Tag: students

Heavyweight opera composer-contenders put through their paces

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music presents:  WAGNER : VERDI (1813-2013)

Giuseppe VERDI (1813-1901)

Overture – La forza del destino / Il corsaro – “Non so le tetre immagini” (Daniela-Rosa Cepeda)

Rigoletto – “Questa o quella” (Oliver Sewell) / Don Carlo – “O don fatale” (Elizabeth Harris)

Aida – Triumphal March from Act Two / Un ballo in maschera “Alla vita che t’arride” (Christian Thurston)

Il corsaro – Duet (Gulnara and Seid) from Act Three (Christina Orgias and Freddie Jones)

Il trovatore – “Tacea la notte” (Isabella Moore)

Richard WAGNER (1813-1883)

Overture – Die Meistersinger / 5 Wesendonck-Lieder (Margaret Medlyn)

Das Rheingold – Donner’s Thunderclap / Entry of the Gods into Valhalla

Lohengrin – Prelude to Act Three (encore)

New Zealand School of Music Orchestra

Kenneth Young (conductor)

Town Hall, Wellington

Tuesday 28th May, 2013

I remember recently reading a “rant” (oops! – pardon my alliteration!) from a columnist in some record magazine (which I don’t have enough money to subscribe to and therefore don’t have to hand, having probably borrowed the public library copy). The diatribe was against the “mad-headed observance” of composer anniversaries, of which there are a number falling within this year of grace 2013.

Without wishing to increase the readership of this person’s views by their wholesale repetition here (mercifully, I’ve forgotten some of the convolutions of the argument, in any case), I can nevertheless repeat (predictably) the basic point of the rant: why make a fuss of the birth/death of a composer whose music is already popular and doesn’t need extra exposure? – and why take the trouble of dredging up an anniversary of a lesser composer whose music is lesser-known because it probably deserves to be?

Now I know there’s a vein of human sensibility “out there” whose more extreme adherents blanch at the thought of observance of any kind of anniversary, birthdays, religious feasts, public holidays, the lot! It’s a point of view, and it obviously resonates to a greater or lesser extent within and along the connective tissues of certain people. But as Hamlet told Horatio in so many words, there’s more to anything than what any one person (or by extrapolation, any one group of people) thinks.

As far as composer-anniversaries go, many music-lovers welcome the focus on particular figures, especially if they happen to be favourite ones. As well, pieces of music aren’t supposed to be museum exhibits, static, inert, locked away, relating only to another time. Surely the point of a composer having written a body of music is to have it played and heard by other people! Aren’t anniversaries the perfect excuse for examining these works and the person who wrote them a little more closely and meaningfully?

A recent case in point was Schumann, whose orchestral works aren’t heard as often as I would like to hear them performed “live” (yes, I know the symphonies in particular are jolly difficult to do well, but…..?). So, what did the NZSO do during the recent (well, 2010) Schumann birth bicentenary year? – all of the Schumann symphonies? Wrong! – but for some reason the following year we got all of the Brahms Symphonies and Concertos!  Am I complaining? – No, but I was disappointed that the chance wasn’t taken by the NZSO to present Schumann’s far more innovative (if occasionally problematical) symphonic works to the public as well, the year before.

But wait! – before I begin inflicting pulpit-like polemic protestations of my own concerning this issue on unsuspecting readers, let me assure you that I’m all the time thinking of the Verdi/Wagner concert review I must write and needs must get on with THAT. Still, I don’t want anybody else spoiling my enjoyment of things in which I take great delight – and that includes hearing the music I want to listen to. So, as far as I’m concerned, bring on the anniversaries! – and DO something interesting relating to those composers and their music!

 

Here beginneth the review:

What excitement at the prospect of hearing the NZSM students tackling the music of two of the nineteenth century’s out-and-out “heavyweight” composers, Verdi and Wagner! “Chalk and cheese” might be the reaction of some people to the arrangement, but the composers were similar in that the work of each mirrored the other’s in terms of influence and impact upon both contemporary and future musical trends.

Of course their respective spheres of activity encompassed two markedly different musical traditions – Verdi’s was that of bel canto, while Wagner’s was largely instrumental – Verdi’s in song and melody, Wagner’s in the interaction between words and music. Wagner set about changing the image of opera as he saw it into his own likeness, a fusion of music, theatre and philosophy; whereas Verdi kept a human naturalness to the forefront in his works, tailoring his emotions and those of his characters to human feelings and their expression to sung melody.

How did the concert presented by the NZSM reflect the differences between the two composers and their music? One instantly apparent contrast was that the voice students sang only Verdi’s music. For youthful voices, Wagner’s vocal music has always been regarded as a danger-zone, with several brilliant but short-lived singing careers rueful testimony to any such reckless and ill-advised junge Sängerin explorations.

So, the evening’s Wagner singing was left to one of the best and most experienced in the business in this part of the world, NZSM’s Head of Classical Voice studies, Margaret Medlyn. I don’t remember when the composer’s Wesendonck-Lieder were last performed in Wellington, but the songs couldn’t have been more powerfully or sensitively presented than as here – though the orchestral playing under Kenneth Young had one or two slightly unsteady patches of ensemble (at the very end of the second song Stehe Still, for instance), its general feeling and spirit were of a piece with what the singer was doing at all times.

Only throughout  the opening measures of Im Treibhaus did I think the orchestral playing too insistent – the words speak of silence, mute-witness and barren emptiness, and the textures, I thought, needed more delicacy for the strange, ghostly world of the hothouse to have its full effect. Then, as the music unfolded and the singer’s voice evoked more of the enclosed ambience, the rapt stillness gradually came, drawing its veil over the playing. As for Margaret Medlyn, her phrasings beautifully pointed sequences such as that leading up to the words “Unsre Heimat ist nicht hier!”. So did her smile in the voice throughout the final “Träume” (Dreams) illuminate a sense of beauty and wonder in the music, supported by some lovely instrumental sounds.

The second half was all Wagner, beginning with the overture to Die Meistersinger, and finishing with the stirring Act Three Prelude to Lohengrin, music which always makes me think of footage of the Battle of Britain, with Spitfires and Hurricanes swooping, rolling and climbing throughout cloudy skies. The Meistersinger Prelude I thought a shade too businesslike and insufficiently “enjoyed” – Young’s very flowing tempo seemed to me to flatten out some of the textures and give the players insufficient space to make their phrases really “speak”, though he allowed the brass a nice rounded “moment” just before the first quiet string interlude, and did give the tuba enough space to relish his post-contrapuntal “trill”.

As well as the Lohengrin Prelude, into which the orchestra launched most excitingly at the concert’s end, there were a couple of exerpts (famously called “bleeding chunks” because they have to be “untimely ripp’d” from Wagner’s characteristic through-composed musical fabric) from the first of the “Ring” operas, Das Rheingold. The sequence began with the “Donner’s Thunderclap” music, here distinguished by what sounded like a real hammer striking a rock, and an overwhelmingly thunderous timpani roll from Larry Reese, who must have thought all his birthdays had come at once, being allowed to let rip like that!

Afterwards, came the resplendent rainbow bridge, before the scalpel predictably cut to the Rhinemaidens’ lament at losing their gold (one so misses the voices! – sorry – that just  slipped out!), and the ensuing grand processional of the Gods into Valhalla. Opportunities for orchestral players to take part in opera-house performances of this music are few – so one indulges the “bleeding chunks” idea for the sake of hearing Wagner’s music performed “live”, and for the pleasure of picking up on the enjoyment of the players.

The concert’s first half was a different world, one of bel canto mixed with volatile theatrical cut-and-thrust, trademarks of Giuseppe Verdi, Wagner’s Italian counterpart. The overture La forza del destino graphically illustrated the salient aspects of the Italian composer’s style – swift, terse dramatic strokes set alongside melodies crafted for human voices to sing in the time-honored manner, the whole integrated, interwoven and interactive. Though the performance could have had more of a “coiled spring” aspect at the start, the playing was alert and accurate throughout – and as the music proceeded everybody warmed to the task, the volcanic energies released and the big tunes given plenty of juice.

