Tag: violin

Masterly playing of Bach’s first sonata and partita from Martin Riseley

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s lunchtime concerts
Martin Riseley (violin)

J S Bach: Solo Violin Sonata No 1 in G minor, BWV 1001
and Partita No 1 in B minor, BWV 1002

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 14 February, 12:15 pm

It takes other professional and voluntary organisations a long time to organise a few concerts drawing mainly on New Zealand musicians. But impresario extraordinaire Marjan van Waardenberg probably spends a good deal of the summer, putting together something approaching 50 concerts – one a week – at St Andrew’s; perhaps more than all the other chamber music organisers in Greater Wellington combined. They have become an important institution in Wellington’s musical life, providing a down-town venue for students at Victoria University’s school of music as well as a way for established musicians to remain in the public eye.

I gather she has concerts pretty well finalised for the whole year.

As well as offering surprisingly accomplished student performances, we also get to hear top-class professionals in music that is often overlooked by the mainstream promoters.

Bach’s six solo violin works are a case; we hear the cello suites from time to time, and certain of the keyboard suites and partitas but the violin sonatas and partitas, apart from familiar ones like the 3rd partita, seem neglected.

Martin Riseley is Associate Professor and head of strings in the university school of music; in addition he has recently reconnected with Christchurch where he began his tertiary violin studies in the 1980s, becoming Concert Master of the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra.

Both the first and second violin sonatas and partitas are in minor keys which indeed seem to lend them a more solemn, less sunny aspect. But as with most music that has less immediate appeal, they all reveal their beauties and musical strengths, slowly, after a few hearings, and I guess my tally is far more than that.

The opening Adagio of the G minor sonata really set the tone of Riseley’s performance, not revealing much lyrical, legato character, but rather his care with detailed articulation that captured its intensely elegiac tone. Fugue is the title of the second movement; on the violin it is a counter-intuitive process, but his playing showed how clearly its fugal character can be heard as well as its strong rhythmic character. The third movement, Siciliana, is laid out to present marked contrasts between phrases on the G string and those on the high strings, which Riseley handled in an easy swaying rhythm. And he drove through the Presto finale, leaning on the first beat of the bar in clean, energetic playing.

Partita No 1, is fundamentally in four movements, but it becomes eight as each is followed by a ‘Double’, or a variation, though it’s sometimes hard to identify aspects of the basic theme since the Doubles dwell on the bass line of the movement itself. So this Partita is about twice the length of the Sonata. The first movement is an Allemanda (Bach uses French and Italian terms seemingly randomly) is marked by double dotted motifs, that explore the violin’s full range, and its complexity always strikes one as particularly profound; its ‘Double’ is brisker and more legato and flowing in style. The Corrente is faster, in triple time, and more sanguine than the first movement, but the real quick movement of the suite is its Double, that Riseley played brilliantly at almost twice the speed of the Corrente itself.

The slow movement is the grave, triple time Sarabanda with routine double stopping that sometimes seems de trop; the following Double is again quicker, more sanguine and flowing. Then comes the last movement, marked Tempo di bourée, a movement that is probably more familiar than most of the others. And its Double is in a flowing rhythm that doesn’t seek to startle, and Riseley handled its long-breathed lines unostentatiously, not attempting to mitigate the pervasive B minor tonality that has generally cast its sombre mood over the whole work.

Martin Riseley’s masterly playing has whetted our appetite to hear all six sonatas and partitas. I wondered to Marjan afterwards whether this was the first of three St Andrew’s recitals for Riseley to play all these great works; she thought not, for now, but agreed it should be done.

Edo de Waart and NZSO in deeply assimilated music of Brahms, Wagner and Sibelius (with Janine Jansen)

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Edo de Waart with Janine Jansen – violin

Brahms: Symphony No 3 in F, Op 90
Wagner: Siegfried Idyll
Sibelius: Violin concerto in D minor, Op 47

Michael Fowler Centre

Friday 10 November, 6:30 pm

The programme might have looked fairly conventional, except that the symphony, usually the sole occupant of the second half of the traditional concert, was played first. That may have been because the Sibelius concerto enjoys one of the most exciting endings while Brahms’s Third Symphony is a favourite as a result of its steering a path between peacefulness and joy and quiet drama, ending with one of most reflective, serene finales.

Brahms No 3
Generally, De Waart and the orchestra demonstrated a profound sympathy with the symphony: an awareness of its sanguinity as well as its suppressed passion, in a performance that struck one as authentic and deeply assimilated, from a descendant of performances by De Waart’s compatriots, Mengelberg, Van Beinum, Haitink (though not all are unreservedly admired in this symphony…).  So it’s perhaps a little strange that I noted in the first movement, early on, a certain instability in handling the elusive rhythms, and perhaps in ensemble, particularly among the winds.

The symphony’s laid-back nature doesn’t mean any departure from Brahms’s structural complexity that, on the one hand, can be overlooked in a conscious sense without loss of enjoyment, and on the other can engross the serious listener with score and analytical notes at hand.

There were many felicities in the course of the performance, momentary unstable passages that were elucidated by giving prominence to a few notes or by the emergence of flutes or violas from the orchestral aggregate; a fragile rhythm, nicely managed without simplifying it.

The third movement, Poco allegretto, where a scherzo would normally be, was yet another departure from the orthodox, in C minor, 3/8 time (though they’re very slow quavers), De Waart was unhurried, almost somnolent, passing the lovely main theme repeatedly through strings and winds – exquisitely with horns; it might be tedious in less inspired hands: not here.

