Tag: youth orchestra

NZSM Orchestra serves composers well, with a star cello soloist

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Te Kōki New Zealand School of Music : Contrasts

Jason Post: Noumena (world première)
Elgar: Cello Concerto in E minor, Op.85 (adagio – moderato; lento – allegro molto; adagio; allegro ma non troppo)
Shostakovich: Symphony no.9 in E flat, Op.70 (allegro, moderato, scherzo: presto, largo, allegretto)

NZSM Orchestra conducted by Kenneth Young, with Heather Lewis (cello)

Sacred Heart Cathedral

Tuesday, 8 October 2013, 7.30pm

A demanding programme proved to be well within the capabilities of the NZSM orchestra, which included only a few ‘guest players’ (though all four horn players were guests).

The work by graduate student (studying for Master’s) Jason Post was titled ‘Noumena’, meaning ‘an object beyond our phenomenal experience of it’ according to the programme note by the composer.  It opened with a quiet flute that gradually became louder, and was joined by harp, bassoon and percussion.  Then the other strings arrived, with some playing ponticello (very close to the bridge), while the double basses played very low.  They were quickly followed by overblown flutes, all the while the music becoming louder Some brass joined in, while the percussionist played glockenspiel and then xylophone, the glockenspiel returning again later.  The various orchestral sounds, many of them unusual, made for music that was effective in its own way, but it would be difficult to see the piece receiving multiple performances.

Despite the technical and ideological aspects of the work, it reminded me most of a howling southerly storm, such as we experienced on 20 June this year, and then again, to a lesser extent, as I typed up this review the morning after the concert.  There was a build-up of sound, intensity and texture, then an unleashing, with many wind-like ululations.  The tempo was pretty regular, and the playing intense and on-the-ball.

Elgar was well served by the performance of his cello concerto.  This soulful, even romantic work is different from most of his other compositions.  Heather Lewis, in a gorgeous green dress, made a very strong and incisive opening, playing without the score, and immediately gave us a wonderful range of tone and dynamics.  Right from the outset, the orchestral cellos were very fine, too.

While the sound in Sacred Heart Cathedral is very good, there were times in all three works when the fortissimos were somewhat overwhelming, due to the acoustics, and the size of the building being much smaller than a concert hall.

Nevertheless, both orchestra and soloist made the most of the sublime melodies with their poignant resonances.  I could not see the soloist properly – but there was no doubt about the sumptuous, lyrical and passionate sounds she produced.  The orchestra did its part splendidly, but the focus was definitely on the soloist.  She had the work thoroughly at her fingertips, with all its technical, interpretative and  expressive demands, but made it her own.  The emphasis for both soloist and orchestra was on interpretation.

The lento opening of the second movement had both soloist and orchestra performing wonderful singing lines, filled with romantic longing.  These long lines and their phrasing were beautifully managed by Heather Lewis, and there were delicious pianissimos.  The allegro molto section provided a greater variety of temperaments.

The adagio continued in a similar mood to the lento, except perhaps for a greater degree of sadness, with the soloist virtually continuously involved, while the final movement also had a mixture of emotions, right up to its almost abrupt ending.

Shostakovich’s ninth symphony is possible his shortest and his most jolly – and the first for which I owned a recording.  It starts with plenty of gusto, and a delightful piccolo playing above syncopated pizzicato on the strings, with many interjections from brass and percussion, giving almost a fairground atmosphere.  The lively, quirky theme is thrown around the instruments as well as being played by the
full band.

The second movement starts in complete contrast; it is quiet, slower, and features a lovely clarinet solo, with woodwind chorus to back it up.  The strings enter, with a slow build-up of a surging theme that has a mocking character.  It is overcome for a time by gorgeous flute solos.  This movement was beautifully played.

The third movement went back to a quirky, lively mood.  It was exciting, with a plethora of notes, timbres and rhythmic figures.  Early on, the trumpet and trombones featured in fine form.  They returned later in stentorian style, to signal the largo, which featured a superb extended bassoon solo.  The player had great tone and phrasing; it was a delightful but somewhat sombre interlude between scherzo and finale.

The allegretto starts quietly, but the excitement builds to a climax, relieved by much drumming and rhythmic playing from the wind instruments.  Changes of key added piquancy to the repetition of the theme.  When the full orchestra play it forte there is a definite air of mockery about the rendition.  Many sectional variations ensue, before a quite sudden ending.

This demanding programme deserved a bigger audience.  However, the church was close to being packed.  Perhaps some potential audience members do not realise that the New Zealand School of Music is a university-level institution, and that many of the players are post-graduate music students.  The level of competence is extremely high.

The entire programme received spirited, committed and accomplished performances.
Kenneth Young brought out the best from the players.  His programme notes for the Elgar were elegant: I enjoyed his saying about the first movement “The violas then introduce an elegiac theme, long and flowing, which the cello cannot resist.”  I would need to hear Jason Posts’ piece several times to be able to relate the programme notes to the music, while those for the Shostakovich by Mark Wigglesworth (written in 2007) were very informative about the composer and the history of the work’s performance, but said little about the work itself.

 

 

Courageous Wellington Youth Orchestra tackles enterprising programme amid space difficulties

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Wellington Youth Orchestra conducted by Hamish McKeich with Arna Morton (violin)

Twentieth Century Classics: Lilburn: Song of Islands; Szymanowski: Violin Concerto No 1, Op 35; Sibelius: Symphony No 7 in C, Op 105

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Saturday 5 October, 7pm

Though audiences at the tri-annual concerts by the Wellington Youth Orchestra are sometimes no bigger than the number of players, and this one was probably about that too, critics do not exaggerate when they remark that in most cases the performances are impressive and satisfy all but the most (unrealistically) demanding of listeners.

Again, if your interest is in hearing great if unfamiliar music pretty well played, as distinct from imagining serious deficiencies compared with our professional orchestras, why not come along? When did you last hear a performance of any orchestra work by Szymanowksi? A look through the 5-year archive of Middle C reviews reveals only the Concert Overture played by the NZSO in April 2010.

So we rely on our amateur and student orchestras to come up with performances of slightly out-of-the-way but quite important music like Barber’s Cello Concerto from the Wellington Chamber Orchestra or Rachmaninov’s Third Symphony from this orchestra last year.

On Saturday we heard Szymanowski’s First Violin Concerto. It’s a very demanding work, exploring a sound world that might have suggestions of certain of his contemporaries, but is quite likely to lose listeners in its mystical sound-painting. The challenge for the violinist was as great, and in the treacherous acoustic, much of the dense and low-pitched sound verged on the chaotic.  The difficulties for both soloist and orchestra are so great that the impact can be cluttered, its real beauties almost impossible to perceive because of Szymanowksi’s scoring and musical imagination.

The opening from woodwinds and the solo violin’s sparkling, ethereal lines promised well enough as the violin sustained its long notes voluptuously. Arna Morton is certainly a gifted player and her navigating the fiendishly complex and rhythmically intricate decorative phrases had to be admired. What is demanded above all is a sound that is warm and opulent, but strangely, from what was evidently a fine violin (on loan from the New Zealand School of Music’s donation from Clare Galambos-Winter) the sound was a bit less than that and its tone, sometimes edgy and brittle, did not altogether capture the sensuality of Szymanowski’s music.

