Christopher's Classics 12 August 2021
Vieux Amis
Justine Cormack (Violin), James Bush (Cello) and Sarah Watkins (Piano).

Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd.

As the concert’s title suggests, these were old friends reuniting, and not just socially but for a feast of stunning music in the 26th season of Christopher’s Classics. It would have been quite different had one of the original performers not been trapped in Sydney following the recent Covid outbreak, necessitating a rapid rethink, but the end result was a thought-provoking collection of music that weaved together many common threads and ideas through widely differing composer voices. That the players all have friendships that go back years likely added to the musical cohesion, each understanding how the other works and revelling in being together again during these strange times. Needless to say, these are three performers at the top of their game; putting them together on the same stage, one is tempted to say that the whole was more than equal to the sum of its parts.

The programme comprised works by Pärt, Bach and Shostakovich, each work relating in some way to its neighbours, and the whole package all intelligently contextualised by informative programme notes and Justine Cormack’s commentary. The motto for the Christopher’s Classics concert series is that, “The busiest lives deserve beautiful music,” and I mention this because it so typified how I felt during the first half. Sarah Watkins’ account of Pärt’s ethereal Für Alina provided the ideal mental diuretic for the end of a working day, and to follow that with Bach, then the same pairing again, was just sublime and I loved every minute. With each of the Pärt works moving seamlessly into the two Bach pieces – insightful programming which created internal relationships between the works – that sense of space and clarity was maintained. In Bach’s Viola da Gamba Sonata in D, James Bush’s ‘cello playing was immaculate and he and Watkins ensured the elegant lines were well-defined throughout. The pathos of the third movement was well done through the building and release of tension within the phrases. The virtuosity inherent in both Allegros was handled deftly by both players, maintaining the busy with consummate ease.

Continuing the theme of connectedness, Pärt’s Mozart-Adagio is the equivalent of a deconstructed dessert, all the elements familiar but dissected in such a way that details are explored further, finding new textures and sonorities along the way. The trio got the balance spot on and I particularly enjoyed how Cormack and Bush judged the weighting of the heavy chords.

Concluding the first half, Bach’s Violin Sonata in E saw Cormack taking the reins but again an interesting decision by the trio to have Bush play the continuo part, not intruding but rather providing an extra colour above which the violin carries the melody and embellishment. The convention of the time was to do precisely that and I enjoyed that they did it here. It also made sense given that the third movement is a passacaglia. Interesting that this repeated bass line feature also provided a further link to the second half. Cormack’s rhapsodic playing captured the almost stream-of-consciousness quality of the opening Adagio and then proved very agile in the ensuing Allegro. The trio certainly brought out all the emotional qualities of the third movement, and the final Allegro set a cracking pace to finish.

If the first half was all about poise, restraint and grace, then what a contrast in the second with Shostakovich’s Prelude and Fugue in E minor, followed by the powerful and somewhat enigmatic Piano Trio no. 2 in E minor. Both works have the shadow of the Soviet regime hovering in the background (as do all of the composer’s works, any shred of humour barely covering the darkness beneath) and both make good use of musical conventions that have come before, cementing that connection with the Pärt earlier in the concert.

Watkins totally nailed the Prelude and Fugue. I loved her approach to the Bach and she brought that directness of communication straight across to Shostakovich’s meandering prelude that drifted from light to shade, before easing into the fugue. Here Watkins drew the threads together skilfully and built the texture up to a powerful conclusion. There was austerity but also fire, something absolutely Shostakovich.

The Piano Trio started where that left off with a fugue, the two strings providing a delicate counterweight to the solemn chorale texture in the piano. The pizzicato work by the strings later on was similarly well done.

The manicness of the Allegro con brio was accurately described in the programme and was done brilliantly, utterly aggressive and a flurry of notes, with dramatic surges as well as the ever-present irony in the more playful passages. The passacaglia structure reappeared again in the sombre Largo and the trio ensured this was a quite different beast this time around. Watkins’ opening monolithic chords were excellent and Cormack’s sorrowful playing was sustained and intense, both string players making good use of the Jewish idioms in the writing. The finale was uncompromising and direct, with unrelenting pressure, whether in the quiet passages or in the raw outpourings of feeling. This was a thrilling ride but Shostakovich constantly switches tack and the way the trio handled the dismantling of this potent material was perfect to bring it to its surprisingly subdued conclusion.