The sense of a driving impulse was a major feature of De Waart’s performance, through the numerous tempo and rhythmic changes, that hold one’s attention, absorption in the music. But the result of such impulse is sometimes to overlook the epic grandeur of the work which exists in certain deeply admired recordings (Haitink, Sanderling, Giulini for example), that run to around 50 minutes. This was not a performance of that kind, but one for immediate consumption bearing in mind an audience that might not be ready to give itself to playing devoted to architectural magnificence on the scale of a mighty Gothic cathedral.

Siegfried Idyll 
The Siegfried Idyll followed after the interval, excellent tonic for those who have succumbed to anti-Wagner xenophobia. It needs to be stressed, as I sometimes do to non-believers, that it’s just a small part of the 16-hours of the marvellous Ring cycle where hours of comparable beauties are to be found.

The orchestra was stripped back to ten first violins, descending to four basses and single winds apart from pairs of horns and clarinets. That was Wagner’s published expansion from the small group of 13 that had gathered at dawn on the stairs near Cosima’s bedroom to mark her birthday/Christmas morning in 1870 in their house at Triebschen on Lake Lucerne (yes, I’ve been there on a lovely summer’s day). It was beautifully paced, a sort of aubade, with the scent of a calm night, with elegant, perfectly integrated strings; and an arresting moment from Michael Kirgan’s trumpet.

Sibelius Violin Concerto
Janine Jansen is a Dutch violinist, born in 1978 (the ritualised patterns of artist CVs ignore basic information that is likely to be interesting and pertinent to most concert-goers). She is clearly among the most distinguished of the increasingly large body of brilliant soloists in the classical music world.

Her Sibelius concerto was part of a uniquely refined, perceptive, passionate, imaginative and simply enchanting performance which had the characteristically restrained Wellington audience jumping to its feet, accompanied by prolonged shouts and clapping.

The concerto opened with fairy-like, whispering sounds over pianissimo murmuring strings, that were quickly echoed by Patrick Barry’s comparably fastidious clarinet. The prevailing character of her playing was soon clear: an almost obsessional care with every phrase and a delight in highlighting contrasts that are often handled in a more uniform manner. An early fiery passage that ends suddenly with rising, meandering, pianisssimi theme, that seemed to be delivered with more dramatic contrast than is common. At the heart of the first movement, rather than towards the end, the violin’s cadenza becomes a more central feature than usual, described as assuming the role of the development section rather than merely a spectacular forerunner to the climactic conclusion.

Though Sibelius never allows you to become comfortable with a particular emotion, tempo, style, world-view or belief system, and in every movement the listener runs the gauntlet, it’s the slow movement, Adagio di molto, that approaches a miracle of calm, transcendent beauty. It seems to seek the elusive idea of the sublime, but coloured by unease, evoking the still, Arctic air; and there’s a yearning quality, a sense of loss in through the singular emotional force with which the violin speaks. Jansen dealt enchantingly with the passages where she was virtually alone as sections of the orchestra murmured discreetly, merely embellishing the silence.

Though one knows the concerto very well, I have never been held so transfixed, so alert, so awakened to sounds that I seemed never to have heard properly before. The last movement can suggest a fairly conventional affair, boisterous and exciting, but Jansen’s playing was variously mercurial and endlessly lyrical; it was energised in throbbing exchanges with the orchestra, which was probably inspired by the soloist to sonorities and detail that were comparably dynamic, emerging with unusually clarity. That is a feat that’s perhaps not so hard to achieve given Sibelius’s uncluttered scoring, and a general avoidance of dense, Brahms-like expression.

On every level, this was a remarkable and memorable performance.

A somewhat impromptu lunchtime recital proves a delight at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Fleur Jackson (violin), Olivia Wilding (cello), Lucy Liu (viola), Ingrid Schoenfeld and Catherine Norton (piano)

Beethoven: Piano sonata in C minor, Op 30/2, movements I and 3
Schumann: Cello Concerto in A minor, Op 129 – arranged for cello and piano, movements 2 and 3
Bloch: Suite (1919) for viola and piano, movements 2, 3, 4

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 9 November, 12:15 pm

Having left the reviewing duty unplanned, both Lindis Taylor and I found ourselves at this recital, mutually unaware of each other at the time; we decided to combine our impressions. Prizes (a free annual pass for the St Andrew’s lunchtime concerts in 2018) for successful identification of the origin of the various remarks.

This programme was arranged at short notice after the originally scheduled players withdrew. Three separate duos, it proved very engaging, even though each pair played only some of the three or more movements. In principle, one should regret that such truncations are made, as they distort in some way the composer’s original intention. In the circumstances however, and given how well each piece was played, it was an interesting and musically satisfying recital.

The first performers began Beethoven’s none-too-easy Allegro con brio first movement with excellent attack, beautifully integrated. The lively staccato character of the music seemed to belie its minor key; Ingrid Schoenfeld’s lively, ear-catching piano and the bright, buoyant sound of Fleur Jackson’s violin, spiced with well-placed emphases not only characterised the first movement, but continued without the calming Adagio cantabile of the second, to the third movement, Scherzo, which persisted in the spirit of the first, in a dancing spirit, full of optimism.

Schumann’s Cello Concerto doesn’t quite rank alongside those of Dvořák, or Elgar, even of Saint-Saëns or Haydn; but it’s a charming work. Being less familiar, there was not the same feeling of something major left out, in spite of the fact that there is no break between the three movements and in the way they simply merge, one into the next, lends the whole work a particular integrity. To start with the Langsam, second movement, worked very well, and the elimination of the orchestra didn’t seem at all barbaric.

