Tag: vocal

Mulled Wine at Paekakariki: singing with cello and piano

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Handel arias: ‘Cara speme’ (Giulio Cesare), ‘Credete al mio dolore’ (Alcina); Schubert: ‘Du bist die Ruh’, Suleika and Suleika’s 2nd Song;

Dorothy Buchanan: The Man who sold goldfinches (to words by Jeremy Commons);

Fauré: ‘Après un rêve’ for cello and piano, songs ‘Clair de lune, Nell’, ‘C’est l’extase’. ‘Notre amour’; Duparc: ‘Chanson triste’, ‘Extase’, L’invitation au voyage; Poulenc: ‘C’, ‘Fêtes galantes’.

Rhona Fraser (soprano), Richard Mapp (piano), Paul Mitchell (cello)

Paekakariki Memorial Hall; Sunday 29 March 2009

Once a railway township and down-market beach settlement, Paekakariki has become an artists’ haven in recent decades, with good reason, for it has most of the virtues sought by those for whom material goodies are not a priority. The sea, wide coastal open spaces, mountains to the east, the home of a railway preservation society and a nearby tramway museum, both with functioning trains and trams together with a bravely preserved and restored railway station, perhaps the last survivor of the grand refreshment stations from the tragically devastated passenger network that we now need more than ever; and of course, the presence in the village of others of like minds and values.

Let’s focus on the music.

At the concert’s heart was a newly written collaboration between opera historian and occasional impresario and librettist Jeremy Commons and composer Dorothy Buchanan. They have worked together before, notably in another Mansfield opera, an opera trilogy based on three of her stories. This time Commons combed the Wellington stories for words, impressions, events and the very words of the stories and on which she may have reflected in her last days in the institute run by the probable charlatan (though her biographer Anthony Alpers thought not) Gurdjieff, near Fontainebleau.

The result was a sort of prose poem, The Man who Sold Goldfinches, that Buchanan set to music that I felt rather failed to ignite, to achieve memorableness: perhaps the emphasis on the obvious phrase about the goldfinches rather revealed a struggle to find musical inspiration.

Yet the setting had its integrity, accompanied sensitively, appropriately, by Paul Mitchell’s cello (Katherine herself played the cello), and it was that, as much as the perceptive singing of Rhona Fraser that sustained interest through the performance.

The rest of the concert was a happy opportunity to hear an under-exposed singer whose career has included singing with English National Opera and elsewhere in Europe. Since returning to New Zealand I’ve heard her, notably, as Galatea in New Zealand Opera’s production of Handel’s masque Acis and Galatea a few years ago. 

It indeed included a couple of dramatically sung Handel arias: ‘Cara speme’ from Giulio Cesare and ‘Credete al mio dolore’ from Alcina, drawing some too strident high notes not well treated in the hard acoustic of the hall. The other songs – Schubert, Fauré, Duparc, Poulenc – were beautifully sung, with considerable dynamic variety and tonal colour, none more brilliant than Poulenc’s Fêtes galantes. Her encore, the lovely ‘O mio babbino caro’ from Gianni Schicchi, simply posed the question why she is not in high demand by our opera companies.

 

 

 

Adam Chamber Music Festival, Nelson

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Floating Bride

Songs, violin sonata and piano trio by Fauré, Harris, Elgar, Brahms

Jenny Wollerman, Piers Lane, Douglas Beilman, Helene Pohl, Rolf Gjelsten

Nelson School of Music, Saturday 31 January

Piers Lane is a top international pianist and he should fill a house of reasonable size anywhere in the world. Here he did not play solo and was happy to be simply a collegial musician: he accompanied singers, a violinist and took the piano part in a trio. But his presence, his modesty and ready collaboration as equal partner with other musicians were a constant delight.

It opened with Jenny Wollerman singing, first, three Fauré songs: Les roses d’Ispahan, Au bord de l’eau and Après un rêve. There was a little much graininess in Wollerman’s voice in the first but her normal purity of tone returned in the second; for the third, her voice was perhaps a bit too wide awake to portray her state on waking from a dream.

Then came Ross Harris’s new song cycle, The Floating Bride, The Crimson Village, settings of poems by Vincent O’Sullivan that were inspired by paintings of Chagall; a project that Harris had himself suggested to O’Sullivan. They were sung most skillfully and imaginatively by Jenny Wollerman whose discreet gestures and body movement – in The Dancer for example – helped her interpretation: and though the settings did not always aim to reflect the sense or feeling of the words, they often created visual images that were surprisingly evocative of Chagall’s paintings.

The piano part was quite elaborate, sometimes even, as in The Ladder to the Moon or Give me a Green Horse, drawing the attention away from the voice and Lane did them proud with careful, detailed handling.

