Tag: vocal

Delightful vocal recital from Takiri Ensemble at Waikanae

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Waikanae Music Society
Takiri Ensemble

Soloists: Maike Christie-Beekman (mezzo), Robert Tucker (baritone), Emma Pearson (soprano), Declan Cudd (tenor), Kirsten Robertson (piano)

Beethoven: Six songs for soloists
Mahler: Songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn
Poulenc: Priez pour paix (ensemble)
Quilter: Go Lovely Rose (ensemble)
Rossini: I Gondolieri (ensemble)
Copland: Three songs (ensemble)
Lauridsen: Three songs

Waikanae Memorial Hall

Sunday 2 August 2:30 pm

The journey by train to Waikanae to one of the Waikanae Music Society’s concerts is one of the real pleasures for Wellingtonians; especially bearing in mind that for those of a certain age, train is free. We keep running into people who are unaware of both the delightful train ride (enriched by the sight of endless queues of cars travelling south on the return journey), and the wonderful concerts themselves.

This was a departure from the chamber music recital: four singers plus pianist.

Beethoven
The first four songs, of Beethoven, exposed the four individual voices: Emma Pearson’s operatic scale voice singing the ‘Maileid’ (May Song), unseasonally perhaps, with an attractive, tremulous quality; then Maike Christie-Beekman in ‘Mollys Abschied’ (Molly’s Goodbye); her voice invested with sadness that faded right out at the end. Both were from Beethoven’s eight settings in his early 20s of Goethe poems (Op 52).

Robert Tucker will be remembered from his role as the King in Eight Songs for a Mad King in the Festival in February; he sang the next song, ‘Die laute Klang’, an 1815 song without opus number (WoO). Beethoven was totally deaf by that time and Tucker remarked that Beethoven had taken the liberty to change some of poet Herder’s words (Herder was a little older than Goethe, described as a philosopher and critic rather than a poet). His warm baritone voice produced a striking rendering of this serious song.

Tenor Declan Cudd sang ‘Der Kuss’, (a mischievous poem by not well-known Christian Felix Weiße, two decades older than Goethe). The main element, in hindsight, was Cudd’s teasing words “Lange, lange, lange” to describe the lady’s response to the uninvited kiss.

The last of the Beethoven songs was the duet ‘Lebens-Genuss’ sung by Pearson and Cudd; it was a ‘paraphrase’ of a text by the most prolific of all 18th century Italian opera librettists, Metastasio. The two voices might not have very compatible, but perhaps that was appropriate in this instance.

And it was time to note the beautifully gauged accompaniments throughout by Kirsten Robertson.

Mahler
Then there were five Lieder from Mahler’s cycle, Des Knaben Wunderhorn. They are taken from a famous eponymous collection of twelve, possibly not-entirely anonymous folk-songs, collected – part written by? – a couple of the many poets who flourished during the height of the German Romantic era around the turn of the century (1800-1810), Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano; they were contemporaries of Wordsworth and Coleridge. In general, they don’t touch me as much as do the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen or the Kindertotenlieder, but the aim of this ensemble was clearly not to pander to tastes limited to just the best-loved songs.

Two voices, Tucker and Beekman, sang the first song, ‘Der Schildwache Nachtlied’, investing it with as much narrative and dramatic quality as possible. The four singers shared the rest of the songs.  Almost all the five songs lent themselves to narrative delivery and they were much enlivened in that way. Treatment varied, allowing the piano to tell part of Emma Pearson’s story in ‘Wo die schönene Trompeten blasen’.

The original twelve were published with orchestral accompaniment and then arranged for piano accompaniment. But Mahler removed the last song, ‘Urlicht’, from the collection and used it in the Andante of his second symphony. It’s not clear to me whether or not Mahler made a piano arrangement of it, but Robert Tucker had a hand in the arrangement for piano that we heard, with all four voices, creating a distinct liturgical feeling. The four voices proved to be rather well balanced, bringing the first half of the concert to a happy end.

Sins of old age, and other times…
The second half comprised an interesting variety of music. The earliest was one of Rossini’s Péchés de vieillesse (Sins of Old Age), ‘I gondolieri’. One might have found it hard to guess its composer, especially if Offenbach’s interpretation was in one’s mind. Rossini’s is far from any hint of satire or scornfulness. It was sung rather engagingly, with the slow triple rhythm offering sufficient colour.

The programme was slightly re-arranged. First was Morten Lauridsen’s ‘Dirait-on’ from his cycle Chansons de roses (of 1993): an utterly charming song. I didn’t realise till it began, that I knew it, as American, Lauridsen, has not been in the least absent from the programmes of our choirs. A little search showed that I probably first heard ‘Dirai-on’ (‘one would say’) about four years ago. Leaving the United States for Britain, it was followed by Roger Quilter’s ‘Go lovely rose’, again sung by the quartet, which continued the pattern of affecting, melodious songs of the past century. And then a French song inspired by the approaching Second World War: Poulenc’s ‘Priez pour paix’, ‘Pray for peace’. This might have seemed to minimise the coming horrors: another melodious song, just a slightly disturbing expression, the words of which actually came from late Medieval/early Renaissance (early 15th century) French poet Charles d’Orléans (of course, the war d’Orleans was troubled by was the Hundred Years War between France and England that ended about the time d’Orleans died, 1465).

Three simpler songs, folk songs, by Aaron Copland followed, though they seem not to be called that: ‘Simple gifts’, ‘At the river’ and ‘Ching-a-ring Chaw’. The fours voices in ensemble were again genial, again capturing the warm, sentimental (in the best sense) character of songs that have become a fundamental part of American music.

To finish, Robert Tucker and their admirable pianist Kirsten Robertson, returned to sing Lauridsen’s typically moving ‘Prayer’, and that was capped when Declan Cudd came forward to sing Lauridsen’s best loved ‘Sure on this shining night’; all four joined in the final stanza. That might have done, but it was followed by a return to one of Schubert’s loveliest and most appropriate songs, ‘An die Musik’.

Even with no other Schubert… or Schumann… Brahms or Strauss, this was a very happy recital that might well have signalled hope for our success in continuing to ward off further pandemic dangers.

 

A splendid St Andrew’s lunchtime concert from NZSM voice students

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s lunchtime concerts

Classical voice students the New Zealand School of Music with David Barnard (piano)

Simon  Harnden: ‘T’was within a furlong of Edinborough Town’ and ‘Sons of the Sea’ by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
Michaela Cadwgan: L’invitation au voyage’ (Duparc)and ‘Donde lieta uscì’ from La Bohème
Grace Burt: ‘Chanson Triste’ (Duparc) and ‘Chacun à son goût’ from Die Fledermaus
Matt Barris; Valentin’s aria from Faust and ‘Silent Noon’ by Vaughan Williams
Ruby McKnight: ‘Signore ascolta’ from Turandot and ‘Nana’ from Falla’s Seven Spanish Popular Songs
Morgan Andrew King: Prince Gremin’s aria from Eugene Onegin and ‘Ol’ Man River’ from Showboat
Lila Junior Crichton: ‘O Columbina’ from Pagliacci and ‘Oh is there not one maiden breast’ from The Pirates of Penzance

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 22 July, 12:15 pm

From a purely musical point of view, this was an interesting recital, with a very wide range of songs and arias, a lot familiar, some not, but very worth being exposed to. One song I didn’t know at all was Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s ‘Sons of the Sea’. Once upon a time those three names together (in a different order) would have meant only the great poet linked with Wordsworth. Now I suspect, as a result of the disappearance of much in the way of English literature from schools (and now even being thrown out of our National Library), the black English composer of the late 19th century may be better known. It was sung by Simon Harnden whose rich bass voice did justice to its dramatic character; as it had expressively to his earlier song, Purcell’s ’T’was within a furlong of Edinborough Town’.

Interesting that we had here four males and three females: the balance is more commonly otherwise. The second male voice was that of Matt Barris. He sang Valentin’s baritone aria from Faust, ‘Avant de quitter ces lieus’, feelingly expressing his anxiety about Marguérite while he’s away. His second song was Vaughan Williams’s Silent Noon which he sang attractively, with careful restraint.