Seven of the NZSM’s voice-students presented arias or duets from a range of Verdi’s operas, beginning with an aria “Non so le tetre imagine” from the early work Il corsaro, due to be presented in full later in the year by the NZSM Opera. Here, the aria was sung by Daniela-Rosa Cepeda, with a bright, “feeling” voice, somewhat tremulous at the outset (perhaps partly due to nerves), but settling down and able to decorate the line on its reprise with some spirit. She was nicely supported by Ken Young and the orchestra, with passionate strings at the outset, and a beautifully-floated harp-led waltz-rhythm. Next was Oliver Sewell, with the well-known “Questa o quella” from Rigoletto, a stylish, agile performance, a bit breathless at the phrase-ends, but “knowing” of aspect and totally believable. Elizabeth Harris was next, with Eboli’s aria “O don fatale” from Don Carlo – strong singing, the line clearly focused, if a shade awkward in places. Her high notes were attacked with gusto, and if ungainly in effect, it all demonstrated she obviously had a sense of the whole and what was required.

For variety’s sakes we then heard an orchestral item (a “bleeding chunk”, no less, from a Verdi opera! ) – the Triumphal March from Aida. I am, truly, a great fan of Ken Young’s conducting, even if, occasionally, as here, I do find his direction very linear, almost to a fault at times (as also with the Meistersinger Prelude) – it seemed to me that everything here was subjected to a kind of onward flow, with almost no rhetorical underlinings or accentings of detail. While that approach really works well for some things, it does for me rob some music of a certain character, almost to the point of blandness at times. Thus here, I couldn’t help feeling we were being hustled along, and those brassy shouts and glorious ceremonial crashes went almost for nought amid the flow. I missed a sense of grandeur and spectacle about it all, despite the expert brass playing – the solo trumpets were terrific! – though what a pity that, for the famous “tune” the answering player wasn’t stationed somewhere else in the hall for an antiphonal effect…..just a thought…..

The singing took up again with Christian Thurston’s stylish and engaging performance of “Alla vita che t’arride” from Un ballo in maschera,  followed by a return to Il corsaro, with a duet from Act Three, sung by Christina Orgias and Freddie Jones. It didn’t seem to me very fair upon the soprano, as the duet’s weight seemed mostly shouldered by the baritone, throughout. Freddie Jones made the most of his opportunities with focused elegant tones at the start, though I felt his voice began to fray a little around its edges as time went on. I felt sorry for Christina Orgias as she seemed to have very little to do other than one-liner responses and a moment of briefly-extended expression of feeling towards the finish. Despite all, the singers creditably held the stage to the very end (odd, nevertheless, that this was the single duet in the programme).

Regarding the proceedings, it was a good thing that Isabella Moore’s stylish and confidently-projected “Tacea la notte” was placed last as it concluded the first half’s vocal contributions in grand style, the singer giving us sustained, emotion-filled soaring lines at the beginning, and then plenty of infectious energy and agility in the following cabaletta – a grand performance that fully deserved its accolades.

The concert represented, I thought, an impressive achievement from all concerned, but especially on the part of the student musicians – there were enough full-blooded, “heavyweight” challenges to test anybody’s mettle, and the musicians’ youthful energies and well-honed skills came splendidly to the fore,  for our considerable enjoyment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Twin Peaks – a concert of Verdi and Wagner

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Te Kōki New Zealand School of Music

Bicentenary of the births of Verdi and Wagner

Verdi: Overture to La forza del destino / ‘Non so le tetre immagini’ from Il corsaro

‘Questa o quelle’ from Rigoletto / ‘O don fatale’ from Don Carlo

Triumphal March from Aida

‘Alla vita che t’arride’ from Un ballo in maschera / Gulnara and Seid duet from Act 3, Il corsaro

‘Tacea la notte’ from Il trovatore

Wagner: Overture (Prelude) to Die Meistersinger / Wesendonck lieder

Entry of the gods into Valhalla from Das Rheingold  / encore: Prelude to Act 3, Lohengrin

Margaret Medlyn (soprano), Daniela-Rosa Cepeda (soprano), Oliver Sewell (tenor), Elisabeth Harris (soprano), Christian Thurston (baritone), Christina Orgias (soprano, Fredi Jones (baritone), Isabella Moore (soprano), NZSM Orchestra conducted by Kenneth Young

Wellington Town Hall

Tuesday, 28 May 2013

The NZSM Orchestra keeps up a pretty hot pace, with relatively frequent concerts.  This was ‘the big one’; the annual Town Hall concert, and probably the last for some time, due to the earthquake strengthening to take place at that venue.

However, the coldest day of the year so far would, without doubt, have been the main reason for relatively low audience numbers.  This was a shame, because the orchestra was in top form, and coupled with some outstanding singers, they made the tribute to two of the greatest opera composers, into a marvellous concert.  The downstairs seating was less than half-full, while there were about four rows full in the main part of the circle upstairs.

The large orchestra (including quite a number of guest players) gave a very fine performance of the overture to La forza del destino, with close attention to rhythm and dynamics to create the appropriate spooky feeling.

Daniela-Rosa Cepeda (formerly Young, and the winner of the Dame Malvina Major Foundation Aria prize and Rosina Buckman Memorial Cup at the 2011 Hutt Valley Performing Arts Competitions in 2011) was the first singer we heard.  Her extract from Il corsaro, and the duet by Christina Orgias and Fredi Jones later in the programme, were tasters for the opera the School of Music is to present in July.  This testing first aria began accompanied by harp only, followed by pizzicato strings – very effective.  The singer’s voice proved to be very well suited to this music.

Oliver Sewell’s famous aria from Rigoletto showed that he was equal to the acoustics of the large hall.  Elisabeth Harris’s voice was rich and powerful too, in the difficult, dramatic aria from Don Carlo.  While improved from previous times I have heard her, she still sang under the note at times, particularly at the beginning of phrases.

What a magnificent, grand march is that from Aida!  It must be one of the most popular orchestral excerpts from all opera.  The NZSM Orchestra gave it a fine performance, notable for the splendid trumpets.

Christian Thurston proved to have an excellent voice for Verdi, in his excerpt from Un ballo in maschera, but in the Il corsaro duet, the singers were not well balanced.  Fredi Jones was good at conveying his character, while Christina Orgias communicated her words, and the mood, very well, but could not match Jones’s volume.  The orchestra played superbly and sensitively.

Isabella Moore proved once again what a promising singer she is – a natural, with confidence, and a lovely voice intelligently used.  Her voice production seems effortless, and she rose above the orchestral sound, producing wonderful notes throughout.  Her vocal quality is mellow, yet exciting when it needs to be.

After the interval, another grand march, the overture to Die Meistersinger, was taken at a brisk pace, but still allowing the subtleties to emerge.  The brass were first class, speaking as with one voice.  It was powerful playing; Wagner would surely have approved.  Balance was excellent.

Next was a real treat: the Wesendonck lieder, Wagner’s setting of poems by Mathilde Wesendonck.  I don’t know that I have ever heard the whole five live before – perhaps once, a long time ago, in London.  Margaret Medlyn was just the person to perform them, with her successful experience as a singer of main roles in Wagner music dramas.  The first two songs (‘Der Engel’ and Stehe Still’) were sung sublimely, and just right.    The radiance of the singer’s voice was never swallowed up by the huge orchestra.

The third song, ‘Im Treibhaus’ (In the hothouse) featured muted strings.  The words (in translation in the printed programme) described a state of depression; the tonal changes, dynamics and expression employed by Margaret Medlyn were beautifully judged to convey this state; it was an exquisite performance.

The meaning of ‘Schmerzen’ (Sorrows) was drawn out by Wagner’s fabulous word-painting.  As in the first half of the concert, the orchestral accompaniment was notable for delicious harp-playing.  Throughout the songs, one could recognise many passages that the composer used later in his music-dramas.  The ending of the last song, ‘Träume’ (Dreams) was quite beautiful, and the orchestra did its part supremely well.  Margaret Medlyn proved herself again to be a great Wagnerian singer.

