Tag: students

Wellington Youth Orchestra goes for broke with Beethoven

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wellington Youth Orchestra presents:
BEETHOVEN, ELGAR and MOZART

MOZART – Overture “The Magic Flute” K.620
ELGAR – Serenade for Strings in E Minor Op.20
BEETHOVEN – Symphony No.5 in C Minor Op. 67

Wellington Youth Orchestra
Andrew Joyce (conductor)

Sacred Heart Cathedral,
Hill St., Wellington

Monday 14th May, 2018

This was, I thought, a well-nigh-perfect concert in terms of length and proportion – as well, it nicely varied the “standard” overture/concerto/symphonic work formula for classical orchestral concerts, one which doesn’t really cater for a particular kind of repertoire, which, as a result, is often overlooked. Elgar’s adorable String Serenade Op. 20 is a prime example of a piece of music that doesn’t easily fit in unless those in charge “dare to be different” in their programming. The result  here was enchanting – and how many other serenades, incidental music suites, symphonic poems and sinfoniettas would similarly enliven concert programmes, one would think, if given the chance!

One couldn’t really cavil at the opting for an overture to begin the proceedings – and though I seem to recall having heard Mozart’s Overture to “The Magic Flute” played in concert a number of times  over the past couple of seasons, I fortunately never actually tire of the music, even though there must be goodness knows how many other pieces which could theoretically kick-start an evening’s music-making just as excitingly and perhaps more enterprisingly. That said, the opening sounds were splendidly-wrought, with those three ceremonial chords at the beginning having a particularly rich and sonorous quality, their upward progression suggesting palpable “lift-off” thanks to the playing’s thrust and full-throated tones. Andrew Joyce’s direction kept the players focused surely on the music’s on-going “shaping up” to a point of release, which came with the allegro – here, the tempo was firm rather than frenetic, with the players given room to enunciate and phrase each entry, so that the notes generated strength and plenty of cumulative excitement. The winds added piquancy and poise, leading up to the return of the brass chords, dignified and somehow more ritualistic than at the opening.

The strings stole in again immediately afterwards, their intent more serious-sounding, and their purpose tested by brass-and -timpani irruptions, with the winds seeking to counter the troubles with rounded, liquid phrases. I thought the give-and-take between the orchestra’s different sections beautifully contoured, keeping the symbiosis of parts and the sense of growing excitement in check up to the point where a crescendo allowed the brass and timpani to raise their voices and  expend their energies in exhilarating fashion. I thought the conductor could have allowed his trombones to roar a little more exuberantly at the end, but the playing still managed to capture a wild fairy-tale-like climax of scene-setting excitement and rumbustion.

So deliciously removed from such festive splendour were the first few phrases of Elgar’s E Minor Serenade, one of the composer’s most beautiful and heartfelt creations. This performance didn’t at first wear its heart on its sleeve, but suggested forward-thinking purpose right from the beginning, instead – here was the confident stride of the countryman, setting the music on its inexorable course, though not without the occasional gathering-in of momentum and allowing of the music to “float” so very effectively and lyrically over a series of exchanges of dynamics in the ensemble. Those  between solo violin and the rest of the strings were particularly affecting, as if in contemplation of either the beauties of a local landform or natural phenomenon, or some other tender thought, before the instruments returned to the music’s original purpose. Joyce shaped these contrasts of expression with the players most sensitively, bringing out a surge of untrammelled feeling via a final flourish, before contemplation again took hold of the music at the movement’s end.

How beautifully the players caressed the slow movement’s repeated upward-reaching opening phrase – not with absolute unanimity, but still with sufficient beauty of tone to capture the composer’s impulsive flight of feeling.  And how tremulously the ensemble then breathed the first phrases of a melody whose repeated sequencing borrowed from this same upward-reaching opening idea – a masterstroke of organic creation! The third and final ascent of the tune’s hushed contourings produced a real frisson of breath-catching beauty, one which gave added poignancy to the minor-key recitatives that followed, and to the more full-blooded return of the same sequenced ascents, the full-bodied tones of the playing imparting a great warmth of spirit to the composer’s outpourings.

The finale’s warm, resonant open-string gestures at its beginning suggested something free and wind-borne, encouraging playing whose repeated upward thrusts had an infectious exuberance – the lower strings dug particularly trenchantly into their notes, creating resonances all round, and a rich sense of well-being. Something of the striding manner of the first movement then returned, heralded by the opening figure. Joyce and his players caught both its stoic, valedictory aspect and a barely-disguised regretful feeling of having to let go of a treasured moment of happiness – I thought it all a lovely, sensitive performance.

After the interval came Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, a mountain-like work that every orchestra occasionally climbs as a matter of course, a kind of self-defining act – but a work which also happens to convey like no other piece of music the indomitable human spirit, a creative act of affirmation and defiance at one and the same time. Though modern professional orchestras can now probably play the music accurately almost in their sleep, the music’s greatness easily exposes any such lack of real commitment to its message – Beethoven’s own maxim, ‘“The idea counts more than its execution”, unequivocally tells all interpreters of this work what their priorities in performance ought to be!

Andrew Joyce and his players stayed not upon the order of their going, but tore into the music, giving us directly urgent opening declamations free from any rhetoric, and purposeful trajectories, the repeat of the opening dealing with “first-time round” thrills and spills to even more thrilling, more sharply-focused effect. Beethoven’s string writing here, and throughout the first part of the development here simply leapt off the page at all times, inspiring the winds to exchange phrases in kind, and goading the horns into urgency when announcing the oncoming recapitulation. Not every note was cleanly reached, but in the urgency of the music’s cut and thrust no one cared, everybody, audience included, taken up with what was about to happen next! The oboist enjoyed his sonorous lyrical moment, but the respite was short-lived, as the conductor drove his bright-eyed and determinedly resolute players onwards to the  driving, stamping measures of the last few pages, the lower strings a tower of strength as the dance seemed to turn into a kind of demonstration, winds, strings and timpani punching home their phrases with gusto.

The slow movement’s opening phrases almost danced their way into the argument, the tempi sprightly and the interchange between strings and winds a joy, before an orchestral irruption burst out and awakened the brass, who brought forth stentorian utterances of splendour. The many exchanges throughout the movement continued even-handedly, sections “holding their own” right up to the movement’s coda, here jaunty and detailed, the conductor keeping things moving until the strings and winds brought a kind of Apollonian glow to the music, though the brass kept us in touch with sterner realities with their brief first-movement “reminder” at the end.

Drama and portent dominated the scherzo movement’s ominous-sounding opening, the horns here bursting out impulsively with the rhythmic “motto”, and the strings matching them in intent – and then, what tremendous playing there was by the lower strings in particular, in the fugue-like trio! – muscularity and precision! The famous “Great Goblin” (E.M.Forster) sequence then walked “quietly over the universe from end to end” – and suddenly we were held in the throes of the throbbing transition to the work’s finale, tapping drumbeats and sotto voce strings seemingly caught in the throes of making a decision to act, which the whole orchestra did with a vengeance, preparing the way for the finale’s first grand statement.

