Tag: students

New Zealand Secondary Students’ Choir astonish in competition sampler

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Taste of the NZSSC’s programme for British Columbia choral competition in July  

Musical Director: Andrew Withington; accompanist: Grant Bartley

Pataka Museum, Porirua

Friday 16 April, 7.30pm

Listening to a choir of young singers is always exhilarating; to hear the New Zealand Secondary Students’ Choir is more than that.  These young people, from secondary schools throughout the country sing well, and their discipline, balance and consistency of tone and pronunciation are exemplary.

What is even more astonishing is that the whole of their programme that was well over an hour long, was sung from memory.  This included everything from Schütz, Mendelssohn and David Childs to Swedish folksongs, to ‘Kua Rongo’ (performed with poi, including one young woman using long poi) to a Samoan item with drumming and exuberant action.

This choir is to travel to a competition in British Columbia, Canada, fairly soon.  They are certain to wow the audiences there, as did the 2003-04 NZSS choir; at the same competition it won three choral categories, more than any choir in the history of the competition.

These young women and men have an adult sound, yet without losing the freshness of youth.  They are well-trained by their young conductor, Andrew Withington, their vocal coaches Kate Spence and Morag Atchison, and doubtless by several language coaches also.

Most of the programme consisted of unaccompanied singing, but some items were ably accompanied by Grant Bartley on piano, and a few had the addition of double bass and drums.  There were few solos, but tenor Benson Wilson was notable in ‘Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen’ as arranged by British choral conductor and composer, Bob Chilcott.

There was variety in tonal colour different levels of sound for  the varying moods and characters of the songs, including some lovely pianissimo singing.  However, the main problem was that the choir’s robust sound was often too much in the acoustic of the main concourse at Pataka.  The space is quite narrow, and this meant a lot of reverberation that had not much room to get away (as it does in a cathedral).  To the right of the men (left from the audience’s viewpoint) was a large wooden sliding door that closes the entrance to the galleries.  The sound bounced off this, making the men’s sound seem strident at times.

The choir’s musical director needs to be aware of the need to adjust to each auditorium the choir sings in.  Similarly, the piano sounded unnecessarily loud and percussive at times, the effect of the narrowness of the space and the wooden floor.  At the concert I attended on Sunday afternoon in St Andrew’s on The Terrace in Wellington, it was notable that a velvet rug had been placed under the piano, to absorb some of the sound.

It was marvellous to see as many tenors as basses in the choir; surely the envy of every other choir!  It is to be hoped that these young men will all graduate to community choirs who are desperate for tenors!

From a very interesting and varied programme it is only possible to mention some items, without writing an extended essay.  The two Swedish Folksongs (arr. Hugo Alfvén) were lilting yet lively, and to my untutored ear (though I have been to Sweden), the pronunciation sounded authentic; at any rate, everyone pronounced the vowels in the same way.  David Hamilton’s ‘Caliban’s Song’ was a most beautiful setting of Shakespeare’s words.

Visually, there was variety from the placing of the singers depending on whether the work was for single SATB or double choir (all movements were efficiently and gracefully made); in the second half the singers wore diagonal sashes.  Then there were the actions, including poi, in ‘Kua Rongo’ and much vociferous actifity in ‘Mauga e ole Atuolo’.  ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’’ and ‘I got Rhythm’ were accompanied by appropriate swing movement.

The choir has excellent choral technique, and intonation was perfect.  Songs were sung in German, Latin, English, Swedish, Maori and Samoan  eleven songs in all, plus encore.  Through all of this memorised programme, with its difficulties, the choir members appeared relaxed and confident.

Go well in Canada!  You deserve to win your classes.  New Zealanders should be proud of you  if only the news media would inform them of your existence and your excellence!

Netherlands and New Zealand music from SMP Ensemble

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The SMP Ensemble conducted by Lucas Vis

VISTAS — music by Karlo Margetic, Louis Andriessen, Jack Body, Dylan Lardelli, Anton Killin, Yannis Kyriakidis  

Adam Concert Room, Victoria University

Friday 26 March 2010

The recent St Andrew’s series during the Festival included a concert by the SMP (Summer Music Project) Ensemble; that comprised music by Polish and New Zealand composers. This concert was entirely of New Zealand and Dutch music. Michael Norris introduced the concert Caprice Arts Trust director . They included the Caprice Arts Trust, the New Zealand School of Music, both universities, the Netherlands-New Zealand Association, KLM and Creative New Zealand. There was one premiere; some pieces were quite new and others as much as 40 years old.  

The title of the concert was Vistas: I suppose honouring Dutch conductor, Lucas Vis, a prominent figure in the promotion of new music. Most of the music in this programme was written for unconventional instrumental combinations and most eschewed the kinds of sounds that have been embraced by the generality of music lovers. Composers of this turn of mind seem comfortable carving a isolating niche, largely rejecting the standard musical formations and forms, such as the symphony orchestra or the string quartet, most kinds of tonal music and even the strains of contemporary music that have found more general acceptance.  

