Concerts

On Friday night at the packed TSB Arena the full might of Orchestra Wellington combined with spine-tingling electronic dance music, played through a state-of-the-art sound system, and featuring a dynamic laser-light show, to create a truly immersive experience.

Synthony has been called “a celebration of the last 30 years of dance music” and the audience, singing and dancing for almost two hours, would agree.

The set by DJ Greg Churchill warmed the crowd up, and it was clear that by the time George FM DJ and host General Lee introduced conductor Brent Stewart and Orchestra Wellington, it was time to party!

Some of the most iconic electronic dance tracks were reimagined with full orchestral power to sound like nothing heard before: Fatboy Slim’s Right Here, Right Now, Avicii’s Levels, Rudimental’s Feel the Love, and the encore of Darude’s Sandstorm were standouts. Eric Prydz’s Proper Education – powerfully sung by Jason Kerrison – and Cherie Mathieson’s sultry version of Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) had the audience singing loud enough to almost raise the roof! Jason’s guitar playing on Don't Hold Back gave the song an exciting edge.

Ria Hall was in sublime form – especially with the last track You Got the Love. The other guest vocalists Hannah Rees and Nate Dousand, together with the silky-smooth saxophone of Lewis McCallum, had the audience in the palms of their outstretched hands.

It was a sensory overload – a spiritually uplifting and almost joyous occasion, and the addition to the stage of the five-piece drum group Taikoza only added to the pulsating, climactic last tracks.

However, the party wasn't over yet – there was still another set by DJ Dick Johnson to keep the capacity crowd of 4000 happy and dancing into Saturday morning.

Overall, this was a stunning production by founder Erika Amoore and arranger Ryan Youens, helped by the slick host work of General Lee. I highly recommend Synthony to anyone that likes a dance party – especially as Ibiza's probably out for a while yet.

I imagine this concert was christened Triumph because of the positive critical and public reception of Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2 in contrast to the debacle of his first symphony some years previously, which nearly destroyed his confidence as a composer.

Equally, though, the second work on the programme, View from Olympus by New Zealand composer John Psathas was a triumph in terms of audience response: the crowd went wild! The work is a double concerto for pianist and a percussionist playing a wide variety of instruments. The soloists were Michael Houstoun and percussionist Jeremy Fitzsimons. The first and third movements, drawn from Psathas’ Greek heritage, conveyed the avenging spirit of the Furies and the wine-possessed frenzy of the Maenads of Greek mythology, both fierce and powerful groups of women. The second movement, The Smiling Child, is a tribute to his two children and, by contrast, is delicate, tender, and playful. The range of sounds and timbre achieved by the soloists was simply staggering, with the piano part integral to the overall effect. While Houstoun worked overtime with his fingers, Fitzsimons added to the visual interest of the performance as he moved across the stage between instrument stations. And let’s not forget the orchestra: ubiquitous strings, powerful interjections from brass instruments, and yet more percussion. It was all stunning and magical.

One can see why Rachmaninoff’s second symphony has sometimes in the past been shortened in performance. It is a vast, tumultuous work. Wonderful, but it does go on! Marc Taddei and the orchestra delivered an energetic, driving, and colourful performance that honoured the composer’s intent to express emotions. It has it all: agitated then sweet, sombre then tender, passionate then nostalgic, exuberant and festive, melody after melody, and climax after climax. I think the orchestra had a ball, a fitting climax to their subscription concert year.

Michael Houstoun’s audience rose to their feet to acclaim him at the conclusion of his concert. It was a fitting gesture for the man near the end of an outstanding career and for the performer of this programme of Bach and Beethoven, both of whom Houstoun reports to be his music touchstones.

How clever the programming was: a programme to stop your heart even before you hear the performance. Bach’s Partita No. 4 in D Major and Busoni’s arrangement of the Chaconne from Bach’s Violin Partita No. 2 were followed in the second half by the Adagio Sostenuto movement from Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata and the entire Waldstein Sonata. In the programme notes, Houstoun described the D Major Partita and the Waldstein as works of majesty, celebration, and joy. Between those works, the Chaconne and the Adagio Sostenuto touched tragedy and sorrow. Houstoun wrote of the Adagio Sostenuto as “an unsurpassed statement of sublime sadness.”

What is striking about Houstoun’s performance style is the directness of the delivery of the music to the audience. His very entry to the stage is understated. There are no histrionics in his playing. He conveys his deep engagement with and understanding of the music through his hands alone.

Highlights of this concert for me included the way in which the structures of the Partita movements were elucidated by the wonderful clarity of his playing. Also of note were the beautiful balance of melody and adornment in the Chaconne and his commanding control of dynamics and intensity in the Hammerklavier movement. My enjoyment of the concert grew through to the enveloping beauty of the Waldstein Sonata. The first movement was convincingly energetic but relaxed and fluid. The second created a profound and brooding stillness. In the final movement, Houstoun’s judgments of colour and intensity seemed inevitable and perfect and his amazing agility thrilled.

