Tag: violin

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.

 

“Firebird” from Orchestra Wellington an incendiary experience

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Orchestra Wellington presents:
BEETHOVEN – Symphony No.1 in C Major Op.21
JOHN ELMSLY – Concerto for Violin and Orchestra
STRAVINSKY – The Firebird – (Ballet Suite 1911 – arranged by Jonathan McPhee)

Jun Hong Loh (violin)
Marc Taddei (conductor)
Orchestra Wellington

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday, 14th May, 2017

This was, in this best of all possible worlds, the best possible start to Orchestra Wellington’s “The Impresario” season, a beautifully-devised concert whose centrepiece was Igor Stravinsky’s 1910 Ballet “The Firebird”. This piece, commissioned by the Russian-born artistic entrepreneur Sergei Diaghilev for the Ballets Russes in Paris, began a collaboration between composer and impresario which was to produce three of the most famous ballets of the 20th century, the other two being “Petrushka” and “Le Sacre du Printemps” – both, incidentally, to be performed by Orchestra Wellington as well, during the year.

This concert had other unities, however, which brought the evening’s other pieces into play, the first being the direct influence of the master-pupil relationship on the works we heard. In the case of “Firebird” the pupil was Stravinsky and the master was his teacher, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Renowned as one of the great orchestrators, the latter’s influence upon Stravinsky’s score was everywhere apparent, with the “pupil” obviously keen to exhibit his inventive prowess in that aspect of creation. In later years Stravinsky was to deride his own youthful largesse, calling his orchestrations “wasteful”, and, in the various “suites” for concert purposes that he compiled, significantly “paring down” the scoring.

Joining this work on the programme were two others, one by Beethoven and the other by New Zealand composer John Elmsly. Beethoven was represented by his First Symphony, a work which owed a great deal to the influence of HIS teacher, Joseph Haydn, in terms of the music’s irrepressible energy and adventuresome spirit. The words of Count Waldstein – that Beethoven would “receive the spirit of Mozart from Haydn’s hands” were certainly made flesh in this symphony, even if the implication of the Count’s remark seemed to play down Haydn’s influence upon the young composer compared with Mozart’s. Certainly the most startling of the music’s features – its “wrong key” opening on wind instruments, its dynamic, scherzo-like Minuet and its teasingly playful finale – are indubitably Haydnesque touches.

As for John Elmsly’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, here was music by a seasoned composer who presently enjoys a reputation second to none in this country as a teacher of composition at the School of Music, at Auckland University. The process of the master-pupil relationship was thus presented here in reverse, with Elmsly’s music a focal point for what his students past and present could aspire towards in their work and creative thinking.

Another commonality shared by two of the three pieces was one of “breaking ground” – neither Beethoven nor Stravinsky had produced anything up to that time as significant or self-proclaiming as each of their works – Beethoven, his first symphony, and Stravinsky, his first full-scale ballet. Each was announcing to his respective world that he had truly “arrived” as a creative artist – and in each case the world sat up and took notice. Critical reaction to Beethoven’s work was invariably positive, with the words “masterpiece” and “originality” figuring prominently, though one critic complained of hearing “too much wind”, a remark the composer obviously reacted to strongly, as he increased the incidence of writing for winds in his Second Symphony!

Stravinsky’s work, according to dancer Tamara Karsavina, who danced the title role, met with what she called a “crescendo” of success, with both public acclaim and critical reaction at one – for one critic, the “shimmering web of the orchestra” reflected the “fantastic” stage-setting and the brilliant dancing. “Mark him well,” Diaghilev was reputed to have told his leading dancer – “he is a man on the eve of celebrity”. Another critic hailed Stravinsky as “the legitimate heir to the “Mighty Handful” – that group of Russian nationalist composers which included the composer’s former teacher, Rimsky-Korsakov.

What impressed most regarding the performance of the Beethoven Symphony we heard was its sheer focus, conductor Marc Taddei inspiring his players to produce direct, pin-pointed energies that brought out the essential “character” of each of the pieces movements. Everything was very up-front with clearly-terraced dynamics, the vigorous movements especially fast and challenging, and played with terrific point.