Piers Lane’s next job was to play Elgar’s Violin Sonata with Douglas Beilman. This late piece, of the vintage of Elgar’s Piano Quintet and the String Quartet, demands warm and passionate playing and it flourished with Beilman’s flawless performance on his opulently-toned instrument and Lane’s fluent and commanding playing, from the dramatic to the feathery and lyrical. The thoroughly prepared, beautifully balanced partnership made it something of a revelation both to those familiar with it and to others.

In Brahms’s Second Piano Trio Lane was joined by Helene Pohl and Rolf Gjelsten; the opening passage was magically subdued but there was full-blooded playing later in the movement and a sparkling, quirky Scherzo. For all Brahms’s alleged antipathy to the Romantics around him, this work proves he’s a fully paid-up composer of his age of high Romanticism.

The riches of the entire concert reinforced the disappointment that it had not attracted the full house that it deserved.

New Zealand Opera School, Wanganui

Posted on by Lindis Taylor
New Zealand Opera School, Wanganui

Grand Final Concert in Royal Wanganui Opera House. Monday 12 January

Review by Lindis Taylor

The survival of a musical organization over 16 years is no mean feat.

The New Zealand Opera School has survived that long. It is the kind of musical education institution that the State, in a more civilized country, might well provide; in fact it is not too much to expect that such a summer course might have been established by a university music department.

But the State in New Zealand has not taken many steps to make fuller and more imaginative use, of their facilities during vacations.

A summer school of singing has flourished for many more years in Hawke’s Bay and it has usually overlapped with the Wanganui school. A few years ago attempts were made to coordinate the two schools so they would not clash. But it proved impossible because both depend on overseas vocal tutors who typically have only a short time free at the beginning of January to travel to New Zealand.

But each school caters for singers at rather different levels and pursuing different singing ambitions. The National Singing School in Napier caters for jazz and music theatre and cabaret singers while the Wanganui school has confined itself to singers who have already made progress up the ladder, even having won roles in professional opera productions.

Thus the big public concerts at the end of each school has been an opportunity to hear a number of our most promising singers at an interesting stage of their training and early career.

So often it is one person who has had the energy and leadership skills to initiate and hold together valuable enterprises, inspiring others and giving them a sense of involvement and satisfaction.

That has been the gift of Donald Trott since the school began: erstwhile banker, but better known as a baritone with the Perkel Opera Company and long-serving board member of successive Auckland opera companies.

He presides over the whole enterprise, recruiting tutors and accompanists, negotiating with Wanganui Collegiate School for the use of their music facilities, but most importantly persuading potential funders that here is by far the best investment for funds that shareholders can do without.

His public face appeared on this occasion as compere and general factotum, suave, debonair, generous in his acknowledgements and encouragement, ensuring that the success of the evening brings its rewards to everyone who gives their time to it.

Guided by British vocal lecturer Paul Farringdon, several notable New Zealand voice teachers (Margaret Medlyn, Barry Mora, Richard Greager) and others such as stage director Sara Brodie and Italian coach Luca Manghi, the concert is no mere string of arias.

Several others made for the great success of this concert and the entire running of the school: most notably Donald Trott’s assistant director, Ian Campbell, his wife Sally Rosenberg and Bryan and Marion Wyness; the accompanists, a different one for each bracket: Greg Neil, Phillipa Saffey, David Kelly, Francis Cowan, Iola Shelley and Bruce Greenfield; long lists of sponsors and benefactors; and a group of friends who have managed to raise the school’s profile in the city through recitals, masterclasses, a chapel service on Sunday, during the school: Wanganui Opera Week..

Each bracket of arias or ensembles had a theme and various devices were used to move from one item to the next, so that a feeling of a tenuous story was sometimes created.

The Spoils of War opened with Frances Moore’s performance of ‘Chacun le sait’ from La fille du régiment, accompanied by a platoon comprising the whole company, bearing arms. In another scene involving guns, Jason Slade brought a nice baritonal quality to the tenor showpiece in the last act of Tosca, ‘E lucevan le stelle’. But Catherine Leining captured the false sincerity well in the usual aria from Samson et Dalila, not that it really suited her.

Each group was separated by theatrical business: here, before the group entitled The Things we do for Love, Luc Manghi suffered the first of his comic misadventures which led to Rachel Day’s effective performance in Monica’s aria from The Medium, which was enlivened with quite elaborate production elements.

Elizabeth Daley was not well advised to tackle Ilia’s role in Idomeneo – ‘Zeffiretti lusinghieri’, as it simply calls for more intensity than she can summon now, but is certainly within her reach. From Mozart’s last opera seria, La clemenza di Tito, Felicity Smith displayed some polish and dramatic ability with her ‘Parto, parto’.

The group bearing the name Desire Takes Flight strung together Claire Barton’s performance of ‘O mio Fernando’ from Donizetti’s La favorite and others by Granados (Anna Argyle singing the ‘The Maja – Woman – and the Nightingale’) and Bizet: Brent Read in the Flower song from Carmen.

