourth piece from the suite La Mort de Mélisande, leaving the lovely Fileuse (Mélisande at her spinning-wheel), depicted by whirling strings and a charming, winsome oboe solo (a different player to that in the Lilburn Overture), and finally the Sicilienne, a graceful dance composed by Fauré for an earlier, unfinished work, and used here again to beguiling effect, with its piquant oscillations between major  and minor. Here the harpist was able to shine, with a nicely-judged accompaniment of winds and then strings.

The Beethoven concerto featured a much-awaited appearance by that fine pianist Jian Liu, whose recital and chamber work I’ve so enjoyed over previous seasons. He didn’t disappoint with this, Beethoven’s darkest and most austere of the composer’s concertante works. Young and the players gave him an opening tutti which “spelt out” the journey in no uncertain terms, tense of mood and sharply-focused in articulation. Again the acoustic tended to narrow the dynamic range of the playing, but this music could easily deal with whatever sonic vagaries were brought to bear on the performance.

From his very first, commanding entry, Liu caught us up with his overall focus, his feeling for dynamic contrast, and his quicksilver responses to the music’s volatilities – as well as commanding the piano part (as with the cadenza) he was able to play “chamber music” with the orchestra in such passages as the rather misterioso section leading up to the recapitulation, dovetailing his cross-rhythmic triplets beautifully with the orchestra’s wind players, and bringing our the “gothic-like” touches to the writing just before the movement’s end.

The slow movement had a kind of Hellenic beauty at the start, its eloquence in Liu’s hands beautifully matched by the wind-playing that brought about a lovely sea-change to the soundscapes, as well as the beautiful dialogues with which the lower strings engaged the pianist at a later point. Only some slightly hurried turns of phrase in some of the exchanges prevented total pleasure – but the coda reinstalled that sense of rapt beauty which continued right up to a slightly misread wind entry at the end (which probably went swimmingly by comparison, at rehearsal – them’s the breaks!).

The finale’s attaca broke the spell, the pianist launching the argument with a real swing, taking the music at a fair lick and rendering some of his figurations as a whirl of notes – very exciting! But again from Liu was this lovely “accompanying” instinct in places, supporting the winds as they took over the melody. I loved the “fierce dance” character of the music during the tutti just before the clarinet tune, brought out with a will by Young and the players. But the contrast with the clarinet’s entry was also magical – fine playing, here – and the string fugue continued the excitement, leading up to the music’s martial element being hurled across the canvas with gusto.

After this, the coda was just right – a proper release of boisterous high spirits, kept pent-up for so long and here given full expression, by both pianist and orchestra. A pianist friend with whom I sat was also lost in admiration for Liu’s playing – “gossamer”, “agile”, “forthright”, and “energizing” were the words that were bandied about between us during the interval!

The recommencement brought out what seemed like the full band for the Dvorak G Major Symphony, surely one of the most adorable works in the romantic symphonic repertoire – and certainly one of its composer’s sunniest creations. Only in the second movement do the clouds gather for moments of anxiety and doubt – and Dvorak had that ability, shared with Schubert, to smile through tears and keep his essential spirit indomitable. And so it is with this symphony.

The outer movements – particularly the opening one – are both rhythmically tricky beasts, and I thought here in particular, throughout the first movement, that the orchestra didn’t manage to exude quite enough energy to really “kick” the music along. It always seems to me, with student and amateur orchestras, that not enough attention is paid to the rhythmic character of difficult pieces – and if the rhythm is tentative, unsure, or sluggish, then no amount of in-tune or note-accurate playing will save or properly enliven the music.

I once heard Ken Young, when rehearsing a difficult piece of contemporary music with the NZSO, telling the players, “Don’t count the music – FEEL it!” With Dvorak’s music, there’s that constant need to feel the rhythmic “kick”, to activate the dance element that’s in so much of his work. It’s not a question of speed or even tempo – but of “pointing” those rhythms, of stressing both beats and/or off-beats where appropriate. Accurate and eager though the playing was, here, I thought the first movement needed a touch more nervous energy overall, and sharper attack on some of those rhythmic beats. With this composer’s music in particular, a strongly-characterised rhythm beats the hell out of merely playing the right notes.