Olivia Wilding and Catherine Norton were finely paired in the expressive opening; the cello has much double stopping while Norton’s piano was a model of subtlety and sensitivity; resulting in a very convincing feeling that Schumann might actually have written it as a sort of cello sonata. One can miss the scale and colour of an orchestra in such a reduction, but the music spoke for itself, uninhibitedly.

The success of the seamless transition from the second to the last movement might profitably have been a model for later concertos, except that it removes some of the crowd-pleasing drama from the conventional concerto structure. The challenges of the Sehr lebhaft finale did not daunt Olivia Wilding, brilliantly executing the lightning shifts from deep bass to high notes. It was a scintillating performance.

Ernest Bloch can often seem a very serious composer, but in the three movements of his Suite (in four movements) for viola and piano, he imagined the islands of Indonesia, which he never visited. They were full of interest, of light and shade. Lucy Liu and Catherine Norton began with the second movement, Allegro ironico, subtitled ‘Grotesques’. The enchanting opening phrases from both viola and piano might have been animals padding through the jungle.

The Lento third movement (‘Nocturne’), a pensive piece, revealed gorgeously rich tone from the muted viola, while it was rewarding to pay attention to the piano part that Norton handled with great sensitivity. The last movement, Molto vivo (‘Land of the Sun’), included some sequences influenced by Chinese music. Strong, confident playing left a Debussyesque feeling and the sense that the suite probably deserved a more prominent place in the viola repertoire. Both players were absolutely on top of the music, technically and interpretively.

It might have been a somewhat impromptu concert but between them the five players delivered an interesting, thoroughly enjoyable concert of works that one might dare call great.

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.

 

BEETHOVEN – Violin and Piano Sonata Series – a final frolic and a fury, to great acclaim!

Posted on by Peter Mechen

BEETHOVEN – The complete Sonatas for Violin-and-Piano
A Lunchtime Series of five concerts from Chamber Music New Zealand

Bella Hristova (violin)
Michael Houstoun (piano)

Concert No.5 – Friday, Ist September, 2017
Violin Sonata No.2 in A Major, Op.12 No.2
Violin Sonata No 7 in C Minor Op.30 No.2

Renouf Foyer, Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

The excellently-written programme notes accompanying this series of concerts made reference to the “frolicsome” mood of Beethoven’s A Major Violin Sonata Op.12 No.2, which opened this, the last of the lunchtime series of concerts given by Bella Hristova and Michael Houstoun. The very opening of the work’s Allegro vivace beginning was smile-inducing, the buoyantly-tripping rhythms shared by both instruments, the piano slightly more dominant in this environment (and more so from my seat on the “Town Hall” side of the space this time round, compared with my “other-side” sound picture for the opening concert) – Hristova’s silvery tones were occasionally masked in unison-like passages, though otherwise the discourse was teasingly assured, the po-faced conclusion to the movement particularly so, with its amusing throw-away manner!

Big-boned, seriously-declaimed piano chording opened the second movement, a mood to which the violin responded with silvery, vulnerable-sounding beseechment. After this hint of desolation, the exchanges between the instruments became more consolatory, in a flowing middle section, the piano again sounding more to the fore by dint of the ambience, its sostenuto tones more “supported” than those of the violin. The finale seemed to restore the balance between the two, thanks to some exchanges of wonderfully assertive upwardly-propelled arpeggiated phrases, here matched to perfection by violinist and pianist, Hristova again colouring the gesture by infusing a certain “unfettered” edge to the occasional note, which brought a certain excitement to the sounds.

Though the occasional violin phrase in the second subject group seemed to my ears masked by the piano’s more overbearing presence, both Hristova and Houstoun dug into the minor/major-key moment of angst with forthright tones, Houstoun then assertively putting the music back on track once again for the last “hurrah”, the rocket-like upward thrusts again splendidly launched by both musicians, each tumbling their notes downwards once again with great glee, the piano cheekily turning a kind of somersault on its own right at the end!

By the time he came to write his Op.30 Sonatas, Beethoven was all too aware of his encroaching deafness, as evidenced by letters written at the time to trusted friends in which he expresses feelings of despair mingled with growing defiance – his oft-quoted words, “I shall take fate by the throat, it shall not overcome me!” come from one of these letters, sentiments which are just as strongly expressed by the music of the C Minor Sonata, the second of the three Op.30 works.

The piano’s terse opening phrase set the scene, the violin taking up the theme over the accompanying keyboard rumblings and grumblings. A couple of brief sparrings between the two led to the second subject’s lighter, more congenial manner, though the rhythms’ initial playfulness soon sharpened its edge as the intensities flared up again at the cadences – both Hristova and Houstoun gave these contrasting episodes plenty of strength and lyricism, driving the music into the dark wood of the development, and bringing out the relentless questing spirit of the journey. After allowing the more lyrical moments some breathing-space, the players pulled out the instrumental stops for the movement’s end, building the textures to almost overwhelmingly orchestral effect.