The first piece, written for a probably unique combination, was Karlo Margetic’s Hommage à WL: that is, Witold Lutoslawski. It opened, and closed, with Yoshiko Tsuruta playing with soft mallets on a wood block, soon supported by a dense bed of winds and strings: clarinets and horn; violin, viola, cello and double bass; piano and percussion, and it evolved into an aleatoric exercise (for which Lutoslawski was noted) each instrument playing according to his/her own instinct, but launching afresh at the end of each phase; those points were about the extent of the conductor, Lucas Vis’s, role. Occasionally a definite punctuation point arrived, e.g. with piano and cello; the mood became increasingly disturbed, even frenzied, before subsiding.  

Louis Andriessen’s Zilver was written in 1994. The prevailing character was vivid contrasts of pitch, setting flute against piano, vibraphone and marimba, all of which played identical or closely related lines. While the effect was distinctive, one lost a sense of the individual instruments; this was the effect of much of the music in the concert, for while the ensemble was smallish, several pieces were scored extensively for all together, in this case seven voices that the ear is not accustomed to hearing all sounding at once.

The music, nevertheless, gained in coherence as repeated motifs – gestures rather – were handled, at slowly increased speed and changing rhythms, at one point seeming to make wry allusions to the Viennese waltz. It drew to a close by dismantling the tighter framework that had evolved.

Jack Body’s Turtle Time dates from 1968 – a setting of surrealist poems by Russell Haley. Dated? well, perhaps, but it successfully maintains its character: witty, eccentric, the poems brilliantly articulated by Karlo Margetic, with huge gestures, likewise surreal, that reached out insistently to the audience. The music and its performance by piano Sam Jury), harpsichord (Jonathan Berkahn), organ (Matt Oswin)and harp (Natalia Mann), imposed a sort of irony of very traditional sound sources handled with drollerie and wit.  The words might have been a useful addition to the programme note.

Then came the ‘World premiere’ (I do wish we could just settle for ‘first performance’; I do doubt that even the composer expects a rush of breathless music publishers and promoters wanting performance rights in Buenos Aires and St Petersburg). Dominating the stage was the contrabass clarinet of Justus Rozemond, reaching two meters high, along with piccolo, piano, viola and cello.  

Noh theatrical precepts lay behind Dylan Lardelli’s piece, entitled Aspects of Theatre; where each performer rehearses alone, and the eventual performance is the first time the players have got together. The resulting spontaneous spirit was palpable; the musical experience was of extreme dynamic variety, of seemingly random, widely spaced pitches, whose relationships were irrelevant.  Though I have to plead failure to get Noh theatre, in spite of first hearing 40 years ago at the Athens Festival, and subsequent exposures.

Anton Killin’s Two Moments were approximately that; when its end seemed unexpectedly close to its start, Vis led a second performance there and then. In spite of its brevity, the composer had taken pains to score it carefully for seven strings, winds and an accordion carefully arrayed on stage. Interesting, though the purported depiction of the life of Denisovich and the death of Solzhenitsyn failed to register with me, and I had to wonder about the sort of audience envisaged by the composer.

The last piece, Tinkling, was for a much larger ensemble, ten players. Eshen Teo – flute, Andrzej Nowicki – clarinet, Peter Maunder – trombone, Dylan Lardelli – guitar, Dorothy Raphael – percussion, Yoshiko Tsuruta – marimba, Vivian Stephens – violin, Charley Davenport – cello, Simon Eastwood – double bass, Sam Jury – piano. A reworking, shortening of an earlier piece, based on a riff by Thelonius Monk, there was more for the mind to adhere to than with some of the other pieces.  More familiar musical patterns and procedures were suggested; subtle dramatic moments occurred, and arresting little accelerations; attractive hints of rubato in repeated phrases. Again however, I found the busyness of the scoring prevented distinguishing many individual instruments a lot of the time; why bother then with such detailed instrumentation? Pianist Sam Jury had been particularly notable and conductor Vis singled him out.

There was no question about the accomplishment of the players who devoted themselves with commitment to some pretty challenging music that clearly appealed to this audience. The concert was well-attended and there was long applause for the ensemble and for the conductor in particular.

Impressive Opera School concert at Wanganui

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Sixteenth New Zealand Opera School, Wanganui

Grand Final Concert. Principal tutors: Paul Farrington, Margaret Medlyn and Barry Mora; tutor, voice and languages: Richard Greager; Director of Performance: Sara Brodie; Italian language tutor: Luca Manghi; Performance assistant: Kararaina Walker

Royal Wanganui Opera House, Wednesday 13 January 2010

Twenty-four singers took part in the Final Concert of the 2010 opera school, reportedly the equal largest number. The difference between earlier line-ups and this was rather in quality than in quantity, though one could reasonably expect an increase in excellence of candidates over the years. The large number of participants meant that no singer gave more than one solo performance, though a few took also part in two ensemble pieces from Don Giovanni. This was probably the biggest audience I have seen at these concerts, boosted no doubt by the timely highlighting of the counter-tenor who had attracted national news coverage.