One of the shortcomings of a youthful orchestra can be its difficulty in sustaining pianissimo sounds, and providing a really sensitive underlay for a solo part that is rarely of blazing intensity, though still
demanding extraordinary virtuosity and finesse. The occasional outbursts from the orchestra left too little space for the intricacies of the violin part to emerge, apart from passages such as 8 or 10 minutes in where the violin has vigorous marcato down-bowings that match the orchestra’s exuberant mood.

One of the tell-tales marks of orchestral imbalance, the lack of clarity in orchestration which is not really all that thick, was my inability to hear either the celeste or the harp even though I was sitting on
the left side, not far from them: they were rather lost in orchestral turmoil.

It’s really a most beautiful concerto which demands subtlety and extremely careful balance between sections and between instruments. I rather feared that this admirable initiative, allowing an audience to hear a work that seems neglected in this country, was not quite the triumph it might have been.

The other works in the programme were more within the reach of the orchestra. Lilburn’s Song of Islands deserves to be better known, written while he was living very much in the world of Sibelius; in fact I know of no other composer whose music has so absorbed aspects of Sibelius’s sound world while imposing on it his own musical personality. Lilburn was 30 when he wrote this piece and he has made a
distinctly personal statement in it, creating sounds that might be hard to hear as picturing the Otago landscape but which do seem to suggest New Zealand in a quite confident and mature way. By and large, the orchestra, particularly the strings, produced very fine, near velvety sounds, while it was the woodwinds whose lines seemed to fare less well, not quite so well integrated.

The orchestra was strengthened in almost every section by professional guest players and though I could not see well who was playing the principal parts in the prominent and generally most accomplished wind passages, I imagine they were given mainly to the Youth Orchestra players themselves.  The guest players’ roles would have been in mentoring and in maintaining good ensemble and balance rather than seeking the limelight.

Sibelius himself was represented by his Seventh Symphony, not his easiest to bring off on account of its single-movement structure and the need to enliven rhythms amid big sweeps of broad melodic washes. If there were the usual problems of too loud brass and timpani, where a degree of modesty might have been expected, the strings were again conspicuous for their warmth and homogeneity, and woodwinds as they danced against timpani.  The orchestra’s playing was most effective in passages where stronger rhythms and bolder melodies arose.

The orchestra is faced with a conflict between playing in a space which is too small and reverberant and in the Town Hall where they have generally played in the past to good effect, but which is too big for the modest audience that usually comes.

2013 National Youth Orchestra shines and glows

Posted on by Frances Robinson

NZSO National Youth Orchestra 2013

SAM LOGAN – Zhu Rong Fury!
BEETHOVEN – Piano Concerto No.3 in C Minor Op.37
TCHAIKOVSKY – Symphony No.5 in E Minor Op.64

Richard Gill Conductor
Lara Melda Piano

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Friday 30th August, 2013

This event was one of those marvellous musical experiences that proves to be as much a celebration as a concert. It was an evening that showcased some 75 young kiwi musicians brimming with talent, passion and stunning professionalism. They were led by Australian conductor Richard Gill, an outstanding educator and musician who has encouraged thousands of youngsters in their journey to musical maturity, and the rapport between conductor and players was palpable from the initial downbeat.

The programme opened with Zhu Rong Fury! a short work commissioned for this concert from Sam Logan, the young NYO Composer-in-Residence. It was a programmatic work depicting the furious struggles between the Bronze-Age  Chinese deity Zhu Rong and his son Gong-Gong who played out a creation myth not unlike that of Rangi and Papa in Maori legend. The score was highly inventive in its colourful orchestration, and exceptionally demanding technically, particularly for the percussion whose role was to express all the fury and violence of the divine confrontation. It was an explosive start to the evening and the NYO pulled it off with great panache.

The following Beethoven Piano Concerto No.3 in C minor, Op.37 called for a complete quantum shift in the players’ mindset, but they did not falter. It was clear that this performance had been crafted by conductor, soloist and orchestra with great care and devotion: each was attuned to the other in a mutual understanding of the profound depths of this music. Yet that understanding was tempered with a lightness that wonderfully expressed the youthful joy they found in the rich delicacy of melodic writing, offset against the powerful dramatic contrasts that typify the work.

The 20-year-old British soloist Lara Melda was born in London to Turkish parents, and currently studies at the Royal College of Music. She is rapidly making her mark in the world of recitals and international competitions, and is also an accomplished viola player who enjoys chamber music on both instruments. This broader background was obvious in the conversations she created with the orchestra, and particularly with the woodwind principals as together they wove melodic fabric of exquisite complexity and sensitivity. Her dynamic range displayed an astonishing mastery of the keyboard, and a technical command that enabled a reading of this concerto that left a sense of  real musical completeness. It brought the house down, and she returned with an encore of Chopin’s Butterfly Etude – sixty seconds of magic executed with breathless lightness and delicacy.

Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.5 in E minor, Op.64 comprised the second half of the concert. This huge work is a real endurance test for any orchestra, but the NYO and Richard Gill threw themselves into it, and clearly revelled in the opportunity. The brooding theme of the opening Andante was beautifully stated by clarinets and bassoons, and followed by a rich warmth from the massed strings that immediately set the scene for the breadth of  this score. They moved effortlessly into the drive and energy of the following Allegro con anima and gave great colour and contrast to its sudden shifts in temperament.

The Andante Cantabile opens with one of the most famous and evocative horn melodies in the entire orchestral repertoire. It fell to principal William McNeill who, unlike many professional orchestral principals, was not supported by a fifth horn to take over some of the slog of extended tutti passages. Undeterred, he played it with great sensitivity that truly captured the heartbreaking beauty of this melody. And this yearning passion marked out the entire movement as the whole orchestra reached far into the depths of its richly expressive writing.

The Valse that followed was played with a lilting grace that endowed this classic courtship ritual with a delightfully youthful, slightly breathless aura.

The huge Finale movement was tackled with no hint of the exhausting demands of this huge work. Players and conductor alike launched themselves at its furious, larger-than-life orchestration with no holds barred. Following the somber majesty of the introduction, they gave full force and brilliance to the power of its relentless drive, right through to the final dramatic chords. It was a fitting end to an outstanding performance of this work that would do credit to any professional orchestra.

I had only one issue with this concert. It was a remarkable display of youthful kiwi talent, yet the management chose to bypass that same talent in their selection of the solo performer. New Zealand has so many outstanding young musicians who would do more than justice to this role, be it on piano or some other instrument, yet that call was not made. If it was good enough to showcase a kiwi for the Queen Mother’s special youth orchestra concert in 1966 (with violinist Michael McLellan), why not now and in future years?

 

Fine Choral Symphony from Wellington Youth Orchestra, but where’s the audience?

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Beethoven: Symphony no. 9 in D minor, Op.125

Wellington Youth Orchestra, Chapman Tripp Opera Chorus, members of the Bach Choir, Madeleine Pierard (soprano), Bianca Andrew (mezzo), Derek Hill (tenor), Robert Tucker (bass), conducted by Hamish McKeich

Wellington Town Hall

Monday 29 July 2013, 7pm

The Wellington Youth Orchestra obviously works very hard, and is made up of extremely competent young musicians.  It is only two-and-a-half months since the last concert, which included a taxing Shostakovich Symphony.  Here they are again, playing Beethoven’s demanding final symphony, with choir and soloists; a considerable undertaking for a youth orchestra.