The timpani and brass were superb, making their presence felt throughout, and bringing their importance into prominence, rather than seeming merely like “extra reinforcements” as is sometimes the case. For some sequences the tempi were faster than I would have wanted – some passages, for me, took on a certain relentless aspect – but conductor and orchestra nevertheless made them work brilliantly. And the slow movement had a dance-like quality, but a singing kind of dancing! – the strings played their fugato-like passages as beautifully and crisply as one would want. The timpani came into its own during the scherzo-like Minuet, and then the Finale made us firstly hold our breath at the opening, with the “teasing” aspect of the strings’ scale passages, and then smile at the chattering, garrulous strings-and-winds exchanges elsewhere.

John Elmsly’s new Violin Concerto (2016-17) was given a spacious, free-spirited reading by the gifted Jun Hong Low, winner of the 2016 Gisborne International Music Competition. Certain parts of this work I loved unreservedly, practically the whole of the first movement, whose spacious, out-of-doors feeling was mirrored by the soloist, with his leaping and arching phrases, the music in places silky and sensuous (a quality that really appealed to me) and then leavened in other places by some playful vigour. But the music’s “lightness and delicacy” (to quote the programme note) with ambiences given breadth and depth by bell-chime sounds made the listening experience for me at once airborne and profound. The chimes sounded as if they could have been a kind of call to observance, something ritualistic and exotic and resonant.

The other two movements I enjoyed, but not as wholeheartedly – I didn’t feel a comparable oneness regarding the contributions of either the drum kit in the second movement or the bongo drums in the third, despite Brent Stewart’s advocacy in both cases. I’m sorry to say that I just didn’t “get it” – I couldn’t “connect” the percussion sounds with what the rest of the orchestra was doing. I continued to enjoy the soloist’s playing, and thought the orchestral strings and winds created some beautifully limpid textures in places during the “Meditation” movement – but I found the percussion “effects” something of a distraction. Obviously I needed to hear the work again , and “work harder” at aligning the different sound-spaces of each instrumental group, specifically that of the percussion. Having heard various raga over the years I thought I might respond more positively to the bongo drum rhythms as a variant of a tabla taal (rhythmic pattern) in the piece’s finale – but again I thought the sounds too disparate, even, to my ears, alienating – on the other hand the string- and wind-writing I greatly enjoyed, and was thrilled by the soloist’s response to the music’s intensities, especially during a somewhat trenchant cadenza, from which Jun Hong Loh emerged the victor!

The soloist obliged his audience with an encore which sounded familiar but ultimately eluded my recognition. I found out later that the piece was written by a friend of the violinist, a composer called Charles Yang, whose intention was to quote and rework a number of passages from various well-known violin concertos into a single piece for a solo violin – hence my “fled is that music – do I wake or sleep?” reaction to the material! The playing was virtuosic-plus-plus from Jun Hong Loh – spectacular double-stopping passages, fingerwork at breakneck speed, and counterpointed melodies in different registers between arpeggios. It was obviously a kind of “calling-card” for a virtuoso violinist, and as such enabled the performer to mightily impress!

After the interval came the Stravinsky work, here performed in a “reduced” version by the conductor/composer Jonathan McPhee. There’s obviously a demand world-wide for such versions, as I was able to read various on-line testimonials of praise for McPhee’s work made by artistic directors in various far-flung places. Usually the situation was that, without using McPhee’s “reductions”, these groups wouldn’t have been able to afford to hire extra players to be able to perform works like “Firebird” and “Le Sacre du Printemps” both of which are scored for larger-than-usual orchestras.

I was hard-pressed to notice much difference between the original and McPhee’s edition as performed here, even after my having heard several previous performances of the former “live” as well as a number of recordings. I hadn’t picked up from the programme anything concerning the “edition”, the only thing surprising me being the appearance of the spectacular brass glissandi during the “Infernal Dance of Kastchei’s Subjects”, which wasn’t in the original ballet score but which Stravinsky himself had added for one of the “suites” – but it could well be in the McPhee edition anyway. Obviously, when a performance is as intensely-focused and fully-committed as was this one, whatever reductions of numbers there are to orchestral personnel makes little or no difference to the outcome!