The last work listed in the printed programme, from Das Rheingold, had Wagner at his most lyrical.  Oboes were important, and their playing was very fine.  Although the prelude to Lohengrin was not printed in the programme, Middle-C was aware that it was to be played.  It made a familiar finish to the concert, completing a quartet of grand marches and overtures.

Orchestra, conductor and singers should all feel very proud of their achievements in presenting a concert of a very high standard.  Although we understand that it was a hard night’s work, one would wish that the orchestra members might convey at least a modicum of pleasure or enjoyment in their faces when they take their final bow.

Youthful voices savoured – NZSM Voice Students

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

NZSM presents: Arias and lieder

New Zealand School of Music: vocal students of Richard Greager, Jenny Wollerman and Margaret Medlyn, with Mark Dorell, piano

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 10 April 2013, 12.15pm

I heard four of these same singers perform last October, in Upper Hutt (9 October 2012), and my remarks then in some cases still apply; in others, the singers have noticeably improved their skills and performances.  Elisabeth Harris I heard in the master-class run by Denis O’Neill after the Lexus Song Quest last year.  Her singing has certainly moved onwards and upwards since then.

First, though, we heard from Oliver Sewell (tenor) who sang  the recitative “Comfort ye” and the following aria “Every Valley” from The Messiah by Handel.  Following the short overture, these open the great work, so must be arresting and interesting.   Sewell made them both of these things.  Although he was the only performer to use a music score, this is, after all, the norm in oratorio.

Sewell proved to have easy voice production, a good control of dynamics, a strong tenor voice, and appeared very confident.  His was as fine a performance technically, as I have heard in the many performances of The Messiah for which I have been a choir member.  Just a little more subtlety in interpreting the words and meaning are required.

James Henare has a very fine bass-baritone voice, with which he sang one of my favourite Schubert songs, “Du bist die Ruhe”.   The words were beautifully rendered, as was the phrasing.  Perhaps the loud section was a little too loud for this song.

Elisabeth Harris (mezzo-soprano) sang “Se Romeo t’uccise un figlio” from Bellini’s opera I Capuleti e I Montecchi in a fine, strong, dramatic rendition, using her voice to good effect, although there was a slightly breathy quality at times, and the intonation was a bit variable in places early on.

From Bizet’s Carmen Christina Orgias (soprano) gave us Micaela’s aria, in a most convincing performance.  Her splendid voice and her confidence carried her through a long and difficult aria, with the feeling of pathos conveyed well.

Henare sang again, a stirring “Il lacerato spirito” from Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra.  This was sung in a splendid Verdian voice; the low notes were simply fabulous, and the entire characterisation splendid.  His variation of timbre was impressive; this was indeed very fine Verdi.

Isabella Moore has earned plaudits for her fine soprano singing.  As well as knowing how to use her big voice, she knows how to look dramatic – appropriate for the character of Salome in Massenet’s Herodiade.  Her warm tone and clear words gave excellent expression to this lesser-known aria.

Christian Thurston is a baritone, and also possesses a fine voice.  His aria from Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet, “O vin, dissipe la tristesse” was difficult, but he portrayed the hero convincingly, thanks to good breath control, and excellent French.  Indeed, all the singers pronounced and enunciated their words well.

Baritone Fredi Jones has spent time as a tenor, and this showed in that the bottom of his baritone voice lost tone, while the resonance and tone of the top was very fine.  His singing of Yetletsky’s aria from The Queen of Spades by Tchaikovsky was accomplished, and his Russian was good (as far as I could tell).

Isabella Moore returned to sing Heimliche Aufforderung, one of Richard Strauss’s many beautiful songs for soprano voice – specifically, for his wife-to-be at the time he wrote it in 1894.  It is a song of bright character, with his typical superb rising cadences.  A gratifying song, magnificently sung.

The next offering from Fredi Jones, the lovely “Sure on this Shining Night” by Barber, was sung perhaps a little too dramatically for this contemplative song.  It was a very pleasing performance, nevertheless.

Contemporary American composer Ben Moore’s Sexy Lady proved to be an excellent vehicle for Elisabeth Harris.  Another trouser role (well, partly!), it was the only item in the programme sung in English, conveyed very clearly.  It suited Harris better than did her first offering; her dramatic abilities, including facial expression, had full play, and her voice sounded better.  Parodies of many classical arias were incorporated in humorous fashion, and Harris’s enjoyment of the piece was obvious, and added to that of the audience.

Mark Dorell, as always, was a splendid accompanist, playing many a complex accompaniment in a cool church.

Programme notes were good, although the English was a little strange in a couple of them.  It was great to have the dates of the composers and the names of poets and librettists.  However, it was a pity that Richard Strauss was deprived of 16 years of life – no Four Last Songs, but no enduring World War II either, if he had in fact died in 1933, rather than the actual date of 1949.

The New Zealand School of Music is training some fine singers, and teaching a range of repertoire and also excellent language skills.  Some of these people should make fine careers in opera – starting out with the School’s production of Verdi’s Il Corsaro in July this year.

Britten, Milhaud and Tchaikovsky from the NZSM Orchestra

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music presents:

NZSM Orchestra – “Pathetique”

BRITTEN – Suite on English Folksongs

MILHAUD – Viola Concerto No.2 Op.340

TCHAIKOVSKY – Symphony No.6 “Pathetique”

Irina Andreeva (viola)

Kenneth Young (conductor)

New Zealand School of Music Orchestra

Sacred Heart Cathedral, Hill St., Wellington

Tuesday 9th April, 2013

This was a whale of a concert from the NZSM Orchestra and conductor Kenneth Young, performing with Auckland-based viola soloist Irina Andreeva. Much of the enjoyment was in our anticipation of the programme, which featured a not too-well-known Folksong Suite by Benjamin Britten, and an even more rarely performed concerto for viola by Darius Milhaud, coupled with one of the best-loved of the Tchaikovsky Symphonies, the “Pathetique”. If not quite “something for everybody” the concert certainly ranged over an impressive and satisfying stretch of stylistic and emotional terrain.

The concert’s centerpiece was the Milhaud Viola Concerto, the composer’s second for the instrument and reputedly one of the most difficult works for viola in the repertoire. Milhaud wrote it during 1954 and 1955 as a dedication to the eminent virtuoso William Primrose, who apparently found it difficult and ungrateful to perform. Upon complaining to the composer, Primrose recalled that Milhaud replied, disarmingly, “Mon Cher, all concertos should be difficult”.

To date there has been no commercial recording made of the concerto, though there are rumours that a tape of Primrose playing the work does exist. The violist was quoted as saying it (the concerto) was “the most outrageously difficult work I ever tackled, and for all the immense labour I devoted to it never appealed to the public”.

For myself, on a first hearing, I thought it lacked the charm and variety and energy of Walton’s only concerto for viola, the first rival twentieth-century work which comes to mind. Though they’re not exactly thick on the ground, other concerti for the instrument by Bartok, Hindemith, Schnittke, Penderecki and Piston do turn up in adventurous orchestral programmes – and one mustn’t forget things like Anthony Ritchie’s 1994 concerto, of which there’s an Atoll recording featuring violist Timothy Deighton. (There are also viola concerti by Alfred Hill and Nigel Keay, further off the beaten home-grown track…..).

But Milhaud it was on this occasion, and the soloist Irina Andreeva bent her back to the task with a will, meeting head-on William Primrose’s assertion regarding the music’s difficulty, and emerging triumphant at the end, though not without playing her way through some nail-biting moments. The first movement is marked “Avec Entrain” which my on-line translator rendered as “with spirit” – and as the solo instrument virtually never stopped playing throughout, spirit was certainly required on the part of the soloist!  The music consisted of a running figure for the viola which sometimes relaxed into a more lyrical mode, accompanied in a disconcertingly pointillistic way by the orchestra, with abrupt squawks in places and lovely squealings in others. And I did enjoy the frequent insouciance of the wind-playing, in marked contrast to the nervous and keeping-on intensities of the violist’s undulating figurations.