But where was the audience?  This major work has not been performed very recently in Wellington.  Perhaps people think ‘this is a kids’ orchestra – it won’t be very good’.  That is totally incorrect.  Where, though, was the advertising?  I was unaware of the concert until a few days before it happened.  I didn’t see any flyers handed out at other concerts (perhaps there were).  Here was a major choral concert, but the Wellington Regional Committee of the New Zealand Choral Federation was not notified of it, for their excellent listing emailed to choirs, giving details of forthcoming choral concerts.

Not only was the audience small; the orchestra and choir were both smaller than is usually employed for this work.  This did not matter in a less-than-half-full hall, and both lived up to expectations, on the whole.

Again, the orchestra had ‘friends and guest players’, whose names were not listed, joining to support some sections.  I noticed the NZSO’s principal double bass and others added to that section, the principal flute from the NZSO, plus a horn player, a cellist and a violist  There may have been others.

The concert began 10 minutes late – for a relatively early concert timing, this was an irritant.  However, I was soon disarmed by the playing: crisp rhythms and lively variety of dynamics were immediately apparent.  As I sat back and enjoyed the music, I thought what a great a symphony this would have been even without the choral finale.

These young musicians knew what they were doing, as the majestic first movement grew in stature – everything was given full weight.  This is not easy music, but there was no hesitancy and only a very occasional wrong note from this fine ensemble of 50-plus players.

The second movement was driven along forcefully by Hamish McKeich.  All parts were beautifully articulated in this highly dramatic scherzo.  The tempi of the movements were rather confusingly printed in the programme; suffice to say that they are 1 fast; 2  Scherzo: faster; 3 slow; 4 fast, with numerous slower bits interspersed.

The gorgeous slow introduction to the third movement, with its noble melody is followed by
variations upon it.  The playing was full of wonderful woodwind and horn ensembles.  Occasionally the pizzicato accompaniment on strings was not completely together nor loud enough, but that is a quibble; the playing was generally splendid and built up the tension marvellously well.

Beethoven’s motifs came through more than adequately – for example, the frequent pizzicato
passages for the cellos.

The final movement opened quite fast.  There was a big moment for cellos and double basses, and they performed it very well.  Then they were lucky enough to introduce the grand theme upon which the remainder of the movement is built.  The bassoon variation was played superbly.  When the violins finally got their chance, followed by the full orchestra, the music was declaimed with confidence and strength.

Beethoven’s words to introduce Ode to Joy by Friedrich Schiller were sung by Robert Tucker with plenty of power, and a rich vocal quality, although the lowest note was rather beyond his easy reach.  The other soloists were all exemplary, but their placement behind the orchestra meant a lack of volume and clarity at times.

The chorus of about 35 voices was, on the whole, impressive. However, the orchestra rather overwhelmed it at some climactic moments.  The men were strong in their passages sung without the women.  They are frequently asked to sing in a high tessitura, and those passages are spiked with chances for error, only one of which I was aware of the men falling into: shortening the word ‘muss’, thus making an unpleasant hissing noise where it was not wanted.

Tenor Derek Hill is quite slight of build, but he delivered the goods.  Bianca Andrew’s and Madeleine Pierard’s voices blended well, and were similar in timbre.

While I don’t expect the soloists to have ghastly grins on their faces, I would have thought that Ode to Joy might have evinced some appearance of happiness from the soloists, especially at the end; the women particularly looked very glum.  In some performances of the work, but not in this one, the soloists join with the chorus at the end, which seems a good idea – all the singers combining in the last great shouts of joy.

I haven’t listened to a performance of this masterwork for many years – instead, I’ve sung in it
numerous times.  This performance was uplifting – and I didn’t have to worry about whether I could reach the repeated top notes!

 

Twin Peaks – a concert of Verdi and Wagner

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Te Kōki New Zealand School of Music

Bicentenary of the births of Verdi and Wagner

Verdi: Overture to La forza del destino / ‘Non so le tetre immagini’ from Il corsaro

‘Questa o quelle’ from Rigoletto / ‘O don fatale’ from Don Carlo

Triumphal March from Aida

‘Alla vita che t’arride’ from Un ballo in maschera / Gulnara and Seid duet from Act 3, Il corsaro

‘Tacea la notte’ from Il trovatore

Wagner: Overture (Prelude) to Die Meistersinger / Wesendonck lieder

Entry of the gods into Valhalla from Das Rheingold  / encore: Prelude to Act 3, Lohengrin

Margaret Medlyn (soprano), Daniela-Rosa Cepeda (soprano), Oliver Sewell (tenor), Elisabeth Harris (soprano), Christian Thurston (baritone), Christina Orgias (soprano, Fredi Jones (baritone), Isabella Moore (soprano), NZSM Orchestra conducted by Kenneth Young

Wellington Town Hall

Tuesday, 28 May 2013

The NZSM Orchestra keeps up a pretty hot pace, with relatively frequent concerts.  This was ‘the big one’; the annual Town Hall concert, and probably the last for some time, due to the earthquake strengthening to take place at that venue.

However, the coldest day of the year so far would, without doubt, have been the main reason for relatively low audience numbers.  This was a shame, because the orchestra was in top form, and coupled with some outstanding singers, they made the tribute to two of the greatest opera composers, into a marvellous concert.  The downstairs seating was less than half-full, while there were about four rows full in the main part of the circle upstairs.

The large orchestra (including quite a number of guest players) gave a very fine performance of the overture to La forza del destino, with close attention to rhythm and dynamics to create the appropriate spooky feeling.

Daniela-Rosa Cepeda (formerly Young, and the winner of the Dame Malvina Major Foundation Aria prize and Rosina Buckman Memorial Cup at the 2011 Hutt Valley Performing Arts Competitions in 2011) was the first singer we heard.  Her extract from Il corsaro, and the duet by Christina Orgias and Fredi Jones later in the programme, were tasters for the opera the School of Music is to present in July.  This testing first aria began accompanied by harp only, followed by pizzicato strings – very effective.  The singer’s voice proved to be very well suited to this music.

Oliver Sewell’s famous aria from Rigoletto showed that he was equal to the acoustics of the large hall.  Elisabeth Harris’s voice was rich and powerful too, in the difficult, dramatic aria from Don Carlo.  While improved from previous times I have heard her, she still sang under the note at times, particularly at the beginning of phrases.

What a magnificent, grand march is that from Aida!  It must be one of the most popular orchestral excerpts from all opera.  The NZSM Orchestra gave it a fine performance, notable for the splendid trumpets.

Christian Thurston proved to have an excellent voice for Verdi, in his excerpt from Un ballo in maschera, but in the Il corsaro duet, the singers were not well balanced.  Fredi Jones was good at conveying his character, while Christina Orgias communicated her words, and the mood, very well, but could not match Jones’s volume.  The orchestra played superbly and sensitively.

Isabella Moore proved once again what a promising singer she is – a natural, with confidence, and a lovely voice intelligently used.  Her voice production seems effortless, and she rose above the orchestral sound, producing wonderful notes throughout.  Her vocal quality is mellow, yet exciting when it needs to be.