The third male was bass Morgan-Andrew King. He sang Prince Gremin’s wonderful aria from the last act of Eugene Onegin, catching its noble character but delivering it rather too quickly. And later he sang ‘Ol’ man river’ from Showboat, with calm dignity.

Lila Junior Crichton, a tenor, sang two late 19th century arias. The first a familiar aria from Pagliacci: in Act II Beppe (Arlecchino) serenades the ultimate victim Nedda (Columbina), with ‘O Columbina’, capturing its fluctuating rhythms well. Then, from The Pirates of Penzance, ‘Oh, is there not one maiden breast’ from; not terribly familiar but attractively lyrical in Crichton’s hands.

Two of Henri Duparc’s few, precious songs came early in the concert. Michaela Cadwgan sang perhaps his best-known: ‘L’invitation au voyage’, which I have a somewhat personal relationship with. First it drew attention to the piano part, and then to Michaela’s strong, perhaps a bit too strong at the top, voice. But it suggests promise in the opera house, which was evident in her singing of the poignant ‘Donde lieta uscì’ from Act III of La Bohème.

The second Duparc song came from Grace Burt’s mezzoish voice: ‘Chanson triste’ was nicely modulated, her voice dynamically disciplined throughout. Prince Orlovsky’s ‘Chacun à son goût’ from Die Fledermaus is a droll aria from what I consider the greatest of all operettas. It’s a travesti role, a bit of a challenge, needing a conspicuous flamboyance to bring off well, and it got that.

Soprano Ruby McKnight sang Liu’s touching aria ‘Signore ascolta’ in Turandot; it doesn’t really need a voice as large as McKnight’s to deliver it, but with accurate intonation, it was a fine performance. And she later sang ‘Nana’, one of the seven Spanish popular songs (folksongs ere) by Manuel de Falla (good to see the proper translation of ‘Seven Spanish popular songs’: they’re not ’seven popular Spanish songs’ – a significant difference). If she didn’t capture the Spanish flavour perfectly, her performance was distinctive and arresting.

As student recitals go, this was a splendid three-quarter hour; a major part of that success was David Barnard’s unerring piano accompaniments that claimed the orchestra’s role very convincingly.

 

Wanganui Music Society 75th Jubilee Concert includes Wellington guest musicians

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wanganui Music Society 75th Jubilee Concert

Vocal and instrumental music
Various Artists

The Concert Chamber, War Memorial Centre,
Queen’s Park, Watt St,. Whanganui

Sunday, 8th March 2020

Every now and then (and without warning) a “Middle C” reviewer will be overcome by a “questing s

pirit” which will result in the same reviewer popping up somewhere unexpected and writing about an event whose location, on the face of things, seems somewhat outside the parameters of the usual prescription for “Middle C’”s coverage – vis-à-vis, “concerts in the Greater Wellington region”. In this case mitigating circumstances brought a kind of “Capital connection” to a Whanganui occasion, and certainly one that, when I heard about the details beforehand, was (a) eager and (b) pleased to be able to take advantage of the chance to attend and enjoy!

This was the 75th Jubilee Concert given by the Wanganui Music Society in the city’s magnificent Concert Chamber, part of the superbly-appointed War Memorial Centre. The concert was one which brought together musicians who were either members of the Society or who had previously contributed to past programmes – so there was a real sense of appropriateness concerning the event’s overall essence and presentation of community performance and guest participation. And though my own connections with the city and its cultural activities were more tenuous,  I felt here a kind of “once-removed” kinship with the efforts of the Society and its artists, being a Palmerstonian by origin and in the past having taken part in similar events in that not-too-far-away sister-city.

To be honest, however, my presence at the concert was largely to do with a particular piece of music being performed that afternoon – Douglas Lilburn’s song-cycle, Sings Harry must be one of the most quintessential Kiwi artistic creations of singular expression ever made, bringing together, as it does, words and music formed out of the flesh and blood, sinews and bones of two this country’s most archetypal creative spirits, Lilburn himself and poet Denis Glover. The Sings Harry poems were the poet’s homespun observations about life made by a once-vigorous old man looking back on his experiences for better or for worse – and six of these poems were taken by the composer and set to music that seemed to many to fit the words like a second skin.

Glover, at first enthused by his friend Lilburn’s settings, gradually came to disapprove of them, at one low point famously and disparagingly characterising the music as “icing on my rock cakes!”. The work has survived all such vicissitudes, but still today doesn’t get performed as often as I, for one, would like to hear it. Which is where this concert came in, offering the chance to hear one of the piece’s most respected and widely-acknowledged exponents, Wellington baritone Roger Wilson, bring it all to life once more, rock-cake, icing and all, for the edification of those who attended this Jubilee event.

Another Wellington connection was afforded by a second singer, mezzo-soprano Linden Loader, who’s been in the past a familiar performer in the Capital’s busy round of concerts, if mostly, in my experience, as a member of a vocal ensemble rather than as soloist. Here, though, she took both roles, firstly as a soloist in two of Elgar’s adorable Sea Pictures and a folksong arrangement, My Lagen Love by Hamilton Harty, and then joining Roger Wilson for three vocal duets, one by Brahms and two by Mahler, the latter calling for some “characterful” expression which both singers appeared to relish to the utmost!

The only other performer whose name I knew, having seen and heard her play in Wellington as well, was flutist-cum-pianist Ingrid Culliford, whose prowess as a flutist I’d often seen demonstrated in concert, but not her pianistic skills, which made for a pleasant surprise – her partnership with ‘cellist Annie Hunt created a winning “ebb-and-flow” of emotion in Faure’s Elegy; and while not particularly “appassionato” the playing of Saint-Saens’s work Allegro appassionato by the pair had plenty of wry mischief – an affectionate performance! She also collaborated as a pianist with the excellent young flutist Gerard Burgstaller, in a movement from a Mozart Flute Concerto, and then as a flutist herself with soprano Winifred Livesay in beautifully-voiced and -phrased renderings of American composer Katherine Hoover’s evocative Seven Haiku.

Other performers brought to life what was in sum a varied and colourful amalgam of music, among them being pianist Kathryn Ennis, possibly the afternoon’s busiest performer! As well as partnering both Linden Loader in music by Elgar and Hamilton Harty, with Roger Wilson joining the pair for vocal duets by Brahms and Mahler, Ennis then later returned with Wilson for Lilburn’s Sings Harry, and, finally, closed the concert with two piano solos, pieces by Liszt and Khachaturian. I though her a sensitive and reliable player, very much enjoying her evocations with Loader of the differing oceanic characters in the Elgar Songs, singer and pianist rich and deep in their response to “Sea Slumber Song”, and creating a bard-like kind of exotic wonderment with “Where Corals Lie”. Harty’s My Lagen Love also teased out the best in singer and pianist, here a winning mix of lyricism and candid expression, with a nicely-moulded piano postscript.

Piano duettists Alison Safey and Alton Rogers brought flow and ear-catching variety of tone to their performance of the first movement of a Mozart Sonatina K.240, before further treating us to Matyas Seiber’s Three Short Dances, each one given an appropriate “character” (I liked the slow-motion Habanera-like aspect of the opening “Tango” a good deal!). Afterwards came violinist Jim Chesswas, most sensitively accompanied, I thought, by pianist Leonard Cave, the two recalling for me childhood memories of listening to Gracie Fields’ voice on the radio, with a strong, sweetly-voiced rendition of The Holy City, giving me a lot of unexpected pleasure!

Roger Wilson’s and Linden Loader’s “Duets” bracket both charmed (Brahms) and entertained (Mahler) us, the singers collaborating with pianist Kathryn Ennis in Brahms’s “Es rauschet das Wasser” to bring out moments of true magic in the lines’ interaction (ardent, steadfast tones from Loader, and tenderly-phrased responses from Wilson, the two voices blending beautifully towards the song’s end, with everything admirably echoed by Ennis’s resonant piano evocations). After this the Mahler duets were riotous fun, each singer a vivid foil for the other, the characterisations almost larger-than-life, but readily conveying the texts’ none-too-subtle directness.

