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Christopher's Classics - 5 May: Darroch/Cowan Duo
Hannah Darroch (flute); Steve Cowan (guitar)


Reviewed by Tony Ryan 

Towards the end of this concert, flautist* Hannah Darroch thanked us for “taking a risk” by attending an unfamiliar instrumental pairing of unfamiliar music. In the event it was a risk worth taking, with such a variety of musical styles, resonances and technical dexterity that, dare I say surprisingly, an hour-and-a-half of flute and guitar unfailingly held our attention and never wore thin in terms of what I had feared could be a certain uniformity of texture and timbre. In fact, the range of both of those aspects of both the music and its performance was a kaleidoscope of colourful diversity.

If the opening work on the programme, Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov’s Fish Tale (1998), remained my personal highlight of the evening, it had the beneficial effect of fully engaging us with the inventiveness of the works that followed. But Fish Tale was a delight! The players’ printed notes gave us some initial guidance as to the music’s surface programme, but its expressive content was more deeply convincing. The “sounds of an African thumb piano”, and the wind, and the tornado, were all clearly audible, but these superficial encounters were simply the ‘hooks’ on which the composer hung a wide range of emotional associations, ending with a soulful waltz of exceptional beauty and wistfulness. Throughout this piece, the variety of colours and techniques required by Golijov’s seemingly endless musical and imaginative invention was fully realised by the two players. The composer used so much timbral contrast – flutter-tonguing, note bending, percussive sounds, harmonics, and so much more –  that I wondered if there were any other possibilities until some of the works that followed introduced us to guitar strums above the fret-board, and did I hear a few vocal effects in Katherine Hoover’s Canyon Echoes (1991) with its references to indigenous Apache culture, and Robert Beaser’s Mountain Songs (1985)?

Four pieces written in the 1980s by another Argentinian, Astor Piazzolla, came closest to anything really familiar on the programme. The two Tango Études for solo flute struck me as less characteristic of what I know by this composer, but the Campero for solo guitar and Café 1930 for flute and guitar conveyed that distinctive nostalgia, almost as if the musicians are playing for themselves – expressing their own private feelings – rather than for an audience. This bracket made me aware of the predominantly intimate and subtly nuanced nature of so much of the music chosen by these two musicians; there were certainly extended moments of extrovert virtuosity and technical brilliance, but the overall impression as I left the concert-hall was one of introspection, at times almost melancholy. 
I first became aware of the music of U.S. composer Joan Tower in 1999 when I heard a recording of her Concerto for Orchestra. Always on the lookout for new works that seem to have something special to say, I quicky went out and bought the recording on an album entitled Fanfares for the Uncommon Woman which also contains five very effective pieces with that title. Her Snow Dreams (1983) for flute and guitar, although played evocatively by Hannah Darroch and Steve Cowan, didn’t have quite the same enlightening effect, but it’s certainly a piece I’d like to hear again in light of my admiration for this composer.

By the end of the concert I was becoming aware of a certain ‘sameness’ in the timbre of the standard flute but, throughout the programme, monotony was avoided by Hannah Darroch’s (and the composers’) use of piccolo and alto flute for several of the pieces. No such alternatives were needed from Steve Cowan on guitar as he demonstrated an infinite variety of articulation and changing colours on his instrument. Both musicians proved themselves to be masters of their respective instruments and also masters of a consistent musical communication that made the “risk” very worthwhile.
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*Although in her notes and spoken comments Darroch used the French-derived term ‘flutist’, most commonly used in North America, I personally prefer the Italian-derived ‘flautist’ that became the fully accepted English term for a flute-player during the nineteenth century.

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Christopher’s Classics 2022 - 21 April: NZTrio
Amalia Hall (violin), Ashley Brown (cello) and Somi Kim (piano) 


Reviewed by Tony Ryan 

Schumann’s Sech Stücke in Kanonischer Form (Six Pieces in Canonic Form) are slight in content and comparatively little-known, but in the hands of NZTrio the two movements that opened this programme were pure delight. The way in which the players allowed the music to flow with detailed, but seemingly intuitive spontaneity, was simply exquisite. Every phrase was lovingly caressed as one player handed the lead to another in turn, setting the tone for the superlative music-making that we enjoyed throughout the whole concert.