Movement 2 was “Avec Charm” which I guess didn’t need translation, though the music’s ambience was, I thought, “small-hours dance-floor” with only a few couples left. The soloist’s lovely tone amply filled out the lyrical figurations, one or two intonation sags aside, especially when under pressure from what seemed like awkward stretches – the “difficult and ungrateful to perform” ghost here hovering about the music. But there were some gorgeous low-lying passages which brought forth plenty of juice from Andreeva’s instrument, accompanied by nostalgic winds and some “last dance” harp phrases, leading up to the crack-of-doom gong-stroke which then sent the phantoms of the small-hours packing into the gloom.

My schoolboy French wasn’t up to “Avec esprit”, and I was put right in conversation afterwards by a friend who explained it was literally “with mind” [it also means ‘wit’: L.T.] – which made more sense of music that seemed extremely controlled in its expression, a tight rhythmic regime which came across like a waltz in a straitjacket – the soloist’s recurring “theme” alternated with orchestra comment whose textures supported the argument with occasional punctuations and deft cross-rhythms. And there was no let-up for anybody in the concluding “Avec gaîtè”, a slowly-lolloping jig, whose stride gathered up the soloist’s strenuous double-stopping and the marvellously detailed orchestra textures, and proceeded to generate a well-nigh unstoppable momentum towards a “fin triomphant”! Accolades all round was the richly-deserved response to a fine performance.

To begin the concert, we had another work rarely encountered in the concert-hall, Benjamin Britten’s Suite on English Folksongs, music which took a somewhat different approach to that accorded traditional airs by composers such as Holst and Vaughan Williams. Britten had written a work for inclusion in the celebrations surrounding the opening of the Queen Elizabeth Hall in 1966, an arrangement for winds of the folk song Hankin Booby, and so, eight years later, included the work in his new suite. The whole work was given the subtitle “A time there was…..”, which was a quotation from a poem by Thomas Hardy, reflecting upon an age of innocence, and its subsequent corruption, something of a recurring theme in Britten’s own work.

Unlike other folksong treatments, Britten took the traditional folk-themes and developed them in pairs, subjecting the combinations to concise, but nevertheless intense explorations, finding worlds within worlds from these melodies. I noted in the very first one, Cakes and Ale, the rhythmic thrust of the writing from the very first chord – superbly delivered, here! – and the great work by the brass in carrying this forward. Interwoven with the themes were tortured, obsessive figurations, heightening tensions between both tunes and underlying accompaniments.

The second piece, The Bitter Withy, inspired beautiful string playing and support from the harp, the instrumental tones nicely gradated and the intensities well terraced, bringing sharply into relief the rustic angularities of the following Hankin Booby, the work’s “godfather” piece. What wonderful sonorities, and how pungently and wholeheartedly the orchestral winds put across their characteristic tinbres – riveting!

Hunt the Squirrel suggests as a title a quintessential English activity set to music, and the open-sounding strings brought out the essential earthiness of the fun, with some great playing from the orchestral leader, Salina Fisher. The ensemble wasn’t absolutely note-perfect, but put across a corporate verve and energy which underpinned the music’s excitement.

Again, Britten set one piece’s mood against its previous opposite, with the suite’s finale, Lord Melbourne. A tragic note hung around the music’s beginning, with its deep-throated percussion and “wandering” string and wind lines – this continued until the cor anglais solo, when conductor Ken Young suddenly stopped the orchestra and indicated to the players to start again – it had transpired (I was afterwards told) that one of the wind soloists had been ill before the concert, and had at that point gotten somewhat out of time and wasn’t “knitting” with the rest of the ensemble.

The repeat that followed seemed to present a tauter aspect to the music, if less spontaneous-sounding and “dangerous”. The piece built to a climax with the help of some intensely-focused string entries, then ebbed the tension away with birdsong-like winds and all-pervading feelings of nostalgic longing, the music expressing a touching loss and sorrow at the end. Altogether, the music was a discovery for me, and the performance presented it memorably, in an entirely sympathetic light.

I haven’t left much time or space to talk about the performance of the “Pathetique” which took up the second half of the concert, mainly because I thought the orchestra had presented the concert’s first-half items with such distinction, along with the soloist in the Milhaud Concerto. But the Tchaikovsky Symphony was also played magnificently, with a palpable sense of commitment and concentration from the very first gloom-laden notes, the bassoon and violas empowering the basses to “focus” their initial phrases a bit more securely the second time round after what I thought were a somewhat nervous first couple of notes.

Tchaikovsky’s adoration of Mozart was apparent with the violins’ opening phrases, here, the poise and clarity of the playing growing in intensity towards the brass fanfares, then erupting in agitation but called back to a state of relative calm by the lower strings – and how beautifully the violins stole in with the “big tune”, the playing expressive and plaintive-toned, with proper heart-on-sleeve emotion here, from winds as well as strings.

Conductor Young didn’t spare the players with the sudden onset of the allegro, and encouraged a terrific noise at the heart of the conflicting hubbub, timpani especially “charged” and well-focused throughout. With the big tune’s reprise at the end of the tumult, the sound wasn’t especially pure from the violins, but had great character, which I much preferred to a kind of bland homogeneity, the emotion expressed in great waves. Lovely winds and noble brass at the end, with every pizzicato note sounding as though it really meant something.

If I describe the remainder of the symphony’s performance like this I shall be here all night – so suffice to say that the 5/4 Second Movement was expressed by Young and his players with great urgency, or “a fair old lick” as they say in the classics, with the pizzicato passages a forest of plucking noises at that speed! No respite from the Trio, either, the music’s anxiety level kept near the red throughout, and the playing matching the music’s mood in point and focus. Then, the third-movement March was all urgency and angst – music of flight as much as nervous energy – with the antiphonal exchanges between the instruments thrilling. Every now and then an instrumental detail would arrest one’s sensibilities, such as a piccolo-led wind flourish, and a keenly-focused timpani crescendo.

Young gave his strings enough room to really “point” the main theme, and also deal with the syncopated exchanges between instrumental groups. The build-up to the first percussion onslaught was fabulous, even if the bass drum slightly anticipated one of its entries. And the coda was all the more effective through being kept rock-steady, allowing the winds a terrific texture-piercing flourish before the final crunching chords. How the audience restrained itself from breaking into spontaneous applause (a common occurrence with this work in concert) I’ll never know!

Sweet, regretful strings there were at the finale’s beginning, the emotion dignified at this initial stage, the phrasings given plenty of breath, wind and brass steady, apart from the occasional tiny horn burble. As the music slipped into the major, the mood took on a more hopeful aspect, the plea becoming increasingly eloquent – only to flounder against a brass rebuttal and crash to a halt in disarray. I enjoyed the subsequent ghoulish brass raspings and Wagnerian string intensities “sung out” by the players just before the second and final irruption, giving the moment of death-convulsion a truly fatalistic feeling and colour. The trombones intoned their lament superbly, as did the strings, with great, weeping swells of emotion, leading to dark, drained silences at the end.

I confess to being spellbound, throughout, by the playing’s energy and commitment – in short, I thoroughly enjoyed the concert’s two earlier (and less familiar) items, but thought the whole of the symphony was well-and-truly “nailed” by these youngsters and their inspirational conductor. Bravo!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Twenty-two talented young singers fill brilliant evening at Whanganui’s Opera School Gala

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Opera School, Whanganui – Gala concert 2013
Great Opera Moments

Twenty-two singers with seven accompanists in arias and ensembles from opera

Staging directed by Sara Brodie and ensembles conducted by Michael Vinten

Royal Wanganui Opera House

Saturday 12 January 2013, 7.30pm

This concert celebrated the nineteenth annual opera school held at Whanganui, in the music rooms of Wanganui Collegiate School during the preceding ten days.