After the interval, another grand march, the overture to Die Meistersinger, was taken at a brisk pace, but still allowing the subtleties to emerge.  The brass were first class, speaking as with one voice.  It was powerful playing; Wagner would surely have approved.  Balance was excellent.

Next was a real treat: the Wesendonck lieder, Wagner’s setting of poems by Mathilde Wesendonck.  I don’t know that I have ever heard the whole five live before – perhaps once, a long time ago, in London.  Margaret Medlyn was just the person to perform them, with her successful experience as a singer of main roles in Wagner music dramas.  The first two songs (‘Der Engel’ and Stehe Still’) were sung sublimely, and just right.    The radiance of the singer’s voice was never swallowed up by the huge orchestra.

The third song, ‘Im Treibhaus’ (In the hothouse) featured muted strings.  The words (in translation in the printed programme) described a state of depression; the tonal changes, dynamics and expression employed by Margaret Medlyn were beautifully judged to convey this state; it was an exquisite performance.

The meaning of ‘Schmerzen’ (Sorrows) was drawn out by Wagner’s fabulous word-painting.  As in the first half of the concert, the orchestral accompaniment was notable for delicious harp-playing.  Throughout the songs, one could recognise many passages that the composer used later in his music-dramas.  The ending of the last song, ‘Träume’ (Dreams) was quite beautiful, and the orchestra did its part supremely well.  Margaret Medlyn proved herself again to be a great Wagnerian singer.

The last work listed in the printed programme, from Das Rheingold, had Wagner at his most lyrical.  Oboes were important, and their playing was very fine.  Although the prelude to Lohengrin was not printed in the programme, Middle-C was aware that it was to be played.  It made a familiar finish to the concert, completing a quartet of grand marches and overtures.

Orchestra, conductor and singers should all feel very proud of their achievements in presenting a concert of a very high standard.  Although we understand that it was a hard night’s work, one would wish that the orchestra members might convey at least a modicum of pleasure or enjoyment in their faces when they take their final bow.

Wellington Youth Orchestra trumps with Shostakovich

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

WELLINGTON YOUTH ORCHESTRA PRESENTS:

John Psathas: Tarantismo (Wellington Première)

Rachmaninov: Excerpts from Aleko

Shostakovich: Symphony no.5 (moderato, allegretto, largo, allegro non troppo)

Wellington Youth Orchestra, conducted by Hamish McKeich, with Paul Whelan (bass-baritone)

Wellington Town Hall

Saturday 11 May 2013

A recent work by John Psathas, Tarantismo demonstrated again his considerable skill in orchestral writing, and his inventiveness.  The programme notes explained that the title refers to tarantism, the extreme desire to dance, that used to be attributed to the bite of the tarantula, but is named after the sea port in southern Italy.  From this tradition comes the dance, tarantella, a rapid, whirling dance.

The piece opened with tubular bells; soon there were brass melodies, particularly on the trombones.  The writing became briefly somewhat Mendelssohnian.  A large orchestra was required; numbers of ‘friends and guest players’, whose names were not listed, joined to support some sections.  I noticed three additional horns, the principal double bass and the principal violist from the NZSO.  There may have been others, notably in the percussion.  I noted, too, two players from the Quandrivium quartet that I heard perform two nights before. There was gorgeous harp playing from Michelle Velvin – and indeed throughout the concert.

Undulating phrases helped the work to build and build in both volume and tempo to complete was a very successful work, with something worthwhile for each player to do.

The surprise guest was brought to the platform for the second work, and turned out to be bass-baritone Paul Whelan, who had been performing the previous night with the NZSO and the Orpheus Choir in Psathas’s Orpheus in Rarohenga.

The music from Rachmaninov’s opera Aleko was completely unfamiliar to me, but most enjoyable.  The Introduction started with woodwind and then there was a big symphonic sound.  Throughout, there were delightful little solos for woodwind, and the harp again made a most distinguished contribution.

The second excerpt was a Cavatina for the bass-baritone.  Paul Whelan almost shocked us with his big sepulchral Russian voice.  Parts of his excerpt were ominous and menacing, the voice used superbly to obtain these effects.  There were some Tchaikovskian turns of musical phrase near the end – perhaps reminiscent of Onegin, since the character in Aleko was described in the programme notes as ‘a world-weary young man from a wealthy background…’  The instant applause at the end was well-deserved.  This was great singing.

The Men’s Dance was rumbunctious, the double basses getting a good workout at the beginning.  Their playing was very fine, as was the brass playing, with some lovely long-held pianissimos, and much for the percussion to do.  McKeich’s conducting gestures looked clear and always meaningful.  The orchestra made a great sound, and always played as a cohesive unit.  The music was very involving.

The best was yet to come.  The playing of the Shostakovich symphony was simply splendid. This, perhaps his best-known symphony, is full of power.  I would be glad to hear a professional orchestra play this work as well as the Wellington Youth Orchestra did, despite a few intonation flaws in the strings soon after the opening phrases.  The strings nevertheless played superbly, rendering the bleak atmosphere through beautifully controlled dynamics and phrasing.  Refined oboe playing was just part of the magical woodwind to be heard throughout.  An unnamed pianist made a robust contribution.

Some Mahlerian phrases could be heard, but much of the music is more abrasive than Mahler, and much more percussion is employed, including impressive timpani playing from, I believe, another guest player.

The rather disturbing opening theme is repeated in many different guises in this first movement.  A violin solo, full of pathos was beautifully played by leader Arna Morton.

Again in the second movement, the double basses got the initial passages.  The jolly (or mocking?) section that followed was full of joie de vivre – apparently.  Solo violin was again an outstanding feature, then flute had its time in the sun, and many others, including the contra-bassoon.  The pizzicato string passages accompanying some of these were absolutely spot on.  The conductor had the measure of the work, and the orchestra conveyed that.

Notable in the third movement were the horns in top form (acknowledging that not all were regular WYO players).  The music moved from the jolly to the sombre here.  After a marvellous harp and flute duet, there followed ominous passages, in which the strings really dug into their instruments, to produce full, rich tone, exquisitely nuanced.  The dramatic contrasts and extremes were most exciting.

The finale started with bang, bang brass, especially the tuba, and timpani, as they played an exciting dance.  The movement ran a whole gamut of senses and emotions.  The period of quietude seemed almost shocking after what had gone before.  The tension mounted as the military, in the shape of brass and side-drum, called; the strings endlessly repeated one note in unison until the climax, and the end.

All the music was chosen well, to give a range of solo passages for many of the players, and passages allowing other sections of the orchestra to shine.  It is hard to think of a symphony that provides more opportunities for woodwind solos than this one does.

The audience, if not large, was very attentive, and a partial standing ovation greeted the concert’s conclusion.  I left the hall on a ‘high’.  All credit to Hamish McKeich and the players.  The future of symphonic music in this country seems secure in these hands.