The première of Michael Norris’s newly commissioned Horizon Fields was far less easy to assimilate on a first hearing. Norris frequently uses works of art for inspiration and, in this case, Antony Gormley’s installation Horizon Field Hamburg was the composer’s stimulus. Fortunately, before this concert I took the trouble to watch some of the videos of this artwork on YouTube. I did wonder how such a work, featuring an enormous lacquer-coated steel platform suspended seven metres above the ground could be represented in music; but there it was – instantly and recognisably embodied in sound! Gormley’s piece is interactive, allowing viewers to walk on it and to experience the vibrations and movements of others walking/sitting/standing on the platform. In Michael Norris’s conception it was almost as if the players were responding involuntarily to one another’s ‘movements’; for example, a flourish from the piano would trigger a shimmer on one of the string instruments which was then echoed by the other as a ripple-effect. I overheard a comment that the music seemed like little more than a series of sound-effects, but familiarity with Gormley’s original artwork certainly makes the music far more logical and meaningful. However, that makes me wonder if the visual aspect of Gormley’s work is an essential adjunct to fully appreciating Norris’s music. The composer has, after all, retained the essence of Gormley’s title, and the length of the piece, despite its wide variety of novel effects and techniques, would certainly have worn a little thin if I hadn’t prepared myself so fully. It’s worth commenting that, in one of the videos I watched, a group of people were moving in unison on the platform with rhythmic, repetitive, and apparently choreographed movements, and I couldn’t help wishing that something of that more rhythmic quality could also have been represented in Norris’s work. Even so, NZTrio gave a performance that demonstrated total commitment to and affinity with the music. Their flair, collaboration and expressive skills certainly made the very most of this new work. 

The first part of the programme ended with a three-movement Trio written in 1998 by Nikolai Kapustin (1937-2020). Considerable technical and stylistic demands were very much in evidence throughout this work, but the vitality of its effervescent jazz style made for very enjoyable listening. If the listening was easier here, the playing certainly wasn’t. The virtuosity demonstrated by NZTrio in Kapustin’s Trio was simply astonishing. Once again, their affinity and commitment were convincingly communicated and, in comparison to the previous works, the change in stylistic body language, particularly from cellist Ashley Brown, was infectious. And NZTrio seemed to have dressed for this work – the sophistication and elegance of the two women’s clothes required only cigarette holders and champagne glasses to complete the visual picture in support of the composer’s inventive take on 1920s American jazz styles.
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Then, a change in dress to match Ashley Brown’s already more colourful apparel seemed to bring added flamboyance to part two of the programme which was devoted to Beethoven’s great Archduke Trio; and what an extraordinary difference this exceptional performance was compared to another interpretation we heard last year by another ensemble. Whereas last year I commented that “tranquillity and refinement seemed to be prioritised over projecting the work’s inherent passionate expressiveness”, in this performance we experienced Beethoven’s inspiration with total conviction, considerable risk-taking and inspired abandon. But polish and precision are never absent when the three members of NZTrio are so intuitively attuned to one another. If the letter of this great score was always followed, it was enhanced by a spirit of genuine insight with notably expressive phrasing and all the shades of dynamics between the written fortes and the pianos. The whispered playing by the strings in the pizzicato section of the first movement’s development, accompanied by the subtlest of dancing pianissimo trills from the piano, was breathtakingly magical; and the timing of the transition from the adagio ending of the third movement to the dancing allegro of the finale was so perfectly judged that the entire fourth movement had an exceptionally uplifting effect.