What a treat! One of my favourite pieces of all time, Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, by Ralph Vaughan Williams, and a rarity in these COVID times, a new conductor in front of a live audience. Gemma New had her debut with the NZSO online in August but made up for any lost ground in this performance almost from the moment she stepped onto the podium. It was quickly evident she was totally immersed in the music and her relationship with the orchestra. There is a terrible workplace joke about using interpretive dance to command attention and communicate important messages to your audience. Gemma New has set a very high bar as far as I am concerned. Her physicality was joyful, engaging, expressive, energetic, definitely dancelike, and brought out the absolute best in the orchestra.

The Fantasia is based on a psalm Tallis had set to music during the Renaissance period. Church music would have been played on the organ at the time. The two physically separated string orchestras (just nine players in Orchestra Two) and a solo quartet sounded uncannily like an organ. The strings of the NZSO are excellent and played beautifully as always, and there should be special congratulations to the retiring cellist Robert Ibell and bass player Nicholas Sandle.

Stephen de Pledge, known as an advocate for contemporary music, played Anthony Ritchie’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with energy and feeling and gave a bonus performance of Edvard Grieg’s Nocturne. Symphony No. 5 by Jean Sibelius is traditional in form with strong theatrical moments, thoroughly enjoyed by conductor, orchestra, and audience alike.

One of the unique pleasures of a live performance is the combination of sound and action. While there was plenty to look at in the playing, it was an absolute delight to watch Gemma New bringing an extra dimension to the experience – her highly professional and personal interpretive dance.

This concert was to have been presented back in May but the spiky bug got in the way. The programme was well worth waiting for. I thought that the performance of Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 1 was one of the best of the year, and to cap that off the audience had the opportunity to hear violinist Amalia Hall perform a very intriguing contemporary concerto by American Jennifer Higdon, followed by a ravishing solo encore. The third work was Dvořák’s Serenade for Strings.

Taddei took a restrained approach to the Serenade for Strings, achieving lightness and clarity but at some cost to energy and warmth at times. Perhaps he was saving the orchestra’s energy for what was to come.

Higdon’s concerto is a showpiece for the violin. Throughout the first movement, the violin dialogues with various instruments of the orchestra in turn. There is a magical, mysterious beginning with aethereal splinters of high violin notes echoed and partnered by splinters of sound from the percussion section. In the second movement, the image I got was of the violin voice threading itself through the orchestra’s full soundscapes. The third movement was utter virtuosic speed. Amalia Hall was completely up to the job throughout. She was amazing.

Rachmaninoff never heard his first symphony properly performed. The only performance in his lifetime was ruined due to the conductor’s drunkenness and poor appreciation of the work. As Taddei put it, Rachmaninoff had a “mental funk” about composing symphonies for some years and put the work away. Fortunately, after his death the symphony was reconstructed from recovered orchestral parts. It is music on a grand scale, lush and dramatic, reflective and melancholic, agitated and restful, fierce and gentle. Taddei declared that he loves this work and it showed. The large orchestra seemed to love it too: it was played with energy and conviction.

Just when you think you have had the best musical experience in ages (Richard Strauss’ Metamorphosen, just a fortnight earlier) the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra turns out another one. The NZSO under Hamish McKeich is clearly bursting with pent-up, COVID-constrained energy.

In my household, we say “Classical classical” to describe a programme including works by the big names of the period that developed the symphonic form. On paper, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven. In performance, classical, classical, and absolutely brilliant and extraordinary.

Energised after touring the programme in the North Island, the orchestra dived into one of Mozart's most famous symphonies, No. 40 in G Minor, K.550.  Written near the end of his life, No. 40 seems the epitome of Mozart: complex, interlaced orchestration; distinct musical themes; marked changes in volume and timing; and fabulous use of the whole orchestra. Beautifully played as a whole, the double basses stood out for their fine example of the high-speed dexterity demanded from all strings in the fourth movement.

The subtitle, Tempora Mutantur, of Haydn's Symphony No. 64 in A Major, refers to the changes the passage of time brings. The orchestra and McKeich created lovely forward momentum without rushing. In what was becoming a performance to showcase the strings, this time it was the perfect, exposed sound of the violins in the second movement that shone through.

If you didn’t know, Grosse Fuge was Beethoven’s. You would be forgiven for some confusion. Stravinsky said it was “the most absolutely contemporary piece of music I know, and contemporary forever”. The wind section was gone, leaving only the strings. Almost defying analysis and description (there are not enough adjectives to do it justice), this is three fugues and a coda and a terribly difficult piece to play. The strings played their hearts and minds out in a bravura performance that will stay with me for a very long time.