Then Julia Booth sang an unfamiliar aria from Floyd’s Susannah, invoking tender longing in a quasi-American, near-Broadway idiom. She sang against a backdrop of a starry night sky which also served the quartet from A Midsummer Night’s Dream that showcased four of the evening’s best singers: Kristen Darragh, Barbara Graham, Daniel O’Connor and Michael Guy.

Each expressed the individuality of the lovers, waking from their dream-world of love-making, with careful fairy-like precision.

Naturally, some of the best performances came from seasoned singers like Darragh who will be remembered as Xenia in Boris Godunov: her Lucretia (Britten) was as harrowing as it was fully realised. Michael Guy also sang from an opera in English – Toni’s ‘Here I stand’ from Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, combining a Shakespearean style with a sort of histrionic Sprechstimme that was one of the most complete performances of the evening.

The second half began with A Rose by any other Name which put together three arias from Shakespeare-inspired operas.

Two of them were from famous versions of Romeo and Juliet (though the Bellini draws not primarily on Shakespeare but on the 16th century Italian sources that Shakespeare took the story from). Gounod’s ‘Je veux vivre’ was sung with great vivacity by a perhaps Natalie Dessay-in-the-making, Tania Priebs. Barbara Graham sang ‘O quante volte’ from I Capuleti e i Montecchi, displaying a promising bel canto talent: agile and soulful with beautiful sustained lines.

There followed a rarity; the overture of Nicolai’s Merry Wives of Windsor and Falsaff’s drinking song are well-known, but nothing else seems to escape Germany where the opera is still common enough. Alexandra Ioan gave us ‘Nun eilt herbei’, the equivalent of Mistress Ford plotting revenge, in a stylish blend of French opéra-comique and Donizetti.

Under the ‘etiquette’ From Russia with Love, most of the men on hand gave us the unusual experience of hearing arias from all three male protagonists in Eugene Onegin. Daniel O’Connor was a somewhat too unsympathetic Onegin as he declines Tatyana’s overtures, though his singing was indeed very fine; William Parry sang the unfortunate Lensky’s aria before the fateful duel, his voice accurate but not yet well grounded. Prince Gremin’s aria was sung by the splendid Hadleigh Adams, with warmth and vocal assurance.

The last group was entitled Ah! Perfidy, though Louise’s famous aria does not seem to fit into such a characterisation. It was sung prettily enough by Polly Ott. The last item was Eboli’s famous aria from Don Carlo: ‘O don fatale’ from Rachelle Pike, whose voice is big and given to too much fortissimo, though it was clear she had good dynamic control when she chose.

The entire assemblage went through entertaining stage business to perform the Papageno/Papagena duet from The Magic Flute to bring the evening to a most appropriate close.

 

 

 

 

J.S.BACH – Christmas Oratorio

Posted on by Peter Mechen

J.S.BACH – Christmas Oratorio
(Cantatas 1, 2 & 3)
Nicola Edgecombe (soprano)
Andrea Cochrane (alto)
John Beaglehole (tenor) / Peter Russell (bass)
Douglas Mews (continuo)
The Chiesa Ensemble
The Bach Choir of Wellington
Directed by Stephen Rowley
St.Andrew’s-on-the-Terrace, Wellington

Sunday, 14th December 2008

Surely the first couple of pages of J.S.Bach’s “Christmas Oratorio” rate as one of the great musical openings – timpani calling everything to attention, flutes and oboes trilling joyously, and trumpets resounding with fanfares, heralding the festive approach of the processional, with its message of “praise, joy and gladness”. St.Andrew’s-on-the- Terrace reverberated with such glad sounds on Sunday afternoon, instrumentalists and choir launching into the work’s opening with great gusto under the energetic direction of Stephen Rowley, a name new to me, but obviously a conductor capable of getting an energetic and committed response from his musicians.

In general both the Bach Choir’s singing and the Chiesa Ensemble’s playing gave enormous pleasure throughout each of the three cantatas. The opening movement featured some splendid “trumpets and drums” moments from the players, and singing from the choir which had attack, precision, energy and great variety throughout. Stephen Rowley got from his forces both the music’s ritualistic grandeur and its excitement, pacing the three parts of the work admirably through the contrasts afforded by movement and stillness, ceremony and reflection.

In a venue which emphasised immediacy and visceral impact of sound, the music and its performance made a stirring impression. Particularly memorable was the choir’s singing of the more reflective chorales, from “Wie soll ich dich empfangen” in the first cantata, to “Ich will dich mit Fließ bewahren” in the third. But there was warmth and splendour in abundance as well, for instance in the work’s final chorus “Herrscher des Himmels” (Ruler of Heaven), where conductor and voices managed a nice differentiation between gentle and full-throated vocal lines at a tempi that allowed maximum articulation. Only in the angelic chorus in the second cantata “Ehre sei Gott in der Höhe” (Glory to God) did I feel the need for a bit more word- projection – the lines, though nicely dovetailed, didn’t quite scintillate with enough vocal excitement, so that we weren’t quite caught up in the bubbling wonderment of it all as we ought to have been.