Of course, we weren’t left wondering – the trio cleansed our palette with a short Bach trio sonata movement. A perfect end to a perfect evening.
Christopher's Classics 22 July 2021
Lixin Zhang (Piano)

Reviewed by Tony Ryan 

A few minutes-or-so into Chopin’s Ballade No. 1 in G minor with which Lixin Zhang opened his recital tonight, I had a sudden feeling of déjà vu – of having heard him play it once before, a few years ago. Later, a quick check revealed that, on that previous occasion, it had been the fourth Ballade. What I remembered in particular, alongside undoubtedly outstanding pianism, was an impression of a rather episodic approach to the piece’s structure – a young player indulging his sense of youthful discovery in every spontaneous moment of Chopin’s inspiration. Listening again now on Tidal to his recording of the piece, which must have been made around the same time at the age of about fifteen, that episodic impression is still present if less problematic than I remember from the live performance.

But tonight, in this first of the composer’s four Ballades, there remains no hint of any such structural compromise; the talented student prodigy has graduated from technical wizardry and expressive indulgence to mature musician – an artist who can renew the listener’s fading appreciation of a long-familiar masterpiece. 

That musicianship was confirmed in a truly wondrous performance of the same composer’s great B minor Sonata that followed. The sense of an overarching structure played as much of a part in Lixin Zhang’s expressive armoury as his technical mastery and endlessly beguiling phrasing. And if, tonight, Chopin’s written dynamics were sometimes treated as a guide rather than gospel, I’m sure that Chopin did the same in his own well-documented improvisatory style of playing.

In the final movement of the sonata Lixin Zhang’s dramatic playing of the introductory leaping octaves led into an almost subdued statement of the main subject, but this soon proved to be an ideal strategy that enabled the music to progress seemingly inevitably, even relentlessly towards its triumphantly climactic end.  A performance to savour and rejoice in, certainly.

After the displays of drama and virtuosity in that first part of tonight’s programme, the far less technically demanding Mozart Sonata in C Major K330 which opened part two revealed the real musician. Sometimes described as “too easy for children and too difficult for adults”, Mozart’s piano sonatas are usually placed at the start of a recital as a warm-up to enable the player to get the feel of their form as well as of the audience and venue. Not so here! This sonata has passed under my own fingers many times but, much as I’ve always enjoyed Mozart’s captivating rhythmic and harmonic nods and winks in the piece, sitting back hearing it in the hands of a player such as Lixin Zhang highlighted so many delights that only a musician of genuine insight can unveil. Just one example – in the middle of the Andante Cantabile second movement, the sudden change from F major to F minor and, later, back again, was quite magical, no matter how often I’ve heard and played it before.

Another Chopin piece followed; this time one of the shorter works for which the composer is so popular. The Nocturne in C minor Op. 48 No. 1 is one of those pieces that justly confirms Chopin as the ‘master of the miniature’, especially when the player before us tonight turns its mere six-and-a-half minutes into such a deeply expressive and, at times, dramatic tone poem. 

Liszt’s Vallée d’Obermann may not be among that composer-pianist-showman’s most popular show-stopping hits, but if Lixin Zhang chose it to demonstrate his musical coming of age, he could not have chosen better. Here Liszt, the deeply thinking intellectual artist, disguises his consummate virtuosity behind a profoundly expressive tone painting that requires a combination of technique, varying tone colour, inner control and formal understanding that only a true artist should dare attempt. Tonight the young man on stage before us seemed to have mastered it all.
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Then, the introduction of two tiny children, apparently pupils of the pianist, onto the stage to play a duet, initially seemed just a bit too cute as a segue from what we had just experienced. But as their tiny legs dangled high above the pedals of what suddenly looked like an unusually enormous concert grand piano, their well-schooled, accurate and full-toned playing became a reminder that their teacher, once a talented student himself, has become the mentor who passes his experience on to the next generation, and who then played us his own meltingly beautiful encore to end this inaugural Christopher’s Classics Concert for Stars of the Future.
Christopher's Classics 6 May 2021
Te Koki Trio 
Martin Riseley (Violin), Inbal Megiddo (Cello), Jian Liu (Piano)
Reviewed by Tony Ryan 