As with the first movement of the work Joyce encouraged the players to bring out the music’s urgency and dynamic force, which they did, assuming a “take no prisoners” attitude, which whirled us through the different sequences, again making light of the “thrills and spills” aspect while drawing the strands of the whole together in an exhilarating, “driven” way. Ultimately the performance’s fervour carried the day, and brought the work to a suitably festive conclusion. What a privilege, I confess to feeling, to have made that journey under the auspices of so many talented young musicians! All credit to Andrew Joyce, whose performance stewardship of the orchestra over these vast spans of music never flagged and resulted in a memorable and colourful concert.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fabulous students choir fully prepared for Hong Kong choral festival in July

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

New Zealand Secondary Students Choir in Concert directed by Andrew Withington and Rachel Alexander

Accompanied by Brent Stewart (piano) and percussionists, with Elizabeth Andrew (soprano) and other soloists from the choir

Sacred Heart Cathedral

Saturday, 28 April 2018, 7.30pm

A rather damp, cool evening after days of beautiful, calm weather did not daunt family, friends and supporters of the choir; the church was packed.

The 55-member choir proved to be in great form, and well-trained in a diversity of choral music.  Their interpretations were always adapted to the style and age of music being performed.  Diverse tone and approach were sensitively observed.  I found myself writing down ‘men’ and ‘women’ for items where part of the choir only was singing; it was not easy to think that these were all teenagers still at school, such was their accomplishment.

Singing 19 diverse items in 9 different languages would be a major challenge for any choir; that this choir did it with aplomb after a week’s workshop in Wellington was astonishing.  The choir only meets during school vacations, not weekly like most adult choirs.  Even more surprising to mere adults is the fact that most items were sung without the musical scores, i.e. from memory.

The programme began with ‘Kanaval’ by Sydney Guillaume of Haiti, and was sung with great vigour and commitment in the Haitian Creole language, accompanied by various percussion instruments, and clapping at times.  It was a confident, joyful and effervescent performance, from memory.

The second item was conducted by assistant director and vocal consultant, Rachel Alexander.  It was ‘Prelude’ by Norwegian-American composer Ola Gjello, sung in Latin.  It featured chanting against long held notes, almost drones, held by other parts of the choir.  The piece consisted of ‘Exsultate’ and ‘Alleluia’.  Part of the text was sung by the female voices, later rejoined by the men.  There were blocs of pentatonic harmony.

The rearranged double choir then sang, with harpsichord, ‘Magnificat’ by Pachelbel; with soloists from the choir.  It was notable for the bright vocal sound and was one of the few items for which the choir required the printed scores.

It was followed by the beautiful ‘Lacrimosa’ from Mozart’s Requiem, in yet another formation, accompanied by the fluent piano of Brent Stewart, assistant director and accompanist.  A lovely subdued tone issued from the choir; a magnificent fortissimo was produced when required.

David Childs is a New Zealand composer; his ‘Salve Regina’ (in Latin) was sung unaccompanied and from memory.  A quite gorgeous, varied and attractive piece this; it had luscious harmonic clusters and a solo.  All the singing was very fine.  Again, dynamics were varied and beautifully controlled.

An evocative flute made an appearance in ‘Hine Ma Tov’, a Jewish hymn based on Psalm 133 (in Hebrew) by American Neil Ginsberg.  Delicious harmonies were present in the piece.  As elsewhere, the singers were spot-on together at the opening of the work and at cadences.  The male voices were more prominent in this item; the female voices were inclined to be a little strident at times.

‘Stemming’, by Swedish composer Hugo Alfvén (1872-1960) was in the Danish language, another unaccompanied item sung without scores.  It was followed by an Austrian folksong for tenors and basses: ‘Buana, geht’s tanzn’ performed with percussion accompaniment.  The voices were good and strong, the words clear; it was a polished performance.

The higher voices had their turn, with a song in English: ‘Bring me little water Sylvi’, by African-American Huddie Ledbetter (1888-1949), whose song ‘Goodnight Irene’ was all the rage when I was very young.  The rendition involved humming and clapping (“body percussion”).  The voices produced a pleasing silky tone.

The last item in the first half of the concert was ‘Unclouded day’, by American Rev. J.K. Alwood, arranged by Shawn Kirchner.  This gospel song featured counterpoint, fugue – and blue-grass musical style, making it an interesting item, sung unaccompanied by the full choir.

After the break (needed after the time sitting on those backless forms!) we had two items by the Puanaki whanau of Christchurch: both action songs accompanied by guitars.  ‘Pakipaki’ was first, and was most effective, the choir believable as a bunch of Maori warriors.  The second, ‘Te Mura o Te Ahi’, (The flame of the fire) was loud and exciting.  At first the choir was chanting rather than singing, then their utterances turned to dense harmony.  The whole was very rousing.

Still in Te Reo, the choir sang a waiata – the well-known ‘Hine e hine’ by Te Rangi Pai, unaccompanied, in an arrangement by Andrew Withington.  It was a most beautiful arrangement – I must say more so than another I heard recently.  This one was not pitched too high, so sounded more authentic and more mellow and lyrical.  Pronunciation was clear and accurate.

Two compositions by prolific American choral composer Eric Whitacre followed.  ‘The Seal Lullaby’ was accompanied by clear, flowing lines on the piano.  An enchanting piece, much of it was wordless, with the singers making ‘oo-oo’ sounds.  Certainly a soothing lullaby.

Then came ‘Cloudburst’, a much more extended piece.  It’s dramatic – but you can’t go away humming it.  There are many different vocal sounds, and many kinds of body percussion, plus piano.  Those words that are used are Spanish.  The sounds of rain, both gentle and stormy, were produced in various ways.  One of the most striking is thumb-clicking, which sounds exactly like big drops falling on wet ground.  A drum added thunder.

There are swarms of notes, words against humming, and some solo sections.  This difficult work was performed confidently and strongly; these singers are at a standard almost unbelievable for secondary school students.  This was a virtuoso performance.  I have heard the work once before, in Wellington Cathedral of St. Paul, where the ample resonance lost it the precision we had here.  The choir had sung this and some of the other items in a concert in Palmerston North in January.

The most appealing piece in the whole programme was ‘Spring Rain’ by contemporary Latvian composer Ëriks Ešenvalds, commissioned last year by the New Zealand Youth Choir and the New Zealand Secondary Schools Choir.  It was in English with guitar (Carson Taare) and a fine soprano soloist, Elizabeth Andrew, from Dunedin.  However, I did not find that her words were as clear as those of the choir.  As throughout the concert, rhythm, timing, intonation, consistent vowels and dynamics were all virtually faultless.  Everything was thoroughly musical.  This song could cause a tear or two well up by its sheer beauty, as rendered by this choir.

Now for something completely different…  a medley of songs from My Fair Lady, sung in harmony with piano.  A Cockney accent was used to effect where required, and the songs were sung with relish.  I thought ‘I’ve grown accustomed to her face’ was a little too legato for its character.  However, the rollicking arrangement by Andy Beck (USA) was a lot of fun.