Soprano Marie Brooks began the concert’s second half, her sweet, soubrettish-like tones well-suited to Faure’s Après Un Rêve, her line secure, somewhat tremulous of character, but well-focused – her pianist, Joanna Love, proved an admirable collaborator, whose sounds blended happily with the voice. Flutist Gerard Burgstaller then impressed with his control and command of line and breath in Mozart’s opening movement of K313, as did soprano Winifred Livesay in Katherine Hoover’s Seven Haiku, her partnership with Ingrid Culliford as mentioned above, distilling some memorable moments of loveliness.

Sings Harry was a focal point for me, of course, Roger Wilson here admirably characterising the work’s unique qualities in his brief spoken introduction, remarking on its essential “elusiveness” for the performer, and nicely characterising his “journey” of involvement with the work. Here I thought singer and pianist effectively evoked “Harry and guitar” at the outset, and caught the whimsicality of the character’s “sunset mind” which followed, in a suitably harlequinesque manner. Of course, Glover and Lilburn whirl us almost disconcertingly through such moments before setting us down in deserts/oases of aching reflection – firstly “Once the days”, and even more tellingly, after the whirlwind of “Come mint me up the golden gorse”, leaving us almost bereft in the following “Flowers of the Sea”, The latter sequence here palpably grew in poignant resignation with each utterance, leaving us at the end “broken open” and completely at the mercy of those ceaseless tides. I thought Wilson’s and Ennis’s presenting of both this and the concluding “I remember” totally “inside” the words and music, and felt somewhat “lump-in-the-throat” transfixed by the ending – Harry, with his guitar, was left as we had found him, but with so much understanding and intense wonderment by then imparted to us……

Kathryn Ennis concluded the concert with two piano solos, firstly Franz Liszt’s well-known Liebestraum No. 3 and then a work new to me, a Toccata by Aram Khachaturian. While I thought the Liszt technically well-managed I thought everything simply too reined-in as the piece gathered in intensity, the expression held back as if the player was fearful of provoking that often-voiced criticism of “vulgarity” made by detractors of the composer and his work, but which in committed hands can, of course, produce such an overwhelming effect! Better was the Khachaturian, presented like some kind of impressionistic “whirl” here, to great and memorable effect – happily, a fitting conclusion to the proceedings!

 

 

Barbara Paterson’s moving operatic portrayal of love in crisis in Poulenc’s monodrama

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Human Voice (La voix humaine) by Françis Poulenc based on the play by Jean Cocteau. Translated by Johana Arnold and Barbara Paterson

Barbara Paterson (soprano) with Gabriela Glapska (piano)
Tabitha Arthur – director; Meredith Dooley – costumier; Isadora Lao – lighting designer and operator

Gallery of the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts, Queen’s Wharf

Friday 27 February 6 pm

My colleague Peter Mechen reviewed what might have been considered the preview performance of Poulenc’s monodrama La voix humaine, on 31 January.

But being a huge fan of Poulenc I felt that Paterson’s performance in the Festival itself deserved attention.

La voix humaine is one of the most remarkable operatic pieces: not merely of the 20th century; not merely on account of the music which is a tremblingly vivid evocation of Elle’s mental fragility; but also in the way it deals so illuminatingly with her behaviour, her dependence on and interaction with a lover who has evidently decided to quit.

Sometimes the substitution of an orchestra by a piano seems to be a serious loss, with its more limited ability to interpret emotions and to provide rewarding support. Here the piano, with the shrill ringing of the telephone right at the beginning, hurled us straight into her emotional turmoil; it seemed just as chilling as the original score’s xylophone.

In addition, I am usually a strong advocate for the use of the original language in song and opera, but here, the singer’s total immersion in Elle’s mind and emotional state overcame any such feelings, even any feeling that English was not the original language. Johana Arnold’s translation was a perfect fit, though I couldn’t prevent a certain curiosity about how a performance in French might have intensified the impact in certain ways. (I have heard it, not live I think, in the original).

The performance opened with what sounded like a rifle shot: I wasn’t sure whether it was an external coincidence or a hint of the ultimate possibility of suicide.

The phone rings chillingly on the piano, and she picks it up but there’s no connection; it rings again, but now it’s a call for someone else, and there are several further rings before finally, it’s her lover. And now Paterson’s virtuosic performance immediately finds expression for her desperation and panic, alternating with attempts to sound rational, with the knowledge or at least fear that he wants to break it up, or even that he has done that.

Not all words were clear, smothered often by her uncontrolled outbursts, but her condition and her behaviour remained so conspicuous to the audience that we didn’t need to catch every word.

She grasps at straws: “You are so sweet … I am calm!” And the piano comments on or reveals the constant, overwhelming state of despair and grief that the break-up inflicts on her. It’s common to remark on the fact that an orchestral or other accompaniment is playing a major role in the drama, but there have been few occasions when I’ve felt as strongly about the vital role of the piano as I did here.

The telephone’s role
The drama continues with a succession of broken connections, whether by her former lover or through an operator’s mistake, we don’t know. The telephone itself and the omnipresent operator are significant players. I can remember in my childhood the sometimes obtrusive operator and the common ‘party line’ (my family had one), shared with three or four other subscribers, all of which the operator could listen to: the operator was thus privy to most of the scandal in the community. But this was a dimension that was not likely to have been in Poulenc’s mind, when local calls were not monitored by the operator, though Cocteau’s original play was written in 1928, 30 years before Poulenc’s setting.

Often it’s intentionally unclear whether the ‘disconnection’ is by the operator or the lover or whether it’s just something in Elle’s mind that brings about panic, a scream or mad laugh.

Paterson’s repertory of voices and screams allowed what was an overwhelming emotional condition to express to her lover her attempts to appear rational and in control, but exposing herself with the almost terrifying laugh, half-way to wild panic.

About half-way, she uttered a particularly wild scream, quickly suppressed, which led to one of the few beautiful lyrical episodes.

Gabriela Glapska’s piano was almost always the perfect partner, but very occasionally it became so passionately involved that it almost got in the way. Though that could well be attributed to the fact that the piano, like the telephone itself, was an important player.

Patterson’s performance was so comprehensively satisfying, so perfectly attuned to the words and the emotions and the music at every point that one could well have imagined that no histrionic direction was needed, But that becomes the crowning achievement of a sensitive director, merely to refine and enhance a singer’s own instincts so that the result seems to flow entirely from the performer’s own impulses. That was Tabitha Arthur’s achievement, that had her climbing one of two step-ladders at various times; symbolic of Elle’s compulsion to achieve security in an essentially insecure world. And in the lighting, Isadora Lao was similarly unobtrusive but, given the entirely natural feel of the atmosphere, was another case or art concealing art. And Meredith Dooley created Peterson’s wispy, pastel-shaded costume that also spoke of her fragility and insecurity.

There was a smallish audience; but here was a moving, very credible performance that deserved a much larger crowd.

 

Lightning, thunder and Orpheus Choir’s and the NZSO’s “Messiah” – never a dull moment!

Posted on by Peter Mechen

HANDEL – Messiah HWV 56 (complete)

Celeste Lazarenko (soprano)
Anna Pierard (mezzo-soprano)
Andrew Goodwin (tenor)
Hadleigh Adams (bass)
Orpheus Choir of Wellington (director Brent Stewart)
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Graham Abbott (conductor)

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday, 7th December, 2019

There would probably have been a number of people at this “Messiah” performance, both performers and audience members, who had shared something of my own experience a couple of hours before the concert’s starting-time, of the onslaught of an unexpectedly vicious single lightning strike during a storm over the Mt.Victoria area of the city, one whose particular impact on the house I was inside could have been likened to that of a blow from a gigantic iron-clad fist. Perhaps it was rather more in sheer visceral accord with parts of Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony which both the choir and orchestra took part in several weeks ago! – still, the “force of nature” aspect to my mind tied in well with some of the more elemental parts of Handel’s score, put across here by the musical forces assembled with properly-focused strength and conviction.