As for the Chiesa Ensemble’s playing, the instrumental sounds pinned back our ears right from the opening chords, drumstrokes and wind-and-brass fanfares, all of which were delivered with infectious energy and superb focus. Equally telling was the quality of the obbligato work throughout, strings and winds supporting the vocal soloists unerringly, supporting and colouring the ambience of each episode with beautifully-phrased playing. With the Sinfonia that began the second cantata the music seemed to take a while to cohere between instrumental groups, but in general the players realised all of the score’s rhythmic and textural complexities with great élan, strongly supported by eloquent continuo-playing from Eleanor Carter (‘cello) and Douglas Mews (organ).

Each of the four soloists had challenges aplenty to tackle, with old Bach writing for his solo voices as if they were instruments with effortless range and limitless resources of breath! Tenor John Beaglehole threw himself into his recitatives as though his life depended upon the outcome, and his clear sense of line, of putting across the narrative’s meaning fully engaged his listeners, even though his delivery showed occasionally strained notes. Despite getting a bit out of synch with his accompaniment at one point in the second cantata’s “Frohe Hirten, eilt” (Happy shepherds, hurry), he made a good fist of the difficult runs in this aria, and worked mellifluously with Nancy Luther-Jara’s solo flute throughout. Alto Andrea Cochrane used her rich tones to beautiful effect in the slower music, never more so than in the second cantata’s “Schlafe, mein Liebster” (Slumber Beloved), where her long-held opening notes coloured the music’s textures magically. She also brought off the last, and somewhat treacherous run of “Wo wir unser Herz erfreuen”, in the aria’s middle section with determination and confidence, though she occasionally lost some of her poise and projection in numbers such as “Schließe, mein Herz” in the third cantata, where more warmth in the tone was needed.

Soprano Nicola Edgecombe and bass Peter Russell had a fine time with their duetting in the first and third cantatas, the first a lovely dialogue “Er ist auf Erden kommen arm” with the soprano’s chorale light but true against the bass’s focused and properly weighted recitative “Wer will die Liebe recht erhöhn”. The second, “Herr, dein Mitleid” featured nicely “sprung” rhythms and finely-sustained lines from both singers, with great teamwork at “Deine Holde Gunst und Liebe”, delivered against a backdrop of beautifully- voiced oboe accompaniment. Peter Russell, in his several solo arias, demonstrated his usual intelligently musical responses to words and music, retaining his balance and momentum even when the highest notes seemed just beyond his reach. The three cantatas were played without a break, making for a rich hour-and-a-half’s concert whose proportions seemed well-nigh perfect for a pre- Christmas Sunday afternoon – for the goodly crowd which attended, it proved a delightful and rewarding musical experience. (PM)

Opera Society’s year-end gala concert

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Opera arias and Liebesliederwalzer, Op 52 by Brahms

The New Zealand Opera Society, Wellington Branch.

Year End Gala Recital with Madeleine Pierard (soprano), established and rising singers accompanied by Bruce Greenfield and Julie Coulson.

National Library Auditorium, Wednesday 10 December 2009

The New Zealand Opera Society is one of New Zealand’s longest-lived musical institutions, founded at the same time as the first home-grown opera company, the New Zealand Opera Company, in 1954. Its purpose was to be friends of the company. The company died in 1971, but the society knew that it still had a job to do, supporting opera wherever to emerged in New Zealand. It has survived one other major national company, based in Auckland, which lasted a mere three years.

Since the 1970s the society whose main strength was, and still is, in Wellington, it publishes the monthly magazine, New Zealand Opera News and its Wellington Branch presents regular recitals and opera events of many kinds. In recent years it has also run screenings of opera on film and DVD but has struggled to attract audiences to live recitals.

Wednesday the 10th of December was a singular exception when there were few empty seats at the National Library auditorium.

The reason obviously, was Madeleine Pierard whose rise to celebrity has even overcome the general level of media neglect of classical music. Hardly out of her studies at the Royal College of Music in London, she has already been cast in significant roles at Covent Garden and other important opera houses. Back in New Zealand this past week, she has sung in the meretricious Paul McCartney concoction, Ecce Cor Meum as well as in a magnificent, full-house Messiah with The Tudor Consort in the Town Hall.

For the opera society she was in the spotlight with two brackets of arias.

The first comprised excerpts from opera seria: from works by Handel, Mozart and Rossini. The second bracket comprised ‘Mon coeur ne peut changer’ from Gounod’s Mireille and Marietta’s Lied from Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt.

Madeleine’s absolute command of style and technique held the audience spell-bound in the aria from Handel’s Alcina, ‘Tornami a vagheggiar’ Without denigrating the supporting singers, here was a star, not just in the making, but made, though there are areas in which she will develop, for example in cultivating greater warmth and lyrical qualities. In the strange artificiality of Handelian belcanto, she brought an electrifying dramatic sense, utter security, agility and brilliance. In music closer to recognizable human emotions, in the aria ‘Deh se piacer mi vuoi’ from Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito: there was fury and ambition. It was interesting to hear her mezzo soprano range still strong and natural. Finally, in Rossini’s famous Semiramide aria, ‘Bel raggio lusighier’, she demonstrated a virtuosity that I would risk saying might be unmatched by any other New Zealand singer.

