Chamber ensembles on tour in Aotearoa
The Morton Trio & Friends on the road for a nine concert national tour
On a recent Sunday afternoon, Wellington Chamber Music Trust presented a sextet touring as Morton Trio & Friends. It was the final concert of a nine-centre national tour within the Chamber Music New Zealand “In Partnership” Series, a part of CMNZ’s activities involving curation and promotion of a selection of artists offered to music societies and organisations in towns and cities around the country. The Morton Trio of violinist Arna Morton, horn player Alex Morton and pianist Liam Wooding were joined by friends from the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, clarinettist David McGregor, violist Sharon Baylis and cellist Jeremy Garside.
Goethe has often been quoted as taking delight in getting to know the individual character of the instruments in a string quartet. His pleasure would have been much enhanced by this vibrant sextet of strings, piano, clarinet and horn. There may not have been much repertoire for such a group in Goethe’s time, but the Morton ensemble played two contrasting works composed in Eastern Europe in 1935 and 2000 by the Hungarian Ernst von Dohnányi and Polish Krzysztof Penderecki. Neither work would have been known by most of the Wellington audience, illustrating the wealth of interesting chamber repertoire still available for discovery.
Dohnányi’s Sextet Opus 37 is densely symphonic, less conversation than high-spirited celebration, played here in a no-holds-barred exuberant performance, with a finely balanced ensemble. Full-bodied string playing held its own throughout against piano and winds.
Penderecki’s Sextet is a complete contrast, a two-movement work introduced by Alex Morton as “odd, weird and creepy”. It’s a challenging work for musicians and audience, the musical conversations sometimes far from amicable, and the emotions expressed, especially in the dark Larghetto, ranging from poignant to raw. We were treated to a marvellous account of the work, the virtuosity required from every member of the ensemble amply delivered.
After this gloomy Polish intensity, the mood was lifted by a short encore, a charming sextet arrangement by Arna Morton of a delicious little choral work by Lili Boulanger. Whenever her music is played, we are reminded that the death aged just 24 of this splendid composer deprived French music of a major figure.
Vesa-Matti Leppänen, NZSO Concertmaster
…acknowledges applause for the NZSO Testimony programme
Photo credit: Phoebe Tuxford
The NZSO’s Testimony in April was a touring programme for a chamber-sized orchestra of 22 players in which several compositions began life as chamber works. Performed without conductor, the concert was led from the violin by Vesa-Matti Leppänen, NZSO Concertmaster, with the Orchestra’s associate principal cellist Ken Ichinose as melodious soloist in Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s arrangement for cello and orchestra of the romantic Andante Cantabile from his 1st String Quartet.
The programme opened with Douglas Lilburn’s simple and attractive early work Diversions for string orchestra, and included another work written by a composer in his youth, the Finn Einojuhani Rautavaara’s folk-inspired story-telling Opus 1, Pelimannit (“The fiddlers”). In between was Anton Bruckner’s Adagio, originally part of his only chamber work, a string quintet, and the programme ended with a chamber symphony arrangement of Dimitri Shostakovich’s crackling 8th Quartet. It was in the latter that the ensemble of orchestral musicians was most successful in finding the precision and intensity of chamber playing, transcending the ungrateful Michael Fowler Centre acoustics with a passionate performance.
Chamber music has often been called the “music of friends”, so the name of the Amici Ensemble is apt. I attended one of the concerts of their recent short tour, presented by the Waikanae Music Society, one of the most well-attended regional chamber music societies in the country. The Amici Ensemble was established in 1988, led by NZSO’s Associate Concertmaster Donald Armstrong, bringing together a varied cast of players from the NZSO. It’s been a popular part of Waikanae’s programme for many years.
The Amici Ensemble
“…delighted the audience with accomplished and colourful playing.”
Sometimes, when fine musicians spend most of their time playing orchestral music, finding that individual responsibility for a voice in the musical conversation is not as intuitive as for full-time chamber musicians. This may have contributed to a little flabbiness in Bruckner’s work in the NZSO Testimony programme. The five Amicis in this line-up, violinist Yuka Eguchi alongside Armstrong, violas Alexander McFarlane and Andrew Thomson and cellist Andrew Joyce, are all experienced chamber musicians, however, and after appealing short works for trio and duo from New Zealand composers Ron Tremain and Salina Fisher, came to the stage as a string quintet for a lovely account of the third of Mozart’s six Quintets, K.515. Within his nowhere-to-hide transparency, Mozart makes varied use of instrumental pairings within the ensemble’s elegant conversations.
In the final work, Brahms’ 2nd String Quintet in G major, we heard what chamber music does best, a democracy of voices, rich and strong playing from all five musicians, who were clearly relishing the music. There are several splendid solos, most notably that for cello that opens the work, marvellously played with extrovert flair by Joyce. The two violas provide a rich centre to the ensemble texture and the whole group delighted with their accomplished and colourful playing.
Morton Trio & Friends Chamber Music NZ In Partnership tour, Tauranga, Warkworth, Whakatane, Rotorua, Waiheke Island, Kerikeri, Christchurch, Cromwell, Wellington April 6-28, 2024
NZSO “Testimony” Vesa-Matti Leppänen (violin, director), Ken Ichinose (cello soloist), Wellington, Nelson, Napier, Tauranga, Hamilton, Auckland April 12-20
Amici Ensemble led by Donald Armstrong (violin). Waikanae Music Society April 27, Greytown Music Group April 28, Upper Hutt May 9 (more information here)