This was Graham Abbott’s third Wellington appearance as conductor of a “Messiah” (previously in 2012 and 2016), and, as in his two previous outings, featured a “complete” performance of the work, the projected length of such an experience countered, as before, by the conductor’s more-than-usually quick tempi. Even so, the “2 hrs” duration suggested by the evening’s programme booklet seemed firstly alarming, and then, as good sense prevailed, unlikely! As it was, the performance by my reckoning took at least half-an-hour longer, but, thanks to the compelling quality of both singing and playing, kept our interest throughout.

Besides the conductor, and, of course, Brent Stewart’s Orpheus Choir, other “old friends” included the soprano, Celeste Lazarenko, last here in 2017, and mezzo-soprano Anna Pierard, who sang the alto part with the conductor here in 2012. New chums were the two male soloists, both, I thought, making a splendid job of their music, handling the more technical aspects of their parts with great aplomb and bringing distinctive character to the words and their meanings.

The orchestra began proceedings, the band a tightly-knit, chamber-sized ensemble, reflecting the conductor’s desire to keep to the kind of sound he imagined the composer would have heard, the playing throughout confident, supple and spontaneous-sounding, able to surprise with an emphasis or phrasing even in a work as oft-heard as this one, and otherwise delivering all the anticipated “moments” with a fresh distinction. Though it seems odious to “single out” players, one couldn’t help but register the skills of trumpeter Michael KIrgan (resplendently note-perfect throughout “The trumpet shall sound”), and with his partner Mark Carter, adding lustre to both the “Glory to God” sequences of Part One, and the magnificence of the concluding sections of both “Halleluiah” and the final choruses. Unfailingly steadfast, too, was the continuo of harpsichordist Douglas Mews and organist Jonathan Berkahn, while the string and wind lines were a delight to register in both their complementing and counterpointing of Handel’s choral writing.

The first voice we heard was that of tenor Andrew Goodwin, who, in his opening ”Comfort ye” solo encompassed solace, comfort, hope and strength by getting his words to “speak” as well as make music (the word “cry”, for example). His tones had plenty of forthright “ring” and accompanying resonance, enabling him to beautifully “shape” his coloratura passages. In Part Two of the work, Goodwin related superbly with the chorus via his declamatory “All they that see Him” and the following incisive and mocking “He trusted in God”, the tenor’s reply full of pathos, and then carrying this intensity through to the insistent, more defiant,  “Thou shalt break them”, which tingled and stung with focused energy. Goodwin also teamed up tellingly with mezzo Anna Pierard for “O death, where is thy sting” the two fitting their lines together to exhilarating effect!

Although her “big moment” was undoubtedly the aria “He was despised”, whose slower, more meditative sections mezzo Anna Pierard delivered with breath-catching presence and feeling, she also coped as well as any I’ve heard with writing that was often low for the voice while requiring some “heft”, as with the “refiner’s fire” sections of “But who may abide”. Her voice gained in presence to arresting effect when the vocal line rose, as at the ending of “Oh thou that tellest”, and throughout “Then shall the eyes of the blind” – and her hand-in-glove teamwork with the tenor throughout “O Death” already noted, was a joy.

Of course the soprano’s entry is exquisitely timed by Handel for maximum effect at “There were shepherds”, and Celeste Lazarenko didn’t disappoint, a fractional “bump” during one of her “Rejoice Greatly” runs aside. But I thought she really came into her own later with “I know that my Redeemer liveth”, which was beautifully shaped and inflected throughout, movingly so in places, not the least of which was the raptness of “the first fruits of them that sleep”. Then, she further enchanted with her “If God be for us”, floating her lines so sweetly, and confidently essaying the coloratura, with  both her ease and energy giving such pleasure and delight!

I can’t recall ever before hearing Palmerston North-born Hadleigh Adams sing, and thought his performance terrific! As if he, as well, had been assailed by that late afternoon‘s thunderbolt from the skies, he proceeded to bring out something of the same drama in “Thus Saith the Lord”, with a terrific cosmic “shake” and powerful upper notes, before delivering his message of the Lord’s “coming” with true theatrical presence. Dramatic, too, was his “haunted” tone at the beginning of “For, behold”, though he didn’t make as much of the crescendo at “the Lord shall rise upon thee” as I wea expecting – nevertheless, his was a properly visceral “The people that walked in darkness”, throwing his voice up and over great archways of tone throughout. Both in “Why do the nations” and “Behold I tell you a mystery” his storytelling gifts came out strongly, carrying us along with his energies and descriptive detailings – a most engaging performance!

Thus, too, was the Orpheus Choir’s contribution to the proceedings, beginning with a truly resplendent “And the glory of the Lord”, though one which then made the sopranos’ momentary ensemble “hiccup” at the beginning of “And He shall purify” all the more unexpected! Things were fortunately restored with “For unto us” apart from a tendency for the tenors to hurry slightly with their running figurations – and thereafter it all grew in stature and magnificence right to the end. The sequence which truly caught up my responses was that beginning with “Surely He hath borne our griefs”, the sheer attack of both voices and instruments most arresting, followed by an amazingly contrasted “And with his stripes”, taken more slowly and intensely that usual, to be followed by “All we like sheep” the burst of energy awakening us from our reverie of having been “healed”, and the dovetailings between the voices themselves and the orchestra so very delicious to experience!

The response of the audience both to the conclusion of the “Halleluia” chorus and the final “Amen” was overwhelming, though I was sorry that the previously-mentioned work of the solo trumpeter, Michael Kirgan, didn’t seem to be specifically acknowledged at the end (or perhaps I missed that bit of the proceedings!). But all in all, very great credit to conductor Graham Abbott for his overall direction, as well as to the Orpheus’s director, Brent Stewart for the truly sonorous preparation of his forces for the concert.

In the wake of yet another expertly-delivered performance of “Messiah” sounded for us “as Handel would have heard it”, I was interested to be reminded, in another reviewer’s report of the concert, of the Mozart version of Messiah, performed here in 2013 (https://middle-c.org/2013/06/mozart-s-take-on-handel-warmth-more-than-refiners-fire/)  – but I’ve also been thinking equally of late about the “Messiahs” that many of us would have grown up with in the 1950s and 60s, and wondering what people would think of a “retrospective” presentation of the work (in other words, “one for old times’ sakes”).

Two famous interpreters of the work from these (and earlier) times were Sir Malcolm Sargent (with his famed Huddersfield Chorus of about five thousand people! – or so it seemed!) and SIr Thomas Beecham with his equally outlandish but splendiferous re-orchestrations which (despite his estate’s claims to the contrary after his death) he had commissioned from another musical knight, Sir Eugene Goossens). My inclination would go towards the Beecham/Goossens version with its splendid array of nineteenth-century instruments accompanying the singers (“Handel would have loved it!” declared the ever imperturbable Sir Thomas!) The authenticists will throw their hands up in horror – but my feeling is that the rest of us will love it too! And what hearing it will probably do is enhance our appreciation of “period-practice” music-making even more. What might the NZSO and Orpheus forces think of THAT prospect, I wonder?

 

 

 

Extraordinary SMP Ensemble Commemorative Concert missing a part but nevertheless packing a punch

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The SMP Ensemble presents:
NEW WORLD, NEW BEGINNINGS

The second of a pair of concerts given to mark
the 75th Anniversary of the arrival of the Polish Children
in New Zealand at Pahiatua, in November 1944

ANDRE TCHAIKOVSKY – Trio Notturno
LOUISA NICKLIN – III:RE
HANNA KULENTY – Cradle Song
KAROL SZYMANOWSKI – Songs of an Infatuated Muezzin

Members of the SMP Ensemble

Barbara Paterson (soprano) / Monique Lapins , Tristan Carter (violins)
Elliot Vaughan (viola) / Ken Ichinose, Jack Hobbs (’cellos)
Simon Eastwood (double-bass) / Gabriela Glapska (piano)

St Andrew’s on-The-Terrace, Wellington

Sunday, 17th November, 2019

Woe betide the hapless reviewer who, amidst his domestic rough-and-tumble, glances distractedly and approximately at a schedule before hotfooting it along the roads and down the pavements to a concert, thinking he’s in plenty of time, only to find that he‘s misread the actual starting-time of the event, and has arrived half-an-hour late! The above explanation, I trust, entirely incriminates the said reviewer, who needs must take his punishment in the form of a public confession, hereby proffered amid the most shameful of feelings and regretful of expressions!