What relief was afforded by the beautiful Adagio cantabile! – Houstoun’s tones gave it a calm simplicity, while Hristova’s violin was rich and warm in reply, both “breathing” the lines of the music beautifully. A central section arpeggiated the music in winsome archways, both musicians deftly touching the music in, even if some of Hristova’s phrase-ends were lost in places beneath the piano’s more fulsome projections. On a couple of occasions a gently persuasive rhythmic change of trajectory was violently interrupted by keyboard outbursts, which were short-lived as they were unexpected, a combination of gentle pizzicati and long-breathed bowed lines from Hristova over conciliatory gestures from Houstoun concluding the movement.

Deceptively simple at the outset, the scherzo tripped its way along, the instruments exchanging pleasantries until the violin suddenly fixated on a single note and exchanged some brief but stinging crossfire with the piano, before returning to the opening congenialities. The Trio section of the work reminded me a little of the “Russian” melody used by both Beethoven in his String Quartet Op.59 No.2 and Musorgsky in the Coronation Scene of Boris Godunov.

Hristova and Houstoun allowed these episodes a lighter, more relaxed tone than in the finale which followed – a dark, muttered opening called for all kinds of emphatic responses, from furtive scamperings to an engaging sense of “schwung”, with violinist and pianist in determined accord, pushing their instruments along a truly epic kind of musical spectrum! After one of the oft-repeated keyboard mutterings had suddenly led the music into hitherto unchartered modulatory realms, the players straightaway saw their chance for freedom, and “pounced”, driving the rhythms fiercely and determinedly towards a resolution of will that infused the music’s spirit with something indomitable.

It was playing which brought the house down, and earned Hristova and Houstoun a richly-deserved standing ovation, as much for what we had just enjoyed as for the musicians’ stunning achievement over a week’s solid concertising in bringing us the complete cycle of these works – certainly, a landmark musical event whose reception by the audiences indicated enjoyment of a rare order, as well as warm and enduring gratitude.

Beethoven violin sonata series: Spring – molto espressivo – and its companion sonata are a delight

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Bella Hristova (violin) and Michael Houstoun (piano)
(Chamber Music New Zealand)

Beethoven: the sonatas for piano and violin
Programme Two
Sonata no.4 in A minor, Op.23
Sonata no.5 in F major, Op.24 ‘Spring’

Renouf Foyer, Michael Fowler Centre

Tuesday 29 August 2017, 12 noon

We are fortunate indeed to have a full week (Monday to Friday) of these wonderful sonatas.   Having them performed in the Renouf Foyer proved to be an excellent decision – not so large and cavernous as the main auditorium, but still seating a large number of people; my rough calculation came to upwards of 300, and nearly all the available chairs filled.

Both sonatas were composed 1800-1801, for the wealthy patron Count Moritz von Fries.  Yet they were very different in character; no.4 was in three movements while no.5 was in four.

No. 4 opened with a lively and extravert presto, the instruments taking it in turns to come to the fore.  Great clarity was to be heard from both, and the players matched each other perfectly.

The  second movement, andante scherzoso, più allegretto, was not lacking in animation either, though in gentler, more playful style, with interesting off-beat rhythms that were given full play.  Balance between the performers was perfect, and the acoustic of the Renouf Foyer allowed us to hear the subtlety of both instruments easily, compared with listening to chamber music in the main auditorium.

Another fast movement, allegro molto, completed the sonata.  There was a certain similarity between the three movements.   Considerable use was made of staccato in this movement; there was delicacy as well as virtuosity.  This was as thoroughly pleasing performance.

The second sonata is much the better known of the two.  Here we were, two days away from the official first day of Spring.  Flowers are out, and even some kowhai trees – and Spring weather has been all too predominant lately.  The Spring has brought not only flowers and trees to life, but also warmed us with sunshine – literal (a little) and spiritual, through music.

The Spring of this sonata, with its rising opening allegro phrases, is utterly uplifting, whatever the weather.  They come first from the violin and then from the piano.  They are not too quick, but take us with them.  Familiarity certainly does not dull the effect of this masterpiece.  Every detail was delineated beautifully, but always with intensity.  I last heard it live, I think, some years ago, with Michael Houstoun and Wilma Smith.

The slow movement, adagio molto espressivo, was played with warm expressiveness – almost lush.  Here we heard the fine tones of Bella Hristova’s Amati violin more than was possible in the quicker movements.  The programme note described the ‘rhapsodic realm’ of this movement.

There appeared to be one treble note of the piano that sounded as if it needed some technical attention, but otherwise the tone from both instruments was admirable and refined.

The short scherzo: allegro molto, with its ‘mis-step’ between the two instruments, as the programme note described it, in other words, unsychronised writing, was a delight, as was the final rondo: allegro ma non troppo, that featured long, strong notes from the violinist and intriguing treatment of the recurring rondo theme.  The programme note stated ‘…we hear Beethoven writing in a manner that induces  contentment.’  And that was indeed the case.

Six more sonatas can be heard over the next three days.

 

 

 

 

 

Bruch’s violin concerto and Beethoven’s Seventh survive another (splendid) exposure as great works

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Edo de Waart with Karen Gomyo – violin

John Adams: Short Ride on a Fast Machine
Bruch: Violin Concerto No 1 in G minor
Beethoven: Symphony No 7 in A

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday 12 August, 7:30 pm

It’s unusual for the NZSO to stage two concerts on consecutive evenings in the same town, though often enough they travel to different towns for concerts on consecutive nights. This time it was presumably to make full use of Karen Gomyo’s short visit to New Zealand with concerts only in Wellington and Auckland.