The evening began with a kairanga delivered by Kararaina Walker and introductory comments from school founder/director Donald Trott, who called for tutors and then the team of administrative volunteers to be acclaimed on the stage.

The recital began with three items under the heading ‘La belle époque’ (broadly the Third Republic period – 1870s till the First World War): first, Rose Blake sang the recitative and aria ‘Je marche sur tous les chemins … Obéissons…’ from Manon, risking hubris as she exalted in her shallow, glittering new life. It was stronger in stylistic grasp and energy than in finesse perhaps.

Bianca Andrew’s aria was from Gounod’s late opera, Cinq Mars, like Manon, in the decade after the Franco-Prussian War, ‘Nuit resplendissante’, A creditable effort with an unfamiliar piece, under good dynamic control if not as robustly romantic as it might have been. Oliver Sewell also sang Gounod – the familiar ‘Salut, demeure chaste et pure’ from Faust. It’s an uncomfortable piece to interpret, to overcome the audibly false sentiment and stagey gestures that are intrinsic to it; Oliver didn’t manage it without a degree of stiffness, both in voice and gesture. Nevertheless, one could read his final falling dramatically to his knees as a proper portrayal of an ultimately hypocritical action.

There followed six Mozart items, ending with a piece from William Bolcom’s A View from the Bridge, tenuously linked with Lorenzo da Ponte’s later life in New York.

David Wallace chose to present an untidy, uncouth Figaro for ‘Se vuol ballare’, though he sang it excellently, with a passion. Zerlina’s ‘Batti, batti’ from Don Giovanni was incarnated admirably by Emma Newman; though her dynamics and colour were rather unvaried, her voice is firm and even and her stage presence vivid. In comparable soubrette guise, Cherubino’s ‘Non so piu’ from The Marriage of Figaro was presented by Sheridan Williams rather convincingly, iffy intonation notwithstanding.

She stayed on stage to become the victim of Figaro’s admonishments, taunting Cherubino’s for his imminent departure in the army: ‘Non piu andrai’. Tavis Gravatt’s interesting, grainy baritone, excellent low range, gave it a vigorous authority. Here the rest of the singers provided a comic, never-mind inauthentic, audience to assist in Cherubino’s discomfort. It was one of the many enlivening touches contributed by director Sara Brodie who was responsible for making a sort of coherent performance from each ‘tableau’ that comprised themed numbers.

A change of opera next: Così fan tutte with Despina’s ‘In uomini’, where she urges her two mistresses to take their chances. Amanda Barclay’s voice was agile, true and she was pretty enough to cause her charges to worry. It was one of the best performances thus far.

An ensemble followed, ‘Protegga il giusto cielo’, a quintet of the five leading characters in Don Giovanni. Gravatt reappeared as Leporello with other yet to appear singers, notably Daniel O’Connor as the Don. It was another of Sara Brodie’s vivid and effective little scenes.

Then came the rather incongruous little ode to New York from the Arthur Miller/William Bolcom opera, A view from the Bridge: a reminiscence rejoicing in the superior beauties of New York over Naples, Venice and other ugly Italian cities such as Mozart’s librettist would have been happy to have escaped from, spending his last years in New York. Tenor Brent Read had it under control, with a voice of even quality throughout its range and a grasp of style.

‘On Tenterhooks’ was the title of the next tableau, excerpts exploring moments of crisis, anxiety, impending loss, perhaps a glimmer of hope. These were accompanied by Bruce Greenfield who demonstrated a mastery of the accompanist’s art that had not been quite as marked earlier.

Francesca Geach, in a knee-length green dress, sang Lauretta’s overexposed ‘O mio babbino caro’ from Gianni Schicchi, but it was fresh: quite slow, each word considered, unaffected in delivery. An aria from a second American opera followed: Cameron Barclay sang Martin’s Song from Copland’s The Tender Land, managed its difficult line, awkward intervals, competently though there were disquieting moments; he did well. Daniel O’Connor returned to sing Billy Budd’s lament: ‘Look, through the port’. The very first notes grabbed the audience’s sympathy, speaking of his command of its singular, unimaginable anguish, with clarity and studied care with every word, and immaculate intonation. Here Greenfield’s playing was particularly valued.

Jamie Young had difficulty matching Billy Budd with his ‘Una furtiva lagrima’ from L’elisir d’amore: his demeanour and vocal delivery were a little stiff and unsteady, though the voice has a basic attractiveness and range. Don Giovanni reappeared as vehicle for another ensemble: the minuet which cover’s the Don’s first attempt on Zerlina’s (dubious) virtue at the end of Act I. Alexandra Ioan’ as Zerlina and Kieran Rayner as Masetto, the Don blatantly laying the blame on Leporello. It ended the first half on a high.

As the evening wore on the ‘Sun, Moon and Stars’ changed places and were illustrated by pieces that used the heavens to symbolize human conditions.