More the pity that I had been looking forward to hearing the programme’s opening item, by dint of having been in a ritualistic sense, several steps from greatness in the actual person of the piece’s composer, Andre Tchaikovsky, who had been “a close friend of a close friend” of mine in, of all places, Palmerston North, but whom I unfortunately never actually got to meet to exchange words with! I do remember seeing him play once in Wellington with the NZSO during 1975, and actually bought an LP of him playing a Mozart concerto with Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony, at around that same time.

So, red-faced and abashed, I presented myself at the admissions desk AFTER the Tchaikovksy Trio Notturno had finished, not wanting to burst in and distract listeners who had taken more care and trouble than I to arrive at the correct time, and thus deserving totally uninterrupted communion with the music! The players involved in the performance of the first item, Monique Lapins, Ken Ichinose and Gabriela Glapska, had departed, and as I got to my seat, four different musicians appeared on the platform – Tristan Carter, violin, Elliot Vaughan, viola, Jack Hobbs, ‘cello, and Simon Eastwood, double-bass – to play the concert’s second item, Louisa Nicklin’s III:RE.

A recent graduate of Te Koki New Zealand School of Music, Louisa Nicklin has already demonstrated her creative range and versatility as composer and performer – a number of her contemporary classical pieces have already been performed and recorded by professional groups and ensembles, including both the NZSO and China’s Shanghai Philharmonic – but she also writes and performs popular songs as a soloist and with the band No Girl. From the title of the work we were about to hear, one might have supposed that III:RE was the third in a series, as the SOUNZ website lists a previous composition of Nicklin’s as I:RE (a piece for solo ‘cello) – however, I wasn’t able to find a reference to any work of hers with the name II:RE.

A soft, nostalgic sostenuto-like “presence” began the work, redolent for me of the buzzing and droning of distant aeroplanes, the tones and timbres drifting lazily to the ear. These sounds were overtaken by irruptions, the dronings intensified and augmented by deeper tones whose textures by turns sweetened and then curdled, the different instrument lines coalescing and reforming to evoke different states of being.

Late-Beethoven-like chordings coloured the soundscapes, occasionally exposing the ghostly-voiced harmonics of the double-bass, before the instruments wonderfully “reversed” their textural qualities, as if buildings were suddenly turned back-to-front, or things flipped over to reveal their undersides – the viola droned a single note before suddenly leaping skywards, joined by a violin playing a soft, ethereal harmonic. Not to be out-manoeuvred, the ‘cello and double bass filled their own stratified space, enabling a kind of structure, and developing what I could feel as a kind of empathy for the music’s moment of time, at once registering its passing and capturing and holding fast its essence. The resulting sounds celebrated both the composer’s remarkably-focused creation of a uniquely-fused sequence and its outcome, and the players’ concentration and almost alchemic rendering of a treasurable “moment of being”.

Following this came Hanna Kulenty’s “A Cradle Song”, played by the trio of musicians who had performed the Tchaikovsky work which began the concert – Monique Lapins (violin), Ken Ichinose (‘cello) and Gabriela Glapska (piano). Polish-born Kulenty trained originally as a pianist, but while still in her twenties became a free-lance composer, and soon established herself as a “leading figure in the Polish composer’s scene”. Dating from 1993 “A Cradle Song” is a relatively early work, though Kulenty had already made her mark with her 1985 work for orchestra “Ad Unum”, one which made an enormous impact on what was then a largely male-dominated realm of composition, so that a well-known Polish critic heralded his review of the work with the words “Gentlemen, hear and tremble!”

Kulenty’s work began almost casually, the sounds wrought from the air, it seemed, with the cello sounding a single note, but including undulations at the phrase-ends which could have been likened to a “mantra”, the repetitions suggesting the act of breathing or the pulsing of blood. The pianist played attenuated chords, shaped as a rising and falling away of intensities, the cello taking up the “mantra-like” figure again and joined by the violin, the two playing the folk-like decorations as a kind of canon, augmented by the piano’s chordings. What focused intensities these players drew from this sequence! – stepwise falling figures, reworked canonic passages, and echoings of phrases all contributing to a somewhat desolate ambience.

Something had to give, and the string players took the initiative, galvanising the piano into hammered-out rockfalls of sound, interwoven with skittery, diaphanous about-weavings and motoric repetitions of motifs, a cataclysmic “nightmare-ride” to an imagined kind of abyss, exciting for listeners in a kind of voyeuristic way, given that we might as well have been conscious spectators of some unfortunate soul’s horrific dream! What ghoulish dive-bombings of chromatic terror from the strings! – what lurid cries of terror and anguish instigated by the piano! The notes became a tolling, bell-like portent which eventually silenced the strings’ pitiless descents, and allowed the ‘cello to finally reintroduce a variant of the music’s folk-like opening, to which the violin responded, tones glistening and sighing, a descending angel’s serenade, bringing hard-earned peace at last…..

It was left to soprano Barbara Paterson together with pianist Gabriela Glapska, to complete the evening’s music, with an extraordinary set of songs written by Karol Szymanowski, Songs of an Infatuated Muezzin. The texts for these songs were written by the poet Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz (1894-1980), the undertaking being one of several projects in collaboration with Szymanowski, including his writing the libretto for the opera King Roger (1918-24) and the texts for Trzy kolysanki Op.48 (Three Lullabies, 1922), as well as providing translations of poetry by the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore for the Vier Gesange Op.41 of 1918. Szymanowski was inspired by his pre-First World War travels throughout Sicily and North Africa to explore and absorb Islamic culture, and reflect it in his music of the time and the years immediately following. The texts of the songs are not renderings of actual calls made by a muezzin, but poems created by Iwaszkiewicz intended to give an impression of the calls – the poet had intended to set them to music himself, but his initial ideas, which he showed to Szymanowski were transformed by the latter to an extent that the poet by himself could never have realised. So it was that these songs came into being.

The opening song, Allah, Akbar (translated as “Allah is great”), began with the title’s invocation, Barbara Paterson’s voice magically soaring over the piano’s delicately-wrought tapestries, the singer’s tones impulsively varying the lines,  here floating the sound on high and there creating a frisson of melismatic emotion. Gabriela Glapska’s playing kept the music’s trajectories steady, allowing the voice to create a kind of tension between fervour of worship and smouldering earthly passion, intertwining thoughts of both Creator and the Beloved – “the sound of my voice sent towards Heaven in praise of Allah might somehow awaken you”….the delicacy of the song’s opening and its  “awakening” reference suggested that this might be an early morning prayer.

A whimsical, “walk-in-the-woods”-like piano solo began the second song O, ukochana ma! (O, my Beloved), bringing us to an impassioned, almost distraught figure wrestling with a great longing in the midst of a vast and lonely space. The vocal attack at the beginning of each phrase was exemplary, with the singer’s beautifully-focused tones moving organically throughout from short-lived composure to volatility, and with both musicians so fetchingly realising the melismatically-repeated Debussian phrase towards the end. By contrast, the following song Ledwie blask slonca zloci dachy wiez (The rising sun has barely gilded the tower-spires) gave us wraith-like tones from the piano at the outset which burgeoned into deeply portentous fetchings from the depths, festooned by great trills, the music seemingly at the mercy of great emotion, the singer’s voice poised and feather-like as her words described the rising sun’s first rays. Voice and piano rolled with the emotion of the next phrase – “Awake, oh beloved, and send your first smile with the rising sun!”, before the music sent both into a kind of trance-like entwinement, a floating vocal line borne aloft by ecstatic, trilled fragments of pure impulse – remarkable!