Thanks to the conductor’s and orchestra’s attention to detail and their expert pacing of the story’s ebb-and-flow, both the colourful and characterful theatricality of the ballet’s series of “tableaux” and the grip of the drama’s darker undercurrents kept our attentions riveted throughout. We were able to relish all the more the composer’s contrasting of the more folksong-like diatonic themes and cadences for the story’s human characters (Prince Ivan, and the thirteen captive Princesses) with the more chromatic and spectacularly iridescent music characterising the “supernatural” characters (the Firebird herself, and the ogre, Kastchei, and all of his followers.

It was certainly among the most spectacularly-realised performances by this orchestra that I’ve heard over the years, akin to that unforgettable concert a number of years back when Marc Taddei and his players almost lifted the roof off the Town Hall with their performance of Leos Janacek’s Sinfonietta. Whilst not absolutely note-perfect in places, the glitches were like “spots on the sun”, and there were many more moments to figuratively die for, such as the horn solo beginning the final “General Rejoicing” concluding sequence, magically realised by a guest player, Shadley van Wyk, substituting for an indisposed Ed Allen.

This, and so much else seemed to unfold in Marc Taddei’s hands at what seemed to us like a completely natural pace, the players confidently at one with the sheer wealth of orchestral detail and bringing off its stunning realisation with tremendous elan. Roll on the remainder of Orchestra Wellington’s Diaghilev Season! – at present it promises to be a truly momentous and memorable undertaking!

Successful violin and viola duo reveal rare Mozart and well-known Halvorsen

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Carolyn van Leuven (violin) and Sharon Callaghan (viola)

Duos by Mozart and Halvorsen’s Passacaglia after Handel

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 8 March, 12:15 pm

The names of the two performers at this lunchtime concert should no doubt have been familiar to me, as they have been on the Wellington scene on and off for a long time; both had played in the NZSO. Both have lived and studied overseas and now work in other fields in Wellington, though music clearly remains an important part of their lives.

The programme note explained that Mozart wrote these two duos for violin and viola (K 423 and 424) in 1783 to help out his friend Michael Haydn (Joseph’s brother) in Salzburg, when illness prevented him finishing a commission for six duos for the Archbishop. So they were presumably composed quickly, but there’s no evidence of haste in the melodic warmth and their level of interest, in the attractive way in which the ideas developed and in the fairly complex contrapuntal writing for the two instruments.

As they began the G major duo I had the impression that Van Leuven was under some pressure as her runs seemed a bit perfunctory. I continued to sense from time to time that she had not given the music quite as much attention as she might have, and that perhaps the two players had not found themselves in a comfortable space together. Within a minute or so such impressions disappeared and it was quickly clear that their instincts and fundamental musicality were guiding them very well.

In abstract terms, one can wonder whether such a duo will inspire really satisfying music, but any such doubts soon vanished as the close relationship with a string trio or even a string quartet seemed to assert itself. The two created a warm and spirited sound that seemed well anchored to human emotions. And Mozart’s interesting counterpoint made me want to explore, in comparison, the four duos that Michael Haydn did compose.

While the first and last movements of the first duo were spirited and filled with geniality, the middle movement, Adagio, was calm, in delightful contrast, and with less technical challenge, I thoroughly enjoyed the sounds of the two instruments. The notes drew attention to the viola’s slightly larger size that increased its richness, and Callaghan’s playing really drew attention to itself in the Adagio.

The second duo, in B flat, opened with a slow, meditative introduction, unison chords that quickly enriched themselves. In the Allegro part, passages of double stopping really extended the richness of the music, almost creating the sense of playing by three or four instruments, and the players delivered it with great accomplishment.

The piece concluded with a fairly elaborate theme and variations, in a determined vein, but which changed radically in mood with each variation; the players captured them most vividly.

Johan Halvorsen was a Norwegian violinist and composer; his Passacaglia of 1894 was based on a theme in the last movement of Handel’s harpsichord suite No 7 in G minor.(HWV 432). I’ve heard it played by several pairs of players over the past few years, sometimes in an arrangement for violin and cello. It combines a serious-minded theme with wide-ranging variations that both reflect that character but also offer a variety of contrasting emotions. It also calls for considerable technical talents, while maintaining thematic clarity and listeners’ attention. It’s a well-made piece that these players had mastered very successfully, which was particularly demonstrated in the accelerating, virtuosic race to the finish.