The idea of a training school for promising singers was driven by certain Auckland-based opera figures, most importantly Donald Trott. He has been deeply involved in opera both as a singer and administrator from the days of Perkel Opera and the several opera company metamorphoses, through Auckland Metropolitan Opera, Auckland Opera to the present NBR New Zealand Opera; and this involvement at Whanganui may well be the most rewarding and memorable.

Previous general manager of NBR New Zealand Opera, Jonathan Alver, has now become Director of the school while Donald Trott takes the role of Executive Chairman.

In the early years the principal tutor was the distinguished Romanian soprano Virginia Zeani. Her place has been filled in recent years by English vocal teacher Paul Farrington plus New Zealand teachers Margaret Medlyn, Barry Mora and Richard Greager as well as others coaching language and acting.

In recent years, with the guidance of stage director Sara Brodie, the evening concert has been enlivened by staging ideas attempting to offer linkages between items, making use of the aria’s thrust, the situation dramatised in the aria, the opera’s setting or subject. As is to be expected, it worked better in some instances than others. Sometimes the audience was probably in the dark through not knowing what the opera or the particular aria was about.

A rare ensemble to start
That was probably the case with the opening ensemble. Leoncavallo wrote Zazà in 1900 and it was probably the only work after Pagliacci that met with some success; one can be forgiven for not having heard it though it registered with me years ago seeing a Metropolitan Opera photo of a prominent soprano – Geraldine Farrar perhaps – in the title role.

Its Introduction, presented, as was the entire first half of the concert, as a rehearsal.  It served to open the concert: half a dozen singers in a cheap music hall in Saint Étienne, near Lyon, where Zazà is performing (incidentally, for those who like such connections, it’s the birthplace of Massenet and its opera house has been staging festivals of all Massenet’s opera over many years); strangely, this ensemble does not include Zazà. The music has an odd, un-Italian, latter-day, operetta character. For the operatically curious, it was interesting.

It led seamlessly into Amelia Ryman’s aria from Donizetti’s Linda di Chamounix, ‘O luce di quest’anima’ the best and probably only known aria from the opera. As the first solo of the evening, shaky intonation was evidence of nerves, a condition that affected several of the singers, particularly in the first half dozen pieces.

Mozart and his contemporaries
Then we get an introduction to the subject of Così fan tutte through a spoken exchange between the two naïve young lovers and their Alfonso, who resembled Donald Trott. Tenor Phillip Akau became Ferrando and sang the beautiful ‘Un’aura amoroso’, again displaying nerves, and an attractive voice.

We remained in the Mozart era with an aria from La serva padrona, attributed to Cimarosa; but did he actually write a version of the opera set first by Pergolesi?  Paisiello, on the other hand, certainly did: it’s easy to confuse the two contemporaries. From it, Madison Nonoa gave a spirited account of the aria ‘Stizzo mio stizzoso’.

There followed a bracket Mozart: first some stage business takes place and a letter is passed to Edward McKnight, as Publio, before he sings ‘Tardi s’avvede’ from La clemenza di Tito. After the abortive attempt on his life Tito has sent Publio to try to save Sesto – the failed assassin – from the Senate’s likely decree of execution.  The role of the letter at that point escaped me.

Then there’s a further bit of stage business, an exchange reflecting the wager in Così; but it’s followed by the Count’s petulant reaction in The Marriage of Figaro, ‘Hai gia vinta la causa’, as he faces the imminent marriage of his two servants. Baritone Edward Laurenson’s rather strong and elegant performance missed something of the anger.

Zerlina, on the other hand, is trying to placate her legitimately jealous fiancé in honeyed tones, with ‘Batti, batti’, and Eliza Boom’s attractive voice met its demands a lot more than half way.

The return to Così was long delayed, till the second half of the concert, when Isabella Moore took up ‘Come scoglio’, Fiordiligi’s beautiful hymn to fidelity, as one of the disguised lovers holds out a posy of flowers towards her. Her performance lent her words real conviction and it was distinguished by subtle dynamics, eloquence, clear delivery and agility – it was certainly among the two or three finest items of the evening.

Shakespeare or Bellini
I Capuleti e i Montecchi is generally assumed to be adapted from Shakespeare, but it draws mainly on Shakespeare’s own source: Matteo Bandello’s 16th century novella (is there a Bandello industry in Italy that gets outraged by thefts and distortions of the works of their great Renaissance writer?). Here we had two arias from Bellini’s first act: the first in the order of the score, Romeo’s ‘Ascolta, se Romeo l’uccise un figlio’. Disguised as his own servant, he meets Capellio (Capulet) and Tebaldo (Tybalt) in the Capulet palace proposing a deal to mend the feud between the rival Ghibelline and Guelph parties of Renaissance Italy through a marriage between Romeo and Giulietta, which is rejected by Capulet. Instead, Capellio insists that her marriage with Tebaldo should take place at once (not, as in Shakespeare, with Paris, who doesn’t, along with several other Shakespeare characters, even appear in Bellini).

Mezzo Elizabeth Harris enters, swinging a sword dangerously, reminding us that she is performing a trouser role, with Romeo’s aria in which she comfortably reached the extremes of her range.

In the following scene of Act I, Giulietta (Shannon Atkin) in her chamber longs for Romeo in ‘Eccome in lieta vesta’, leading to ‘Oh quante volte’. Unlike Shakespeare, there is no preliminary scene with her Mother and her Nurse and no first encounter with Romeo at the Capulets’ ball. Atkin, in a white bridal gown, a bit previous one might say, sang expressively and maintained well shaped lines in the famous aria and, climbing on to a stool, the cabaletta,

Libertines male and female
For the Carmen items the stage manoeuvres relied somewhat on both retrospect and foresight: the music starts with a bit of the habanera from the first act, but continues with Micaela’s arrival in Act III seeking José in the gypsy camp in the mountains. Probably unremarked, Tom Atkins, who appeared as José later in the concert, is among the gathering. After Carmen and her friends have read their futures in cards, they stay as Micaela (Christina Orgias) summoning Dutch courage, sings ‘Je dis que rien ne m’épouvante’; and indeed, she looked far from timid.

Tom Atkins, Don José, in the penultimate aria of the evening, sang the Flower Song from Act II, a fine tenor with distinctive colour and expressiveness in a performance that fully justified its position near the concert’s end.

The role of the sexual adventurer switches sexes for Ann Truelove’s difficult aria, ‘No word from Tom’, from Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress. Elizabeth Mandeno handled it admirably if not perfectly, expressing the meaning and emotion very well; and David Kelly’s piano accompaniment scored high.

Romantic tales from between the wars
The rest of the first half remained in the 20th century.

There’s more than one worthy stand-alone aria in Korngold’s Die tote Stadt (though nothing quite compares with Marietta’s Lied).  Surprisingly, it turned out to be the only German item in the programme: the Pierrotlied, ‘Mein Sehnen, mein Wähnen’ (‘my longings, my delusions’, cf. Hans Sachs’s ‘Wahn, Wahn’). In my Erich Leinsdorf recording, Hermann Prey sings it beautifully and Frederick Jones’s voice found the right colours, with an excellent understanding of its character.

The first half ended with the glamorous, troubled scene at Bullier’s restaurant from La rondine, with dancing, using the revolve with flair; solo voices emerged well though singing from their scores created a oddly static impression,

Some French opera
The second half began with a further instalment of the Così problem, with Donald cynically prevaricating; towards the end of the evening (between the Gounod and Debussy arias) he presents bills to several of the men, counting the goods with numbers seeming to total those in Leporello’s Catalogue Aria.

But somewhat enigmatically the singing continued with Imogen Thirlwell’s ‘Depuis le jour’ from Louise, a lovely romantic performance; and she stayed on stage through the next item, for Oliver Sewell’s singing of ‘Dalla sua pace’ from Don Giovanni, elegantly, expressing well Don Ottavio’s aristocratic ineffectualness.