The concert ended with another item in te reo, this time the well-known old cicada song ‘A Te Tarakihi’ by Ngati Maniopoto and Alfred Hill, arranged by Brent Stewart.  With a drum soloist, it was stirring stuff, though I thought, not only because scores were used, that it was not quite as thoroughly rehearsed as other items.  Finally a Samoan sequence arranged by Stephen Rapana: ‘Maia soma e/Malie Tagifa’.  Clapping and movement preceded the singing, which was conducted by a choir member (presumably Samoan).  Drum, action, change from standing to sitting and back to standing were all part of the performance.

Standing too for the audience – a standing ovation for this fabulous choir, who astonished mere adults with their skill, memory, and multi-lingual performance.  Bravo!  The choir is to travel to Hong Kong in July for an international choral festival and then to Shanghai; fund-raising is under way.

 

 

Orchestra Wellington out-performs the fireworks with a stunning “Petrouchka”

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Orchestra Wellington presents:
PETROUCHKA

TABEA SQUIRE – Colour Lines (commission from Orchestra Wellington)*
CARL NIELSEN – Violin Concerto Op.33
IGOR STRAVINSKY – Petrouchka (Ballet – Revised 1947 Edition)

Arohanui Strings – Sistema Hutt Valley (Alison Eldredge – director)*

Andrew Atkins (conductor)*
Suyeon Kang (violin)
Orchestra Wellington
Marc Taddei (conductor)

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington,

Saturday 4th November, 2017

Audiences can be curiously unpredictable, on occasions exhilarating and galvanizing masses of energy to be part of, caught up in the excitement of either enthusiastic or rapt responses to some performances, (especially those involving soloists) and then for no apparent reason, every once in a while, strangely under-responsive. Why this sudden out-of-the-blue observation, going a little against the grain of my normally unrelieved positivism as a music reviewer?

It was Saturday’s Orchestra Wellington concert that left me feeling a little bemused, after I’d experienced warmth and enthusiasm aplenty on the part of the audience in response to the efforts, firstly, of the youthful Sistema Strings, playing both a group of demonstration pieces and taking a vital role in composer Tabea Squire’s newly-commissioned work “Colour Lines”, and secondly, violinist Suyeon Kang, in giving us a rapturously beautiful performance of that concert-hall rarity, the Nielsen Violin Concerto, with plenty of tensile strength and winning gossamer-woven lines.

In each of these cases the performers’ energies were accorded the kind of reaction from the listeners that reflected the music-making’s outstanding and warm-hearted qualities. However, I thought that, on the same performance “Richter-scale”, the audience’s reaction to the concert’s second half, a breathtakingly brilliant realisation by orchestra and conductor of Stravinsky’s music for his ballet “Petrouchka”, by rights ought to have been something along the lines of a twenty-minute standing ovation!

That such a stunning realization of the work didn’t seem to me as forthcoming as it fully deserved could have been because (1) there had already been a lot of applause in the concert already, due to the presence of the Sistema students, (2) the remarkable violinist Suyeon Kang had already taken the lion’s share, with her gorgeously elfin-like performance of Nielsen’s Violin Concerto (including a round of spontaneous applause at the first movement’s conclusion) and (3) Petrouchka of course ends not with a Firebird-like bang, but with a subdued whimper, from which listeners have to then re-activate those glowing embers of enthusiasm and get them bursting into flame once more. So the audience response conveyed what I thought W.S.Gilbert might have described as “modified rapture”, instead of conveying (as I and a colleague afterwards were both feeling) a sense of “Did we really hear that? It was mind-blowing!”

Overall, the concert’s trajectory lent itself to a kind of “from seeds to forest giant” progression, with tremulously awakened beginnings demonstrated by the cutest brigade of junior string-players one could imagine, all under the sway of their director, Alison Eldredge. All of these were introduced by Orchestra Wellington Music Director, Marc Taddei, and included OW’s assistant conductor Andrew Atkins (unfortunately not credited in the programme for his efforts with both the Arohanui Strings, in their introductory items, and in directing the combined ensemble in the commissioned piece “Colour Lines” by Tabea Squire).

This was a work whose composer conceived as involving both the student players and the orchestra proper, by using ‘”free-time” notation in places to allow the younger players the means of continuously contributing to the music’s texture. A chorale which appears in various guises during the piece eventually blends with the younger musicians’ efforts. I was struck by the confident orchestrations throughout, a definite character emerging with each of the sequences, making for strongly-etched contrasts (scintillating upper strings are then “cooled’ by the winds near the opening, before a lovely dancing interaction develops between strings and winds beneath warm horn tones, the latter then assuming a ”stopped” out-of-phase effect which kaleidoscopes the music into yet another world of wonderment).

I recall both my Middle-C colleague Rosemary Collier and myself being delighted by Tabea Squire’s work for string quartet “Jet-lag” at a 2014 concert, a piece with something of a similar sharply-etched sense of character, obviously wrought by a composer with an ear for textures and the on-going ambiences. What mischief, and indeed, even danger, was let loose with the burble and ferment generated by the brass in their “hornets’ nest” sequence! – again contrasting with the nobility of the chorale voiced by those same instruments not long after – reminiscent of Hindemith, here, as the strings muscled up to join with the tutti in gestures of satisfying finality, snappy and definite. I thought the music most skillfully and confidently focused and blurred its edges all at once, throughout, as the title suggested it might.

Relatively unknown compared with its Nordic cousin written in 1904 by Sibelius, the slightly later (1911) Violin Concerto of Carl Nielsen’s proved equally as strong and fascinating a work, and certainly as difficult to play, if not more so. Like Sibelius, Nielsen was himself a violinist, though neither composer would have attempted to perform his own concerto, despite Aino Sibelius describing her husband’s playing of the work’s solo part during its composition as “on fire all the time.….he stays awake all night, plays incredibly beautifully,…he has so many ideas it is hard to believe it….”

Nielsen’s work, unlike Sibelius’s, turned away from the standard three-movement concerto form, the composer casting the work in two large movements, each with a slow and quicker section (some commentators alternatively describe the work as having four movements). The music began strongly, dramatic and declamatory, the soloist (South-Korean-born Australian violinist Suyeon Kang) meeting the orchestra’s initial challenge with full-throated recitative-like passages whose striking quality of tensile strength and flexibility of phrasing instantly compelled and held one’s attention throughout. I wondered whether, in the big-boned virtuoso sequences, Kang’s tightly-woven silken tones would fill-out sufficiently to provide a sufficient match for the orchestra’s more assertive gestures – but such was her focused concentration her instrument seemed able to “inhabit” the music’s dynamics in an entirely natural and unselfconscious manner. From these trenchant responses right through to the Elgar-like lyricism of the Praeludium’s final musings, she held us in thrall.

Nor did she shirk the physicality of the jolly “cavalleresco” opening of the allegro, with its vigorous exchanges, rapid running passages, and sudden moments of introspection, all leading to a solo cadenza which mirrors the quixotic moods which have gone before in the music, before dancing back to the allegro’s lively theme. And such was the breathtaking skill with which she swung into the movement’s dancing coda, and traded playful feints and gestures with the orchestra right to the end, that the audience responded with some spontaneous unscheduled applause (to which Marc Taddei, after acknowledging the soloist and the clapping, remarked “But wait! – there’s more!”).