As a result of media attention the first singer in the second half sparked a certain excitement: counter-tenor Stephen Diaz had become the talk of all at the school, not so much as the first counter-tenor in the school’s history, but more particularly on account of the sheer quality of his voice. ‘Ombra mai fu’ was preceded by its recitative, ‘Frondi tenere’ in which there was an initial slip, but by the third bar, the audience knew that the rumours were well-based. Not only did he handle the stage demands of this curious opening piece to Serse, sitting on the floor, his back against a leg of the piano, but there was a beauty and naturalness in the voice that spoke of musicianship of high quality. His voice is both strong, penetrating and expressive, and able to command a wide dynamic range and an already wide range of colour.

Diaz did not leave the stage but stayed to watch the next singer, Olga Gryniewycz who sang the Hymn to the Sun from Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Golden Cockerel; the link(?), I suppose, through its setting in the fantastic world of Russian fairytale, that is, generally south-east of Moscow, in Xerxes’ part of the world.

Gryniewycz is a bright, sparkling little soprano with a very high vocal extension who attracted attention in Handel’s Semele last year. This aria suited her well, though there was little substance in her high notes and unresolved vocal problems are still audible. But here was a vivid actress with excellent Russian and good musicianship.

Another famous Slav opera followed: Dvorak’s Rusalka – the Song to the Moon, sung by Rachel Day. Her voice is accurate, a sound, conventional soprano with agreeable warmth at the bottom of her range; she used striking facial expressions to suggest the curious nature of her dilemma.

Mimi’s ‘Si, mi chiamano Mimi’ seemed connected to the heavens only dimly. However, she sang well, if a little loud towards the end: a somewhat unlikely Rodolfo was on hand to supply a clinch as she finished.

Then came ‘Promises, Promises’, beginning improbably with Hamlet’s non-Shakespearean invocation to wine (‘O vin, dissipe la tristesse’) as the means to rid his heart of grief at Ophelia’s death: in the 1868 opera by Ambroise Thomas with librettists Barbier and Carré. French companies are unearthing such neglected works and Kieran Rayner, with a well-schooled voice and natural stage presence, presented an excellent case for this one, waving a wine bottle about the while.

The second promise also derived from Shakespeare, but even more tenuously. Thomas’s opera took serious liberties with Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Bellini’s librettist committed no such offence with Romeo and Juliet; Felice Romani (who probably wrote more libretti for the great operas of Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini than anyone else) simply went back to the same 16th century Italian romance that Shakespeare himself had indirectly borrowed from, and further distanced himself by calling it I Capuleti e i Montecchi. The soprano here in the role of Giulietta was Alexandra Ioan singing the popular aria ‘O! Quante volte’; she can act and she looked the part of the delicious young teenager that the young Capulet presumably was; every word, delivered quite slowly, was carefully placed, filled with meaning as well as emotion.

Don Ottavio is usually seen as an ineffective, quailing avenger of the dishonouring of his betrothed, Donna Anna, given instead to sententious, chivalric speeches. Michael Gray had the job of investing his promise of vengeance with conviction; his voice had the right quality, a baritonal flavour that allowed one to discover a little more grit in his vow; he produced some fine pianissimo notes too.

The final bracket was entitled ‘Lovers’ Tryst’, a rather miscellaneous group ranging from Federico’s Lament in Cilea’s account of the same Daudet play that Bizet wrote incidental music for (L’Arlesiana). Andrew Grenon had all the requisites: good stage presence, an attractive voice that he used expressively and under good dynamic control.

Amelia Berry chose one of the classics of 20th century opera, Korngold’s Die tote Stadt, based on a novel called Bruges-la-morte. Marietta’s Song reflects the small-time decadence of post-WWI Austria, a story of obsessive mourning mainly portrayed through the dream of the protagonist. Amelia’s voice was an impressive vehicle in the role, pure and even and rich in the upper register. She seemed transfixed by the words she was singing, just as the audience was.

The only excerpt from The Magic Flute in the concert was Tamino’s salute to the picture he is presented of Pamina, ‘Dies Bildnis…’. Bonaventure Allen Moetaua, whose good tenor voice has more than a little baritone character, took it slowly though at a rather unvarying forte.

Polly Ott was a finalist in the 2009 Lexus Song Quest and brought the evening to a close with the best-known aria from Donizetti’s Linda di Chamounix, ‘O luce di quest’anima’. She re-created Linda, a pretty peasant girl with a sweet, little girl’s voice, accurate, agile, reaching, not without some thinning, to some notes above top C. It was a beguiling performance that the audience loved.

Six accompanists shared the work: Greg Neil, David Kelly, Bruce Greenfield, Mark Dorrell, Francis Cowan and Iola Shelley.

Honours woodwind students from NZSM at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Bassoon Concerto in F (Weber), Clarinet Sonata, Op 120 No 2 – first movement (Brahms), Sonata in A for flute and piano (Gaubert)

Alex Chan (bassoon), Andrzej Nowicki (clarinet), Hannah Darroch (flute) with pianists Douglas Mews and Emma Sayers

St Andrew’s on The Terrace; Wednesday 21 October  

The series of recitals by senior students at the New Zealand School of Music continued at the lunchtime concerts at St Andrew’s with three musicians playing bassoon, clarinet and flute.