 

Impressive Kristallnacht commemoration in concert by Holocaust Centre and NZ School of Music

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Kristallnacht Holocaust Commemoration Concert

Music by Herbert Zipper, Mieczyslaw Weinberg, Lori Laitman, Boris Pigovat, Viktor Ullman, Laurence Sherr, Richard Fuchs and Gideon Klein

St James Theatre, upstairs foyer

Wednesday 9 November, 7 pm

Two days short of the marking of the World War I armistice, on 11 November 1918, another event took place in the country that had accepted an armistice, but not defeat, and whose sense of humiliation found expression 15 years later with the take-over of Germany by Hitler and the Nazis.

Evidence of a policy of violence against the Jews arose within days of the Nazis taking power in 1933, and the Röhm Putsch or Night of the Long Knives in June-July 1934 against the SA which Hitler felt had gained too much autonomy, demonstrated his proclivity for murdering perceived rivals. It presaged the wholesale attack on Jews and their homes, synagogues and businesses in November 1938, given the curious title Kristallnacht.

This concert was organised by New Zealand’s Holocaust Centre with its headquarters in the Jewish Centre on Webb Street, Wellington. Its chief aim is to educate children and the public about the Holocaust in particular and genocide wherever it happens, in general. This was the fourth of the planned annual concerts devoted to this subject.

Professor Donald Maurice and Inbal Megiddo of the New Zealand School of Music organised and introduced the concert. It began with the audience being rehearsed to sing the chorus of a Dachaulied, composed for fellow prisoners to sing, by one Herbert Zipper. He had been picked up after the Nazis arrived in Vienna on 12 March 1938 (the Anschluss), and miraculously survived through Dachau, then Buchenwald, and was finally released only soon to fall into Japanese hands, surviving and eventually reaching the United States, where he died in 1997, aged 93.

The song was led by Cantoris under Thomas Nikora and there was some participation by the audience.

Mieczyslaw Weinberg was born in Warsaw in 1919 and he was persecuted by the Nazis but escaped to Minsk during the war; his life changed after he sent his first symphony to Shostakovich who took him under his wing. His early years in the Soviet Union looked promising but increasing anti-semitism through the later 1940s virtually cut off his chances of becoming a professional musician. Only Stalin’s death in 1953 probably saved his life. He remained in the Soviet Union where his works began to be performed by leading musicans such as  Gilels, Leonid Kogan, Kondrashin , Rostropovich and Kurt and Thomas Sanderling.

He died in 1996. By the 1980s some of his works were being performed in other countries – The Portrait in 1983 at the Janácek State Theatre in Brno and at the Bregenz Festival in 2010; by Opera North and at Nancy in 2011.

The Idiot in Mannheim in 2013.

My first awakening to him was through reviews in British and French opera magazines of The Passenger, in 2010, at the Bregenz Festival where it was videoed and released on DVD. The same production was presented in Warsaw by Polish National Opera in 2010, and its UK première, in 2011, was at the English National Opera, broadcast live on BBC Radio 3. In 2013, its first German performance was at Karlsruhe; in 2014 in Houston and in 2015 in Chicago and Frankfurt.

In addition, much of his orchestral, piano and chamber music has been recorded.

So now, he is far from neglected. For a sample of recordings of his music, look at the Naxos catalogue: http://www.naxos.com/person/Mieczyslaw_Weinberg/18538.htm

Here Lucy Gijsbers, accompanied by Nikora played Weinberg’s Cello Sonata No 2 – the first movement. In spite of a certain meandering melodic obscurity, there was palpable emotional energy, momentum and a powerful sense of direction.

Three songs from Vedem, an oratorio by well-known American vocal composer, Lori Laitman, followed; it’s called a Holocaust opera. The songs were sung by Margaret Medlyn with Deborah Rawson on the clarinet and Jian Liu at the piano. Vedem means ‘We lead’ in Czech and it was the name of a magazine written by boys imprisoned at Terezin; the manuscripts were buried and retrieved after the war. Broadly tonal in character, the words and clarinet wove around one another, creating varied emotional experiences: unease, peacefulness, panic.

