Tag: students

Engaging and exploratory viola music from NZSM students at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s lunchtime concerts 
New Zealand School of Music viola students, with accompanist Catherine Norton

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 13 June, 12:15 pm

This is the time for music students to use the facilities and be exposed to audiences at St Andrew’s lunchtime concerts in preparation for their first semester assessments. For audiences too, there are a couple of benefits; invariably, there are students who surprise, sometimes astonish, with their level of musicianship and technical skill; and there’s the chance to hear some unfamiliar, sometimes very engaging music. Some is chosen to display students’ strengths regardless of the interest of the music for the general, musical public, but there’s always some that is little known and prompts curiosity and thus an impulse to do a little research, to look for recordings in the library or on YouTube.

Zephyr Wills is a first year student who played a Potpourri for viola and piano by Hummel. A few decades ago Hummel’s name meant a pedantic and flashy pianist, a rival of Beethoven in virtuosity who wrote superficially attractive music. A lot of his music has been unearthed including some, yes, attractive and exciting music, a lot for the piano, but also orchestral, chamber and choral music. This piece was very listenable and proved both manageable and at times challenging for a student. It offered music that suited Wills’s flair for easy rhythms and long lyrical lines, employing tunes that were familiar, though not always identifiable. As with each of the pieces played, Catherine Norton, undoubtedly one of the finest accompanists working in New Zealand, supported and enlivened the performances.

Allegro appassionato, by Paul Rougnon, presumably composed as an examination piece at the Paris Conservatoire where he taught, was played by Debbie King, a second year student. Rougnon was a contemporary of Fauré and Massenet (and such disparate composers as Chabrier and Widor too), though I didn’t notice any conspicuous similarities. Not melodically very distinctive, the music had a generally lyrical feel that showed through its shape and textures; it is probably fair to say that its aim seemed mainly to demonstrate students’ technique, which King made tasteful, not showy use of; she played with confidence and musicality.

The Prelude to Bach’s first solo violin suite (BWV 1001), was played in an unattributed scoring for viola, by fourth year student, Charlotte Lamb. The listener is no doubt at a disadvantage attempting to listen objectively to music that is very familiar since so many famous and deeply musical performances lurk in the mind, perhaps to the disadvantage of the present player. It was different, of course, more warm and mellow than on the violin and so less brilliant. Lamb’s playing was accurate and rhythmically coherent but something of Bach had been diminished: this in spite of my secret preferring the tonal range of the viola over that of the violin.

The next piece, When Gravity Fails, in three parts, by Christchurch composer Philip Norman was shared by three players: Grant Baker with Flingamango Tango, Zephyr Wills with Evening Romance and Lauren Jack playing Isla’s Blues. Each section was vividly different and the word ‘quirky’ often comes to mind in characterising Norman’s carefully insubstantial, sometimes ironic or flippant music; but its great virtue is his interest, not shared by a large number of contemporary composers, in entertaining his listeners. In each of the markedly different pieces, the aim was to amuse rather than challenge or to demonstrate a mastery of complex forms or recondite musical vocabulary. The odd smudge or blurred phrase felt like fun, unimportant, and all three seemed to feel at liberty to enjoy the varied emotions or images that invested Norman’s creations.

The most substantial, main-stream work was Bloch’s Suite Hébraïque rhapsodie in which Lauren Jack discovered a depth of feeling that was recognisable to anyone familiar with Bloch’s Schelomo for cello and orchestra, a piece that I discovered in my teens and has had me looking for comparable music by Bloch ever since (there is some). Lauren Jack, another talented first year student, gave it a very thoughtful and enjoyable performance, and I felt it went some way to meet my longings.

The recital ended with two players returning to play pieces that complemented what they’d played before. Debbie King moved from an obscure French composer to an obscure German one. Eduard Pütz was born in 1911 but I can find nothing about his life though he obviously lived through the Nazi years. His Blues for Benni clearly suggested jazz and employed agreeable if somewhat complex jazz rhythms through three distinct phases. King sounded very comfortable in her handling of the idiom and its rather particular demands, though I felt, obviously in my first hearing, that the piece rather outlasted its material.