The ever-ebullient Mark Taddei pointed out that a theme of this concert was youth. The works of two of the featured composers, Josef Suk and Sergei Prokofiev were composed at the astonishingly young ages of 18 and 19 respectively. As well, the concert featured the Arohanui Strings, a group of young string players from Lower Hutt and Wellington, joining Orchestra Wellington players as they do annually. They were conducted by young assistant conductor, Luka Venter, to perform Domino Effect, a tuneful, innovative, and fun work composed by Alissa Long, a young Taiwanese New Zealander. So much talent on view!

Orchestra Wellington performed Suk’s Serenade for Strings well, capturing different moods and tempi convincingly: sunny and lyrical in the first movement, lilting and merry in the second, soulful and romantic in the third, and energetic and playful in the fourth.

My favourite work of the night was Prokofiev’s virtuosic first piano concerto with Jian Liu at the piano. The piano leads with a memorable, jagged, and discordant dotted-rhythm theme which returns several times throughout the work. Slight though Jian Liu is physically, he packed a punch in the first movement and again in the last with its running octave chords and glittering cadenza. In the middle movement, he and the orchestra created a more gentle and pensive mood without any intensity being lost.

Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 3 completed the concert. Though in best romantic tradition it has many beautiful melodies, they are not lingered over. Rather, the lush is interspersed with the dramatic and the lyrical is interrupted by great climaxes supported by the large brass and percussion sections. It was a feast for all instruments, and to the audience wonderful visually as well as to the ear.

That there was an almost full audience despite the attraction of election night results testifies to Orchestra Wellington’s popularity.

In his programme foreword, Peter Biggs, the new chief executive of the NZSO, says, “the inspiration for the title [Monumental] was the pairing of Richard Strauss’ extraordinary Metamorphosen and his sublime Four Last Songs with Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5.”

Metamorphosen is indeed extraordinary. 23 string players each held their own part under immaculate, calm, and distinct direction from McKeich. When I started learning music only the cello was on offer, though I really wanted to play the trombone. While I love a good brass sound, I am a pushover for strings and I was utterly enthralled by Strauss’ lament for the damage, atrocities, and losses of the Second World War. The complexity of 23 separate parts, played superbly, made for a brilliant and exceptionally memorable experience.

Soprano Emma Pearson brought us more astonishing beauty. Her voice filled the auditorium effortlessly with Strauss’ Four Last Songs. This is no mean feat when accompanied by an orchestra. Strauss and Pauline de Ahna, also a soprano, were married for over 55 years. These were Richard’s final tribute to Pauline, after dedicating most of the 200 lieder (songs) he wrote throughout his career to her.

Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 is a ‘big’ symphony. From the opening phrase to the final triumphant moment, this piece has everything. The full complement of instruments on the stage gave us ample opportunity to follow just one or two of them, or to try and keep up with the whole as they produced every shade of volume, pitch, and intensity, delivered by delicate woodwind, lyrical strings, and a big brassy sound, with timpani also prominent in every movement. Musical themes pop up throughout, coming and going and reappearing. It was like trying to follow someone through a crowd, catching an occasional glimpse before heading off in a new direction with fresh energy before eventually coming to a big, exultant, Monumental close.

I had thought that I might find the full forces of the Orpheus Choir too heavy for the beauty of Fauré’s Requiem. On the contrary, the hushed singing of the Introit et Kyrie, the beautiful unaccompanied passage for altos and tenors at the opening of the Offertoire, and the floating quality of the soprano sound for the final In Paradisum were highlights of this performance. It was ironic then that at other times, the choir seemed to force their voices to find the volume being asked of them. Perhaps it was the stage configuration; the choir was a long way back from and above the orchestra during the Requiem.

The space was filled for the second work of the concert, Rachmaninoff’s The Bells, by a much-enlarged orchestra, adding powerful percussion and brass and additional woodwind for this impressive work. The Bells is truly a choral symphony, rather than a choral work with orchestral accompaniment, and the often-huge vocal sound achieved became an integral part of the whole.

While the titles of the two opening movements, Silver Sleigh Bells and Mellow Wedding Bells, suggest fun and celebration, the work in fact has an underlying mood of foreboding. Sleigh Bells starts lightly but even this movement provides a full gamut of volume, flavour, and emotion. Wedding bells is solemn, soulful, and sacrificial rather than celebratory. The mood is then downhill into the darker, world-weary but urgent soundscapes of Alarm Bells and Mournful Iron Bells until at the very end there emerges a rising, hopeful spirit leading to a full and mellow final chord.

A word on the soloists. The voice of Margaret Medlyn (soprano) is sadly unsuited to the sweetness and clarity required in Fauré’s Pie Jesu movement. However she, Wade Kernot (baritone), and Jared Holt (tenor) made expressive and beautiful contributions to The Bells.