When we listen to music, we tend to find ourselves responding to and evaluating the performers rather than passing judgement on the music itself, especially when that music is by well-established and long respected composers. However, with Bartók’s Violin Sonata No. 1, passing judgement on the music was certainly a preoccupation among tonight’s audience. Comments which reached my ears after the performance included:
 
     “Well, that was tough going wasn’t it”
     “I won’t be lining up for the Bartók again any time soon”
     “At the start, I really wondered what was going on”
     “It seemed to be full of primal screams”.
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For a work that’s already 100 years old, I wonder if it’s time to call it quits, even if some of the world’s foremost violinists staunchly support this sonata’s value and effectiveness. And tonight’s programme notes admit that this sonata is one of the composer’s most challenging pieces – technically for the players and expressively for the audience. Even among Bartók’s most austere middle-period works, this sonata is unsurpassed in its disparate components and disorienting harmonies. 

The programme notes also tell the touching story of Bartók’s tearful response to Menuhin’s performance, telling him that “usually composers are not played with such understanding until well after their death”. But such an idea is a twentieth century myth that belies the huge understanding and appreciation awarded to most of the great, and many of the not-so-great, composers of the past in their own lifetimes. Bartók himself was also the recipient of considerable appreciation and admiration in his own lifetime, especially for his later concertos and orchestral works.

Anyway, without further weighing the pros and cons of the music itself, there’s no doubt about the commitment and mastery of tonight’s performers. Martin Riseley and Jian Liu clearly have the full measure of the technical and musical demands of this work and, if Riseley’s more energetic and physically demonstrative playing contrasted with Liu’s seemingly easy and fluidly natural virtuosity, that only served to emphasise the very different nature of the composer’s violin and piano writing, where neither of the two parts ever shared a dialogue of agreement. Each of the instruments seemed to respond in quite separate improvisatory ways to one another, even if both players worked together with notable unity of ensemble.

After the Bartók, the opening minutes of Kodály’s Duo for Cello and Violin came almost as “light relief” (another audience-member utterance) until it, too, delved into deep personal struggles with identity and autonomy. Anyone who’s visited Budapest, a city divided by the Danube and with a history of foreign domination and colonisation, will understand just how important artistic assertions of cultural identity are. Such endeavours to establish an artistic individuality are manifested in both Bartók’s and Kodály’s (and, earlier, even Liszt’s) lifelong search for and use of Hungarian folksong in their works. From time-to-time there are fleeting hints, in Kodály’s Duo, of more familiar pieces such as Háry János or the Peacock Variations but, like his compatriot, Kodály’s piece is a far more deeply personal and anguished response to yet another consequence of wartime on his country.

In this work, Martin Riseley was partnered by cellist Inbal Megiddo and, again their commitment and projection of its expressive content music was one of total belief and understanding, even if, like the Bartók, it required a degree of determined resolve from the listeners.

It was at the start of the Kodály Duo that I immediately became aware of the very open-hearted and lively tone quality of Inbal Megiddo’s Fiorini cello – vibrant and assertive, and rich and dark without any notable warmth. Megiddo exploited these qualities to the full, both here and in the Brahms Trio in B Major which followed. The timbre of her instrument was so distinctive that, to me, it sounded very little different even in the several muted passages in the music; a factor which prevented it from blending easily with Martin Riseley’s more focused and centred tonal palette. 

After the challenges of the first part of the programme, the opening, luxurious romanticism of Brahms’ masterpiece came as a welcome palate-cleanser. The glorious opening melody of the first movement was as uplifting as anyone could wish for in the accomplished hands of these three musicians. And their unified response to the whole work brought sun-filled and optimistic relief from the intensity and anguish of the first part of the programme.
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That’s not to say the music was less deeply felt or the playing less committed, but the visionary and affecting expression of Brahms’ over-arching structural logic and imaginative harmonic and melodic writing sent us out into a cold night with a gratifying and heart-warming aftertaste.
Christopher's Classics 29 April 2021
Serenity Thurlow (viola) & Diedre Irons (piano)
Reviewed by Tony Ryan 

I wonder if others in tonight’s audience found this programme of three profoundly serious major works for viola and piano unusually demanding?