The slow movement featured lovely playing throughout the opening sequences from the winds, joined by the horns, and some beautiful Sibelius-like accompaniments in thirds for the soloist, whose utterances seemed bent on expressing some kind of private sorrow. The horns offered comfort at various points, as did the strings, so that the music’s abrupt recourse to a kind of droll waltz seemed almost Schubertian in its stoic, at times quirky and humourful resignation, the orchestra occasionally launching into moments of mock seriousness, none of which last for very long. One thunderous episode provoked an angular cadenza from the soloist, during which, at one point, she played simultaneously a drone bass, a repeated pizzicato note and some bowed figurations, all most divertingly and unselfconsciously. It was a remarkable performance from all concerned, and fully deserved a response which matched in enthusiasm that given to another Korean musician in the MFC just over a week ago, Joyce Yang, after her Rachmaninov concerto performance with the NZSO.

We reformed after the interval to the sounds of fireworks outside, which were soon well-and-truly put in their place by a performance of Stravinsky’s eponymous ballet “Petrouchka” from Marc Taddei and Orchestra Wellington which I couldn’t imagine bettered in terms of precision, skill, atmosphere and overall theatrical and musical impact. Every sequence, every scene, every tableau came alive, the music-making bringing into being both dance and drama, and forming a kind of triumvirate of successful evocation of artistic achievement. At its conclusion I felt sympathy for Marc Taddei and all the players who deserved to be brought to their feet and given individual acknowledgement – but the trouble was, there were too many of them! Nevertheless I thought that all the winds and all the brass players were simply heroes, and that Andrew Atkins deservedly got his dues after all, for his superb piano-playing. Very great honour, of course, to Marc Taddei and his all-encompassing direction of the score. For all these reasons and more, I could have clapped for much, much longer!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To err is human, to forgive (the job of the critic): four student pianists with seriously worthwhile music

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

NZSM piano students
Helen Chiu, Jungyeon Lee, Gabriel Khor, William Swan

Music by Debussy, Mozart, Ravel, Chopin

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 27 September, 12:15 pm

The lunchtime concert market has been somewhat crowded over recent weeks and both St Andrew’s and Old Saint Paul’s have provided nice venues and good audiences for end-of-year recitals. While we’ve covered most of the recent lunchtime concerts in Wellington we have been unable this year to get to the series running at St Mark’s Lower Hutt, which have been equally worthwhile.

Four pianists played today at St Andrew’s. They were first to third year students, a fact which is sometimes hard to believe, and one is almost relieved to discover evidence of the real world when an occasional finger-fault happens. Helen Chiu played two pieces from Debussy’s first book of Images for piano (there are two books containing three pieces each, apart from the Images for Orchestra – Gigues, Ibéria and Rondes de printemps – that had in fact begun life as a second book for the piano). Reflets dans l’eau is the quintessentially impressionistic piano piece inspired by the play of light on water, and this was a singularly sensitive and evocative performance, that was fluent, limpid, becoming more and more disturbed as, one imagines, wind ruffles the surface.

The second piece is Hommage à Rameau , a composer who, along with Couperin, for ardent Frenchman Debussy, was the equivalent of Bach. Rameau was born just a couple of years before Bach, and left a great deal of keyboard music, though opera came to dominate his career from 1733 when he was 50! But one could be forgiven for not finding immediate baroque sounds and shapes in this sophisticated music; its sounds are, naturally, closer to Debussy’s other piano music than to Rameau’s Pièces de clavecin. Yet there’s more formality hovering around it than in the first piece, and Helen gave it a very illuminating and idiomatic performance.

Jungyeong Lee played Mozart’s sonata in F, K 332, one of three that he wrote about 1783, shortly after moving to Vienna; it is ranked among the favourites. The first movement with sharp contrasts between serenity and an almost contrasting middle, with tempi splendidly judged; the slow movement discreetly lovely with carefully handle ornaments and a last movement encompassing a wide expressive range, now energetic, now slightly humorous, demanding elaborate episodes and constant technical challenges that put it among Mozart’s most difficult. One doesn’t often hear live performances of Mozart’s sonatas and this was a valued opportunity.

Gabriel Khor played the first two movements of Ravel’s Sonatine, a word that conveys none of its meaning around 1800 when it suggested a sorter and probably easier piece that a proper sonata. It’s not another Gaspard de la nuit, but it’s no nursery piece either; one can understand his not playing the last movement as Ravel himself refrained from playing it because of its difficulty. Khor played it carefully, sensitively, the odd slip was inevitable, but he managed to maintain its momentum and a degree of melodic warmth. The Mouvement de menuet is quieter and sounds superficially easier, and it began with a feeling of caution or timidity, but a sense of calm confidence grew.

Chopin brought the recital to an end, as Williams Swan played first the Waltz in D flat, Op 64/1 and then the Polonaise in A flat, Op 53. The waltz performance was a study in caution, laced with bursts of flashing speed, with the contrasting slower episode well related to the outer phases. The Polonaise set off very dynamically, with first notes in the bar given particularly marked emphasis; and he paid good attention to the sharp dynamic contrasts, with handfuls of fast dense chords, and I don’t just mean the hammering left hand in the central section, interspersed with those reckless scales, where occasional stray notes appeared and splendid, reckless arpeggios.

 

Another end-of-year student recital: woodwinds in calm weather

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Old Saint Paul’s lunchtime concert

New Zealand School of Music wind players
Annabel Lovatt, Harim Oh, Samantha McSweeney, Breanna Abbott, Darcy Snell, Leah Thomas

Music by Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Hindemith, Weber, Britten

Old Saint Paul’s

Tuesday 26 September, 12:15 pm

End of year public recitals by New Zealand School of Music students continued, today with woodwind players. If I had been uninterested in hearing the NZSO and Freddy Kempf last Saturday playing single movements of major piano concertos (though I gather it was well-patronised), this was different. Because one was not laying out a substantial ticket price for the rather frustrating experience of being left in mid-air in Mozart and Rachmaninov, or coming in for the dessert after missing the substantial and wonderful first and second courses (in the case of the Mendelssohn).

But the Mozart oboe quartet had other very strong associations for me, for back in 1977 I’d taken long-service leave from my Public Service career and we criss-crossed France by car in the company of a few cassettes, one of which contained Mozart’s clarinet quintet and oboe quartet. The associations remain vivid, and they support powerfully excessive passions for both that music and France. And I have to say that Annabel Lovatt’s paying of its first movement, recreated the delights that I’d experienced 40 years ago. It was on the quick side, but her handling of the entrancing melody was beautiful, and the undulations of breathings and tempi were charming. (and yes, I’d have loved to have heard her play the other movements!).

Harim Oh played an arrangement of the March from Act I of the Nutcracker, a rather transformational shift from exultant brass to clarinet, with melodic modifications. But in its own right, this was an entertaining version, and Oh played it with vivacity and sensitivity, along with Hugh McMillan’s piano standing in splendidly for the rest of the orchestra.