In the past I have remarked on the boring CVs about guest soloists that get printed in the NZSO’s, and other concert promoters’ programmes. Their unvarying pattern, moving through lists of festivals, orchestras, conductors, glamorous venues, highlights of the current year, and major premieres. Almost never mention of early years, education, musical studies. Very rarely do they mention earlier visits to New Zealand, unless the NZSO happens to be accorded distinguished orchestra ranking in the artist agent’s hand-out.

In this case, there is no mention in the programme of Gomyo’s earlier visit to New Zealand, in June 2015, to replace Hilary Hahn at the farewell concert for Pietari Inkinen, playing the Beethoven violin concerto. Though the press publicity beforehand mentioned it.

Here, with Bruch’s first violin concerto, her characteristic playing that impressed two years ago, her scrupulous and refined bowing, and dynamic subtlety, found fertile ground and had more scope in the Romantic heartland in which Bruch lived. Beginning with slow, secretive strokes on timpani, that expressed tension as much as magic; the flutes, clarinets and prominent bassoons made way gently for her entry: an auspicious beginning that seemed never to falter thereafter. Her playing seems characteristically quiet and it can lead one to feel that the orchestra is sometimes too loud; I heard one or two comments about her quiet playing, suggesting that she allowed herself to be covered by the orchestra, but the work is pretty carefully written so that the orchestra and soloist are rarely competing for space; the relationship between orchestra and soloist seemed meticulously judged. The violin doesn’t have to be dominant throughout and the pleasure lay then in the music’s sustained melodic beauty, and Gomyo’s delicacy and unostentatious approach didn’t fundamentally change as the movement’s more dramatic phase took hold.

Her brief cadenza towards the end of the first movement was fervent rather than showily spectacular and the rest of the movement is simply a fading away to the start of the Adagio, which though in a gentle triple time sustains much the same mood. It is of course a ravishingly beautiful movement (making you astonished, and sad, every time, that Bruch didn’t find comparable ideas to weave into more of his music).

The Finale is in the conventional pattern and has further memorable melodies that those of us who don’t allow conventional prejudices to colour our views of Bruch, hardly tire of. Her sound was simply discreet and gorgeous, overflowing with soulfulness, even when some fairly spectacular playing was taking place.

The concert had opened with John Adams’s perhaps most famous piece, Short Ride on a Fast Machine. It’s certainly a winner with audiences and De Waart employed no undue restraint in driving as if on a Grand Prix track, maintaining a thrilling pulse for its five minutes. Incidentally, poking about the Internet I came across a book by Magnus McGrandle with the same title and the blurb characterises it: ‘Short Ride on A Fast Machine is a quirky and engaging caper, the story of a young cycle courier from London who goes on an improbable journey to Norway, to pick up a stuffed owl for a mysterious client.’ Reportedly just published; is he paying Adams royalties?

The second half was Beethoven’s equivalent of the Fast Ride, the seventh symphony which, mythically, inspired Weber to write that it was ‘evidence that its composer had lost his mind’, and, Friedrich Wieck (father of Clara Schumann) maintained that ‘the music could only have been written by someone who was seriously intoxicated’. But see below…

The orchestra is taking its period authenticity commitments seriously: here with 18th century style timpani, or kettledrums as they used to be called; a bit sharper in impact and not as opulent. Otherwise normal, double winds, though four horns, two trumpets and no trombones.

The orchestra size and De Waart’s speed intensified rather than reduced its keen-edged impact, that heightens the sense of being slightly unhinged; perhaps Weber could be forgiven if he’d heard a really fast driven performance. I imagine that we don’t know details of the speeds at which Salieri took its first performance in December 1813.

There are many quotable comments on this symphony, perhaps the most famous, Wagner’s who called it ‘the apotheosis of the dance’. But there were a few deaf critics; it was of the first movement that Weber is alleged to have written. But the authority Wikipedia dismisses it. It’s worth quoting:

‘The oft-repeated claim that Weber considered the chromatic bass line in the coda of the first movement evidence that Beethoven was “ripe for the madhouse”, seems to have been the invention of Beethoven’s first biographer, Anton Schindler. His possessive adulation of Beethoven is well-known, and he was criticised by his contemporaries for his obsessive attacks on Weber. According to John Warrack, Weber’s biographer, Schindler was characteristically evasive when defending Beethoven, and there is “no shred of concrete evidence” that Weber ever made the remark.’

It was in the second movement , a mere Allegretto, where there was a pause to catch breath. It was somewhat secretive, emerging into the light of day slowly. The third movement is not actually named Scherzo: merely Presto, with sharply contrasted moods in not closely related keys between the Scherzo A section, and Trio, B section; and there’s the quirky, teasing feeling in the unusual second and almost a third reappearance of the Trio. It came off brilliantly.

As did the last movement, with its sense of cosmic power and urgency, of ‘Bacchic fury’ (Donald Tovey), with its reputation as one of the most extraordinary compositions of all time. De Waart’s dynamic gestures were not the least exaggerated, the fierce down-beats, the writhing basses and cellos and the steadily rising crescendo as it wound its way through a seeming (but not actual, I’m sure) accelerando, to a finish that generated shouts and prolonged clapping.

One often wonders, presented with another performance of a Beethoven symphony, whether over-exposure will diminish its impact at one’s 37th hearing. But it didn’t this time, at least.