A camel led across the stage made me momentarily expect Aida, but when Leila Alexander began ‘Se pieta di me non senti’ I recalled that Handel’s opera’s full name was Giulio Cesare in Egitto; it’s Cleopatra’s prayer to the gods to have pity on Caesar in battle with Ptolemy, all sung in high head tones, rather effective. .

Other French arias came later: Valentin’s futile assertion, ‘Avant de quiter ces lieux’, in Faust, that Christian Thurston sang with a tenorish, if slightly constricted quality but it is a voice of promise.

Bianca Andrew chose a rarity, the only sample from Debussy whose sesquicentenary was widely observed last year. His L’enfant prodigue is not an opera, rather a dramatic cantata; I did not recognise the ‘Air de Lia’, and my notes in the dark recorded ‘Massenet?’which was not a bad guess given its early composition. Bianca appeared in stockings and suspenders, her French was very good, clear and her soprano voice firm and true.

A bel canto episode
A feature of this concert was the splendid selection of non-hackneyed arias. One of the nearest to that class was Jesse Stratford’s singing of Nemorino’s ‘Una furtive lagrima’. After a little scene involving a rack of clothes including a wedding dress, his uncle’s will was read and all the women on hand fell upon him; a great white wig had some relevance I suppose, but it eluded me. However, he sang with happy clarity and he delivered his notes accurately, with fine spirit.

Angelique MacDonald then took us back to Bellini, ‘Qui la voce sua soave’ from I puritani. It’s from the mad Elvira in Part II (she’s the daughter of a Puritan and she loves Arturo, a Royalist, condemned to death; thus, she goes mad):  though it was a huge success at its Paris premiere and continued so for decades, Puritani does little to counter the belief that opera libretti are absurd. MacDonald, at first in a stunning, sparkling, deep blue gown, changed into white in mid-aria for the cabaletta, ‘Vien diletto’. It was one of the most stylish offerings of the evening.

Then, after another somewhat puzzling verbal exchange about everyone needing a sponsor, another singer from the New Zealand School of Music, Kieran Rayner, chose I puritani, where Riccardo sings ‘Ah! Per sempre io ti perdei … Bel sogno beato’ from Part I. Rayner has become one of the best-known young singers around Wellington and he invested his baritone voice with solid feeling to portray the man who’d earlier loved Elvira and is given an uncompromising though quite rewarding role.

Later another most effective Donizetti aria appeared: ‘Chacun le sait’ from La fille du regiment, written for Paris. This is the regimental song, and Ella Smith, as Marie, the offspring of the regiment, in loose, orange, quasi-military trousers sings and gestures in vivid military style, it was another real high-point of the evening.

Puccini
Out of the 26 items, only three were by Puccini (and, in their 200th anniversary year, neither Verdi nor Wagner appeared at all!).

After the Rondine scene, the second Puccini was the last scene of Act I of Tosca in which Scarpia sets his sights ruthlessly on Tosca – ‘Va, Tosca’. Scarpia is Edward Laurenson who had also sung the Count’s impatient aria from The Marriage of Figaro. Here too, was a dark voice that did well expressing the aggressive, controlling character in some male psyches; the scene was complete with organ accompaniment for the Te Deum and cannons from the Castel Sant’ Angelo announcing the escape of Angelotti: an arresting moment in the middle of the second half.

And the final ensemble scene came from Act II of La Bohème, with Musetta’s waltz song sung brightly by Amelia Ryman while the scene involving contributions from all four students leads towards their abandonment of their bill to the foolish Alcindoro. Here again the revolve was sensibly used, and it brought the evening to a brilliant conclusion.

It remains to record the major and very eloquent contributions from the pianists: Bruce Greenfield, Greg Neil, Edward Giffney, Iola Shelley, David Kelly, Travis Baker and Somi Kim; and the occasional on-stage contributions from tutors who have been named in the text above.

In recent years the school has been successful in gaining greater visibility in the city through the work of local volunteers in Wanganui Opera Week, organising daily concerts in the course of the school. The support of Creative New Zealand and the Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation, among several other major sponsors, are helping to put the school’s very valuable work on a firmer basis.

 

Start of a diverting Cello(phonia) tradition at the New Zealand School of Music

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Cellophonia II: New Zealand School of Music

Music for cello ensembles: by Mozart, Tchaikovsky, J Strauss II, Bach, Farr

Cellists: Inbal Megiddo (NZSM lecturer in cello), Andrew Joyce, Ashley Brown, Eliah Sakakushev; students of the NZSM and the Young Musicians’ Programme; players from Wellington orchestras

Hunter Council Chamber, Victoria University

Sunday 9 December, 7.30pm

Last year’s festival for cellists at the New Zealand School of Music was a very popular occasion, and it encouraged Inbal Megiddo, cello lecturer at the school,  and other leading cellists, to stage a repeat. It involves cello tuition, masterclasses and ensemble performance and a cello scholarship, consisting of $1000 plus the use of a Thomas Kennedy cello (c. 1813) for a year.
Professor Shmuel Magan of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance participated during the week, as a tutor.

There were one or two changes from last year in the ranks of professional cellists taking part and a considerable increase in the number of students, and players from amateur orchestras such as the Wellington and the Kapiti chamber orchestras; 29 in all.

An arrangement of Mozart’s overture to The Marriage of Figaro opened the concert, involving 12 players evidently playing seven parts. While it sounded an almost entirely different piece without woodwinds and brass, the variety of tone that could be captured was very interesting, particularly the sounds high on the A string.

Perhaps the most impressive piece on the programme was the arrangement of Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations, which acts as a major member of the cello concerto repertoire both because of its intrinsic musical quality and the heroic demands placed on the solo cellist.

In this case the solo role was passed from one of the principal cellists to another; that was in itself entertaining, but the experience of seeing and hearing it at close, chamber music, quarters highlighted the impact of the virtuosic terrors that it presents. It fell to Andrew Joyce to play some of the most spectacular variations.  As each variation exhibits different performance characteristics, the handling of particular sections by each cellist tended to illuminate these differences most divertingly.  Though focus might have been on the soloists, the accompaniment too exposed the bones of Tchaikovsky’s writing, not quite as interesting as when clothed in the colours of a full orchestra.

The first half ended with a Blue Danube Waltz: think I’ll stick with the version left to us by J Strauss Junior.

After the interval the full ensemble – 29 – emerged to play mainly lolly-pops. The non-lolly-pops were the 6th Brandenburg Concerto and Gareth Farr’s Ascent. The latter, led by Auckland Philharmonia principal cellist Eliah Sakakushev, is a piece written for cello ensemble, in a fairly conventional idiom, but exhibiting attractive musical ideas that seemed to emerge from a composer who was constantly alive to the sounds of the instruments as he wrote the notes on his manuscript (speaking loosely in the age of ‘Sibelius’). It was a delightful piece in its own right.

In contrast, and surprisingly for me, the 6th Brandenburg, though written for strings without violins and which I had imagined would be an easy convert to a wholly cello environment, disappointed. It began with a satisfying crunch, and the perpetuum mobile rhythm of the first movement sustained interest. But the leading melody in the second movement seemed earth-bound, it didn’t fly. And in the third movement I concluded sadly that though cellos are near neighbours to violas, the sounds they produced were simply not very beguiling, while the sounds of the original hovered in my head.

On the other hand, Bach’s Air on the G string (the second movement from his third orchestral suite) worked very well, never needing to be played in a range that was too remote from the limits of the original. The players changed their places from one piece to the next, presumably to give the students and amateur players a good range of experience; in the Bach the leading cellists each shared a desk with one of the students.

Finally, the big ensemble played the brief Trepak from The Nutcracker ballet, another piece that might have seemed a very improbable candidate for this treatment. Though it’s one of the classical pops that has long been on my ‘best avoid’ list, it was kind-of fun.