Madeleine moved onto Kiri Te Kanawa territory with Marietta’s Song from Die Tote Stadt: very different indeed: the velvet and lyricism replaced by a crystalline, almost spectral quality which captured the opera’s decadent, Freudian obsessiveness.

Finally, a welcome exposure of Gounod’s other opera – Mireille, some rank it ahead of Roméo et Juliette as his second finest work. This aria, ‘Mon coeur ne peut changer’ has been recorded by Malvina Major on her CD Casta Diva. Madeleine sang it with the right combination of wistfulness and sparkle.

The concert was by no means simply a showcase for Ms Pierard however.

Georgia Jamieson Emms opened the evening with Norina’s ‘Quel guardo il cavaliere’ from Don Pasquale, with a degree of uncertainty in both style and panache, but her later arias – The Queen of the Night’s Act I aria and Zerbinetta’s stratospheric aria from Ariadne auf Naxos, displayed considerable flair both vocally and histrionically.

The other solo performances were from Daniel O’Connor, a young baritone who has acquired a natural ease of delivery and attractive stage presence. The notes of ‘O du mein holde Abendstern’ (Tannhäuser) may not be hard to find, but it can be a dull and stiff affair; with O’Connor it was anything but that, and there was an intelligent grasp of the Wagner idiom. Then he sang Onegin’s Act II aria, in fine Russian, with a proper degree of empathy and gentleness. Perhaps he is on the same path as T T Rhodes.

Barbara Graham is a young singer who, like O’Connor, has been on the New Zealand Opera‘s emerging artist programme. She had both the personal assurance and the musical talent to carry off, if not at especially breakneck speed, the brilliant ‘Glitter and be gay’ from Candide.

Throughout, the singers had the benefit of the most sensitive and finely judged accompaniments from Bruce Greenfield. His page turner throughout the recital had been Julie Coulson who eventually took a seat at the treble end of the keyboard to share the duet accompaniment for Brahms’s Liebesliederwalzer. None of the young featured singers took part in that performance: instead four of Wellington’s leading resident singers joined forces: Lesley Graham, Linden Loader, Richard Greager, Roger Wilson.

Individually, they brought life and affection to these somewhat pale imitations of what Johann Strauss II was wowing the world with at the same time (to be fair, Brahms did call them ‘innocent little waltzes’ to make clear that he did not aim to ape Strauss, whom he greatly admired); but as a vocal ensemble, their voices were not particularly engaging. It does not reflect on individual vocal qualities, but could as easily happen if you put together four of the world’s greatest singers: the art of selecting voices and managing them so that they blend is a delicate matter, and the smaller the number of singers the more difficult the job.


Nota Bene – A Snow-Free Christmas

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Nota Bene – A Snow-Free Christmas
Nota Bene Choir
Guest Conductor: Peter Walls
Carolyn Mills (harp)
Frances Moore(soprano)
Peter Barber (viola)
Fiona McCabe (piano)

Sacred Heart Cathedral, Hill St.,Wellington

Saturday 6 December 2008

A couple of nights after being mightily impressed by the singing of the Tudor Consort at a recent “Messiah” I must confess to being even more taken with the performances by Christine Argyle’s wonderful choir “Nota Bene” at the group’s recent concert “A Snow- Free Christmas”, conducted by Peter Walls, and given at the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Wellington on Saturday night (December 6th).

The Hill Street Cathedral has the double virtue of intimate audience/performer proximity within a relatively voluminous space, and we audience members certainly reaped the benefits of both of these characteristics throughout the concert. This sense of involvement in an occasion was underlined at the beginning and end of the opening work, Britten’s “A Ceremony of Carols”, which featured the entrance and exit of the all-female choir singing the traditional Christmas Motet “Hodie” – such a scalp-tingling effect at the start, those distant voices drawing nearer and nearer, bringing with them all the excitement and expectation of something festive, rich and satisfying.

Britten’s work was just one of the evening’s “Christmas” offerings, but it was among the most significant – and its performance, I thought, did the music full justice. The women’s voices of Nota Bene may have lacked the sheer animal vitality of some of the boys’ choirs whose performances I’ve heard of this piece on recordings, but the beauty and purity of their singing for conductor Peter Walls made for some breath-catching moments in places. Aided by some of the most atmospheric and diaphanously-woven harp- playing in this piece which I’ve ever heard, from Carolyn Mills, the choir encompassed every aspect of Britten’s wonderfully variegated settings, moving easily and tellingly from the vigour of “Wolcum Yole!” to the rapt beauty of “There is No Rose”, and beautifully integrating the use of solo voices with the contrasting amplitude of the larger group in numbers such as “Balulalow”. In the previous setting for solo voice and harp, “The Yonge Child” I was struck during this performance by how Britten manages to conjure up sounds that are at one and the same time so new and yet so old, speaking to our time, yet perfectly in accord with the medieval texts favoured by the composer.