Young bassoon player Alex Chan won a scholarship to study as an orchestral bassoon player at the Kennedy Centre in Washington D.C. where she was co-winner of the SMI Concerto Competition. She has played with the Wellington Orchestra, the Southern Sinfonia, and the National Youth Orchestra.

Her first sounds, the sprightly dotted rhythms of Weber’s Bassoon Concerto marked her as an already polished professional; with pianist Douglas Mews standing in for an orchestra, she explored with a palpable delight all the nuances of its melodic character. The second movement, Adagio, was particularly engaging and spirited; she was not at all shy about flaunting the Weber’s drolleries, perhaps inspired by Haydn’s proclivities for sly humour. 

Andrzej Nowicki, the clarinetist who won the music school’s concerto competition a few months ago, has started his studies at Melbourne University; he played the second of the two wonderful clarinet sonatas by Brahms – just the first movement: how I longed to hear the rest from this fine musician.

Emma Sayers accompanied both Nowicki and flutist Hannah Darroch, who played one of those charming pieces that the 19th century Paris Conservatoire drew from many of Paris’s elegant and beguiling composers: this one, Philippe Gaubert. Hannah is a contract player in the Wellington Orchestra and co-prncipal flute in the National Youth Orchestra.

This is the sort of concert that none of the regular providers of chamber music ever risks, because of the perceived (probably correctly) conservatism in the taste of the normal chamber music audience, convinced that little other than the string quartet is worthy of their attention.

 

 

 

 

NZSM senior piano students at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand School of Music senior piano students: Rafaella Garlick-Grice, Laurel Hungerford, Benjamin Booker, Sam Jury, Ben Farnworth

St Andrew’s on The Terrace. Wednesday 14 October 2009

We have been hearing a series of lunchtime concerts at St Andrew’s by present and former students of the New Zealand School of Music in recent weeks. This one maintained the level of excellence both in the appearance of highly accomplished performers and in interesting music.

Rafaella Garlick-Grice began with a very mature and well-considered performance of the Prelude and Fugue in G from Book II of the Well-tempered Clavier. Varying her posture at the piano from upright to a hunched effort to climb inside the instrument, her playing was virtually flawless, but more importantly, shining with intelligence and engaging with the audience through illuminating every voice in both prelude and fugue, and entertaining dynamic colouring and subtle rhythmic nuances.

Laurel Hungerford’s Haydn Sonata (in C, Hob XVI 35) was just as distinguished, as she demonstrated her mastery and enjoyment of Haydn’s droll devices, the mock flourishes, the irregular phrases and unexpected harmonic and key shifts. You could hear her smiling at the jokes and the teasings; particularly in the somehow featureless Andante which is actually a small tour de force demonstrating how much delight can be created with musical ideas of great simplicity. My pleasure in her playing was hardly affected by her memory lapses in the last movement, though naturally, they somewhat affected her confidence thereafter.

Though he scarcely acknowledged his audience as he took his seat at the piano, Benjamin Booker played Liszt’s beautiful Un Sospiro, one of the Three Concert Studies, with admirable grace, poetic feeling and technical competence.

Liszt’s second Ballade is a different matter; a piece that attracts censure from the more pedantic of his critics. Its structure might not seem very shapely or easy to bring to a performance that convinces the listener of its organic unity, of a credible progression from one phase to the next, but for one easily seduced by Lisztian emotion, it is a masterpiece. Unfortunately, its secrets are discovered only through a rather more experienced pianist, more profoundly immersed in Liszt’s musical world, and the task, bravely tackled by Sam Jury, was a little beyond him. The opening phase with its mystical terrors that arise perhaps from Hades were too earthbound, and the later fearful left-hand octaves failed to do their job; however the sunny passages were beautifully played, and by the end enough of its essence had been re-created to satisfy and to stimulate a search for the several versions in one’s collection of LPs and CDs.

The last pianist was Ben Farnworth who played Ginastera’s Suite of Creole Dances. There are three, utterly different: the first hardly a dance, rather perhaps an invitation to a dance and the last a ferocious, violently syncopated dance. Farnworth did them proud, in turn, with delicacy, romance, bravura, swagger, and extravagant Latin American exhibitionism.

Quite apart from the interest in hearing several talented and very accomplished young piano students, it was a most satisfying programme of the sort we are scarcely ever offered by our normal concert promoters these days.

New Zealand Secondary Students’ Choir astonish

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Secondary Students’ Choir conducted by Andrew Withington

Cathedral of the Sacred Heart. Friday 9 October 2009

Some of the most brilliant music making comes from the young, not necessarily individually, though there are plenty of cases of remarkable prodigy, but from young choirs and orchestras. En masse, individual imperfections are inaudible while the energy and the delight of youthful music-making are what makes the impact.