Next, the flute, and this time a piece I was not familiar with: Hindmith’s sonata, the first movement. It was written in 1936, just before the composer decided that he had to quit Nazi Germany for the United States; it was the first, I think, of a total of 26 sonatas for piano and almost any instrument you can name. In a blind-fold test, I’m not sure Hindemith would have been my first guess, though I’d have got the era right! But of course, it emerged typically Hindemith: spirited, matter-of-fact, melodically clear but never sentimental. And Samantha McSweeney coped with its quite demanding challenges with a technique that was pretty well up to it and with a good feeling for its essential musicality.

We heard movements from two of Weber’s several concertos; the bassoon one is certainly less familiar than the clarinet concertino and the first clarinet concerto that we heard at the end. Breanna Abbott gave us a very pithy summary of its place in music history: it was 206 years old, she said. In spite of a wee stumble, she played it interestingly, and bravely, for Weber was always concerned to provide music both for his own piano performance and for other instruments that was strong on virtuosic display.

Darcy Snell played a solo oboe piece, Pan, from Benjamin Britten’s Six Metamorphoses after Ovid, offering a quick run-down on classical literature – Ovid’s Metamorphoses has been the source of a huge quantity of classically-inspired literature from the Middle Ages to the present. (A perfectly senseless aside: Ovid was sent into exile by the Emperor Augustus, for unknown reasons, and died at Constanța on the Black Sea coast, now Romania; it has a theatre called Teatrul Ovidiu – have long hankered to go there).

Anyway, this solo oboe piece emerged as meditative, somewhat shy, even hesitant, though one is hard-pressed to divine anything ‘classical’ about it. Darcy played it in a nicely considered manner, and it ended in a typically Brittenish, droll and unusual way with a sort of unresolved trill.

Finally Weber’s first clarinet concerto, second movement. Leah Thomas played it with Hugh McMillan, who’d been the able and supportive associate pianist throughout. The slow movement, in F minor, is of a meditative, perhaps sad character, suggestive of an operatic aria style, with a livelier middle section featuring a lot of showy arpeggios.

One always hopes that performances like these, that give such very enticing tastes of great pieces of music, will inspire the devoted audiences, if they don’t known them, to hunt the music down and listen to the whole works – and be surprised that all the other movements are just as beautiful.

It was the last of the Old Saint Paul’s 2017 lunchtime series.

 

NZSM voice students in admirable and highly varied recital at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

NZSM Classical voice students
Emma Cronshaw Hunt, Nino Raphael, Eleanor McGechie, Garth Norman, Pasquale Orchard, Joe Haddow
Piano accompanist: Mark Dorrell

Songs and arias by Debussy, Fauré, Bellini, Schumann, Franchi, Dring, Mozart, Britten, Berlioz, Rachmaninov, Loewe, Lloyd Webber

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 20 September, 12:15 pm

We are at that time of the year, when music students are welcomed at St Andrew’s to given them some public exposure in connection with their end-of-year assessments. Here we heard six students at varying stages of their studies. Most of them had been seen in the past year or so in the school’s and other opera productions, particularly in the recent Cunning Little Vixen which had such a large cast of curious, minor characters.

Emma Cronshaw Hunt opened the recital with songs by Debussy and Fauré; her voice is attractive and seems produced with ease, though the ease tended towards some gentle scoops that detracted slightly, but they were certainly within acceptable bounds. In some quarters scoops, or portamenti, are anathema, but the technique has its place, when used tastefully. Her two songs were Debussy’s ‘Aimons-nous et dormons’ (modesty constrains a translation) and ‘Adieu’, which she sang in comfortable French, alive to the songs’ mood and meaning. In Fauré’s ‘Adieu’ there was a touch of sadness.

Nino Raphael sang one of Bellini’s gorgeous arias, ‘Vi ravviso’, from La sonnambula. He’d recently honed his opera skills as the Priest and the Badger in the Vixen. And last year he sang Leporello in Eternity Opera’s Don Giovanni. While I’d enjoyed those performances, here I detected slightly shakey intonation here and there. He followed with four short songs from Schumann’s Dichterliebe; though he caught much of the pithy characterisation and emotion, they were not, understandably,  invested with quite the intimacy and depth of feeling that the songs of the wonderful Dichterliebe cycle delineate. But that calls for considerable maturity.

Eleanor McGechie sang three songs in English: the first by New Zealand composer Dorothea Franchi – Treefall and then two by mid-century English composer Madeleine Dring whom I’d come across only last year in a St Andrew’s lunchtime concert. All three were approachable, written with a clear aim to entertain an audience, and McGechie knew how to present them in a lively and colourful way.

Garth Norman sang Figaro’s ‘Se vuol ballare’ in which he gained in confidence as it went, and then Britten’s ‘Seascape’ from From this Island. Britten can be given to accompaniments that are excessively detailed and harmonically clever and here was a case, where Mark Dorrell’s piano overwhelmed rather. But this was an attractive rendition nevertheless.

Pasquale Orchard has caught my ear several times, as Susanna in Eternity Opera’s Figaro recently, and most strikingly as the Vixen in the school of music’s Janáček production in July. ‘Le spectre de la rose’ from Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été, is a gorgeous song and I’d been very predisposed to enjoy it: I did for the most part, but Orchard’s voice in inclined to lose dynamic control towards the top and it interfered slightly with the dominant ‘spectral’ spirit of the music. However she navigated its sense and tone with great sensitivity. Her second song was early Rachmaninov: ‘O never sing to me again’ from Op 4. It was a little too loud at the start, and I wasn’t sure for some time what language she was singing it in, until certain distinctive syllables identified it as Russian. I sense that I’d have perceived that at once if the intensity of her voice had been modified a little.

Joe Haddow sang another Rachmaninov song: ‘When yesterday we met’, from Romances Op 26. His words were very distinct and even though my Russian is a bit rusty, the emotions were clear enough, and sensitively expressed. His control of tone and dynamics right across the range, are excellent.

I’m not very familiar with Lerner and Loewe’s Camelot. Haddow sang ‘If ever I would leave you’ which surprised me by starting in French (it’s from Lancelot, and showed how rusty my knowledge of the Arthurian legends is, too), but continues in another language and a familiar tune. Haddow performed it in authentic style.

Haddow stayed there and Pasquale Orchard then joined him to sing a duet: another ‘musical’ number, this one a French story but in English: ‘All I ask of you’ from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera. The two engaging young voices were vividly contrasted, but in a convincing manner.

The concert was an interesting way to get a different impression of promising young singers who have been more familiar recently in staged situations.

 

NZSM students give insightful performances of New Zealand music and pieces by Haydn, Beethoven, Brahms and Barber

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Lunchtime concert at Old St Paul’s

Piano students and a violinist from the New Zealand School of Music
Amanda Bunting, Matthew Oliver, Claudia Tarrant-Matthews (also, violin) and Sophie Tarrant-Matthews

Music by Beethoven, Barber, Psathas, Haydn, Brahms, Lilburn

Old St Paul’s

Tuesday 12 September 12:15 pm

We’ve been neglecting Old St Paul’s lunchtime concerts this year, and so I was glad to find a good audience for this varied exhibition of NZSM piano talent.