The ensuing W poludnie (At noon) began innocently enough with both singer and pianist inviting one another to rhapsodise, though before too long the singer’s gentle evocations of the city’s noonday heat and rippling green pools were energised by the pianist’s increasingly florid and excitable figurations, the muezzin aroused by the thoughts of his beloved taking off her clothes to bathe. Overcome by such transportings, the muezzin found himself recovering, at the next song’s beginning O tej godzinie (At This Hour) from the trance-like sleep his imaginings most likely induced – the piano’s rise-and-fall pattern and the singer’s beautifully-judged contourings of the vocal line suggesting the whole of the town asleep, whether at siesta-time, or later at night, the serenity then rudely broken into by the piano’s call to action and the singer’s decalamatory urgings to people, young and old to rise and go about their business. How sultry and evocative, then, were the characterisings by both voice and piano of the “beloved”, “nestled in dreams” – the soprano’s highest notes fearlessly and evocatively sounded, along with the piano’s Ravelian colourings, conveying the utmost gentleness and tenderness.

Alas for love, passion and ecstasy! The concluding song of the cycle,  Odeslas w pustynie (You departed) straightaway flung bare, despairing piano notes across the soundscape, as the muezzin confronted the loss of his ”Beloved” (whether to  death, or a different form of absence, the text doesn’t actually say, though the words convey imagery that’s powerful and suggestive – “in dry sands of the Western Desert you immerse your body”). As she had done throughout the whole cycle, Barbara Paterson again simply “owned” these words, perhaps with intensities that in places pushed the voice to its limits, but with the effect  that we who heard her “lived” those emotions just as palpably – and with Gabriela Glapska’s equally involved rendering of the piano part matching and mirroring her singer’s identification with the music, the performance by the duo made for a uniquely memorable experience. It was doubtless a “stretching to the limits” of the age-old idea of “beauty is truth, truth, beauty”, but in doing so defining how I most want to hear the music performed that I love.

 

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Martinborough Music Festival – an overview of a delightful feast of chamber music

Posted on by Steven Sedley

Martinborough Music Festival
An overview

For Friday 27 September see Lindis Taylor’s review

Saturday 28 September 2019, 2 pm
Michael Houstoun – piano; Wilma Smith – violin; Christopher Moore – viola, Matthias Balzat – cello
Brahms: Viola Sonata No 2 in Eb, Op 120
Brahms: Piano Trio No 3 in C Minor, Op 101
Fauré: Piano Quartet No 1 in C Minor, Op 15

Saturday 28 September 2019, 7:30 pm
Michael Houstoun – piano, Jenny Wollerman – soprano, Vesa-Matti Leppänen – violin, Wilma Smith – violin, Christopher Moore – viola, Matthias Balzat – cello, Ken Ichinose – cello
Songs: Between Darkness and Light (see review from Charlotte Wilson)
Schubert: String Quintet in C Major, D 956
(See review of this concert by Charlotte Wilson)

Sunday 29 September 2019 2 pm
Michael Houstoun – piano, Vesa-Matti Leppänen – violin, Yuka Eguchi – violin, Amy Brookman – violin, Alan Molina – violin, Christopher Moore – viola, Wilma Smith – viola, Matthias Balzat – cello, Ken Ichinose – cello
Brahms: Theme & Variations for Piano in D Minor, Op 18
Brahms: String Sextet No 1 in Bb Major, Op 18
Mendelssohn: Octet in Eb Major, Op 20

Martinborough Town Hall

Martinborough is a charming, tastefully preserved and restored little country town 65 km from Wellington. Running a Music Festival there, featuring some of  New Zealand’s finest musicians is an incredibly ambitious project. The festival, held this year over three days, 27-29 September, was their third. It featured Michael Houstoun, piano, Jenny Wollerman, soprano, Wilma Smith, violin and viola, Vesa-Matti Leppanen, Yuka Egochi, Amy Bookman and Alan Molina, violins, Christopher Moore, viola,  Mathias Balzat and Ken Ichinose, cellos. The 4 concerts offered a broad range of music, from piano solo and a selection of songs, to a large string ensemble of a sextet and an octet. It is impossible to single out a highlight, for some it was the moving Schubert Quintet, for others the heartfelt romantic Brahms Sextet No. 1 in Bb  Op. 18 stood out. This work is by a young Brahms deeply in love with Clara Schumann. Others appreciated the variety of songs by Britten, Debussy Fauré, Rachmaninov, Prokofiev and Barber, sung by Jenny Wollerman, noted for her expressive interpretation of new and less familiar works.

The wealth of music included familiar works, Scarlatti Sonatas, played by Michael Houstoun, Chopin’s Cello Sonata, played by Matthias Balzat, and to crown the opening night, Beethoven’s Archduke Trio with Wilma Smith.

The next concert featured two late Brahms works, the second of his viola sonatas, in Eb Major Op. 120, one of his last compositions, originally written for the clarinet, played by Christopher Moore, with a gorgeous rich sound. Then came the Brahms’ Piano Trio No. 3 in C minor, Op. 101, one of a group of compositions Brahms completed after his last symphony, works that are more concentrated, less expansive than his earlier chamber music compositions. The final work on the programme was Fauré’s Piano Quartet No.1 in C minor, one of the great masterpieces of the French romantic chamber music repertoire, a work of overwhelming beauty.

The final concert was music by the youthful Brahms and the even younger Mendelssohn. Michael Houstoun played Brahms’ piano arrangement of the Theme and Variations of his String Sextet No 1, which Brahms had arranged for Clara Schumann. This was a foretaste of the Sextet No. 1 in Bb Op. 18, played with restrained passion and good taste by Vesa-Matti Leppänen, Yuka Eguchi, violins, Christopher Moore and this time Wilma Smith on the viola, and Matthias Balzat and Ken Ichinose cello.

To end the festival on a happy cheerful rousing note, these musicians were joined by Amy Brookman and Alan Molina, in Mendelssohn’s Octet in Eb Major, Op. 20. Mendelssohn wrote this when he was only sixteen, yet it remained one of his most popular and enduring compositions. It evokes an enchanted ethereal world of fairies and other benevolent spirits derived from the young Mendelssohn’s reading of Shakespeare and Goethe.

The Martinborough Music Festival was a feast of good music. Ed Allen and his organising committee are to be commended on their vision, their courage to take risks, and on  flawless management to ensure that everything went smoothly. They were rewarded by full houses in the beautifully restored Town Hall and a large appreciative audience.

Korngold: exploration of beguiling Lieder one didn’t know, from Georgia Jamieson Emms

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Lunchtime Concerts at St Andrew’s
Georgia Jamieson Emms (soprano) and Bruce Greenfield (piano)

Lieder by Erich Korngold: settings of poems, mainly by Eichendorff, from Op 9 and Op 38

St Andrews on The Terrace, Wellington

Wednesday 4 September, 12:15 pm

Middle C has been neglecting its responsibilities with respect to the wonderful lunchtime concerts at St Andrew’s on The Terrace. Partly the result of our diminished ‘human resources’ and partly … well, other things.

There are notes for two or three of them that seem to have failed to find a first sentence, but given time, some the right words and thoughts might emerge on the RNZAF woodwind quintet, six hands at the keyboard, recorder and harpsichord…

The name Korngold doesn’t seem to be found in the average survey of German Lieder, not even among the lesser figures like Marschner, Hiller, Berg or Pfitzner. But since the word is merely the plural of the German word for ‘song’, and applies to German composers strictly speaking, almost all German composers from the late 18th century will have things called ‘Lieder’ among their compositions. But in the course of writing this and exploring books and the internet on the composer and his music, it’s clear that has been a somewhat serious omission. I’d known little more than Korngold’s most famous, precocious opera Die tote Stadt and some of the film music written in Hollywood after he left Germany when Hitler arrived.

Most of the songs Georgia chose were also early and four were to poems of Eichendorff which were most commonly chosen by the famous German Lieder composers: Schumann, Brahms, Strauss and Wolf (Schubert died before much of Eichendorff’s poetry became known). I was interested to discover several recordings of both cycles; since I’d heard none of them before, I must report that further hearings by singers like Barbara Hendricks and Angelika Kirchschlager increased my respect for and enjoyment of them.