Perhaps the choir’s singing of “As Dew in Aprille” might have had a touch more “swing” in its melodic trajectory at the climax to achieve absolute rapture, but amends were made with the tumbling energies of “This Little Babe”, and later a fine sense of almost pagan abandonment in those cries of “Deo gracias” that concluded “Adam Lay I-Bounden” most satisfactorily. Carolyn Mills’s incomparably sensitive realisation of the solo harp interlude was followed by a setting which could be described as the work’s dark heart, “In Freezing Winter Night”, with the choir’s anguished insistence on a repeated high-lying phrase heightened as the music moved up half-a-tone at the climax towards even colder and more forsaken realms, the emotional “squeeze” expertly managed by all.

Solace came with lovely duetting in the “Spring Carol” and a joyous feeling of homecoming in the excitable “Adam Lay I-Bounden”, before the performers took their leave as they had come. After the interval, we were treated to some attractive, intriguingly inter-connected Christmas music manifestations – firstly, listening to Michael Praetorius’s seventeenth-century arrangement of “Es ist ein Ros entsprungen”, and then a twentieth-century “take” of the same carol, arranged by Jan Sandström (the “Motorcycle Concerto” man, as Peter Walls gleefully pointed out to us, reminding us of the NZSO’s recent performance of this work with trombonist Christian Lindberg). Untutored, one would be hard put to associate the latter music and composer with the sounds we heard here – the melody and words were exquisitely “floated” by a quartet of voices antiphonally placed in the choir loft over the top of rich choral humming vocalisations from below – an amazingly timeless effect, brought off most beautifully.

Another set of inter-related musical strands were woven by the performers with a performance of the 14th-Century carol “Resonet in laudibus” (some evocative bare fourths and fifths raising antiquarian goosebumps), then relating the melody to the 17th- Century Lutheran Chorale “Joseph Lieber, Joseph mein”, both carols associated with the medieval practice of “rocking” a cradle during services. As Brahms used this same melody in the instrumental parts of his “Geistliches Wiegenlied”, soprano Frances Moore, violist Peter Barber and pianist Fiona McCabe then performed this song with sensitive teamwork and winning and nostalgic atmosphere.

Francis Poulenc’s attractive “Quatre motets de Noel” challenged the choir in all departments, and enabled them to shine – the opening “O Magnum Mysterium” demonstrated the voices’ flexibility over a wide dynamic range, and a capacity to deliver exquisite detailing; while the dialogues between shepherds and their questioners engendered a compelling story-sense in musical terms. Only the cruelly high soprano writing in “Videntes stellam” seemed to bring out the merest hint of strain, though the poise of the singing was unimpaired, with the evocative shifting harmonies of the concluding “Hodie” making for a rich and satisfying conclusion to the work’s performance.

Next were three traditional carols from France, Italy and Latvia – first, the enchanting French “Il est nè le divin enfant” captured our sensibilities with its lovely, droll rhythmic carriage, rather like dancing bagpipes or musettes in partnership with voices. Then came a different connection with another recent Wellington concert – the Italian carol “Quando nascette Ninno” shared the same tune as Handel’s “He shall feed his flock” from “Messiah”, this lovely performance gently scintillated by a jig-like tambourine accompaniment. Most distinctive of the three, however, was the Latvian carol “Dedziet skalu, putiet guni”, whose bell- sonorities and mesmeric rhythms built throughout agglomerations of groups of voices towards an enticing episode of filigree decoration from the sopranos that resonated within a bell-like finish – very nicely brought off! To conclude the concert we were treated to a New Zealand bracket of carols, featuring the work of Carol Shortis, Andrew Baldwin and Douglas Mews Senior. Carol Shortis, a Philip Neill Memorial prize-winner, is currently studying composition at the New Zealand School of Music, and Andrew Baldwin is composer- in-residence at Wellington’s Cathedral of St Paul. Both Shortis’ “I saw a Fair Maiden” and Baldwin’s “O Magnum Mysterium” demonstrated their composers’ skill and experience in writing for voices; while the older, and in some ways more adventurous and confident-sounding work of Douglas Mews Senior, “Snow-free Carols”, gave us three nicely differentiated Christmas settings from this collection, a Pohutukawa Carol with a tripping 6/8 rhythm, a meditative setting for two soloists and choir of Eileen Duggan’s poem “An Imprint of His Little Feet”, and a vigorous, coda- like call to action “Christmas Come In”.