It’s not uncommon to hear claims that professional orchestras’ performances are little affected by the conductor, that their years of playing together are what makes the difference between the ordinary and the distinguished. It’s not really as simple as that.

But in the case of a youth choir or orchestra, the character of the conductor is probably critical. In the case of orchestras, the world has the example of Gustavo Dudamel and his Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra, and we have had plenty of evidence of brilliant performances by the New Zealand Youth Orchestra under gifted (usually overseas) conductors who have worked miracles.

This time the miracle was wrought by a young New Zealand conductor, Andrew Withington, a protégé of former NZSSC conductor Elise Bradley.

The gasp of astonishment was audible as the choir opened the evening with the chorus from Haydn’s Creation ‘Achieved is the glorious work’, such was the overwhelming energy and intensity of the performance. This was certainly full-blooded both as a composition and in its execution.

I seem to find the wholehearted, simple religious belief of a Haydn a lot more acceptable than the sort of self-conscious piety evinced by Mendelssohn’s essays in the genre for example. The Kyrie and Sanctus (‘Heilig’) from the latter’s Die deutschen Liturgie followed, again accompanied excellently by Grant Bartley at the organ. I had to confess to finding both quite admirable, splendidly sung, with vivid sopranos and uncommonly good male voices – both tenors and basses.

A Sanctus by (Christchurch composer) Richard Oswin followed, with portentous piano introduction, echoing Carmina Burana a little, well presented. A setting of the Salve Regina by David Childs, United States-based New Zealand composer, showcased a solo soprano from the choir who projected well; interestingly written, rewarding for the choir I imagine.

The choir exhibited its richness and power in the showy piety of Parry’s ‘I was glad’, with women’s voices in gentle expressiveness.

I was impressed with the delivery, and pronunciation of a group of Swedish songs in which attention to dynamic subtleties was striking.

And the gentle spirit depicted by a Hebrew song, ‘Erev Shel Shoshanim’, offered a beautiful, comforting alternative to one’s current perception of the character the political entity from which it comes.

William Mathias’s setting of ‘Blow, blow, thou winter wind’ was spirited and vivid.

Then came a group of Brahms’s Liebeslieder Waltzes, whose singing was so affecting, authentic, often quite vivid, and plain charming, that I decided that choral performance was the best way of singing them.

The choir reappeared in the second half wearing Maori motifed sashes to open with Kua Rongo from Wehi Whanau, replete with beautifully executed gesture and movement. They created a thoroughly authentic Maori vocal quality in a waiata that sent shivers down the spine: the sort of performance that, heard when one is overseas, quite undoes one.

Three New Zealand folksong arrangements by Richard Oswin offered some evidence of the reality of at least a small body of genuine folksongs; again, their performance was most persuasive, building to an impressive climax.

Repeatedly, the choir exhibited new facets of their skills and versatility: in an affecting song by David Childs, ‘The Moon is Distant from the Sea’, with a flowing piano accompaniment supporting singing that illuminated words and emotions with a splendid flair for varied dynamics and intelligent phrasing. In my notes I had written – ‘one of the most beautiful and expressive songs of the entire evening’. I must have meant it!

From then on popular favourites were the rule: ‘Hine e hine’, ‘Ain’t misbehaving’, ‘I got rhythm’, ‘Nobody knows the trouble…’, all sung with an uncanny idiomatic energy and finally ‘Pokarekare Ana’, from a solo soprano with a pure, youthful voice, uncluttered by ornaments.

This was simply (one of?) the finest choral concerts of the year.

Blythe Press, violin, in Chausson, Prokofiev and Pärt

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Chausson: Poème, Op 25; Prokofiev: Five Melodies for violin and piano, Op 35b; Pärt: Fratres

Blythe Press (violin) and Emma Sayers (piano)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace. Wednesday 23 September 

Don’t ever overlook the lunchtime concerts at St Andrew’s! Of course, they vary widely, in genre, between instruments and voices and sometimes other things, in musical experience and skill, but more often than not, there’s a real treat in store.  

Every so often a concert comes along that deserves a much bigger crowd and perhaps a more prestigious venue, though that’s a factor I fight; for one thing, it is being used as a principal criterion by The Dominion Post for publishing music reviews, with some unfortunate results.

Wednesday the 23rd was a special one.

I’ve been observing Blythe Press, violinist from the Kapiti Coast, since he was a notable performer in the Schools Chamber Music Contests. After starting studies at Victoria University he gained sufficient awards to enable him to complete a music degree at Graz, in Austria. His record of competition triumphs is already, at 20, impressive.  

I fancy this is my first hearing of Chausson’s Poème, in the piano version. It sounds so different, with the violin standing tonally more distinct when accompanied by the piano (I cannot find a piano arrangement listed in Chausson’s entry in New Grove or on the Internet: it must be a publisher’s arrangement).

Yet its warm romantic spirit remained intact in the hands of these two players; nothing sentimental, or exaggerated, but rather, taste, sincerity of expression, and a considerable technique – I mean of both players – that was unobtrusive, and at the disposal of the music. It consists of several short sections, thematically linked but varying in character, and each, even the somewhat light-weight section hinting at the salon, emerged with honesty, in this context.