Youthful brilliance from the NZSO National Youth Orchestra

Posted on by Peter Mechen

NZSO National Youth Orchestra

Summer Concert 2013

ARNOLD – Brass Quintet No.1 Op.73 / BALLARD – frisson (world premiere)

R.STRAUSS – Wind Serenade Op.7 / GRIEG – Two Norwegian Airs Op.63

BRAHMS – Symphony No.2 in D Major Op.73

NZSO National Youth Orchestra

Conductor (Brahms) :  Kenneth Young

Town Hall, Wellington

Friday 8th February 2013

Called a “Summer Residency Concert”, this NZSO National Youth Orchestra presentation most effectively highlighted the skills of some of the country’s top youthful musicians.

This was done by allocating works featuring the orchestra’s different sections to make up the concert’s first half. Following this, the whole orchestra came together to perform Brahms’ genial and much-loved Second Symphony.

The idea looked good on paper, and worked, I thought, marvellously in practice, thanks in part to the judicious programming.  In each of the pieces, the young musicians tackled the specific challenges fearlessly – in fact, I found the results astonishing as regards the virtuosity and musicality of the orchestral playing.

At this point I ought to apologise for what might seem a lengthy review to follow – but I want to try and do these young players’ efforts suitable justice by discussing just what I thought it was that made this concert such a special event.

First up were the brass players, five of whom presented themselves on the platform to take on Malcolm Arnold’s First Brass Quintet, written in 1973.

Arnold himself was a brass player who, in his youth, desperately wanted to play like jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong.  Perhaps he didn’t quite achieve this aim, but he was certainly a good enough musician to win places in both the London Philharmonic and BBC Symphony Orchestras in the post-WW2 years. Eventually he gave up full-time playing in order to compose.

A complex personality, dogged throughout his life by profound depression,  Arnold wrote a wide range of music, some of which did confront his demons – though much of his output turned its back on his life’s darker aspects, and resulted in a number of exhilarating and accessible works , as is the case with this piece, though the second of the work’s three movements did cast some shadows.

The Quintet, written in 1961 ideally demonstrated the technical virtuosity of these NYO players – two trumpeters, a horn-, trombone- and tuba-player. The “game of chase” opening movement delighted us with absolutely scintillating trumpet work at the outset, galumphing rhythms throughout and swirling fanfares at the end. The middle movement, a Chaconne, brought out a more serious, even occasionally menacing mood, with tragic sequences calling to my mind parts of the finale of Brahms’ Fourth Symphony, along with similar echoes of Purcell’s Funeral Music for Queen Mary.

But the con brio finale swept the skies clear of these clouds, Arnold bending his opening melody by throwing in occasional characteristic grace-notes, and writing irreverent glissandi for individual instruments wanting to “bale-out” of the toccata-like figurations. Everything went with a swing,  the players maintaining both intonation and ensemble with remarkable poise and touching in moments of real brilliance throughout the work.

Next was a world premiere performance of Sarah Ballard’s frisson, a work written for brass and timpani. Winner of last year’s Todd Corporation Young Composer Award with a work Bitter Hill, inspired by the Pukekawa District alongside the Waikato river, Sarah Ballard’s new piece seemed a rather more abstracted, cerebral affair. Ballard acknowledged the influence of the late Elliot Carter with this work, in particular the spectacular timpani solo that opened the piece in flamboyant style, the player transfixing us with the theatricality of his pop-drummer-like gestures and the boldness of the sounds produced.

The ensemble – trumpet, two trombones and timpani – produced some amazing individual and concerted sonorities, though I felt sorry for the trumpeter not having a “counterpart” to play off against, unlike the other two brass players, who were constantly setting timbre and figuration against one another to brilliant effect. As it was, both timbral and gestural effect stipulated by the composer was astonishing in its range and scope, even if I thought the trumpet line seemed isolated in places, less integrated in the argument compared with what the doppelgänger trombonists were doing! In places the trumpeter coped well with treacherous figurations, while the trombonists seemed able to “wrap” their lines around one another’s before either would detach with a peremptory gesture. So, for me, it was a work of great contrast and some tension in the “working out” – the composer got a good reception afterwards, and the comments I heard were favourable.

Onto the platform then came the wind players, ready to give us Richard Strauss’s youthful Serenade in E-flat, Op.7, a brief though enchanting work, and an assured piece of composition for an eighteen year-old. I enjoyed the performance greatly, partly because the players (unconducted) seemed less concerned with “moulding” the sounds and instrumental blends, and more with bringing out the different timbres and colours of these combinations. Having previously sat through concerts of wind ensembles with well-nigh perfect intonation throughout but singularly bland and unexciting results, I was here constantly stimulated by the ensemble’s actual “sound”. There was charm, gaiety and energy by turns, and one sensed the players’ delight in interaction, occasionally fulsomely-scored moments contrasted cheek-by-jowl with felicitous delicacies. Yes, there was the odd ill-tuned patch (which a friend, sitting near me, commented on afterwards), but I much preferred that to dull perfection, regarding the results overall as varied and characterful – so enjoyable!

It wasn’t until the string ensemble entered and began playing that I remember being struck by the “conductorless” status of the music-making – truth to tell, I had enjoyed the performance of the Strauss Wind Serenade so much I was obviously of a similar mind to the famous wind-player about whom the story is told that he was asked who the conductor was of a performance of “The Magic Flute” he had recently taken part in at Covent Garden –  to which he replied, “Don’t know – I never looked!”

Well, there may have been the odd phrase-beginning where intonation and ensemble might have benefitted from a guiding hand, but nothing which besmirched the delight and pleasure I felt at the group’s performance of almost all parts of the Grieg work chosen , which was itself something of a rarity in concert – Two Norwegian Airs, Op.63, though I knew the second of the “Airs” as “Cowkeeper’s Tune and Country Dance”, rather than the given titles in the programme of “Cow Call and Peasant Dance” (it obviously depended on which agricultural college one attended!).

I thought the ensemble was of a high standard throughout, both in terms of attack and in the flexible handling by the players of the music’s phrasings and pulse.  Grieg’s lines here sang and breathed with an unforced naturalness which I found beguiling.  Nicely-phrased lower strings gave us a beautifully wistful folk-melody, and then, augmented by the violins, playing of great delicacy, allied with command of weight and nuance – a real treat for the listener.  I enjoyed especially the upper strings’ wind-blown variation with its chromatic dying falls – in places uncannily anticipating Sibelius’s Tapiola.

The following “Cowcall” captured the same kind of rustic charm and sensitivity at the start, doing full justice to those very “northern” textures and harmonies characteristic of Grieg , contrasting the wistfulness of the opening with the more “earthy” emphases of the lower strings when they added their weight to the sound-picture. My one caveat was that I thought the following “Peasant Dance” too fast and slick-rhythmed, lacking a true “bucolic” quality – here, the players I thought needed to “dig in” a bit,  and trust more to accenting and “pointing” rather than to speed,  to give themselves space enough to properly bounce the bows on the strings near the bridge, and generally sound more like folk-fiddles.  The music seemed suddenly, throughout this section, to lose some of its character.

Still, in the light of the wonderful playing and conveyance of feeling and colour I’d heard earlier in the work, I felt as though we’d been treated to something special.

Having demonstrated their compartmented skills the players then had the opportunity to put their talents together, via a performance of the Brahms Second Symphony. Kenneth Young took the podium, and Salina Fisher (who had superbly led the strings throughout the Grieg work) swapped the concertmaster’s chair with Arna Morton, whom I’d often seen in the role, leading always with tremendous zest and intensity.