The six songs of Op 9 were composed between the age of 14 and 19, and it was not difficult to hear rather unsophisticated tunefulness. One tries to hear influences and I succeeded in hearing, in Schnneeglöckchen, the sounds of early 20th century American operetta: Romberg, Friml, Herbert…, perhaps not the richness of the best of those, but a genuine, Liederish character. The second song was Nachtwanderer, whose theme is very close in subject and in certain musical hints to Goethe’s Erlkönig, but certainly suggested nothing of the song Schubert wrote at about the same age. Neither was the next song, Ständchen, again set to an Eichendorff poem; Schubert’s Op 889 is of ‘Hark, hark, the lark’ from Cymbeline., and his Ständchen in the cycle Schwanengesang is by Rellstab. There are several poems with the name and various settings of several of them. Korngold’s had a sparkling character, and it was one of the few that showed evidence foe me of his gifts: a gift for melody.

Liebesbriefchen revealed something wistful and interesting musically, in spite of a rather modest little poem. Das Heldengrab am Pruth was a gentle, touching little song with interesting piano accompaniment that captured bird-song charmingly. (I notice that Renee Fleming recorded it recently on a DVD anthology). I think Georgia said that Sommer was written for Lotte Lehmann to sing with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, which would have accounted for a piano accompaniment that was orchestrally a bit clangorous; translation ‘blackbird blaring’? That is not in the least a criticism of Bruce Greenfield’s carefully considered and sympathetic accompaniments throughout the programme.

Knowing that the last two songs, from the Fünf Lieder of 1948 were from his last decade invites one to find more musical maturity and emotional depth; and I did. Georgia began with the second song in the cycle, Der Kranke (The Invalid), also by Eichendorff, expressed in gentle, morbid tones with a repeated descending phrase in the piano. The recital ended with the first poem in the cycle: Glückwunsch, words to a beloved that seemed to hint as much at uncertainty as to unalloyed happiness. They offered further opportunities to admire Georgia Jamieson Emms’s colourful and expressive voice.

They ended with a song that Korngold wrote in his late Hollywood years: an afterthought for the film Escape Me Never which was a bit of a flop. But it was a nice way to end a very interesting and rather beguiling 40 minutes.

This exposure has led me to some exploring of Korngold. I’ve long had a recording of Die tote Stadt, which becomes darkly seductive for much more than the dreamlike, beautiful ‘Marietta’s Lied’ (Glück, das mir verblieb). Many years ago, when the Concert Programme (as it was then) used to broadcast hour-long sessions on operas on Sunday mornings, William Southgate spoke about Korngold’s second-best-known opera, Das Wunder der Heliane. Its touch of the supernatural has haunted me and one prone to expressionist sentimentality has longed to see/hear a production. Not in this country…

Warming our hearts in mid-winter – Cantoris directed by Thomas Nikora

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Cantoris Choir presents:
A MID-WINTER’S NIGHT
Music by Eric Whitacre, Morgan Andrew-King, Samuel Berkahn, Thomas Nikora, Robert Schumann, Ludwig van Beethoven and Josef Haydn

ERIC WHITACRE – Sleep / The Seal Lullaby / Lux Aurumque
MORGAN-ANDREW KING – River of Song
SAMUEL BERKAHN – With Ships the Sea was Sprinkled
ROBERT SCHUMANN – The Two Grenadiers
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN – Song of the Flea
JOSEF HAYDN – Cello Concerto in C Major (Ist Mvt.)
THOMAS NIKORA – Mass in E Minor

Barbara Paterson (soprano)
Morgan-Andrew King (baritone)
Samuel Berkahn (‘cello)
Liam Furey (piano)
Diana Muggleston (violin)
Thomas Nikora (piano and conductor)
Cantoris Choir

St.Mark’s Chapel, St. Mark’s Church School,
Wellington

Saturday 27th July 2019

This was the kind of programme whose content and presentation couldn’t have done a better job of warming the cockles of both audience hearts and sensibilities, having already drawn our attention via the concert’s title to the evening’s delightful and characteristic seasonal ambiences. Choral items naturally enough made up the lion’s share of the presentations, but by way of contrast and variety we heard two songs for baritone with piano, and a piano-accompanied movement from a Haydn ‘Cello Concerto . Amazingly, too, we were given, during the course of the concert, no less than three (presumably world) premieres of works all written by composer/performers associated with Cantoris Choir, two of the singers and the choir’s conductor. It was all in line with an overall warmth of utterance that suggested “living music”, as if we were at something like a Bach family get-together, with various members coming forward as both creators and performers.

The  work of American composer Eric Whitacre has figured prominently of late in choral concerts worldwide, his range of compositions catering for professional and amateur groups alike. Here we had three of his works, each of  which illustrated both the music’s attractive craftsmanship and ready accessibility as regards performers and audiences. I should have liked to have heard Whitacre’s original setting of Robert Frost’s words from his poem “Stopping by Woods of a Snowy Evening” for his “Sleep” (the composer was denied publishing rights for his work by the poet’s estate, and new words for the setting had to be substituted!), but the alternative text seemed just as evocative for Whitacre’s purposes – the final word “sleep” (shared by the original Frost poem) made a haunting conclusion to a finely-crafted, sonorous performance by the choir.

I recently encountered Morgan-Andrew King on the operatic stage in the NZSM production at the Hannah Playhouse of Puccini’s one-acter Gianni Schicchi (playing the part of one of the avaricious relatives awaiting the death of a would-be benefactor), so was, naturally enough, intrigued to find that he composed as well as performed – his work  River of Song was inspired, he told us in a spoken introduction by the Waikato River, the writing cleverly evoking the movement of water, the piece’s wordless opening  conjuring up a multitude of impulses, currents and streamlets whose lines coalesced in rich harmonic surges that expanded warmly at climaxes, everything truly suggesting that the composer “knew” the music’s subject well.

Another Eric Whitacre piece The Seal Lullaby readily “sounded” its name, the story of the piece’s genesis and history adding to its piquancy – a most affecting lullaby, with a beautiful piano accompaniment. The piece’s wordless sequences took on a “living instrumental” quality, enhanced by the choir’s gorgeously-voiced tunings – lovely stuff!  As a comparison, Lux Aurumque, the piece that followed, by the same composer, had a far more “international” quality, a “sheen” whose quality impressed for different reasons to the Seal Lullaby. At the piece’s end the choir managed some exquisite harmonisings set against held notes.

Samuel Berkahn brought a breath of bracing air to the proceedings with his assertion that his music would, after Eric Whitacre’s, “wake everybody up!”. His piece, beginning with a catchy “waltz-trot” kind of rhythm, was named with words of Wordsworth’s, and set melodic lines to angular piano accompaniments, the voices teetering on the edges of fugues throughout their exchanges, Berkahn hinting tongue-in-cheek at his recent interest in Renaissance madrigals and baroque polyphony, and keeping us “primed” as to their encoded presences.

After the interval, we were treated to two songs, each of whose subject-matter was steeped in the early Romantic era, and given suitably full-blooded treatment via the sonorous baritone voice of Morgan-Andrew King, firstly with Schumann’s ballade-like setting of Heine’s verses “Die beiden Grenadiere”, telling the story of two French soldiers making their way home from the Napoleonic Wars, only to learn that their beloved Emperor had been imprisoned. Schumann effectively contrasts the over-the-top patriotism of the French soldier, complete with the “Marseilles” quotation, with the sombre, utterly downcast piano postlude, superbly “voiced” by Thomas Nikora. King’s beautiful and sonorous voice I thought captured the “heroic” aspect of the song to perfection, though still leaving room for future explorations of the conflicted and contrasting range of emotion from each of the men. However, in Beethoven’s setting of Goethe’s “Song of the Flea”, the singer’s characterisations ignited more readily, working hand-in-glove with Thomas Nikora’s impish, volatile rendering of the piano part, and instantly engaging our interest and delight – marvellous!

Samuel Berkahn returned to the platform, this time with his ‘cello, to perform for us the opening movement of Haydn’s sunny C-major ‘Cello Concerto. With Thomas Nikora leading the way, bringing the opening orchestral “tutti” excitingly to life on the piano, the ‘cellist took up the challenge right from his opening phrase, superbly “sprung” at first, then full-throated and song-like in the second subject group, the solo lines speaking, bubbling and glowing. Intonation was sometimes a bit hit-and-miss in the instrument’s higher registers, but the overall line of the performance remained, thanks to the player’s energy and “recovery instinct” keeping the musical fabric taut and even, and maintaining a sense of enjoyment and buoyancy.