Mahler, Berg – and Salina Fisher, from the NZSO – music of innocence and experience

Posted on by Peter Mechen

SALINA FISHER – Rainphase
BERG – Violin Concerto “To the memory of an Angel”
MAHLER – Symphony No.1 in D Major “Titan”

Karen Gomyo (violin)
Edo de Waart (conductor)
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Friday 11th August, 2017

Spectres, once they’re established, can haunt the world of music for decades, for oceans of time, during which certain attitudes and values can be gradually eroded, or else further entrenched. The fact that each of this concert’s three items might well have reawakened specific “ghosts” lurking among the sensibilities of the NZSO’s many loyal supporters might well have accounted for the relative paucity of attendance (by my reckoning the hall was no more than two-thirds full).

In fact, two of these so-called “spectres” probably contributed far less to the numbers or empty seats than the one which I’ll come to in a moment. Time was when programming a piece of New Zealand music at a concert would ensure that a certain number of music-lovers stayed away. Nowadays, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that home-grown music, partly by dint of sheer persistence (thanks to various staunch advocacy from certain musicians and listeners) and partly due to its intrinsic attractiveness no longer “scares off” people to the extent that it used to do.

As for the music of Gustav Mahler, the composer was famously quoted at some point as saying in response to shafts of critical disapproval “My time will come”, a prediction which appears to have come true wherever Western symphonic music is regularly performed. It did take more than a decade after the then National Orchestra of the New Zealand Broadcasting Service was founded in 1946 for the ensemble to tackle a Mahler Symphony (the Fourth with conductor John Hopkins in 1958), though since then all the others, including the unfinished fragment of the Tenth, have been more-or-less regularly performed.

It’s interesting that Hopkins, according to Joy Tonks’ 1986 history, “The NZSO – the first Forty Years” – Reed Methuen), had to fight the Assistant Director-General of the then NZBC, John Schroder, to programme what the latter called “this long and boring music”…! – an indication of the extent at that time of the composer‘s “spectral” aspect in people’s minds. Now, it seems, concert audiences can’t get enough of Mahler, even though the presence of the First Symphony on the occasion of this concert didn’t help to make up for what appeared to be more potent misgivings on the part of a goodly number of patrons.

So maybe it was the presence of music by Alban Berg which could have been the crucial factor – though Berg was in many ways the least “hard-core-radical” of the famous Schoenberg/Berg/Webern trio whose work popularly defined the “Second Viennese School” of composition, his music is still regarded as “difficult” by association with his two contemporaries, enough, perhaps, to put off people of a less adventurous inclination from attending the concert. One woman sitting just down from me lasted ten minutes into the Berg Violin Concerto before she was gathering her things and was off – but at least she was prepared to give the music a try!

But what riches there were for those of us who stayed, firstly to marvel at the finely-wrought and freshly-contrived super-detailings of instrumental textures, timbres and tones of Salina Fisher’s miraculous new work Rainphase, and then to luxuriate in the miraculous contrivance of acerbic twelve-tone structurings interlaced with russet-coloured afterglowings throughout Alban Berg’s last completed work, his Violin Concerto. Both works required active listening of a kind which occasionally confronted rather than soothed the ear – and perhaps the Concerto might have attracted more people had there been a pre-concert talk of some kind, helping to shed some light in advance on some of the music’s ebb and flow. It was certainly a work which richly illustrated Berg’s teacher, Schoenberg’s dictum about there being “no such things as dissonances – merely more remote consonances!”

Beginning with Salina Fisher’s work, the first sounds were Keatsian in their “Fled is that music? – Do I wake or sleep?” quality, harmonic-like tones so ethereal and other-worldly – in point of fact, not unlike those at the very opening of the Mahler Symphony we were to hear later in the concert. The tones then multiplied and harmonically “clustered”, and seemed to initiate the process of a giant organism gently breathing, with still more textures and timbres joining in with the wonderment, and with percussion gradually becoming more prominent. The lower instruments provided a foundation while the lighter-toned sounds clustered, glowed and scintillated before receding into an almost transcendental world of gestural sonorities, for all the world becoming “naturalistic” in their textural and timbral explorations, sonorities best described by the words “swishing” and “murmuring” and “breathing” and “rippling” – all water-words describing both activity and aftermath.

Gentle string pizzicati turned the processses into a kind of promenade or dance – a “gavotte of the stormwater pipes”, or some such activity – with as much happening on the ground as there was in the air. Winds found their characteristic voices and intoned a kind of nature’s hymn, individual lines finding one another and growing in intensity, reaching what felt like a kind of fruition of a natural process, most satisfying to experience. Fisher’s assured instrumentation throughout these sequences made for breath-catching results in places, no more evocative than during the piece’s long drawn-out diminuendo, flecked with motifs of valediction. As strings and winds found a commonality and the textures dried slowly out, the piece magically returned to its origins, the ending surviving even the oddest irruption of vocalised noise from (one presumed) some audience member somewhere, made for whatever reason, accidental or intentional…….

Last year I had the good fortune to both hear and review a performance of Berg’s Violin Concerto here in Wellington played by Wilma Smith, well-remembered in Wellington as a former leader of the New Zealand String Quartet, as well as an ex-concertmaster of the NZSO, before her relocating to Australia in 2003. On that occasion Marc Taddei and Orchestra Wellington were the musical collaborators, so this time it was the NZSO’s and Edo de Waart’s turn, with the superb violinist Karen Gomyo, whom I’d previously heard playing the Beethoven Violin Concerto with the NZSO and Pietari Inkinen in June 2015. On that occasion Gomyo was a substitute for the newly-pregnant Hilary Hahn, and captured my interest with a reading of the great work which provided a distinctive and memorable experience.