I’m not deeply knowledgeable about vola repertoire, but I wonder if Brahms’ two songs for mezzo-soprano, viola and piano might have made an appealing companion to the same composer’s F minor Sonata; or maybe the viola version of Schubert’s wonderful Arpeggione Sonata could have lightened the mood a little.

The most familiar piece on tonight’s programme was certainly Brahms’ great Sonata Op. 120 No. 1, so different in its expression in Brahms’ own viola version compared to its original clarinet conception. I’ve always found this sonata’s first movement a little difficult to assimilate, but Serenity Thurlow’s beautiful tone quality, along with some finely shaped phrasing, brought its expressive substance fully to life. And this was the hallmark of Thurlow’s playing throughout the evening. Together with pianist, Diedre Irons, the music-making had a tangible sense of partnership and rapport that demonstrated spontaneity, thoughtfulness and vitality at every turn. 

In recent years we have become used to musicians talking to us about their personal connection with the music that they are playing, but tonight Serenity Thurlow, playing her entire programme from memory, let the music speak for itself, injecting everything she had to say into the performances themselves.

The final two movements of the Brahms sonata brought an awareness of a certain degree of restraint on the violist’s part which was fully matched by Diedre Irons. In the past I have enjoyed Irons’ ability to play with inspired abandon, depending on the musicians with whom she is working, but here she supported and matched all the subtlety and expressive restraint of her partner; the mark of a truly sensitive and responsive artist.

That partnership was evident right from the start of the concert in Hindemith’s youthful and approachable Sonata. Even as a twenty-four-year-old, Hindemith avoids any sense of heart-on-sleeve emotionalism in this work. As I’ve often found with this composer’s later masterpieces, his music reveals deeper and more enduring expressive character with repeated hearings. In this performance I enjoyed passing moments of melodic and harmonic invention in all three interconnected parts of the work, and I look forward to discovering more of its secrets now that I’ve saved it to my ‘favourites’ on Tidal (my current music streaming service).
Since tonight’s programme was announced for the 2021 season of Christopher’s Classics, I’ve listened to Shostakovich’s Sonata for Viola and Piano several times over the last few months, but for me it has proved to be one of those works that doesn’t make its full impact until I’m able to experience a live performance. Shostakovich has long been one of my most favourite composers, but despite many years of regular concert-going, this is one work which has never previously crossed my path in a live performance. In the event, the earlier sections of this piece remain rather elusive, but, in the second and third movements, there emerged a clear and familiar sense of Shostakovich’s highly original and personal style. 

Like several of Shostakovich’s last works, especially his Symphony No. 15, the Viola Sonata quotes from other pieces by both Shostakovich himself and other composers. Without reading tonight’s printed programme, I thought I heard references to the second movement of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony. Later, the programme revealed that it was the Moonlight Sonata but, actually, the dotted rhythmic motif that Shostakovich used is the same in both. The programme also mentions quotes from the composer’s own opera, The Gamblers, and there are sections that also reminded me strongly of the final movement of his Piano Trio No. 2, written thirty years earlier.

It was in this final piece that Serenity Thurlow and Diedre Irons truly managed to bring a rather austere and esoteric creation to life. The commitment to and belief in this music, as well as the other works on the programme, was never in doubt. Once again, Christopher’s Classics has broadened our experience with imaginative programming and artists of the very highest calibre.
Christopher’s Classics – 8 April 2021
Trio Élan
Donald Armstrong (violin); Simon Brew (saxophone); Sarah Watkins (piano)
Reviewed by Tony Ryan 
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This opening concert of the 2021 season of Christopher’s Classics proved a vibrant and uplifting start to the series.

Although the saxophone is still primarily associated with jazz, its inclusion in ‘classical’ music is certainly not unusual. It can be found in operas by Massenet and Puccini, among others, and in numerous orchestral works from Bizet to Rachmaninov, Shostakovich and beyond. Debussy wrote a very effective concertato work for the instrument, and the chamber music repertoire for saxophone is already vast. However, the available choice of works for tonight’s combination of saxophone, violin and piano is certainly limited and, dare I say, still awaits the vindication of a true masterwork in the way that Brahms’ Horn Trio validated the horn-violin-piano blend.