And Grant Baker ended the recital with a piece by Belgian violinist and composer Vieuxtemps (a contemporary of Franck, Lalo and Gounod, even Offenbach, if that’s in any way relevant), best known for his violin concertos. This Elégie for viola and piano was melodically attractive and Baker gave it an excellent account with lyrical playing, tinged with a gentle pathos. It called for a good deal of embellishment from both viola and Catherine Norton’s unfailingly sensitive and supportive piano, which the pair handled with flair.

Some impressive performances from NZSM string students at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

New Zealand School of Music String Students and Catherine Norton (piano)

Music by Haydn, J.S. Bach, Hans Fryber, Mozart, Wieniawski and Max Bruch

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 6 June 2018, 12.15 pm

On the coldest day of the winter so far, there was still a respectably-sized audience at the lunchtime concert.

The students introduced themselves and their music, but unlike the wind students I reviewed two weeks ago, these students did not use the microphone, and so several of them were inaudible, speaking as though to a few people sitting in front of them.  One who spoke in audible tones nevertheless was too fast for his words to carry in a large auditorium.  The concert ran somewhat over the usual time; two players performed after one o’clock, but only a few of the audience left before the end.

Naturally, there was a range of abilities and experience displayed.  However, it was a diverse programme, full of interest, and we heard some excellent playing.

The first item was the allegro moderato first movement from Haydn’s cello concerto no.2 in D, played by Rebecca Warnes with Catherine Norton accompanying on the piano.  This is quite a lengthy movement, and demanding for the players.  Catherine Norton made a splendid job of being a one-woman orchestra, and despite having the lid of the piano on the long stick, she was never too loud.

The soloist played the movement from memory.  There were numbers of episodes of imperfect intonation, especially at the beginning, whereas in the difficult cadenza towards the end, almost every note was in place – since it was her unaccompanied solo, perhaps she had practised it more?  It went right down to the extreme bottom of the finger-board, i.e. very high notes.

Her legato passages were excellent and fluent, and her bowing technique likewise.  Once she got into her stride the intonation improved.  It was great to hear this warmly lyrical movement.  Double-stopping featured in this difficult score, which was mostly given an accomplished reading.

The second student to perform was Leo Liu, on the violin.  He played from memory and unaccompanied Bach’s Gigue in D minor, BWV 1004.  He explained that he was a second-year student.  He was confident and capable.  His playing was very fine, and his tuning almost perfect.  He played the tricky, quite extended piece with flair.

He was followed by Jandee Song, who played the double bass, performing Allemande from Suite in the Olden Style, by Hans Fryba, an Austrian double bass player and composer (1899-1986).  At first, the music had the performer playing at the extreme low end of the finger-board.  This unaccompanied piece was played from memory.  Intonation was very accurate but she did not give much variation in tone or dynamics.

Next was Patrick Hayes, violin.  He performed Fugue from Sonata no.2 in A minor, BWV 1003 by J.S. Bach.  This was another solo piece, played from the score.  Notable was his good phrasing; double-stopping and chords were handled well.  However, his tone was sometimes harsh.  Nevertheless, Patrick coped with the difficult, and quite long, movement well.

The remaining three pieces were all for violin, and were accompanied by Catherine Norton.  First, Charlotte Lamb performed Rondo in A, the third movement of Mozart’s fifth violin concerto K.219.  It is a delightful movement; its Turkish elements earned it the nickname of ‘Turkish’ concerto.  It was played with appropriate style and nuance.  A few intonation inaccuracies there were, but good tone and dynamics were present throughout the performance.  The contrasting ‘Turkish’ and minuet sections of the movement made it continually easy on the ear.

Edward Clarkson played Obertass Mazurka Op.19 no.1 by Wieniawski.  Grove informs me that obertass or obertas denotes a faster form of mazurka.  Edward had a clear, strong voice when giving his brief introduction.  The same characteristics were present in his violin-playing.  This was one of the composer’s showy pieces.  The violinist played it from memory, and gave it plenty of variety and lightness.  Harmonics were interspersed at high speed, plus fast trills and left-hand pizzicato. It was a short but very accomplished performance.