It began with Amanda Bunting who played two pieces: the first movement of Beethoven’s Tempest sonata (Op 31 No 2) and Samuel Barber’s Excursions, first movement. Though the Tempest is obviously still a work in progress, with quite a lot of slips, there remained an underlying understanding of its vigorous, shall we say, masculine character, both in its expostulatory and its equally masculine quality of sensitivity.

Then her playing of the first movement, Un poco allegro, of Samuel Barber’s Excursions, one of his best known piano pieces. It’s in four movements and might well be called a suite or even a sonata. Here was a better prepared and executed performance, dealing carefully with the sharp dynamic shifts and capturing the mid-century mood and moderate modernism of composers who had not succumbed to the pressures of serialism.  Its character reminds me, curiously, of one of John Psathas’s early pieces, Waiting for the Aeroplane which of course is quite irrelevant to one’s impressions of this performance.

The next pianist was Matthew Oliver who did, in fact play a couple of pieces by Psathas; the first and third movements from his Songs for Simon for piano and tape. There were problems with the tape, with both the apparent source and quality of the sound, and its intended relationship with the piano. I could detect little connection between what the piano was doing and what seemed to be unrelated sounds from the tape. The tape was hardly audible in the first section, His Second Time; but it was clearly intended to be more dominant in Demonic Thesis. Right at its beginning, the tape problem was again obvious and simply became a distraction; Oliver might better have settled for the piano part alone which was attractive, energetic and repetitive, in a jazz-influenced sense; and he played with energy, intelligence and insight.

While its accompaniment occasionally gave hints of what Psathas had intended, a process of mentally isolating of the piano part yielded music that was inventive and enjoyable. As one does these days, I listened to a YouTube recording by Donald Nicolson in order to get a proper impression of the piece that I regret that I hadn’t heard before: particularly the way the taped percussion sounds were integrated as intended with the piano. It deserves to be better known, and I look forward to a more technically successful performance.

Two sisters, Claudia and Sophie Tarrant-Matthews completed the recital. Claudia played first, the Presto, first movement of Haydn’s Sonata in E minor, Hob XVI/34. Her handling of the sonata was most accomplished, its tempo swift and fluent, the dynamic variety and subtleties understood and vividly expressed; the quiet wit that lies within most of Haydn’s music was conspicuous.

Then she played the first two of Brahms’s four Ballades Op 10. I have always found these strangely enigmatic in terms of their rhythmic and melodic intentions, and it’s never a good idea to attempt to give such characteristics certainty; she didn’t, and it was a satisfying performance. The second Ballade is more sunny and limpid in tone, and the performance again suggested that Claudia wasn’t seeking to solve its problems, to produce a definitive performance; as with so much Brahms, this is the way his music makes its impact and holds the attention. Technically, her playing was highly competent.

Lilburn’s third sonata for violin and piano
I have followed the careers of the two sisters with interest over the years: both have achieved distinction in both piano and violin. Sophie Tarrant-Matthews then introduced Lilburn’s Sonata for Violin and Piano in B minor, composed in 1950. I was sitting a few rows back and could not hear much of what she said, which might have included some of the following background.

This Lilburn violin sonata in B minor was actually his third, and so should be listed either as No 3, or defined by its key. Though the two sonatas, in E flat and C, of 1943 are relatively youthful works (well, he was 27 or 28), they are not insignificant; in fact, they are both around ten minutes longer than the B minor one. The ‘date’ test doesn’t consign to ‘insignificance’, other much played pieces such as the Drysdale, Aotearoa and Festival overtures, Landfall in Unknown Seas and the Canzonetta for violin and viola, all written before 1943.

There have been many recordings of the B minor sonata, perhaps most recently, together with the two 1943 sonatas, by Justine Cormack and Michael Houstoun. (see the list of earlier recordings in Peter Mechen’s review of 14 September 2011, of the recording by Elizabeth Holowell and Dean Sky-Lucas). The 1943 sonatas were first performed, respectively, by, Vivien Dixon (violin) and Anthea Harley Slack (piano), and Maurice Clare (violin) and Noel Newson (piano). The B minor sonata was written in 1950 for Frederick Page (pianist and head of the music department of Victoria University College) and violinist Ruth Pearl, after Lilburn had become a lecturer at the university; they premiered it at the university and then played it again three months later in Wigmore Hall in London.

As Sophie spoke, Claudia dispensed with her piano hands and reached for her violin, and her sister sat at the piano, which of course contributes much more than mere accompaniment to the work. To hear playing of such a finely integrated work by two sisters with years of experience playing together, was very interesting. The affinity between two who obviously enjoy a close musical rapport has developed over many years, to the point where they almost think and feel as one: with an intimately shared view of the character and shape of the music, and grasp of its melodic characteristics.

It’s in one movement, consisting of several contrasting phases, which are not distinct enough to be considered ‘movements’. For the record, the sections are marked: Molto moderato; Allegro; Tempo primo, largamente; Allegro; Allargando and Tempo I, tranquillamente; which returns the music to the home key of B minor.  The parts are conspicuous enough on the page, but the shifts in both tempo and tonality are so organically natural, and handled with such finesse that they clearly form parts of a carefully composed whole. Not only were the slow parts invested with a mature contemplative quality, but the Allegro sections were executed with strength and real conviction. The typical Lilburn spirit lies in the way the energetic B flat Allegro section subsides towards the end to return to the calm of the opening Molto moderato.

 

Splendid playing from NZSM students of New Zealand woodwind compositions

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Woodwind Students of the New Zealand School of Music

Works by New Zealand composers

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 9 August 2017, 12.15 pm

Similarly to the crop of good string players from NZSM whom we heard at St. Andrew’s recently, so we now heard splendid woodwind players.  The range of works by New Zealand composers in this rather over-long concert was wide, but all were appealing, melodic and interesting.

I had never heard of the composer Eric Biddington, but his Sonatina for clarinet and piano, the 2nd movement of which was played by Laura Brown accompanied by Hugh McMillan was well worth hearing.  Unfortunately Laura’s misuse of the microphone meant I missed the detail about the composer from her spoken introduction.  The quality of the spoken introductions varied hugely through the concert; the best were very good.  Wikipedia was able to fill in the gaps about Biddington, and revealed the great number and variety of music this Christchurch composer has written over a considerable number of years.

The andante movement was relatively uncomplicated but attractive. The clarinet produced euphonious tones, and appealing pianissimos.

Flute was next, in the hands of Samantha McSweeney, who played two of the  unaccompanied Four Pooh Stories by Maria Grenfell.  The first, “In which Christopher Robin leads an expedition to the North Pole” was fun, darting here and there.  No.4 “In which a house is built at Pooh Corner” likewise scampered around through various pitches, the player exhibiting excellent phrasing.  These were demanding pieces; at times Samantha was almost playing a duet with herself, using different pitches and techniques.  It was a very skilled and accomplished performance.

