Calefax in Aotearoa: colourful conversations with reeds

CALEFAX: (from left) Oliver Boekhoorn, (cor anglais), Jelte Althuis (bass clarinet), Bart De Kater (clarinet), Raaf Hekkema (saxophone), Alban Wesly (bassoon) 

Image credit: Merlijn Doomernik

The Netherlands ensemble Calefax opened their recent Wellington concert by evoking the sound of the Renaissance organ. Calefax is a reed quintet, five musicians playing oboe, cor anglais, clarinets, saxophone and bassoon, instruments not invented when organ master Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck composed his contrapuntal keyboard works in Amsterdam more than 400 years ago.

These five superb musicians create arrangements to bring earlier music to life, and have proved themselves adept at re-creating masterpieces of the past. Bass clarinettist Jelte Althuis has arranged Sweelinck's Fantasia Chromatica for quintet, with the distinctive, mellow tones of the cor anglais replacing oboe.

From the work’s solemn, gentle beginning, Calefax impressed with the wonderful clarity, blend and musicality of their playing. Lovely long phrases wove around each other in flowing counterpoint. As the energy in the work grew, the lines became more decorated and the tone a little brighter, engaging us with the distinctive timbres of the five instruments.  It was a great opening to a revelatory concert.

Althuis also arranged the Fantasia and Fugue in G minor by Johann Sebastian Bach, the next delight on the programme and another work originally for organ. These musicians play with extraordinary facility and rapport, and their counterpoint is marvellous, revealing all the layers to the audience. The Fugue fairly danced along with an engaging bounce, the upper part for soprano saxophone, played by Raaf Hekkema, bright with great musical flourishes.

Calefax formed over 35 years ago, perhaps the first professional reed quintet in existence, and have created an exciting new genre. Young musicians are following their example throughout the world, and have access to their arrangements, published by Calefax Editions. As well, they commission new compositions for their distinctive combination of instruments, works they take into repertoire for future performances.   

New Zealand composer Rosie Langabeer was an inspired choice for the Chamber Music NZ commission for this tour of Aotearoa, a visit planned for four years ago and postponed by the pandemic. Like Calefax, Langabeer, who studied jazz composition in Wellington, is a boundary-crosser and a risk-taking collaborator.

She describes the musical process of her new quintet for Calefax, as the mountain folds itself to sleep, as “pulling a sonic thread, unravelling a fantastic garment”, a metaphor for exploring the layers of geology, genealogy, whakapapa and histories of the mountain.

Composer Rosie Langabeer

“…a boundary-crosser and risk-taking collaborator.”

Photo credit: Heidi Ankers

In this world premiere performance, Langabeer’s shapely piece is both appealingly jazzy and musically coherent. From its mysterious opening, melodic lines curl around themselves, and around the other instruments of the group, rather like the knitting she describes. The jazzy vibe develops slowly, with flavours of African American spiritual. Soprano sax and oboe become improvisatory, with deeper instruments repeating a jazzy rhythmic ostinato below.  

Franz Schubert’s Fantasie in F minor for piano duet, four hands on one piano, was the next arrangement, this time by saxophonist Hekkema, who took the yearningly beautiful opening melody for himself before sharing it around. Calefax reflected this masterwork through the prism of their colours, now a lovely low tone from bass clarinet, next a clarinet melody passed on to oboe. Their playing has a relaxed beauty, fugal sections artistically managed, the lively middle section in triple time witty and flexible. Any difficulties transferring pianistic figures to winds are transcended with ease by these virtuosi. Perhaps, near the end of the work, the colours became a little more strident than Schubert would have intended, but this brightness faded back for the final grand chords.

The Three Dances by Netherlands composer Robert Zuidam were written for Calefax in 2015, and programmed for their originally planned 2020 New Zealand tour. The composer has responded to the strengths of the group, his first dance sprightly and whimsical, a little wry in tone and conversational in texture. The language is largely atonal, and the colours of the instruments are again exploited in shifting conversations.

The slower middle dance meanders pensively, an oboe melody floating above and a lovely line from bass clarinet below as the tempo picks up. The third dance is faster and a little tongue-in-cheek, musically fragmented with bursts of activity before ending so suddenly the effect is humorous. The musicians smiled with the audience; Calefax is great at expressing and sharing any gentle humour in the music.

As the evening progressed, I began to understand their approach to arranging the music of the past as a kind of “re-imagination” – they are showing us the music’s contemporary face, and so allowing us to discover new aspects of the works of master composers. The three movements - Prélude, the famous Clair de Lune and Passepied - of Debussy’s Suite Bergamasque were arranged by oboist Oliver Boekhoorn and performed with beautiful flexibility and flow.

Debussy loved colours, perhaps the subtle sonorities of piano most of all. Played by Calefax, who have explored a lot of Debussy’s music over the years, this Suite was more brightly coloured than on piano, the distinctive reed timbres occasionally, for me, overbright and even a little shrill. The quintet nonetheless captured this elusive music with a gentle pace and their consistently impeccable ensemble and tuning.

After such a rich programme, the finale needed to be something special, and Calefax brought us a work they’ve played for many years, Hekkema’s arrangement of George Gershwin’s An American in Paris. It’s music that fits them like a glove, and they’ve recently gone a step further, working with a choreographer to create a an innovative theatrical entertainment.

Stylish suit jackets were stripped off, revealing equally groovy waistcoats. Rolling up their shirtsleeves, these Dutchmen in New Zealand embodied Americans on the boulevards of Paris, first a street band, then solitary buskers, musical storytellers traversing the stage, conversational one moment, confrontational the next.

Calefax on stage

“…the best American in Paris you’ll see or hear.”

It is indeed a terrific reimagining of Gershwin’s famous piece. Forget about Leonard Bernstein and the New York Phil - this cheeky version, played entirely without scores by these outstanding musicians, is the best American in Paris you’ll see and hear. Performed with the joyous freedom of long acquaintance, it delighted the large audience, who spilled out afterwards into what had been a grey Wellington street, lighting it up with bubbling high spirits and cheerful smiles.

Calefax, Oliver Boekhoorn (oboe/cor anglais), Raaf Hekkema (saxophones), Bart De Kater (clarinet) Jelte Althuis (bass clarinet) Alban Wesly (bassoon), touring for Chamber Music New Zealand 17 – 28 September, 2024.  

This is a review of the Wellington concert 20 September, 2024.

Upcoming Calefax concerts: Invercargill 24 September, Christchurch 25 September, Dunedin 27 September, Nelson 28 September. More information and booking details here