 

 

Lisa Harper-Brown frames fine Opera Society recital

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Lisa Harper-Brown (soprano) in Concert with Christie Cook – mezzo soprano, Stephen Diaz – counter-tenor, Cameron Barclay – tenor, Kieran Rayner – baritone
Bruce Greenfield – piano

Songs by Debussy and Rachmaninov, Montsalvatge, Brahms and Elgar; arias and ensembles by Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Bizet, Rossini, Saint-Saëns, Handel, Monteverdi, Bach, Bellini and Bernstein
(Vocal recital by New Zealand Opera Society, Wellington Branch)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Tuesday 20 November, 7.30pm

Once upon a time the Opera Society used to present regular recitals, every month or so. Then, as opportunities multiplied for singers to appear in professional and amateur productions and in recitals at the university schools of music, the screening of opera films slowly became more common and the society’s recital programme diminished. Instead, there are monthly screenings of operas on DVD.

British-born, Lisa Harper-Brown has worked in Australia for some years and has recently been appointed to a position in the vocal department of the New Zealand School of Music. She provided the professional element in the recital, singing no opera but instead, brackets of songs by Debussy and Rachmaninov.

Judging that most of the audience was probably unfamiliar with Debussy’s five 1889 settings of Baudelaire poems (called ‘Cinq poèmes de Baudelaire), Lisa spoke about them, singing them in pairs. Her remarks were scholarly and perceptive, touching on Debussy’s affinity with Baudelaire, with symbolist poetry, the impact of Wagner and philosophical thought of the time.  Though the songs come early in Debussy’s career, before any of the best known piano and orchestral music, it is good to be reminded that before this set, in his first decade of work – the 1880s – he wrote around 60 songs.

Her opening of the first song, Le balcon, burst on the audience like a thunder clap; it demanded attention but also suggested that she did not at first have the measure of the acoustic, and almost at once modified her delivery. As the song continued (it is very long) it also became clear that Lisa had a complete grasp of the young composer’s aesthetic and his command of wide dynamics and huge pitch range. The singer encompassed it, if not with ease, then at least with astonishing virtuosic skill, none of which obscured the essential voluptuous, and sometime decadent, quality of Debussy’s creations.

The songs tax not only the singer; they also make huge demands of the pianist whose task is to simulate an orchestra, for in them the recent impact of Debussy’s visit to Bayreuth as well as the influence of eastern music can be heard, in both voice and piano. Bruce Greenfield’s contribution was highly impressive, exhibiting subtlety and luminous Impressionist colourings.

Christie Cook graduated on music from Otago University and is now studying with Flora Edwards, planning to do further study overseas. She sang three widely varied songs: one of Montsalvatge’s Five Negro Songs (Cuba dendro de un piano) capturing well enough its singular quality; then Brahms’s Die Mainacht, which seemed to have been perfumed oddly by the previous song, giving it an unbrahmsian voluptuousness; and then one of Elgar’s Sea Pictures (Sea slumber song) which seemed to me free of a routine English contraltoesque quality; instead she invested it with her experience of singing in foreign languages.

Later in the concert Christie returned to sing Isabella’s fear-filled aria, ‘Cruda sorte’, from The Italian Girl in Algiers. Her excellent lower register and the sheer weight of her voice were more evident here, and I was reminded of a comparable voice such as Marilyn Horne’s, as she handled this taxing aria. The second-most-familiar aria from Samson and Delilah, ‘Printemps qui commence’, followed; her duplicitous role was quite persuasively portrayed, in an excellent performance. A stylish, risqué  number (The Physician) from Cole Porter’s Nymph Errant ended her bracket, the musical line well done though clarity of diction might have been better.

Cameron Barclay is an Auckland graduate but has been heard this year in striking performances of Beethoven’s Missa solemnis and the concert performance of Candide in Wellington. He sang ‘Il mio tesoro’ from Don Giovanni, in well-judged character, and a pathos-tinged Eugene Onegin aria: Lensky’s ‘Kuda, kuda’, contemplating his likely fate in the duel.

Kieran Rayner joined Barclay next to sing the duet from The Pearl Fishers. It came off splendidly, the two voices blending beautifully even though (perhaps because) the two have timbral similarities.

Rayner’s other offerings came in the second part of the concert. His sturdy baritone was a fit instrument for Bach’s ‘Grosser Herr, o starker König’ from the Christmas Oratorio. If this displayed his capacity in a joyous religious context, his bel canto offering from Bellini’s I puritani (‘Ah, per sempre io ti perdei’) offered profane matter into which he injected a degree of passion.

The runner-up in this year’s Lexus Song Quest, Stephen Diaz, entered to sing two arias: ‘In se Barbara’, a trouser role for contralto, sung by Arsace in Rossini’s Semiramide; and ‘Verdi prati’ from the castrato role of Ruggiero in Handel’s Alcina which he sang in the wonderful production by Opera in a Days Bay Garden earlier this year. Both arias were among the best things of the evening and brought expected vociferous audience response.

Christie Cook returned to sing with Diaz the duet ‘Pur ti miro’ from The Coronation of Poppea.  I can’t help hoping that modern scholarship is mistaken in the belief that it’s not by Monteverdi – it’s one of the loveliest pieces in the opera! The pair sang it with a rapturous beauty that totally disguised the couple’s villainous behaviour that got rewarded with happiness (brief in the event), and earned another outburst of enthusiasm.

Lisa Harper-Brown returned to conclude the concert with three Rachmaninov songs (Lilacs, Op 21:5; In the silence of the night, Op 4:3; Spring Waters, Op 14:11) which she sang in Russian, without a score in front of her. Both her impressive diction and her well-conceived musical interpretations suggested suppressed passion as well as classical elegance. The last song, Spring Waters, with its keenly evocative piano accompaniment (in case we needed reminding of the near uniform excellence of Greenfield’s playing), was a powerful testament to the genius of Rachmaninov as a song writer, making me wonder why his name is not included routinely when people speak of the world’s great lyrical composers.

The ensemble piece (Cook, Diaz, Barclay, Rayner in ‘Some other time’) from Bernstein’s On the town was a sort of anti-climax after the beauties of Rachmaninov and a great many of the earlier pieces. Recalling those affirmed this as an exceeding happy experience.

 

Wellington Youth Sinfonietta paves the way to orchestral careers

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Wellington Youth Sinfonietta conducted by Michael Vinten

Excerpts from Swan Lake (Tchaikovsky) – conducted by Vincent Hardaker; Cirrus (Natalie Hunt); Violin Concerto in D (Beethoven)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday 11 November, 3.30pm

With this concert the Wellington Youth Sinfonietta marked 20 years years of age (or should it be next year? – it was founded in 1993. There is a tendency to follow the Roman numbering system which was to count the year of a birth or a beginning as year one, so that the completion of that first year is named as year two. The same counting oddity was widely remarked on at the Millennium).

Naturally, gaps in the wind sections have to be filled by guests; flutes and oboes were the only sections entirely taken by young players and they handled three of the four trumpets: the contrasts were by no means as marked as one might have expected.

The excerpts of Swan Lake ballet were conducted by assistant conductor Vincent Hardaker; the orchestra did very well, oboes and later, the flutes gaining confidence as the music went along. One of the phenomena was a tendency of the professionals to dominate proceedings, particular members of the percussion section, whose sounds are endemically prone to overstatement in this church, so that the careful if tentative playing by young students was a bit lost during passages where percussion and brass were involved.

The orchestra had commissioned a piece from Natalie Hunt, a graduate in arts of Victoria University and in music of the New Zealand School of Music; she was Composer-in-Residence for the NZSO National Youth Orchestra in 2009. Cirrus opened with flutes followed by other woodwinds in feathery, transparent suggestions of high cloud, later darkened oddly by dulling pizzicato on double basses; the atmospheric quality recovered with marimba and triangle. The main part of the piece soon became more compact and I could admire the distinction the composer brought to her writing for the full orchestra, the underpinning by bass instruments and the unadorned line spelt out by the brass, all of which displayed her sensitivity to the limitations of young players.. The earlier hint of darkness reappeared with the arrival of insistent drums that threatened a stormy cumulo-nimbus sky.