Another composer I had not come across is Aucklander Chris Adams, whose Release for bassoon and piano was rearranged in 2011 from his violin and piano original.  It was played by Breanna Abbott with Kirsten Robertson.  I found it rather dull, especially the piano accompaniment, but the playing was fine.

Gillian Whitehead is a well-established composer.  Her Three Improvisations for solo oboe were taken by three different players: Annabel Lovatt, Finn Bodkin-Olen and Darcy Snell.  They were attractive little pieces, all beautifully played.  The second was more jaunty than the first, with fluency and character.  The third was somewhat plaintive, even sombre; it was sensitively performed.

Next was composer-performer Peter Liley, who played on alto saxophone his piece Petit Hommage.  In his excellent introduction he talked about the importance of Debussy’s music to him, and told us the piece was based on the pentatonic scale and the Lydian mode, both of which he helpfully demonstrated.  This was a pleasing short work, which began with a piano introduction from accompanist Kirsten Robertson.

Melody flowed up and down the saxophone.  The piece exploited a wide range of pitches, rhythms and dynamics, and the performer had splendid phrasing.

Back to the clarinet, and Harim Oh played “Vaygeshray”, one of Ross Harris’s Four Laments for solo clarinet, based on a Yiddish theme.  It was very playful, with a repetitive rhythm through much of the piece.  Quite demanding technically, the short, bouncy Lament was played with assurance.

An item inserted into the concert but not in the printed programme was a movement from Anthony Ritchie’s flute concerto, written in 1993 from former NZSO flutist Alexa Still.  It was accompanied by Hugh McMillan on piano.  There was plenty of interest in this music, and it received a fine performance from ‘Anna’ (surname not given).  It employed a variety of techniques, and the  whole received assured treatment.

The concert ended with the three movements of Douglas Lilburn’s Sonatina for clarinet and piano, played by three different performers with Hugh McMillan.  The moderato first movement played by Frank Talbot was varied in both clarinet and piano parts; quite solemn.  Frank appeared to have some slight technical problems with his instrument.  Billie Kiel had the andante con moto, which was well played, if rather prosaic musically.

Finally, the allegro was played by Leah Thomas after an excellent introduction – perhaps the best in the concert.  As she said, this was a dance-like movement.  It exploited particularly the lower notes of the instrument very well.  Flowing melodies and a sparkling accompaniment made for an enjoyable end to the music offered.

The programme encompassed a wide range of musical styles, showing that New Zealand music cannot be easily categorised.  With composition dates ranging between 1948 (Lilburn) and 2017 (Liley), we were given a rewarding conspectus of locally written music for woodwind.

 

 

Close-up Janáček an operatic delight from NZSM

Posted on by Peter Mechen

JANÁČEK – The Cunning Little Vixen (opera)
presented by Te Koki New Zealand School of Music
Victoria University of Wellington

Cast:
Sharp-Ears, the Vixen: Pasquale Orchard / Forrester: Joe Haddow
Forrester’s Wife: Sally Haywood / Schoolmaster: Daniel Sun
Priest, Badger: Nino Raphael / Gold-Spur, the Fox: Alexandra Gandionco
Poacher: Will King / Dog, Pasek: Garth Norman
Rooster: Eleanor McGechie /Crested Hen / Jay: Emma Cronshaw Hunt
Woodpecker: Elizabeth Harré /Grasshopper / Frantik: Alexandra Woodhouse Appleby
Frog, Pepik: Sinéad Keane / Cricket, Owl: Jessie Rosewarne
Mosquito: Jessica Karauria / Young Vixen: Beatrix Cariño
Forest Creatures: Micaela Cadwgan, Ellis Carrington, Isaac Cox, Teresa Shields

New Zealand School of Music Orchestra: Players – Claudia Tarrant-Matthews (leader),
Sophie Tarrant-Matthews, Grant Baker, Lavinnia Rae, Jandee Song, Anna Prasannan, Annabel Lovatt, Harim Oh, Breanna Abbott, Shadley Van Wyk, Vivien Reid, Toby Pringle, Andrew Yorkstone, Dominic Jacquemard, Hannah Neman, Andrew Atkins, Gabriela Glapska
Kenneth Young (conductor)
Director – Jon Hunter
Designer – Owen McCarthy
Lighting – Glenn Ashworth
Costumes – Nephtalim Antoine
Hannah Playhouse, Wellington,

Friday 28th July, 2017

 

It wasn’t until he was almost fifty that Moravian composer Leoš Janáček began to show the world what he could really do, with the appearance of the first of his operas, Jenufa, in Brno in 1904. Up to that time a lot of his musical activities were devoted to researches into folk music, determined as he was to create from Moravian and other strains of Slavonic folk music a properly original, modern musical style.

Jenufa’s subsequent success at Prague in 1916 was a breakthrough for the composer, leading to performances in both Austria and Germany and later, as far afield as New York in 1924. After Jenufa’s success came others – Kata Kabanova, The Cunning Little Vixen, The Macropolous Case and The House of the Dead, all of which are now considered part of “the standard operatic repertoire”.

Perhaps the most approachable of the more established works, even given its own brand of unconventionality, is The Cunning Little Vixen, written by the composer from a serialised version of a novel by Rudolf Tesnohlídek which appeared in Brno’s local newspaper in 1920, along with line drawings by artist Stanislav Lolek. Both story and illustrations seemed to have completely enthralled Janáček, who toyed at first with the idea of an opera-ballet, and then as a kind of pantomime, as he crafted his scenario. He did, in the process, extend the original story’s scheme to include the Vixen’s death and the appearance of one of her cubs as a symbol of the cyclic nature of life. In this final scene the animal and human worlds seem to come together as the Forrester muses on the constant renewal of all things as part of a kind of hymn to creation – this “from death comes life” finale manages poignancy without sentimentality.

Unbelievably, it’s all of eight years since I saw Vixen in Wellington last, a production by Nimby Opera at the Salvation Army Citadel, which most splendidly made use of both the venue’s limited spaces and reduced instrumental forces, drawing we in the audience right into the world of Janáček’s drama. Here, at the Hannah Playhouse, space was equally at a premium, though with a differently-configured and more clearly-defined “stage” and orchestral areas – nevertheless the production, like its predecessor, was able to generate a similarly compelling theatrical immediacy.

Right from the beginning we found ourselves in thrall to the composer’s evocation of the forest, underlining the use of the orchestra as a kind of “character” in the story – the opening is given entirely to the instruments, who then drive the ensuing action and colour the characterisations of the singers. I know of no other composer so adept at simultaneously combining sharply-focused rhythmic patternings with heart-easing lyrical outpourings, each enhancing the flavour and atmosphere of the other.

I thought Kenneth Young’s control of this ebb and flow of sounds had a naturalness which kept the theatrical flow alive while appearing to give both his singers and players ample space in which to allow their music its full value. Yes, there were isolated instances of rawness of tuning and out-of-synch chording, but I found the playing astonishing overall in its physicality and energy, and in the beauty and piquancy of both its corporate and individually-focused characterisations.