An unscheduled, but wholly appropriate encore to the concert was a performance of the original setting of Franz Gruber’s “Stille Nacht” with guitar accompaniment, the old tune as moving and as evocative as ever, but made even more magically so as the culmination of Nota Bene’s seasonal feast of truly lovely singing. (PM)

Handel – MESSIAH – The Tudor Consort

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Handel – MESSIAH – The Tudor Consort
Madeleine Pierard (soprano)
Nicola Hooper (alto)
Edmund Hintz (tenor)
Hadleigh Adams (bass)
Tudor Consort
Vector Wellington Orchestra
Conductor: Michael Stewart
Wellington Town Hall
Thursday 4th December 2008

This was a “Messiah” performance that obviously caught the public’s imagination before a note had even been sounded in public, judging by the palpable buzz of excitement in and around the Town Hall beforehand, with queues of people waiting to be admitted a few minutes before starting-time. The Tudor Consort has always publicised its concerts cannily, and perhaps the presence of Madeleine Pierard as a rising young soprano star was also a drawcard – whatever the case, the choir, as well as the Wellington Orchestra people, must have been gratified by the near-full Hall.

Reading conductor Michael Stewart’s note in the programme beforehand, regarding the work’s history and different performance practices over the years, alerted one to the idea that this was going to be a performance of Messiah with its own distinction. In practice, this was very much the case – Stewart had obviously thought long and hard about the work and recent scholarship into performance style, so that this would definitely be something of a fresh look at a much-presented classic, far removed from a mere reproduction of the last hundred or so Town Hall performances over the years.

Obviously with the superb voices of the Tudor Consort at hand, the conductor had the singers able to fill out his conception of the music with real sounds, along with an orchestra at his disposal that has in the past proved a flexible, willing and highly skilled band capable of rising to the most demanding of challenges. The result was an energetic and totally committed performance from all concerned, that earned for the performers a sizeable ovation at the end from an extremely satisfied audience. Whatever criticism one might be inclined to make regarding this and that detail, the overall conception of the work had a conviction and overall sweep which couldn’t help but impress.

The over-riding impression one carried away from the evening’s performance was the obvious extent to which everybody – conductor, soloists, choir and orchestral players – gave of themselves to the music. Thus the story of the oratorio was put across with a considerable amount of energy and skill, atmosphere and colour, an upshot of the very physical way that all of the musicians seemed to engage with the business in hand. All of the four soloists had particular qualities to offer, even if only one of them, soprano Madeleine Pierard, possessed the technical and interpretative means to bring off triumphantly almost everything she wanted to do within her part. Each of the others began strongly, and had their notable moments – Edmund Hintz truly consoled our sensibilities with a lovely “Comfort Ye!” right at the beginning, Nicola Hooper similarly charmed with a nicely-turned “He shall feed his flock”, and bass Hadleigh Adams pinned our ears back with his blood-and-thunder “Thus Saith The Lord”, as well as negotiating “The People Who Walk in Darkness” with a growing sense of passing from a state of gloom and despair into one of hope and gladness.

Despite the difficulties encountered by tenor, alto and bass at various other moments, each had the ability to sustain the mood of the music and the sense of what was wanted, so that the musical argument was sufficiently maintained. By contrast, Madeleine Pierard’s singing was a joy throughout, an artist whose work came across with the confidence, élan and sparkling projection that informed whatever she sang – a truly class act. It was possible to feel just a touch of astringent tone in one or two places, particularly noticeable when she followed Nicola Hooper’s opening “He Shall Feed His Flock” – but by the time she had reached “I know that My Redeemer Liveth” her voice had all the focus, warmth and colour to do the music full justice.

Director of the Tudor Consort Michael Stewart controlled his forces expertly throughout, and secured an extremely vital and energetic performance. He got absolutely splendid playing from the Vector Wellington Orchestra, who weren’t spared by an insistence on fleet-fingered tempi and incisive rhythms whenever the score called for them. Yet the playing had an attractive gravitas in places as well – a fine performance, with lovely brass work in items such as “The Trumpet shall sound” and of course “Halleluiah”.

Which brings me to the Tudor Consort Voices themselves, who covered themselves in vocal glory, despite in places being asked by their director to negotiate the music at what I occasionally felt were speeds that reduced the music’s coherence. I felt that Stewart’s desire to “blow away the cobwebs” resulted in the quicker music being given an edge that was too insistent, to the point that some of the structure’s paintwork was blistered as well as the surfaces freshly cleaned. It was as though he was relying too much on speed rather than rhythmic pointing to generate momentum and excitement, at which times I felt cheated at not being able to experience the delight of listening to those strands interlocking together to produce an amazing and articulate musical structure.

For me the approach emphasised the energy and vigour of Handel’s writing at the expense of some of its grandeur – there were places where I thought the music under- characterised, as in “For Unto Us A Child Is Born”, where the cries of “Wonderful’ and “Counsellor” hardly “told” so as to provide a contrast with the delicious contrapuntal matrix of the opening.  The wonder is that the choir enunciated their lines as clearly as they did, but despite their skill I felt that some of the music was passing me as if in a blur. “And He Shall Purify” reminded me of high-speed trains crossing a network of lines in a complex operation that gave me more anxiety than pleasure – in some of the choruses (such as “He Trusted in God” and “Let Us Break Their Bonds”) a valid emotional response, but surely not as an all-purpose treatment of quick movements and numbers.