Tonight’s selection of music relied on two reasonably substantial works written specially for this combination of instruments, along with four shorter pieces arranged from differently scored originals and the inclusion of Debussy’s Sonata for Violin and Piano to round out the evening. But it all made for a beautifully designed programme in which the enjoyment of all three players was so infectious, technically brilliant and physically communicative, that the audience could hardly fail to share in their delight.

Apart from Debussy’s wonderfully evocative Violin Sonata, played with stylish flair, atmosphere and tangible rapport from Donald Armstrong and Sarah Watkins, there was nothing on the programme that I’d previously heard.

The concert began with American composer Russell Peterson’s Trio for Alto Saxophone, Violin and Piano. The two outer movements oozed rhythmic drive, energy and virtuosity, which Trio Élan attacked with such consummate technical mastery that they even had skills in reserve to enhance the music with expressive exuberance and not a little humour. The central Adagio provided ideal contrast with plenty of textural variety and a constantly evolving expressive flow. Part way through this movement I couldn’t help being reminded of the final section of Respighi’s Pines Near a Catacomb movement from The Pines of Rome as Sarah Watkins introduced a similarly ominous-sounding chordal motif. But, whether intentional or subconscious on the composer’s part, such resonances serve to enhance the richness of our musical experience. And if Peterson’s trio was the evening’s real highlight, it set us up for a sequence of similarly enjoyable works.

Twenty-three-year-old Wellington composer Peter Liley’s Deux Images (Hmm, – is English or Te Reo not sufficiently evocative? Or is it just that Debussy provided a benchmark title?) was adapted by substituting violin for flute for this performance. These two short movements engaged us with their deceptive simplicity and genuine craftmanship. Their brevity ensured that they didn’t outstay their welcome, and the musicians’ commitment ensured their effectiveness. The moto perpetuo first piece, Small Scurrying, ended with a fascinating visual effect as the music’s ‘fade-out’ left pianist Sarah Watkins’ fingers fluttering noiselessly on the keys for a few second before the performance actually stopped. The word ‘image’, after all, whether English or French, implies a visual element; something we often miss in the context of recorded, aural-only, performances and something, it occurs to me, that pre-twentieth century composers never image-ined! 
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Tonight’s concert featured three New Zealand pieces, with the remaining two by Gareth Farr, both of which were also very short. Meditation, adapted for saxophone and piano from its viola original, is a gently expressive and melodic piece with nothing in the way of harmonic or rhythmic surprise, clearly designed as an unchallenging and attractive miniature. And ending this very appealing concert, Farr’s second piece, Tango, Un Verano de Passion, was brilliantly arranged for Trio Élan by Keith Moss using Farr’s attractive original material in a way that made the very most of each of the three instruments (well, four, if you count Simon Brew’s change to tenor saxophone, to wonderfully seductive effect, part way through). Brew introduced the piece as having something of the tango’s popular “red rose” imagery in its expression, unlike Piazzolla’s more deeply soulful tango, Otoño Porteño, that preceded it.

But this second part of tonight’s programme began with the other of the two works that were originally scored for these instruments. Algerian-born Marc Eychenne’s Cantilène et Danse began with a gorgeously nostalgic melody for muted violin and had, as the programme note stated, “an unmistakeably French, ‘everyday’ sound – somewhat like Poulenc”. For me, it was also the same French sound that influenced Gershwin, who, in turn, influenced Poulenc. Cantilène had clear suggestions of the Gershwin of Porgy and Bess, while the lively Danse had more than a little of An American in Paris in its harmonic and rhythmic arsenal, particularly the street atmosphere of crowds and car horns, easily suggested by the timbres of the saxophone. Again, such resonances enhance the experiences we derive from music, and if such influences can contribute towards the blurring of borders that are such a problem in politics and economics, then music is playing its part in widening our tolerance and understanding, particularly in performances of such vitality and charisma as we were given by Trio Élan tonight.