I was looking forward to Ken Young’s interpretation of the Brahms – my favourite of his symphonies –  as I very much enjoyed his work as a conductor. I liked his brisk, no-nonsense way with music, and his ability to draw from players great intensity and plenty of excitement. Very occasionally I’ve felt his work missing that last ounce of breathing-space, applying that no-nonsense quality a touch too rigorously, to the point of being a bit oppressive and lacking in repose – so here was a chance to experience what he would do with music I knew extremely well.

From the beginning the playing had a buoyancy, an “upward-thrust”, with the ends of phrases “speaking” to those that followed, and suggesting the music’s lovely, pastoral character. Though briskly-unfolded, the music wasn’t straitjacketed at the outset – I’ve never forgotten Young’s comment to the players at a rehearsal I once attended – “Don’t count it – FEEL it!”. Having said that I was in subsequent places reminded of Toscanini’s approach to this work, the first big climax passionately, almost fiercely declaimed, with plenty of onward drive, and perhaps with some of the figurations a bit unyielding, if very excitingly played.

The brasses in the development section sounded properly louring and purposeful, similarly activating the rest of the orchestra, and creating crescendi whose climaxes were like waves crashing one after another on a beach. Afterwards was a wonderful horn solo from Alexander Morton, ably supported by the strings, and characterfully riposted by the winds.

Slow movements don’t necessarily mean relaxation, and straightaway Young encouraged his players to really “dig in” and feel the intensity of this movement – very focused, impassioned ‘cellos at the beginning, more strong and vigorous rather than lyrical and warm, though the upper strings suggested some sunlight breaking through the clouds. There was another piece of lovely horn-playing, leading to heartfelt sectional exchanges, the whole having a “real and earnest” character, something of a battle for supremacy between light and dark. Finally the strings, with help from the bassoon counterpointing its way through the battlefield, managed to bring some hope, even though the shadows re-emerged near the end, with thudding timpani suggesting the abyss beneath this world’s feet. A not-quite-in-tune final chord helped suggest a slightly-out-of-sorts concluding mood.

Though it’s marked “allegretto grazioso” Young got his players to “energise” the third movement in places as if it were a true scherzo, the playing often emphasizing the music’s thrust and “spike”. Strings found ensemble with a couple of their entries precarious but they eventually came together, and their deep-throated “burgeoning” of tone in the music’s middle section made a great impression. After a stylish skip-and-jump away with the winds, the strings again touched our inner places with a “beautiful and strange” reprise of the opening theme,  put then to rights by the oboe, the sounds poised and lovely at the end.

A nicely “charged” first chord at the finale’s beginning was succeeded by swirling ambiences of strings and winds, rather like crowds of people gathering for the start of a great event – then, a great shout of exuberance, and the music was off over hill and dale, horses and riders parting company at some of the jumps, but everybody managing to remount and catch up at the singing second subject theme. I was reminded by Young’s headlong tempo of a recording I’d recently heard of the NZSO’s inaugural 1947 concert, with conductor Anderson Tyrer setting what was, for those players, an impossibly breakneck speed – by comparison, these young players could handle the pace, even if I felt a somewhat “hectoring” quality in the music in places.  The contrasting , gently-oscillating sequences just before the reprise of the opening gave us some much-needed respite, before it was “Yoicks! Tally-ho!” once again, and we were off!  It was all undeniably exciting, right to the end, with the look of exhilarated wonderment on one of the front-desk cellist’s faces after the final chord, with its “Wow! Did we do that?!” quality speaking volumes, as did the tremendous ovation for all at the music’s ending.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wellington Youth Sinfonietta paves the way to orchestral careers

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Wellington Youth Sinfonietta conducted by Michael Vinten

Excerpts from Swan Lake (Tchaikovsky) – conducted by Vincent Hardaker; Cirrus (Natalie Hunt); Violin Concerto in D (Beethoven)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday 11 November, 3.30pm

With this concert the Wellington Youth Sinfonietta marked 20 years years of age (or should it be next year? – it was founded in 1993. There is a tendency to follow the Roman numbering system which was to count the year of a birth or a beginning as year one, so that the completion of that first year is named as year two. The same counting oddity was widely remarked on at the Millennium).

Naturally, gaps in the wind sections have to be filled by guests; flutes and oboes were the only sections entirely taken by young players and they handled three of the four trumpets: the contrasts were by no means as marked as one might have expected.

The excerpts of Swan Lake ballet were conducted by assistant conductor Vincent Hardaker; the orchestra did very well, oboes and later, the flutes gaining confidence as the music went along. One of the phenomena was a tendency of the professionals to dominate proceedings, particular members of the percussion section, whose sounds are endemically prone to overstatement in this church, so that the careful if tentative playing by young students was a bit lost during passages where percussion and brass were involved.

The orchestra had commissioned a piece from Natalie Hunt, a graduate in arts of Victoria University and in music of the New Zealand School of Music; she was Composer-in-Residence for the NZSO National Youth Orchestra in 2009. Cirrus opened with flutes followed by other woodwinds in feathery, transparent suggestions of high cloud, later darkened oddly by dulling pizzicato on double basses; the atmospheric quality recovered with marimba and triangle. The main part of the piece soon became more compact and I could admire the distinction the composer brought to her writing for the full orchestra, the underpinning by bass instruments and the unadorned line spelt out by the brass, all of which displayed her sensitivity to the limitations of young players.. The earlier hint of darkness reappeared with the arrival of insistent drums that threatened a stormy cumulo-nimbus sky.

After the interval Blythe Press entered as soloist in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, conducted, as was Cirrus, by Michael Vinten. The orchestra opened diffidently enough but their gathering confidence soon established a good foundation for the arrival of the soloist. A frequent problem was the players’ inclination to let rip wherever the marking fff appeared, to the detriment of the quieter passages. Though it was of course important to have professional support in the sections with only one or two young players, I was impressed by their often near indistinguishable contributions alongside the guest players of clarinet, bassoon, horns and trombones. Needless to say, Blythe Press’s performance was highly distinguished, always sensitive to tempos which tended to the slow side, but remained perfectly convincing. His presence clearly inspired the orchestra to playing that might have exceeded their own expectations.

This junior version of the Wellington Youth Orchestra provides an important stage for aspiring orchestral musicians, and their performances, heard in the right spirit, were here admirable.

 

Music-making with virtuosity, beauty and energy at Wellington Youth Orchestra’s last 2012 outing

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wellington Youth Orchestra – Final 2012 Concert

Music by Thomas Goss, Hector Berlioz, Johannes Brahms

Louis van der Mespel (double-bass)

Bianca Andrew (mezzo-soprano)

Hamish McKeich (conductor)

Wellington Youth Orchestra

Town Hall, Wellington

Sunday 21st October 2012

My second encounter of the year with a Wellington Youth Orchestra concert was in its way as pleasurable and invigorating as the first one  – and in fact I thought the orchestra played more confidently and assuredly this time round throughout the entire programme, in repertoire that posed a number of interesting and diverse challenges.