Boris Pigovat’s name is familiar in New Zealand through Donald Maurice’s friendship with the composer whose Holocaust Requiem for viola and orchestra got its second performance (world-wide) in 2008 in Wellington, from Orchestra Wellington and Maurice on the viola, cementing Maurice’s friendship with the composer. Atoll Records recorded it.

His Strings of Love was written specifically for Archi d’amore Zelanda, which consists of viola d’amore (Maurice), guitar (Jane Curry) and cello (Inbal Megiddo) – all principal tutors of their instruments at the New Zealand School of Music. The viola d’amore is a 14-string violin-sized instrument with seven playing strings and seven sympathetic resonating strings. Pigovat does himself a favour by writing in unpretentious, tonal language, in which the viola carried a big, aching melody, while guitar and cello move meditatively alongside, each instrument thus playing music that is idiomatic and natural to its character.

One of the concentration camp works that has had a notable, almost mainstream life is Viktor Ullman’s Der Kaiser von Atlantis oder Die Tod-Verweigerung (‘The Emperor of Atlantis or Death’s disobedience’); for example, there’s a production at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna in January. It was written in Teresienstadt; a biting caricature of Hitler, widely thought to have been composed in the full awareness that it would bring about Ullman’s murder. Four singers performed the Finale, a brief cynical deal struck between Death and the Emperor which allow the suffering people to be released through death. Truncated as it was, and involving the acerbic style characteristic of Weimar Germany, it was probably unrewarding for the singers (Shayna Tweed, Margaret Medlyn, Declan Cudd and Roger Wilson), as it was for the audience. In a complete, staged performance it presumably makes its impact.

Laurence Sherr’s Cello Sonata brought Megiddo and Liu back to play a piece based on Holocaust songs, at least two evidently from the Vilnius ghetto.

(Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, was grabbed by Poland in the fractious Russian-Lithuanian-Polish struggles after WW1 and so while Lithuania gained independence, with Kaunas the capital, Vilnius remained Polish till taken by the Soviet Union under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. In 1941 the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Lithuania again fell under German control, but with the final Soviet victory, Lithuania regained its integrity but it became a Soviet republic along with the other Baltic states, till 1991. Those traumas involved the almost complete massacre of Vilnius’s large Jewish population {around 1900 they comprised about 40% of the population}.)

The first movement echoed German music of the turn of the century, the second, overtly emotional, hinting at Bruch’s Kol Nidrei. A third movement was a set of variations: lyrical, energetic, ferocious, a martial episode, optimistic… Attractive music, splendidly performed.

Richard Fuchs lived from 1887 to 1947, was imprisoned in Dachau after Kristallnacht, but released, remarkably, after obtaining a visa to come to New Zealand: he travelled in 1939. Typically, he was interned by the New Zealand authorities as an enemy alien. His song, a setting of T S Eliot’s poem, A Song for Simeon, was composed in 1938 (even though Fuchs knew that Eliot was an anti-semite). It was the world premiere, typically revealing the disregard of Fuchs as a composer. The song had an air of high competence, of a composer of consequence, and baritone James Clayton and pianist Gabriela Grapska delivered a stunningly committed performance.

Finally, another Nazi victim, Gideon Klein’s String Trio, written just weeks before his transfer to Auschwitz and death. Klein was a Czech whose musical studies in Prague showed high talent, and Wikipedia shows an impressive number of compositions, several of which were written in Terezin where he was imprisoned from 1941. The trio was played by three NZSO principals: violinist Yuri Gezentsvey, violist Peter Barber and cellist David Chickering.  The trio had a strong folk music flavour, which seemed variously risky and untroubled, fateful, sombre, though the last movement offered little evidence of the time and place where it was composed. The performance was highly accomplished, appearing to reveal at certain moments, an unease, moments of hesitancy, but overall a determination to retain a degree of optimism.

This might have been an uneven concert in terms of real musical strength, though none was without merit. It achieved its purpose nevertheless, of marking one of the 20th century’s worst atrocities, through music produced by composers of rare talent and human resilience.