Which brought us to the third premiere of the evening’s concert, Thomas Nikora’s Mass in E minor, a work which the composer told us was inspired by his performing with Cantoris another Mass, that by Schubert, in G Major (D.167), and which Nikora had promised himself he would complete for his fourth year as Cantoris’s music director (time flies!). He mentioned also the Latin Mass’s flexibility and versatility as a text for musical settings, allowing him so many creative possibilities and options. Along with the SATB choir, the composer scored the work for solo soprano, violin, cello and piano.

Beginning with the Kyrie, the composer’s promise that there will be “plenty of fugal stuff” was immediately suggested with the voices’ opening contrapuntal entries, giving way to the solo soprano (the angelic-voiced Barbara Paterson) without a break at the Christe eleison with soaring lyrical lines. The return of the Kyrie was announced by the tenors with clipped, fugal figures, the texture thereby considerably enlivened with staccato chatterings, urgent and insistent, but softened by lyrical utterances from Samuel Berkahn’s cello.

Without a break, the Gloria burst in, the sopranos doing some lovely stratospheric work, and the pianist, Liam Furey, moulding beautiful bell-like chords to accompany “Et in terra pax hominibus”, the section somewhat surprisingly finishing with an “Amen”, allowing the Laudamus te to start afresh – again very fugal, and leading to a fanfare-like “Glorificamus te” with contrapuntal lines encircling the music. Violinist Diana Muggleston sweetly added her instrument’s voice to that of the cello to prepare for the soprano’s contribution to Gratias agimus tibi, an angel’s pure and fervent exclamation of thanks. I did feel here that the music had too many “stop-starts”, and that the whole could have been given a stronger sense of  “through-line” via the occasional ear-catching transition, imagining, for instance, that the morphing into waltz-time at the Domine Deus from the Gratias would have a stunning effect!

A true-and-steady solo voice (that of Ruth Sharman’s) from the choir introduced each line of Qui tollis peccata mundi, the effect moving and empathetic – as was Barbara Paterson’s delivery of Quoniam, being joined as sweetly by the choir’s sopranos after the solo utterances. And, while not as toe-tappingly infectious as Rossini’s “Cum sancto spiritum” fugue from the latter’s Petite Messe sollenelle, Nikora’s setting of the same passage had plenty of spirit, with wreaths of garlanded “Amens” honouring the deity’s glory, and violin and ‘cello lines most satisfyingly adding their voices to the tumult.

The Credo opened urgently, “running” in a fugal sense, and serious and sombre in tone,  the instruments keeping the fugal spin going underneath the voices’ “Et in unum Dominum”, then movingly ritualise the central “Et incarnatus est” with chorale-like accompaniments to the voices’ focused fervour, the soprano further lyricising the line “Crucifixus estiam pro nobis” (He was crucified for us), until the instruments cranked up the running accompaniments to Et resurrexit with exciting, stamping staccato figures. Then, true to intent, the music “grew” a giant fugal structure from Et in spiritus sanctus, all voices woven into the fabric in fine style – a strong, sudden major-key “Amen” brought to an end this impressive musical declamation of faith.

But not the Mass as such, of course – whose next sequence turned convention on its head with a Sanctus set in what sounded like the rhythmic trajectory of a Habanera! It made for a treasurable  “Now that I have your attention” moment, flecked with grins of delight from all sides, especially at the sultry piano glissandi and the exotic touch of the tambourine, giving the words a kind of extra potency in their delivery.  The Benedictus took a rather more circumspect rhythmic character, more of a “floating” aspect generated by “humming” sequences from the choir and a wordless melody from the soprano flowering into something that had the feeling of a heartfelt “personal” faith. The return of the “Hosanna” re-established the feeling of ritual, wordless voice-resonatings and instrumental accompanyings reinforcing the message of glory.

Agnus Dei gave us lovely, floating lines, creating a kind of living, gently-walking mosaic of sounds, snow-capped by a heartfelt “Dona nobis pacem” from Barbara Paterson – which brought us to the fugal (as opposed to “frugal”) Amen, not unlike Handel’s “Messiah” Amen, the tenors’ vigorous vocalisings particularly engaging! – as well as this “focusedly fugal” aspect, the writing included expansive lyrical lines as well, voices and instruments relishing their vigorous and full-throated exchanges right to the work’s conclusion. An enthusiastic reception, partly for the Mass itself and its composer, and partly for the performers’ delivery of the whole concert, carried the evening through in a satisfyingly warm-hearted manner – such pleasure to be had from an evening’s music-making!

 

Medlyn and Greager give rewarding and intelligent recital of early 20th century songs, plus four by Vincent O’Sullivan/Ross Harris

Posted on by Steven Sedley

Wednesday Lunchtime Concerts at St Andrew’s

Margaret Medlyn (mezzo-soprano), Richard Greager (tenor), with David Barnard (piano)

Songs by Berg, Ross Harris, Poulenc, Strauss, Puccini and Rachmaninov

St Andrews on The Terrace, Wellington

Wednesday 10 July 2019, 12;15 pm

A song recital by two internationally renowned singers based in Wellington is a significant musical event. The programme was like a snapshot of the music of the first half of the twentieth century across a wide range of countries, Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, with a more recent item from New Zealand.

The concert began with Margaret Medlyn singing Alban Berg’s Seven Early Songs (1907). These songs were written under the influence of Arnold Schoenberg, but also show echoes of Mahler, Wolf, Richard Strauss, and even Debussy. They were sung with understanding. Margaret Medlyn is a commanding singer with a powerful voice. Her beautiful deep register is penetrating and moving. The songs are set to texts by Carl Hauptman, Nikolaus Lenau, Theodore Storm, Rainer Maria Rilke, Johannes Schlaf, Otto Erich Hartleben, and Paul Hohenberg, a mirror of the Austrian literary world in which Berg was immersed. They reflected a great variety of emotions.

Richard Greager sang four short songs by Ross Harris, set to poems by Vincent O’Sullivan. Three of these were about father and son relationship, gentle domestic thoughts, one had a rollicking sea shanty feel. Vincent O’Sullivan and Ross Harris have a close association, and the songs were written for Richard Greager, all very Wellington, very Victoria University, but they were lovely and unpretentious.

This was followed by Poulenc’s Cinq poèmes de Paul Eluard. Poulenc moved in artistic and literary circles and had set the poems of many of his contemporaries to music. These songs are about down-and-outs, a subject that was meaningful in the Paris of the first quarter of the twentieth century. These songs are very much dialogues between voice and piano, and this was demonstrated by the sensitive piano playing of David Barnard responding to the singing of Richard Greager.

Margaret Medlyn then sang three songs by Richard Strauss. The first, ‘Befreit’, is a setting of a poem of Richard Dehmel, and one of Strauss’ most popular songs. The second, ‘Heimliche aufforderung’, the text by John Henry Mackay, was a wedding present to Strauss’s wife, the singer Pauline de Ahna. The third song, ‘Ich trage meine Minne’, ‘I bear my love /Silent with joy’ is one of the many songs that Strauss wrote for his wife. These songs appear to be simple, but they all have the hallmark of the special Richard Strauss sense of harmony and unexpected chords and twists in the melody.

Richard Greager sang three songs by Puccini. Puccini is hardly known for his songs, but he used these as sketches for arias in his operas. Richard Greager’s warm light tenor is well suited to these songs. In the second, ‘Sole e amore’, one can clearly hear ideas later used in La Boheme.

The final bracket of songs, again from Greager, consisted of three songs by Rachmaninov. These are imbued with a sense of nostalgia for the countryside. Though the setting is Russian the melodic line is often more Italian. It is the rich piano accompaniment that makes it characteristically Rachmaninov.

This was an ambitious programme and a rewarding concert. It was notable for the intelligent approach to the music, the clear phrasing and diction of the two singers. David Barnard’s piano playing, his sensitive support of the singers is worth a special mention. With teachers such as these at the New Zealand School of Music, it is not surprising that it turns out so many fine singers. Some of these singers will be performing Puccini’s Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi at the Hannah Playhouse next week.