The famous “Halleluiah!” made its mark, though, partly because of the focused singing and playing, and partly because almost everybody in the hall stood up – “that hoary old tradition!” was one friend of mine’s reaction – but I loved jumping to my feet with everybody, because doing so heightened for me the whole evening’s sense of occasion, of ritual, even of participation in the performance instead of listening passively. Of course, long before the performance had reached this point, Michael Stewart, with his soloists, the Tudor Consort and the Wellington Orchestra had already swept all of us up in the ferment of music- making; so this was a kind of “word made flesh” moment of audience involvement, which was almost unanimously relished. In its way it was a spontaneous tribute to the performance as a whole, with Stewart’s “fresh perspective on a favourite work” receiving its proper, well-deserved due. (PM)

Wanganui Spring Music Festival September 2008

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Wanganui Spring Music Festival
Five concerts by Jenny Wollerman (soprano) Murray Khouri (clarinet) Simone Roggen (violin) Edith Salzmann (cello) Petya Mihlova and Phillip Shovk (piano)
Royal Wanganui Opera House, Wanganui
12th-14th September 2008

This review may be belated but because a rather important initiative was largely ignored by the main media – my own paper, for instance, declined to print this review – here are my impressions of the inaugural Wanganui Spring Music Festival in September. It took place in one of New Zealand’s most charming old opera houses, a wooden building dating from 1899. Though its interior has been somewhat modified in an art deco style, the exterior and the lobbies are original; a recent refurbishment has reduced the seating capacity from around 1000 to some 850, an ideal size for opera as well as for more intimate music. Music festivals are a growth industry in the northern hemisphere where musicians of all kinds have found a fruitful way of occupying the summer months (and sometimes other times of the year) and tens of thousands head to picturesque towns that have found a pretext for a festival in order to overcome the lack of good live music during the dry season.

Festivals have started to flourish in Australia, but New Zealanders have been slow to catch on. Nelson, with its wonderful Adam Chamber Music Festival, has been New Zealand’ top classical music festival town since 1992. Next to Nelson as a festival candidate is Wanganui, with its history; its river, a good museum, and one of the country’ best art galleries: it was spared the worst impacts of 1980s growth with many century-old buildings remaining (though too many are still being lost); and of course there’s the 1899 opera theatre.

Wellington clarinetist Murray Khouri has been running a small, successful chamber music festival in Bowra, a small town south west of Sydney, with a population of alternative life-stylers, artists and affluent refugees from the big city. A year or so ago Murray decided to try a similar festival in a comparable New Zealand town. Wanganui seemed to have the necessary attributes, not too close to or too far from a couple of major cities. It’s the sort of town that, in the northern hemisphere at least, appeals to festival crowds. Though this first one failed to attract the crowds it deserved, particularly from the city itself, perseverance should pay off.

The festival ended with a famous piece of 20th century chamber music that exploited both the music’s character and its performance setting: Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time was a coup-de-theatre. A quartet for clarinet, violin, cello and piano, it has eight unique movements; at the end of the second, the lights went out and a half minute later a single spot fell on clarinettist Murray Khouri (doubling as festival artistic director), as he played the bird-song-inspired contemplation of sorrow and light. The performance was enhanced by other lighting and scenic elements. It brought the curtain down on the festival . There were five concerts over the weekend, the first of which was entitled Music in Miniature, offering an introduction to all the players through a series of small, attractive, sometime unfamiliar pieces such as Milhaud’s Jeux and Pierné’s Canzonetta. The players were three New Zealanders, an Australian, a Bulgarian and a German resident in New Zealand; Every concert held something special. There was a lot of Mozart, including two piano trios (K 502 and K 548); also Brahms’ second piano trio, with violinist Simone Roggen and cellist Edith Salzmann.

Two concerts were devoted to solo performers. Wellington soprano Jenny Wollerman is too little heard in her home town – many of the songs that she sang, by Mozart and Schubert, were familiar but the experience of hearing them sung with such intelligence and charm, and so delicately accompanied by young Bulgarian Petya Mihneva was like hearing them for the first time. As well as sharing the playing of several of the chamber pieces with rare subtlety, Australian pianist Phillip Shovk gave an entrancing recital: of what is probably Mozart’ best-loved sonata – in A, K 331 and the four Impromptus, Op 90, by Schubert, all overflowing with melody and spiritual profundity. If that were not enough, ten of Rachmaninov’ preludes from both Opp. 23 and 32 filled the second half. Though this first festival could have been better supported, it will surprise me if Wanganui’s attractions and the chance to hear top rate musicians in great and beautiful music does not bring much bigger audiences in future. Make a diary note for next year’ festival! (LT)