Throughout the work’s opening Andante movement one would think that there was little the average concertgoer would find troublesome or unpalatable. It wasn’t music which “played itself”, and did require some concentration – but the rewards for listeners were considerable. Berg began the work with a series of open fifths alternated between the solo violin and various orchestral instruments such as the harp and the clarinet, Gomyo keeping her higher tones exquisitely pure, while squeezing more emotion from on the lower notes. After musing on the opening in exchange with muted brass, the soloist connected with the orchestral winds, taking part in both gentle, bitter-sweet exchanges, and a couple of trenchantly-delivered arched lines, throbbing with feeling.

Out of this the clarinets began the dance that ushered in the second movement. A somewhat angular figuration in places built up to some vigorous to-ings and fro-ings, with the peasant-like dance-steps tossed about, and the violin taking charge of the rhythm for a “this is how it goes” sequence. As if it had been playing quietly for a while and nobody had noticed, the solo horn suddenly introduced an affecting counter-melody which the muted trumpets then picked up – like a memory of long ago suddenly coming into focus! The composer when young had had an affair with a peasant girl, which produced a child and it was believed that this tune was a reference to that particular memory.

As well, Berg had already begun the concerto when he heard of the death from infantile paralysis of Manon Gropius, the daughter from a second marriage of Gustav Mahler’s widow, Alma, a girl he knew as Mutzi. The violin’s quixotic dancings in this movement seemed like the composer’s attempt at capturing for all time a young girl’s vivacity and sweetness, the music lightly evoking fond remembrance and nostalgic sadness, and watched over by guardians such as the stern tuba and a wraith-like pair of Sibelius-like clarinets. As the trumpet hauntingly sounded the folk-tune once again the soloist suddenly danced away, as if wanting to preserve the impulses of memory which brought happiness and escape from what was to follow.

Whereas the music had thus far been vivacious and volatile on the one hand, and thoughtful and nostalgic on the other, the third movement’s opening produced a shock with its harsh ferocity – the stuff of nightmares come into the midst of contentment. Gomyo’s playing bit deeply into the music’s textures like a wounded animal, then withdrew into hiding, accompanied by spectral tones from the oboe and flute, the music feeling “cornered” and subdued, the textures slightly “ghoulish” , the lines from the soloist suspended in space. With another irruption welling up from below, the music appeared in utter turmoil, the solo violin screaming in agony and despair, and the brass in ghoulish-march mode. The soloist’s tones were overwhelmed by the orchestra’s sheer weight and harshness – such horrible, merciless music!

Out of the vistas laid waste by the turmoil Gomyo’s violin sang resolutely to herself a strongly sustaining ascending line, one which the clarinets then took up and played with such beauty and poignancy – this was the chorale used by JS Bach in his Chorale “Es ist genug”, one which soloist and orchestra here made their own, playing it warmly and tenderly, resisting attempts by the individual instruments to drag the melody back to earth. As the strings sang the last vestiges of life, the soloist beautifully ascended the melody, to a point after which the winds and brass broke into radiant support of “the angel” of the music’s title, the silences at the work’s end carrying with them only her memory.

After these somewhat overwrought utterances, the opening of the Mahler Symphony which followed the interval seemed to take us back to the world of childhood, of first impressions of consciousness and the wonderment induced by nature and creation. De Waart and his players gave the music an almost timeless quality, the sounds here seemingly conjured out of the earth’s elements.The work’s many moments of reflective beauty brough out this performance’s most distinctive quality, an incrediby rapt, breath-holding sense of listening to the silences and the soft sounds in between. Writing this now, it all comes back to me so vividly – playing and conducting of the utmost concentration and refinement.

The work’s more bucolic passages were also rendered with an ease of utterance (more elegant than earthy, I felt, probably because the MFC isn’t renowned for its warmth and richness of sound). Apart from a brief (and uncharacteristic) first-movement woodwind slip, the orchestral playing was simply to die for, so much of the detailing heavenly in effect (the off-stage trumpets, for instance)! Had it all taken place in the Town Hall I’m sure this performance would also have heaved, grunted and roared all the more readily. As it was, the exquisite refinement of those soft passages (onstage brass performing miracles of quiet, withdrawn playing) gave the first movement’s peformance a distinctiveness of its own that won’t easily be forgotten.

De Waart’s second-movement country dancers moved briskly and easily, encouraged by the winds lifting the bells of their instruments as directed by the composer, and by the string players bouncing their bows on the instruments’ strings, adding to the rustic effect. A solo horn most elegantly called the dancers indoors for a more genteel waltz, the playing rich and velvety in effect, and the string-wind counterpoints to the dance a delight. The return of the countryfied Landler brought forth, among other things a splendid cymbal crash and, to the heads of all the dancers, a fine rush of blood at the end.

Timpani strokes, both eerie and purposeful, ushered in the third movement, a double-bass solo voicing the instrument’s spectral tones throughout a minor-key version of the folk-song Frere Jacques (apparently always sung that way in rural parts of Austria), counterpointed by a piquant oboe line, before giving way to the strains of a small klezmer band, almost offstage and passing by, in effect. Again, conductor and players achieved wonders with the quieter sections of the score, most notably the rapt, break-of-day beginning of the trio section of the movement with its near-heartbreaking quotation of the song “Die zwei blauen Augen” from the composer’s own Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen – here, the play of different emotion, the surge of hope and the minor-key pang of anguish from the original song was as affecting as with the original.