Prokofiev’s Five Melodies are a surprising product of the composer’s years of exile, this written in California. No hint of the wild young man of forbidding dissonance and ferocious technical demands, these pieces are to enjoy, and their choice could well serve to remind listeners that not all music after the first World War sought to poke the audience in the eye.

Yet they are by no means child’s play, though Press made them sound fairly plain-sailing. Nevertheless, the melodies would hardly have arisen in the imaginations of earlier composers, such is the strong personality of Prokofiev’s music and Press negotiated all the writhing, complex lines.  

Prokofiev is not a composer to be in the proximity of, say, some of his English contemporaries, who might sound flaccid and insipid in the same room (are my prejudices showing?). The playing of both musicians was arresting and their virtually flawless and riveting performances simply held the audience – bigger than normal – spell-bound.

As if two small masterpieces were not enough, the pair then played what has become one of the best–loved chamber pieces of the past 30 years. Fratres is an extraordinary piece in several ways, one being its non-specific instrumentation; its original incarnation was for string quintet and wind quintet, but the version played here is one of the most effective, allowing its clear musical character to emerge independent of the crutch of colourful combinations. Press’s fast opening cross-string arpeggios established his authority at once, and with the emphatic piano chords, a wonderfully gripping experience held the audience. The mystic passages that followed evoked the monastic atmosphere that Pärt sought, monks moving about dark gothic aisles, and finally the piano chords punctuating the violin’s great oratorical statement, were so impressively and movingly expressed by these two instruments.

Lunchtimes in Wellington churches

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

1 Organist David Trott for lunch at Old St Paul’s

A recital of popular classics on the organ

Tuesday 15 September

Lunchtime concerts at Old St Paul’s and St Andrew’s on The Terrace have taken on certain characteristics. While St Andrew’s has tended towards the more serious repertoire, catering for those whose interest in classical music is reasonably wide, Old St Paul’s seems to aim, at least some of the time, at the popular end of he spectrum.

David Trott’s organ recital was a good example of the latter. There was no printed programme and he introduced each piece in a friendly, casual tone, laced with anecdotes that sometimes had less to do with the music than with his own musical life.

If his selection was not entirely familiar, it offered no challenges. Generally they were well suited to the light, attractive registrations available on the church’s organ; such as the piece by 18th century organist and pedagogue Michel Corrette that employed a glockenspiel-like stop, and popular Bach pieces – Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring (‘Jesu bleibet meine Freude’) from Cantata 147 (Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben) and the Air from the Third Orchestral Suite (‘On the G String’). These suited the instrument and its player admirably; but less successful was his little arrangement of the main theme in the last movement of Saint-Saëns’s Third Symphony which demands far more dramatic weight that could be found here.

Trott played a distinctly odd-ball arrangement that combined elements of the Water Music and the Royal Fireworks music; his treatment of Pachelbel’s Canon went overboard with changes of registration in almost every bar: perhaps it was intended as a spoof.

Checking first that there were no priests present who might take offence, Trott played Mendelssohn’s splendid War March of the Priests from his incidental music to Racine’s Athalie. It used to make a regular appearance on programmes like Dinner Music at 6pm on the old YC network of my youth; its dramatic harmonies sound so good at the organ and though, again, a grander organ would have made it more exciting, it came off, nostalgia giving it an extra burst.

2. New Zealand School of Music voice students at St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 16 September

I missed the first four items in the St Andrew’s concert next day from the vocal students at the New Zealand School of Music: It meant that I didn’t hear either Laura Dawson and Sophie Kemp who did not sing again later. The rest exhibited admirable features.

Rachel Day has a voice that projects well, but her Richard Strauss song ‘Ich trage meine Minne’ needed greater refinement of tone and dynamic control, and those were the qualities that most of the singers still need to acquire.

She returned later to sing the Jewel Song from Faust, where she conveyed the giddy excitement, ‘hitting’ the notes but missing the interspersed lyrical touches.

Bridget Costello did well to sing the ‘Pie Jesu’ from Fauré’s Requiem, managing dynamic variety well though the piece demands more polished legato singing. She sang a song by John Ireland, Spring Song, with a more reined-in voice, some delicacy and carefully displayed emotion.

Bryony Williams tackled a long aria from The Creation: ‘On Mighty Pens’. It was a strong, convincing performance, showing her dramatic sense and a reasonably controlled top, but her voice wearied towards the end. She balanced that with the rather sentimental Elégie by Massenet (it’s from the incidental music, for cello and orchestra, to Leconte de Lisle’s play Les Erinnyes).

Bianca Andrew won marks for choosing an aria from Barber’s Vanessa (the opera that Kiri Te Kanawa made her mark in a few years ago) ‘Must Winter come so soon?’. She returned to sing the big coloratura aria ‘Non piu mesta’ from Rossini’s La Cenerentola, preceded by the recitative ‘Nacqui all’affano e al pianto’; she moved about sensibly, sang at a reasonable pace and so got all the notes; Emma Sayers’s lively pulse at the piano contributed delightfully.