After the interval Blythe Press entered as soloist in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, conducted, as was Cirrus, by Michael Vinten. The orchestra opened diffidently enough but their gathering confidence soon established a good foundation for the arrival of the soloist. A frequent problem was the players’ inclination to let rip wherever the marking fff appeared, to the detriment of the quieter passages. Though it was of course important to have professional support in the sections with only one or two young players, I was impressed by their often near indistinguishable contributions alongside the guest players of clarinet, bassoon, horns and trombones. Needless to say, Blythe Press’s performance was highly distinguished, always sensitive to tempos which tended to the slow side, but remained perfectly convincing. His presence clearly inspired the orchestra to playing that might have exceeded their own expectations.

This junior version of the Wellington Youth Orchestra provides an important stage for aspiring orchestral musicians, and their performances, heard in the right spirit, were here admirable.

 

Five violinists and a cellist at student recital at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

String Students of the New Zealand School of Music

Brahms: Sonata no.1 for violin and piano in G major, Op.78
Mozart: Violin Concerto no.5, K.219; 3rd movement
Bach: Sonata no.1 in G minor, BWV 1001: Fuga; Sonata no.2 in A minor, BWV 1003; Andante
Bloch: ‘Prayer’ from Jewish Life,  Suite no.1
Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto in E minor, Op.64, 3rd movement

Annabel Drummond, Lydia Harris, Julian Baker, Hester Bell Jordan, Kate Oswin (violins), Alexandra Partridge (cello), Rafaelle Garlick-Grice, Matthew Oswin (piano)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 17 October 2012, 12.15pm

The lunch-time concert was more than usually dramatic, with an earthquake occurring while Julian Baker was playing his Bach, but he carried right on, and showed no sign of discomposure.

First on the programme, though, was Annabel Drummond, a first-year student, playing the Brahms movement.  This is a long movement, marked vivace ma non troppo.  There were a few slight intonation glitches, but the expressive playing and superb tone Annabel gained from her instrument made these of no significance.  The sparkling piano part complemented the mellow, lyrical violin part, and had the limelight itself at times.

The gently melancholy character of the sonata, particularly the funeral march section (which belied the tempo marking) was conveyed beautifully, while the more rapid sections were fine too, despite a very brief lapse into harsh tone from the violin.  A splendid technique contributed to a wonderful performance in which Brahms’s work was played with feeling.

Lydia Harris gave us the third movement of Mozart’s concerto nicknamed ‘Turkish’.  Her violin had a strong sound, and she played with clarity, but not the sweetness of tone of the previous player, some stridency, even abrasiveness at times, on the upper strings, and not enough delicacy.  The intonation was occasionally awry.  There was too much pedal used in the piano part for Mozart.  The whole movement was, to my mind, played a trifle too fast, though it was not without character.

Next up was J.S. Bach, in the capable hands of Julian Baker, who played the unaccompanied fugue from memory.  His spoken introduction was good, and very clear.  The difficult music was executed very competently on the whole, despite a number of lapses in the double-stopping.  For a first-year student, this was very fine Bach playing; he had the audience totally absorbed (well, some of us lost concentration briefly, but not the performer) with idiomatic Bach, and a rich tone.

A cello followed, by way of variety.  Ernest Bloch’s piece was a shorter work than others on the programme, but of considerable interest.  Playing from memory, Alexandra Partridge proved to be a confident cellist, and one able to produce a lovely sonorous tone from her instrument.  There was plenty of subtlety and a range of dynamics in her performance; the excellent empathy between cellist and pianist was noticeable.

Hester Bell Jordan, playing the Bach Andante, seemed rather tentative.  Maybe it was nerves, but her tone was not consistent.  While there was care with the baroque style of phrasing away the second of each pair of notes, the performance came over as rather hesitant, with insufficient flow.  Certainly, the amount of double-stopping made this a difficult piece to bring off.

The last performer was Kate Oswin, whose brother Matthew accompanied her in the piano reduction of the orchestral score of the third movement of Mendelssohn’s violin concerto, probably the most frequently performed of any violin concerto.  It was a challenging role for both players, the violinist playing from memory, not made easier by being played a little faster than the marking might suggest.  The violin part was well under Kate’s fingers.  However, she does not have a big sound, and the piano sometimes had too much volume in comparison.

I felt the performance was a little too glib.  All the notes were there, but there was a lack of expression or dynamic alteration – indeed, the tempo made it more difficult to convey feeling and nuance.  It felt a little like a race of technical brilliance, rather than music.  There is no doubt that this 3rd-year student was more advanced technically than the first year students – but musically?  It needed to be more winsome.

A couple of people remarked to me how lucky we are to have these lunch-hour concerts (free, with opportunity for koha), in which we hear superb music from accomplished musicians.  I strongly echo that.

 

Students explore viola repertoire at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Viola Students of the NZSM

Hindemith: Sonata for viola and piano in F major, Op.11 no.4, movements 1 & 2
Schumann: Märchenbilder (Fairytale Pictures) for viola and piano, Op.113, movements 3 & 4
Bloch: Suite for viola and piano, movements 2 & 3
Walton: Viola Concerto in A minor, movement 1

Vincent Hardaker, Alice McIvor, Megan Ward (violas), Rafaelle Garlick-Grice (piano)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 10 October 2012, 12.15pm

These major twentieth-century viola works (excluding the Schumann) made an impressive muster.  The latest composition was Bloch’s, dating from 1958 (and the most modern-sounding it was); 1928-29 was the period of Walton’s concerto, though it was revised in 1961, and Hindemith’s was the earliest, composed in 1919.

The Hindemith was the first work played, by Vincent Hardaker.  The composer was himself a violist.   The work opened with low-pitched notes for the viola; this was a gorgeous sound, but there were a few hiccups soon after, and some coarse tone, particularly in the middle register.  A challenging and interesting piano part was very able played.  Excellent programme notes assisted the audience’s appreciation of the music, particularly the second movement, with its theme and variations.

Schumann wrote a considerable amount of programme music, that is, music telling a story or illustrating an extra-musical theme.  The third and fourth movements of the Märchenbilder were played by Alice McIvor.  ‘Rasch’, the third movement, depicted Rumpelstiltskin; like the character, it was tricky music!  The ‘Langsam’ final movement was in complete contrast.  It brought out all the richness of the instrument; serene and nostalgic, it was a true Romantic piece.

The pianist handled her material in a most sensitive fashion, her gentle rubati emphasising subtly the romantic nature of the music.  Alice McIvor proved to be a very competent performer, and together with Rafaelle Garlick-Grice, provided a consummate, very accomplished performance of both movements.

Megan Ward impressed by playing the second and fourth movements of the difficult Bloch Suite from memory – the only one of the performers to abandon use of the score.  How different this music was idiomatically from the previous item!  Megan Ward proved to be a very proficient player.  She and the pianist both handled a considerable amount of rapid gymnastics with aplomb, although the sound from the viola was rather more abrasive than that of the preceding violist – but that probably suited this music quite well.

The music had considerable interest, because Bloch sub-titled the movements: the second, “Grotesques: Simian Stage”, making it, as the programme note said, “one of extremely few pieces of classical music to be indisputably about monkeys”; the fourth movement, “Land of the Sun”, depicting, according to the programme note, “early society in China… described by the composer as ‘probably the most cheerful thing I ever wrote’”.

One could almost see the monkeys leaping around – probably those I saw on TV the previous night, in David Attenborough’s programme made in India.  The latter movement was bright, but rather more conventional.  Again, there was much complexity in the piano part, which was brilliantly played.

William Walton was a viola player, like Hindemith.  Alice McIvor returned to play the first movement of his Viola Concerto.  Of the three viola performers she had the most consistently good tone throughout the range.  She made a very fine performance of the movement, double-stopped melodies and all.  It was unified playing that interpreted the music coherently and gave the audience the good grasp of it that Alice obviously had.  Rafaelle produced beautiful tones from the piano.  It was a pity that the printed programme contained no biographical notes for her.

Perhaps a smile or two from the players at the end of the concert would have conveyed a feeling of pleasure in performing, and also would have recognised the audience’s applause.