The highlight of this concert for me was Three Psalms by New Zealand composer John Psathas. It is a work for solo piano, strings, harp, and percussion, originally commissioned by Michael Houstoun, the soloist at this performance, for his 50th birthday. This concert marked his final concerto appearance before he retires later this year.

This was no lyrical adieu from Houstoun. In the first movement, the piano effects were as percussive and rhythmic as the wide range of instruments played by three amazing percussionists, with the piano and percussion often doubling or echoing each other in tone and rhythm. The second movement painted a haunting and desolate picture of the effects of war and disaster, the composer’s response to photos of such events by James Nachtwey. The third movement, inspired by Prokofiev’s third piano concerto, was lively, colourful, fast and furious, and dramatic by contrast. Full marks to Mark Taddei for holding this rhythmically challenging movement together. Bravo to Michael Houstoun. The piano never stops in this concerto. What a work and style to finish with!

Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings and Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances book-ended Psathas’ work. Having one work for strings only, one for strings with piano and percussion, and one for a very full orchestra of strings, 11 brass instruments, six percussionists, and 13 woodwind, made for a great audience experience.

The Serenade for Strings was delicious. It was possible to enjoy the different lyrical qualities of the double basses, cellos, violas, and violins separately. The performance was warm and sweet, sweeping and gorgeous, but precise and disciplined.

Symphonic Dances provided an exciting soundscape with the return of the brass and woodwind. There was a lovely section in the first movement that featured the woodwind particularly, while the brass provided regular dramatic interjections. It was great to hear the whole orchestra in full cry again.

Adapting to the unusual times, this concert was rescheduled (hooray for Level 1!) to Sunday afternoon. Conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya promised the best first experience new audience members would ever have. Actually, he under-promised and over-delivered. This was a stellar performance.

Anthony Ritchie’s Remember Parihaka began with almost imperceptible, perfect low notes from strings. Pulses of sound emerged through morning mist or sunrise, the essence of peaceful. One of the earliest events of non-violent opposition to oppression took place at Parihaka in 1881. Minor chords and dissonance signalled tension and resistance, flutes sounded an urgent alarm, pizzicato indicated scurrying for position, the side drum brought the troops, shots were fired and volume and intensity rose, then fell back to strings, expressing the loss and sorrow of an appalling event in our history.

Our closed borders create opportunities for our own where guest soloists had been expected. NZSO concertmaster Vesa-Matti Leppänen is one such local hero. Sibelius’ Violin Concerto in D Minor demands the highest level of technical and musical expertise imaginable. Leppänen played with great skill and huge confidence. This was an emotional, astonishing, and beautiful performance.

A relaxed and happy conductor and orchestra finished the programme with another stunning feat: Symphony No. 3 in E flat Major, Eroica, by Beethoven. Harth-Bedoya’s assured and expressive direction brought energy and life to every one of the four movements, every player and theme, development and variation. The rich and complex sound was sensitively played, phrases leading into each other yet retaining their distinct individuality. Expertly nimble playing in the Scherzo was a brilliant segue to the last movement where all the energies of the afternoon combined for the final, joyous Allegro.

Second violin Lucien Rizos was playing in his last concert after 47 years with NZSO. If I could retire on such a high note as this I imagine I would be happy for the rest of my life.

Being able, in this COVID-riven world, to go to a new Wellington chamber music venue and hear two outstanding New Zealand musicians perform an interesting and varied programme is such a privilege.

Each item in this programme was introduced by either Amalia Hall (violin) or Stephen de Pledge (piano), creating an intimacy appropriate to the repertoire and enhanced by the proportions of the new venue.

The programme ranged from the familiar (Beethoven’s Sonata No. 5 in F major, the Spring sonata) to the new (Gao Ping’s Bitter Cold Night), and from the most classical Mozart (Sonata No. 19 in E flat major) to the very French Saint-Saёns (Sonata No. 1 in D minor). As if this were not variety enough, we also got Gershwin’s jazzy and vibrant Three Preludes as arranged by Heifetz.

As de Pledge told us, the programme was intended to be optimistic and joyful. But it was tempered with contemporary reality by the inclusion of Bitter Cold Night. Gao Ping wrote the work in response to the death of Dr Li Wenliang, the COVID-19 virus whistle-blower. It is a bleak piece, sparse and tentative, eerie at times, but with loud and angry eruptions. I felt that the audience held its breath for this wonderful and intense piece.

The partnership between the players showed to great advantage in Beethoven’s sonata, with de Pledge’s robust but intensely musical playing and Hall’s assertive but sweet violin. The third movement in particular was a delight – jaunty, cheeky, and flirtatious. While all the works were demanding, none was more so technically than the Saint-Saёns sonata. Hall said that the last movement meant that neither player had needed to go to the gym for a while. It is fiendish and hectic, with an absolute frenzy of notes requiring intense concentration. They pulled it off perfectly.