Hamish McKeich was again the conductor, and as was the case during the previous concert, demonstrated a feeling for a range of repertoire I’d not before associated him with. It seemed, on the face of things, a far cry from the fare I’d usually heard him direct, mostly with the contemporary music ensemble Stroma, to the worlds of both Rachmaninov and Berlioz (to name but two of the composers whose music the orchestra played), but he seemed just as at home with each of these respective worlds of sound and feeling as with any “modern” composer’s music.

Of course, present-day composition assumes an enormous stylistic and aesthetic range of expression, as the evening’s first concert item illustrated. This was Thomas Goss’s delightful Double Bass Concerto, written in 2004 and premiered the following year in Santa Rosa, California. It was played here brilliantly by Louis van der Mespel, his performance marking the young soloist’s success in winning the WYO Concerto competition earlier this year.

This work was intended by the composer as a kind of showpiece for the instrument, making use of its “natural” characteristics such as warmth, depth, resonance and available range of pitch and dynamics. In his program note Goss talks about the instrument’s “alternate view of virtuoso string playing” – and van der Mespel’s performance realized these unique characteristics with considerable aplomb.

I found the music had a kind of “English pastoral” feeling, predominantly lyrical and rhapsodic, a style assumed by the double-bass as well, with a few startling extensions to what one would expect from something like a viola or ‘cello! Particularly striking was the instrument’s high register under this young soloist’s fingers – his playing may have had the odd patch of edgy intonation, but such were few and far between.

Goss’s writing for the orchestra was lovely in places where one felt a kind of “outdoors” ambience, the wind-blown string phrases readily evoking open spaces, though ready when required to explore emotional responses to the same, whether reflective or passionate. Among other ingratiating moments were were sequences of dialogue between the soloist and, by turns, the respective leaders of the violin seconds and firsts.

The soloist was given a cadenza-like recitative towards the work’s end, splendidly expressive and wide-ranging, and especially notable for some beautifully-managed harmonics, contrasted with great growlings on the lower strings! A reflective mood dominated the work’s last pages, leaving a poetic, almost elegiac impression at the end. Splendid work from all concerned, and especially from the young soloist!

From double-bass to mezzo-soprano seemed a truly radical tonal focus-shift, but the rich and radiant beauty of singer Bianca Andrew’s opening phrases took us more-or-less immediately into Hector Berlioz’s world of turbo-charged sensibility, though hardly that, it must be said, inhabited by the same composer’s wonderfully hallucinatory “Symphonie Fantastique”.

Instead, with these songs Berlioz found a rather more finely-honed expression perfectly suited to the poetry of Theophile Gautier, the result being a sequence of settings at once sensuous, poetic and elegiac. We were fortunate to hear singing that was more than ready to respond to every inflection of the line and every colour suggested by the text, catching and holding the flavour of each setting so beautifully.

It seemed, too, the instrumentalists were inspired by Bianca Andrew’s radiance and focus throughout – though often not particularly glamorous in effect, the strings kept their intonations nicely in accord with their soloist, and the winds made some lovely accompanying melismas in places. Le spectre de la Rose was distinguished by a range of expression from the singer which conveyed all the bitter-sweet sense of fulfillment in death, raptly accompanied by conductor and players; and the contrasting dark passions of Absence here washed over us with telling force, the repeated cries of “Oh!” like searing sword-strokes to the heart, making the desolation at the end all the more hurtful to experience.

Though the text of the following Sur les lagunes spoke also of loss and desertion, the mood was somehow more radiant, more elevated, with eyes seemingly turned heavenward rather than downcast (“Above me the immensity of night spreads like a shroud”), the music’s grief almost transcendent in its upwardly-reaching outbursts, the highest notes countering the bitterness of those which transfixed the previous setting, Absence. Surely Bianca Andrew was born to sing this music, conveying such a heart-warming sense of release in the cycle’s final song L’Ile Inconnue (Berlioz’s fifth setting, Au Cimetière, was omitted) using her face as well as her tones to delightful effect, and conveying such a generosity of spirit with these heartfelt outpourings. Orchestra and conductor, too, seemed hardly able to contain their pleasure in realizing such beauties, earning the audience’s gratitude and appreciation at the end.

And then, after the interval, there was Brahms! – the Fourth Symphony, no less, a strong, dark, and in places melancholy work, relieved by a giant’s playground of a scherzo (in this and in other instances the most Brucknerian-sounding of all of Brahms’ music) and then capped off by a passacaglia whose heights and valleys, grandeurs and storms resemble those of a mountain range. Youthful energy and confidence kicked in beautifully at the start of the symphony, the occasional phrase snatched a little uneasily, but with most things nobly unfolding, as my notes attest – “conductor gets his strings to “ghost” their figurations nicely” – “big irruptions have plenty of energy, raw in places but spirited” – and “passionate strings – the strain on some of the high notes a sign of their sheer commitment”.

Despite some slightly awry ensemble as strings vied with winds to bring the movement’s coda together, the excitement was palpable, Hamish McKeich spurring his players on and concertmaster Arna Morton leading by vividly-projected example from the front of the strings as was her usual wont. Though the words ‘better to travel than to arrive” had some point in this context, there were apparent feelings of great satisfaction among the players in achieving their opening destination.

Though relatively dry-eyed and light-footed at the outset, the slow movement’s tender beauty was well-chartered, clarinets especially lovely – and I liked the work of the lower strings, violas and cellos who had the theme against the wind counterpoints later in the movement. Though not as “Brucknerian” as I’ve heard, the strings still put everything into their big chorale-like tune, a favorite sequence of mine within the movement, when it returns after a previous outing on the winds. What was Brahms thinking of when he wrote this music? – such regret, and (at the end) almost utter desolation, with only the final wind chord for solace.

The orchestra did its best to cheer the composer and us up afterwards with a rollicking performance of the scherzo, Hamish McKeich encouraging plenty of bucolic girth of texture from the strings and brass, and lovely swirlings from the winds – the music’s “schwung” came across in great waves of energy, contrasting beautifully with the trio’s noble horn tones and lovely string detailing.

As for the finale, with its monumental structures and huge vistas of contrast, the players faced the opening head-on, with full brass tones and sterling timpani work. Though the strings occasionally lacked pin-point attack through their syncopated figurations, they dug in splendidly elsewhere, unfailingly supported by conductor McKeich. The flute solo was gorgeous, and the dovetailing between winds and lower strings went particularly well. When the great mid-movement outburst came, the strings excelled themselves with steady ensemble and full, committed tones – the softer passages a bit further on posed more of an ensemble challenge, but the more stentorian bits were driven home with terrific conviction, the brasses punching out the cadences and the rest of the players making their instruments sing right to the very end. Through thrills and spills alike, it proved a very exciting and satisfying performance from orchestra and conductor.

Young musicians’ mid-winter warm-up with Mozart and Rachmaninov

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wellington Youth Orchestra Winter Concert

RACHMANINOV – Symphony No.3 in A MInor Op.44

MOZART – Requiem (arr. Maunder)

Amelia Ryman (soprano) / Alison Hodge (contralto)

Cameron Barclay (tenor) / Matthew Landreth (bass)

Wellington Youth Choir (Katie Macfarlane – Music Director)

Wellington Youth Orchestra

Hamish McKeich (conductor)

Wellington Town Hall,

Sunday 12th August, 2012

Aside from the circumstance of this being the THIRD Mozart Requiem performance offered the Wellington concert-going public this year so far (after all, it’s only August!), I thought the program of this concert by its own lights adventurous and challenging. And, regarding the combination of Mozart and Rachmaninov, a well-known French saying – “Vive la différence” can easily put it in an acceptable context.