Still, I did think the performances of the middle movements of the work of a particularly high order, here – Young and his musicians revelled in the multifarious changes of mood in the second movement. bringing out the charm and lyricism and, indeed, romance of the opening, but fronting up to the theatrical darkenings of texture and tone brought by forceful wind,brass and timpani at key points – the timpani, in particular, was spot-on in its many rhythmic underpinnings and textural colourings. And the third movement similarly disarmed, with its bright, eager, slightly tense waltz-tune, put across with gorgeous string-tone (even with a touch of portamento in places!). Both the Trio and the sprightly Coda kept the music’s charm to the fore, nicely underlining the contrast with the finale’s declamatory opening.

Though sounding in places a bit of a raucous riot in this venue, the finale had plenty of thrills augmented by one or two spills. Everybody managed to kick up heels at some point or other during the wild dance-sequences (the horns had a great time with their trills, as did the trombones with their hoe-down-like shouts of encouragement!), and the contrasting lyrical variations featured, once again, lovely clarinet work and flute decorations that got the spirit, if not quite the letter, of the music right. And what a barnstorming finish!

I didn’t have miles and miles to go, nor hill and dale to contend with, when returning home – but this concert’s music and its performance still had just enough magic about it to both enchant and content.

 

 

String students from the School of Music gain public performance experience

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Undergraduate string students of the New Zealand School of Music:

Music by Bach, Beethoven and Shostakovich

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 23 October, 12:15 pm  

Even when great music is not played by top musicians with immaculate technical skill, it can be warmly delightful.

Regulars who enjoy Wellington’s various free (or nearly free) lunchtime concerts are not simply those who can’t tell the difference between the good and nearly good. They just love the music. This was one of the occasions when almost all the playing was both technically accomplished and, more importantly, played with love and understanding.

Caitlin Morris opened with the Prelude to Bach’s First Cello Suite. Her playing tended to lengthening of certain notes to a slightly exaggerated degree, but her handling of dynamics was careful and sensitive to the inner spirit of the music.

Violist Aidan Verity played an adaptation for her instrument of the Allemande and Courante from the Fourth Cello Suite, in E flat. Not quite as well mastered (there was a wee stumble in passing from the one movement to the next which clearly affected her confidence), she made a convincing case for the work’s performance on the viola, and her programme note points to a recent scholarly view that Bach may have been writing for the slightly smaller violoncello da spalla.

Most impressive, perhaps of the three solo performances was Julian Baker’s playing of Sarabande and Gigue from Bach’s solo Violin Partita in D minor. The Sarabande was spacious and well paced though some of the rhythmic ornaments might not have been handled with perfect elegance, but the Gigue was confident and fast, impressing with the confidence with which it maintained its speed, and managing very well the ticklish decorative rhythms.

The two other items involved more than one player. Beethoven’s Romances are not, I suspect, as familiar today as once they were. (My early acquaintance with the F major Romance, Op 50, may not have been typical. I indulge a reminiscence…  In my upper sixth year (now year 13) year I had an August holiday job with the late and lamented Wellington Competitions (1970s R.I.P.), part assistant stage managing and part assisting the adjudicator in the gallery of the old, upstairs Concert Chamber of the pre-rearranged Town Hall. He was John Longmire, minor English composer and pianist, and friend and biographer of John Ireland. This Romance was performed more than once by competing violinists and I was in love with it.  Anyway…)

Violinist Alina Junc and pianist Choong Park did a charming job with it, occasional slips in the violin’s handling of ornaments and intonation notwithstanding. The pianist maintained her partnership in sympathy with the violin; it was not altogether clear to me why the slightly enigmatic end missed its mark, but let me hope that this performance might encourage its resuscitation in general affection.

The last movement, Allegretto, of Shostakovich’s Piano Trio, Op 67, was played by Junc and Park together with cellist Xialing. As other performers had done, Alina spoke helpfully about the piece before starting with the staccato and pizzicato gestures, sensitively and confidently.  It became a highly impressive demonstration of the three players’ grasp of the work’s background and inspiration, the lamenting Slavic melody becoming a powerful climax expressing pain and grief.  The audience were in no doubt that they were hearing a performance of great conviction and power, and the trio were loudly applauded.