Christchurch audiences are rather economical with their applause and, while no encore would have added anything to this concert, NZTrio need to know that our response was internally rapturous, if less outwardly demonstrative than they deserved. And thank you Christopher’s Classics for regularly bringing this ‘National Treasure’ to our concert stage
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Christopher’s Classics 2022 - 1 April
Will King (baritone) and David Codd (piano)


Reviewed by Tony Ryan 

Wellington fog, rather than Covid-19, caused a glitch in the opening of the 2022 season of Christopher’s Classics, delaying the concert by twenty-four hours until the musicians could travel. The Christopher’s Classics series is a real Christchurch treasure and tonight’s programme was especially notable for being the 2022 season’s annual concert to feature a rising star in honour of Christopher Marshall, the series’ founder and driving force. 
New Zealand baritone Will King and pianist David Codd presented a recital that was, by any standard, an astonishing achievement overall. The twenty-six-year-old singer regaled us with twenty-seven songs (more if you count Britten’s Songs and Proverbs separately) with such variety of expression, total affinity with everything on the programme, and entirely from memory!

Francis Poulenc’s 1957 song cycle Le Travail du Peintre, which embodies responses to the works of seven twentieth century painters, could hardly be described as a gentle warm-up at the start of a recital, but Will King and David Codd came on stage and launched into the first song Pablo Picasso with an uplifting vitality that was maintained right to the end of their recital of French and English songs. In this first set, King demonstrated his fluent and easy legato and an ability to communicate the detail of the text rather than the generalised expression that young singers can often rely on. As yet, the voice itself can’t be pinned down as being, say, ‘dark’ or ‘rich’ or ‘light’, with different registers changing in tonal quality, partly as a result of the singer’s expression, partly because of a still developing technique.

With the lid of the grand piano fully raised (thankfully), David Codd immediately established himself as an equal partner in the duo, fully justifying his self-description as a ‘collaborative’ pianist, as opposed to ‘accompanist’. And, while it’s the singer in such a partnership that more easily demands our focus, the musical input of both performers was very evident throughout the evening. Codd’s ability to underline and share in King’s expressive variety with contrasts of light and shade and colour, made for very engaging and convincing music-making.

Benjamin Britten’s Songs and Proverbs of William Blake are not for the faint-hearted from both the audience and performers’ point-of-view. Written for the great Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in 1965, few singers have managed to come close to his classic recording with the composer at the piano. That such a young singer could carry it off so convincingly as Will King did, is remarkable to say the least. In his spoken introduction to the cycle, King professed it to be his favourite song cycle “of all time”, and then went on to demonstrate such a fluid and natural-sounding interpretation that it made me want to hear him do it all over again. His Tyger may not have darted quite as furtively through the forest as Fischer-Dieskau’s, nor did his Fly dance as elusively, or his Sun-flower burst so spontaneously into bloom, but he faced the late baritone’s challenge with such youthful, almost naïve, self-assurance that the whole cycle came to life in a way that I simply had not expected. I look forward to hearing Will King explore this work again as his artistry matures. 

In the Britten, David Codd complemented King’s interpretation to the full without quite matching the composer’s own improvisatory quality and rhythmic ambiguity; and he also seemed to miss Britten’s way of making that final F Major chord sound surprising, beautiful, and even witty.

The second part of the programme comprised, in the singer’s words, “lighter” fare, and, while Roger Quilter’s early cycle To Julia (1905) fell pleasingly enough on the ear with its easy harmonic language and unchallenging expressive style, it failed, unlike the Poulenc and Britten works, to provide anything truly memorable to take away from this recital. King made the most of the six songs’ pretty, if ephemeral, melodies, but this music doesn’t manage to enhance Robert Herrick’s poems to any notable degree.

Ravel’s Two Hebrew Songs brought a return to something much more original, and Will King projected the eastern melodic and stylistic features idiomatically and effectively, even if a certain sameness of expression was now beginning to creep in as the voice tired a little.

If Gerald Finzi’s Let Us Garlands Bring delves more deeply into Shakespeare’s texts, with engaging harmonic invention and expressive contrasts, than Quilter’s settings do into Herrick’s, this final group of songs on tonight’s programme have an almost drawing-room sophistication and restraint that, for me, doesn’t match Shakespeare’s more down-to-earth contexts. Even so, Will King and David Codd maintained our engagement with their forthright and communicative stage presence and we left the concert hall well satisfied, even if it was the Poulenc and Britten works that provided the most memorable takeaway fare.
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