Out of the movement’s deathly hush at the end came a blaze of ferocity from the brass and a crash from the percussion that made everybody jump, launching the finale in no uncertain terms! Though the hall doesn’t give much back, the percussion section did a great job, Lenny Sakofsky punishing the cymbals for all they were worth and both Larry Reese and Thomas Guldborg fetching up great roaring avalanches of tone from each of the two sets of timpani. The movement’s ebb and flow was strongly characterised – the tumultuous flare-ups of excitement and agitation were tellingly counterweighted by the more inward, lyrical sequences, each mood in a sense “overtaken” by another in what seemed like an inevitable and organic progression of things. As for the final all-together, it most spectacularly featured the horn sectio “standing and delivering” as the music roared forth, driven by the timpani and upholstered by every orchestral section singing and playing its heart out.

As I’ve said, in the Town Hall we would have been overwhelmed by these sounds, perhaps even too much so for some people – but not for this writer. Conductor Edo de Waart made an interesting gesture with his actions immediately after taking his bows in front of an enthusiastic audience, by giving his bouquet of flowers to the double-bass player, Joan Perarnau Garriga, in acknowledgement of his restrained but telling contribution to the performance – maybe for de Waart those rapt, inward-looking sounds were the ones that enshrined the true soul of this remarkable music.

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.

Renowned Bach scholar and conductor Suzuki with fine baroque ensemble Juilliard415

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Masaaki Suzuki & Juilliard415
(Chamber Music New Zealand)

J.S. Bach: Orchestral Suite no.1 in C
Concerto for 2 violins in D minor
Cantata BWV 82a, Ich habe genug
Orchestral Suite no.3 in D

Michael Fowler Centre

Tuesday, 30 May 2017, 7.30pm

It is wonderful for audiences in New Zealand to welcome back Masaaki Suzuki, this time with an ensemble of students from the famous Juilliard School based at the Lincoln Center in New York.   The 18 instrumentalists came from 8 different countries.

Suzuki, as well as running his own choral and orchestral ensembles and teaching in Tokyo, teaches also at Juilliard.  He is a renowned Bach scholar and conductor, and Wellington audiences delighted in his performing with his musicians two Bach concerts in the 2014 Arts Festival.  His Bach Collegium Japan echoes Bach’s Collegium Musicum in Leipzig, for which some of these works were written.

The ensemble was led by Cynthia Roberts, a noted American baroque violinist.  She bowed, as did some of the other musicians, in baroque style, but I could not tell from where I was sitting if period-style string instruments were in use; the bows did not appear to be, and there was nothing in the extensive printed programme to inform the audience on these points, beyond reference to the historical performance program at Juilliard.

Perhaps this is an academic point; the playing under Suzuki’s hands was crisp, pointed and always strongly rhythmic, and undoubtedly historically informed.

The first orchestral suite was one I was not familiar with.  Its various movements, based on dances, numbered 11 (taking into account that there were two Gavottes, two Menuets, two Bourées and two Passepieds).  Bach added so much to these traditional forms; his musical invention made something new out of something old.  Their traditional metres and structures were preserved, making a work that provided great delight to the audience, and doubtless to the musicians also.

The concerto is a delightful three-movement work that provides plenty of challenges to the soloists, and much pleasure to the listeners.  The features of returning phrases (ritornelli) sections for the soloists and the intricate counterpoint made for a work of constant freshness and colour through the three movements: vivace, largo ma non tanto and allegro.  The conversations between the soloists were always full of interest, but I found their tonal qualities distinct from each other, with that of Karen Dekker, who played second violin, more pleasing than the thinner, at times even metallic, sound from Isabelle Seula Lee.  Nevertheless, their performance, and that of the ensemble, was always vigorous, with plenty of dynamic contrasts

The cantata was for me the highpoint of the concert.  It was first performed in Leipzig in 1727 and was written for a bass singer.  It is this version with which I am familiar, having a fine recording of the lovely aria ‘Schlummert ein, ihr matten Augen’ with Rodney Macann singing.  Bach did later versions for soprano and alto and substituted the flute for the original oboe.  The soloist, Rebecca Farley, is a Juilliard graduate, and has a lovely and expressive voice.  I felt that some sections of the music were a little low for her, and there, the notes did not carry well through the auditorium.  There was a short section where the soloist got slightly out of time with the players, and needed Suzuki’s particularly close attention.  By and large however, it was a superb rendition, the words beautifully articulated, and the sentiments of the three arias and two recitatives communicated without seeming effort.  A short vocal encore was a reward for the audience’s enthusiasm for the performance.

It was good to have the lights left on in the Michael Fowler Centre so that the printed words, with translations could be read (it doesn’t always happen!).  Throughout, the ensemble’s playing was sympathetic and supportive, the flute (baroque flute) obbligato in this version for soprano being a characterful contribution, from Jonathan Slade.  The programme note stated that this version ‘…retains the unfathomable yet affirming qualities of the original.’

The last work, consisting of five movements (or 7 counting two Gavottes and two Bourées) was more familiar territory.  After the stately Ouverture, came the well-known Air (often mistakenly called ‘Air on the G String’).  It is deservedly popular, its calmly beautiful procession of notes is supremely serene and exudes quiet confidence.  I did miss the brass in the later movements – our ensemble consisted of strings and woodwind plus harpsichord.

The woodwind players at all times made a huge and delicious contribution to the works in which they played.  All the players made a big contribution to a concert of rich music that entranced the audience, but it is perhaps not unfair to credit particularly the guiding hand and ideas of their distinguished conductor.