Last up was Sarang Roberts, who played the finale (allegro energico) of Max Bruch’s well-known and highly romantic first violin concerto, Op.26.  The playing was fast but well-controlled.  Her legato was excellent, and she played with a fine, warm tone, from memory.  Catherine Norton’s assignment in accompanying was quite a tough one, but she played with her usual aplomb.  The two musicians brought out the work’s mood and aesthetic splendidly – bravo!

The students performing would be at several different levels in their studies.  I assumed that these last two were senior students.  I had a few words with Martin Riseley, Head of Strings at the New Zealand School of Music at Victoria University, after the concert.  He informed me that these two were both first-years!  Their skill would seem to indicate a bright future ahead.

 

 

Talents and skills of university woodwind students in St Andrew’s lunchtime recital

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

NZSM Wind Students

Music by Fauré, Francisco Mignone, Lowell Liebermann, Gareth Farr. Krysztof Penderecki and Debussy

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 23 May 2018, 12.15 pm

It is interesting to hear music students at different levels of their courses, and of ability and achievement.  All these students, though, performed well and provided engaging music.  In most cases they were accompanied on the piano, although two students played unaccompanied pieces.  It was pleasing to see a number of school students in the audience; perhaps they are studying wind instruments. Simon Brew, acting head of winds at the New Zealand School of Music, briefly introduced the programme.  Nearly all the students introduced themselves and their music more than adequately, using the microphone.

Fauré was represented by Fantasie for Flute, Op.79, played as the opening piece by Samantha McSweeny, accompanied by Kirsten Robertson.  French composers wrote prolifically for the flute, and this was a lovely example of their work, which for me carried over nicely from the Fauré songs I heard in Waikanae on Sunday.  The piece was inventive and graceful, with a languid opening section.  It changed to sprightly and playful passages.  It was written for a Paris Conservatoire competition, so it aimed to have the students demonstrate a range of techniques, tempi and dynamics.  As well as our player doing this more than adequately, the accompaniment was full of character.

I had never heard of the Brazilian composer Francisco Mignone.  His dates were 1897 to 1986.  (It would have been useful to have the composers’ dates printed in the programme.)   Improvised Waltz no.7  was the title of the piece for solo bassoon, played by Breanna Abbott.    It was quite a jaunty piece to start with, but the deep-toned instrument made it harder to get over a light-hearted mood.  It was short, and very competently played.

Lowell Liebermann is a contemporary American composer (born in 1961) who is a prolific composer as well as a performer.  His Movement 1 from Sonata for Flute and Piano, Op.23 was played by Isabella Gregory, accompanied by Kirsten Robertson.  A leisurely opening was followed by an allegro that brought a rush of notes before falling back to gentle utterances.  In places the piano doubled the part of the flute.  A new section was slow, but both flute and piano jumped around the staves, especially the latter.  Both played angular phrases, the flute employing particularly the lower register of the instrument.  A return to slower, gentler phrases brought the piece to a smooth, mellifluous end.

The only New Zealand composer represented was Gareth Farr; Peter Liley, alto saxophone, accompanied by Catherine Norton on the piano, played Farr’s Meditation very confidently, following an excellent spoken introduction.  The piece opened with notes on the piano, followed by chords, then a slow, pensive melody.  This gradually developed and built to a high climax – most effective.  More climbing motifs – then an abrupt end.

Solo clarinet was played by Harim Hey Oh, performing Penderecki’s Prelude for solo clarinet.  Slow, quiet single notes opened the short piece.  Then the music became quite gymnastic, with quick notes darting here and there, including very high notes and very loud ones (hard on the ears!).  Then it was back to slow, quiet notes, widely spaced – and it was all over.

The other great French composer represented was Debussy, by his Première Rhapsodie for clarinet, played by Frank Talbot with Catherine Norton accompanying.  The piece was written for graduate students at the Paris Conservatoire, so was constructed to test them.  Later, the composer orchestrated it.  This was a highly competent performance, employing a lot of different techniques and idioms. The full range of the instrument’s notes and dynamics were used.  It was most enjoyable music, not only for the clarinet’s role; the piano had a very varied part also.

This was a very satisfactory demonstration of the skills of wind students at the New Zealand School of Music at Victoria University of Wellington.

 

 

 

 

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.