While I struggled with making sense of some of the aspects of the production (the scenes which took place in the clinical-like “upstairs” part of the set meant little or nothing to me in terms of the story or its overall setting) I delighted in the inventiveness of the more down-to-earth (literally) depictions of the scenario, with a backdrop whose many apertures could conceal or disgorge figures at will and suggest with appropriately varied lighting, both the beauties and concealed mysteries of the forest and the convolutions and crudities of simple human dwellings and their trappings.

What I think the production was able to suggest and put across (without needing those obtrusive white coats) was an engaging connectiveness between the lives of the story’s “ordinary” human characters with the overall flow of nature and its plethora of possibilities for all life-forms in a world that’s both caring and pitiless. The composer’s desire to remove the “happily-ever-after” aspect of the original story was. I think, a reflection of this desire for a wider integration. We observed the various roll-plays of parallels between urban and rural, domestic and untamed, enslaved and free throughout, and found ourselves in disarming sympathy with the disadvantaged, the disappointed and the dispossessed.

To that end, the individual characterisations of the student performers were, I thought, outstanding in their commitment, understanding and level of theatrical and musical skill. Very rightly, the stunning performance of Pasquale Orchard as the Vixen herself, though the centrepiece of all that took place on the stage, was still always very much part of an interactive ensemble, as quick to engage with as to respond to the other characters. Her gestures and movements perfectly mirrored her dramatic intent, which was all to the good, because though I thought her vocal production strong and filled with variety, it suffered diction-wise during the “big” moments. This was the case for most of the time with the other singers throughout the production – opera in English can be a frustrating experience for this reason, leaving one wondering at times whether the exercise is worth the while, and accordingly, longing for surtitles!

As the Forester, Joe Haddow’s was the first voice to be heard, announcing an oncoming storm (consulting his smart-phone, presumably in search of a weather-forecast!) and reminiscing on things like his wedding-night, the voice strong and sonorous, and a trifle world-weary, but conveying a character capable of appreciating life’s beauties and ironies – his extended, “full-circle” soliloquy towards the opera’s end was for the most part richly delivered (the brasses accompanied him magnificently), though just occasionally the melodic line’s intensity strained his voice – somebody who knows of life’s joys and disappointments, and can ride along with them.

The other male characters in the story also relished their depictions, Daniel Sun as the lovesick schoolmaster, somewhat tremulous of tone but pitching his voice accurately and evocatively, Nino Raphael as the disgruntled (and evicted) Badger (a scene augmented most excitingly by violin and ‘cello), and then as the equally disconsolate priest (“I’m just a dried-up mop in a bucket”) reflecting on his loveless life; and Garth Norman, properly morose as the Forester’s Dog, as well as a suitably business-like Innkeeper. Most vagrant-like of all (apart from his laboratory-coat-like garb) was Will King’s Poacher, free-spirited and romantic in places (his entrance a love-song) and impulsive in others (his clumsy pursuit of the Vixen), all delivered most convincingly with a suitably engaging voice and appropriately gauche movements. Together, these characters made a suitably and evocatively rustic line-up!

An additional “male” character – Goldspur, the Fox – was depicted most handsomely and suavely by Alexandra Gandionco, whose voice blended most beautifully with the Vixen’s during their meeting/courtship scene, nicely presenting a “gentler” vocal personality than the Vixen’s more volatile, less suave manner. Alternately, the two “wives” in the story, the Forester’s and the Innkeeper’s, were alternately given properly no-nonsense personas by Sally Haywood, energetic and gossipy. Too many to enumerate, the supporting animal roles brought out enactments with both individual and concerted presence, for the most part beautifully co-ordinated – the Act Three “forest-sneak-up” game, for one, was a delightful highlight.

Had the words been clearer in places, our pleasure would have been more than complete – still, as it was, we were captivated by what we’d seen and heard. The music, its vocal and instrumental performance, allied with the setting and (for me) its discernable, dramatically-defined action, made for all I had the chance to speak with afterwards an absorbing and satisfying operatic experience, one for which the stewardship of the NZSM here at Wellington’s Victoria University deserves considerable praise.

String student talents impressively exhibited at St Andrew’s lunchtime concert

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

String Students of the New Zealand School of Music

Brahms: Allegro from Violin Sonata no.3, Op.108
Debussy: Allegro vivo from Violin Sonata in G minor
Serge Koussevitzky: Chanson Triste
Beethoven: Allegro vivace from Violin Sonata, Op.12 no.2
Dubois: Andante cantabile
Nikolai Kapustin [not Kasputin as printed in the programme]: Sonata 1

Charlotte Lamb, Sophie Tarrant-Matthews, Patrick Hayes, Claudia Tarrant-Matthews (violins), Hugh McMillan, Claudia Tarrant-Matthews, Sophie Tarrant-Matthews (piano), Jandee Song (bass), Sam Berkahn (cello)

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 26 July 2017, 12.15 pm

This was, on the whole, an impressive line-up of young string players.  They are presumably at different stages in their studies (in other years the printed programme for such concerts has shown which year each player was, which was helpful in appreciating their level of skill).

The Brahms sonata is one of his most elegiac pieces.  However, the tone of Charlotte Lamb’s violin being a little harsh didn’t match this character.  She was competent technically, although occasionally intonation was a little suspect.  This being a Romantic sonata, it could have done with more vibrato.  Phrasing and dynamics were fine.  Hugh McMillan played piano sympathetically for this work, and for all except the Tarrant-Matthews collaborations, i.e. the Debussy and the Kapustin.

The Debussy was quite a contrast, with its slow introduction.  Sophie Tarrant-Matthews played her violin with good tone and excellent articulation.  The misty, dreamy movement had a wonderful piano part that seemed to be an equal partner with the violin.  The players were in complete accord in approach and performance – being sisters must help in these matters.

One thinks of Koussevitzky as a composer of very lively music; the piece for bass and piano was quite different.  It was a solemn, rather slow piece, played from memory by its diminutive performer.  Jandee Song’s tone was not large, but this suited the piece; her performance was pleasing.

The Beethoven movement was quite short.  Patrick Hayes obviously knew it well; he seldom looked at his score.  He produced attractive tone and made the music rhythmically lively.  The sudden ending to this bright piece amused the audience.

Sam Berkahn made great work of his soulful Dubois piece, which he played with great accuracy and clarity.  His intonation was virtually impeccable, and he produced splendid tone and good volume.  He made the most of the lyricism in the work, and appeared to be the master of his instrument and its possibilities.

The Tarrant-Matthews sisters reversed roles for the Kapustin sonata, and proved to be equally as competent on both instruments.  Nikolai Kapustin was born in Ukraine in 1937, but studied music in Moscow, and is usually referred to as a Russian composer.  Wikipedia says “During the 1950s he acquired a reputation as a jazz pianist, arranger and composer. He is steeped, therefore, in both the traditions of classical virtuoso pianism and improvisational jazz.”

These characteristics were certainly to the fore in the sonata.  Jazzy as it was, these two performers were thoroughly in control of it.  Claudia Tarrant-Matthews obtained a full tone from her instrument.  Off-beat rhythms and plenty of double-stopping were strong features.  This was a difficult work, not least rhythmically, and it was carried off with élan by two very able musicians, ending a varied and interesting concert.