Looking at things more closely than mere concert listings, one then discovers that, unlike with the first Mozart Requiem performance of the year by the Bach Choir of Wellington, this latest performance did feature an orchestra, and not merely an organ accompaniment. And unlike both of the previous performances (the second one being by the Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir and the Vector Wellington Orchestra), the recent one explored some different musical territories, using an edition prepared in 1986 by the scholar Richard Maunder, which largely dispensed with the attempts of Mozart’s pupil, Franz Süssmayr, to finish the work, uncompleted at the composer’s death.

Maunder’s version, completed in 1986, retains some of Süssmayr’s completions of Mozart’s sketches, but abandons what he feels are the non-Mozart parts, such as the Sanctus and Benedictus. Maunder does retain the Agnus Dei, feeling that the influence of Mozart did guide Süssmayr here more directly. But he recasts the work’s two final movements differently – Lux Aeterna and Cum Sanctis – drawing from material earlier in the Requiem. 

Like others before and since, Maunder considered Süssmayr’s work generally unworthy of Mozart’s, though many music-lovers down the years have had far more cause to thank than revile the unfortunate “johnny-on-the-spot”, given the sheer impossibility of his task. Poor Süssmayr wasn’t exactly a favourite of Mozart’s, either, the composer, in a letter to his wife Constanze, referring to his erstwhile pupil as a “blockhead”, and likening his native intelligence to that of “a duck in a thunderstorm” – but then Mozart was often almost pathologically unkind towards people he considered his inferiors.

From the singers’ point of view (as well as from that of this audience member), the dropping of both the Sanctus and Benedictus might well seem unfortunate, irrespective of considerations of greater “authenticity”. Still, both the on-going conjecture and the various attempts to render the work nearer to what the composer might have “wanted” have kept the music well away from any kind of museum mothballing. In essence, it’s very much a “living classic”, and likely to remain that way, considering that some of the work’s secrets can never be actually told – merely guessed at.

As regards the actual concert, I’ve run ahead of things, here, as the evening began with music from quite a different world. This was the Rachmaninov Third Symphony, a stern test, I would have thought, for a youth orchestra to tackle. Rachmaninov wrote this work late in his composing career, and filled its pages with contrasting and conflicting impulses and emotions. In places, the sounds and themes nostalgically evoke the Imperial Russia of the composer’s boyhood, of Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov, particularly the latter composer – Rachmaninov shared some of his older compatriot’s fondness for quasi-oriental themes and orchestral colorings. In other places the music snaps at the heels of contemporary trends, with enough rhythmic and timbral “bite” to suggest Bartok, Prokofiev and Stravinsky.

There are the familiar Rachmaninov trademarks, among them the well-known plainchant “Dies Irae” theme, which pulsates like an electric current through much of the composer’s music (contributing not a little to its deep, prevailing melancholy, and undoubtedly influencing Stravinsky’s famous description of his compatriot as “six feet of Russian gloom”), the brilliance of the orchestration, and the heartfelt beauty of the themes, so candidly and unashamedly expressive. It seems incredible when listening to this work to imagine anybody writing of its effect – “a chewing-over of something that had little importance to start with….” which is what one New York critic wrote after the premiere in 1936. Another, a tad more sympathetically, wrote “Rachmaninov builds palaces with his music in which nobody wants to live any more…”.

Fortunately for those of us in the audience at this concert, conductor Hamish McKeich and his young players (their numbers judiciously augmented by a handful of NZSO members, probably some of the students’ tutors) seemed to pay no heed to such agenda-driven comments, and instead plunged into and appeared to revel in what the music had to offer – a whole-hearted, sharply-etched lyricism, expressed through a brilliant and wide-ranging orchestral palette. Both conductor and orchestra leader Arna Morton seemed to me inspirational by dint of gesture and physical involvement with the music, each readily able to delineate the work’s every mood and movement and show the rest of the players the way.

Arna Morton’s solo playing was nicely turned, as were some of the many wind solos throughout the work – the horn solo at the slow movement’s beginning actually sounded rather “Russian” with an engaging “fruitiness” of tone. Then first the flute and afterwards clarinet (from where I was sitting I couldn’t actually see the soloists) made a lovely job of the third movement’s solo lines leading to the whiplash conclusion of the symphony; while, of the other instruments, Dorothy Raphael’s timpani made something resplendent of the brief but impactful crescendo at the climax of the central movement’s scherzando section.

The richly lyrical moments were what this orchestra did best – the opening soulful “motto” theme, and the movement’s luscious tunes, the second movement’s richly and exotically-wrought archways, and the finale’s dying fall, the melodies and their inspiration spent. In these this orchestra gave its all, bringing a natural, youthful ardor to the shape and intensity of those yearning lines. And the  ceremonial episodes, such as the finale’s opening, had great exuberance, a similar sense of “playing-out” and letting things “sound”. Somewhat predictably, the players found the many treacherous “scherzando” passages in the work difficult, fraught with syncopations and difficult rhythmic dovetailings, as though the bar-lines were booby-trapped and waiting to pounce. To their credit, conductor and players kept going through the squalls, celebrating the triumphs and thrills along the way as readily as coping with the spills – at the end of the day the performance’s overall effect did enough of the work justice for conductor and orchestra to be pleased with its achievement.

Orchestrally, the Mozart was more uniformly impressive, perhaps even too much so in relation to the choir and soloists, whose relative backward placement seemed to put them at a dynamic disadvantage. Of the soloists, soprano Amelia Ryman shone brightly, her lines clear and silvery and always a delight. The others lacked her projection, and sometimes had to force their tone to be heard, stationed as they were just at the foot of the choir. It’s always seemed to me that composers intended soloists’ voices to stand out, rather than be given a “solo voice from the choir” kind of balance; and here for most of the time alto, tenor and bass needed all the help they could get, not necessarily an enthusiastic student orchestra anxious to demonstrate what they could do, to accompany them.

Throughout, both the general playing and detailing of individual instrumental lines from the orchestra was of a high standard – a sonorous trombone solo at “Tuba mirum”, majestic strings at “Rex Tremendae”, and secure brass and strings throughout the final “Cum Sanctis” fugue. The choir sang truly, beautifully and accurately, even if there were times when those voices didn’t manage to get across the weight of tone required to properly dominate the sound-picture, such as in the aforementioned fugue. To fill a Town Hall with sound, after all, takes some doing. I would have actually like the soloists closer, so that I could have more readily enjoyed Amelia Ryman’s singing, and got a better sense of the voices of the other three. For each of them, mellifluous moments of singing alternated with sequences where they seemed to struggle to be heard against the orchestra. Tenor Cameron Barclay made the most consistent impression, though his voice seemed not to have quite the same command and attack that was evident when he sang in the Beethoven Missa Solemnis, earlier in the year.

Still, very great credit is due to these young singers and players for what they achieved, and to their “guiding hand” on the night, conductor Hamish McKeich, who was able to bring the different elements together and preside over their fruitful interaction. The efforts he and others inspired made for an enjoyable and heartening evening’s concert.