Kieran Rayner sang three items, each with Emily Mair at the piano. First, Strauss’s ‘Ruhe meine Seele’, which impressed me, though I only caught the last of it; then Ashley Heenan’s arrangement of the sea shanty ‘Lowdown Lonesome Low’ (familiar to radio aficionados in Donald Munro’s performance). It’s a challenge to bring off such songs without embarrassing artifice and Rayner has the personality to do it convincingly, varying the tone and using dynamic variety with intelligence.

He was given the honour of bringing the little concert to an end with the aria he sang in the Wellington Aria contest in August, ‘O vin, dissipe la tristesse’ from Thomas’s Hamlet; not perhaps the therapy that a psychologist would recommend, but Rayner made an excellent case for it.

Young Musicians Twelfth Annual Concert with NZSO players

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Michael Monaghan Young Musicians Foundation

Twelfth annual concert, conducted by Peter van Drimmelen and Kenneth Young

Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, Sunday 13 September

It had been announced some time before the concert that this one was the last under the current arrangements; arrangements that began in 1996, with the formation of a trust to remember an NZSO violinist, Michael Monaghan, inspired by violist Peter van Drimmelen, with the first of the annual concerts in 1998.

They have consisted of performances by eight secondary-school, and occasionally younger, musicians, accompanied by players from the NZSO and others. All concerned have given their time free while other costs have been met from supporters and sponsors.

Peter van Drimmelen has been the driver throughout and he has decided that now is the time to withdraw from the project.

Before the final item on the programme, several people spoke: Ian Fraser, a former CEO of the NZSO, Chris Finlayson, Minister for the Arts, who spoke of the importance of the enterprise and its achievements, and finally the Education Office of the NZSO told the audience what it had expected to hear: how the scheme was to carry on.

Deserved praise went to Peter van Drimmelen.

In brief, it is being taken over jointly by the NZSO Foundation and the orchestra itself and it will be expanded to provide comparable activities in other centres.

The Foundation’s remaining funds will be handed to the NZSO Foundation.

Though it would be reckless to claim that standards of performance have improved out of sight, it might not be altogether wrong. I can remember earlier concert in which there were several very impressive performances but one or two that didn’t quite measure up.

This time all eight reached a very high standard, with the last two, cellist Lucy Gysbers and violinist Julian Baker, giving particularly polished performances.

Whether by chance or by a certain amount of tweaking the selection, the concert formed a satisfying programme. The opening piece was a most successful choice – French flutist/composer Benjamin Godard’s Valse, a delightful blend of Straussian Vienna and Offenbachian Paris in a showpiece for the flute in which Jae-Won Um displayed a sure instinct and played attractively.

In the slow movement from Sibelius’s Violin Concerto, and in several subsequent pieces, the roguish acoustic of the cathedral took its toll; though probably not so bad from the front seats, at the rear, bass sounds were unduly exaggerated. Sometimes it created an interesting effect that was not too out of place; at other times, in parts of the Sibelius, the orchestral bass instruments weighed heavily on the violin. With the benefit of a very warm-toned violin Chikako Sasaki got inside it successfully.

Sophie Rose Tarrant-Matthews played the last movement of Beethoven’s third Piano Concerto, again subject to an overbearing acoustic, but strikingly musical; her dynamics and her easy and natural phrasing, avoiding rigid rhythms, were always obvious.

Asaph Verner was even more tested by Ravel’s big orchestra, rich in high woodwinds and percussion, in the first movement of his frightening Concerto in G. Balance between the piano and the orchestra was again hard to achieve, but a fine, brave talent was conspicuous.

The second half was devoted entirely to stringed instruments. Claude Lily Tarrant-Matthews (was this a first, with two siblings among the chosen?), only 11 years old, gave a surprisingly mature performance of the slow movement of Mozart’s third – G major – Violin Concerto. She took it slowly but made full use of that opportunity to explore its lyrical beauties.

Benjamin Pinkney was the only player to tackle a New Zealand piece: Anthony Ritchie’s Viola Concerto, first movement. An interesting work, but it was difficult to assess the performance because of the stridency of high woodwinds and the distraction of too much going on in the orchestra to the detriment of the viola’s role.

The middle movement of Dvořák’s Cello Concerto was played with considerable accomplishment by Lucy Gysbers. Though soloist and orchestra found balance difficult, her playing was confident and very musical.

Finally a little-heard Violin Concerto by Kabalevsky was the choice of Julian Baker. He played its first movement, something of a showpiece, happy and boisterous in fine Soviet style, with good grasp of its style, unostentatiously yet with flair.

There was perceptible relief at the concert’s end from the audience on the announcement about the programme’s continuity. While there are still enormous deficiencies in the teaching of music in schools and simply in exposing children to classical music, this initiative goes some small way to redressing the shortcomings. May it flourish now, and nationwide.