Concerts ONTO A winner
Mentioned in Despatches: On to a winner:
Or, already there, and really onto a winner. Lunchtime Concerts at the Uni of Waikato.
Price went from $00 to $10. Unnecessary in view of the huge dollar value of the publicity brought to the university by this and similar events, but the people know, and are prepared to pay for quality.
This week the audience of regulars was supplemented by maybe 25 per cent of new faces and audience variety is growing.
They were there to hear Maria Mo, piano, and Amalia Hall, violin.
The pair played three instrumental duets, opening with Beethoven, followed by Lilburn and Faure, as Mo added yet another treasure to her PhD evidence of worthiness. Beethoven’s Allegro, — Sonata for violin and piano No. 8 in G major, Op 30 No.3, dragged me from the word games I was playing while I waited, the gracious and elegant minuetto seduced me, and the Allegro Vivace had me transfixed. Great company, great music, and Beethoven was the grande cru.
You could not buy such a constancy of music of this quality and interest outside the great European centres.
And this:
I have been deluged by a chorus of ‘‘How could you have missed that!’’ comments from people who managed to get seats at the recent Hamilton Civic Choir Concert at St Peter’s Cathedral at the weekend of 11/9. I know how to spell ‘sublime’, ‘elegant’. ‘eloquent’, ‘creative’, ‘inspiring’, ‘unique’, ‘memorable’, and a range of additional superlatives.
I know what organic sound is like. I understand harmony and dynamics. I have experienced No longer does big money feel comfortable with something as specialist as a Bach Chorale ensemble. Funders and sponsors want more from classical music. Some prefer to boogie, Man! Cellists now are stars in pop ensembles and violins have fiddled their way into the heart of industrial money making.
Because corporate sponsorship is designed to increase profits, not just offer a philanthropic hand, sponsors always want bigger audiences.
Some groups are reacting to this call, like Hamilton Civic Choir which has, with some success in the last couple of years, extended its considerable classical and performance repertoire to include music which is believed to be more accessible to audiences.
OPUS too, has answered the call, supporting new works with Te Reo Maori vocals and music in Te Reo Electronique – and the mix of nominal metaphors is not an accident. In this concert, learned and scholarly musician Stephen Small has offered a window on the future of serious ensemble style music.
He is an expert in synthesised sound, sound which has its own recognisable timbre.
Problem is, the beauty of the orchestral instrument derives from and is influenced by the reeds or strings or tubes, or wood or metal bodies which shape the air which makes the sounds.
That shaping includes something called resonance. Orchestral instruments, together with organs and pianos, harpsichords, have it.
Electronic sound synthesisers do not.
The latter is too controlled, too ‘perfect’ to be given the individual and idiosyncratic life which characterises what many of us call live music. A few years ago a miscegenated coupling of pipe organ and highland bagpipes became voguely (sic) popular with the harmonically challenged.
The synthesised mixed media sound in this concert, for this member of the audience, carried a similar dissonential distraction.
It was particularly evident in the first half, where the eight individual segments of the Ranginui and Papatuanuku narrative were sung in te reo by Kotahi Te Wairua, accompanied by electronic audio produced by Dr Small, and backed by the live orchestral harmonies and timbres of OPUS.
That narrative and the commissioned work, Te Miha, which made up the second half, are works to be taken seriously.
Audiences will need to develop new skills to appreciate a triad like this, and the process of melding synthetic and natural sound is going to require both artistic integrity and aesthetic discipline. What an interesting experience.
Well, we know what That was about, don’t we. It was a little disguised by eye catching period costuming – and I am not talking about era appropriate decolletee – I think – by Michelle Williams.
Nor am I talking about a mimimalist and dramatically practical set, or props, and makeup, and all the other eye catching stuff of stage productions.
I am talking about the way an
18th century novelist prophesised
21st century ethics and morality with such perceptive and insightful accuracy.
Like a Shakespearean play, this narrative has a thick eiderdown of comedy spread with a golden voiced trowel (forgive me that awful conceit!), over the underblanket and silk sheets of tragedy.
The narrative has significant public figures making light of prevailing attitudes to sexual adventures with inappropriate partners, seducing young and naı¨ve partners into sexual romps which are now illegal under the law.
It reminded this critic of the scandal surrounding one Jeffrey Epstein and his wealthy guests, from Mr Trump to Prince Andrew, who enjoyed his parties too much to say no.
It laid (?) out the techniques of seduction employed by ageing roues and the powerful women who had the same desires and techniques but somewhat greater subtlety, but like so many drugs the side effects of the pleasure ended up killing you.
If that sounds a little serious, let me reassure you.
It is. But it is also a reality, and so often we learn to understand unpalatable realities by laughing about them, being entertained by them.
The experience and skills of Gaslight director Dave Stearns drew a compelling performance from Janine Swainson as the Marquise de Merteuil, with a voice which carried all the arrogant confidence of those who believe the world, and everything in it, including the people, is rightfully theirs, and a stage presence which was fully in harmony with the fundamentally evil character, subtle, persuasive, and so seductive she turned in a masterclass in character creation and opposition assassination.
Good pace, despite a sense of narrative interruptus caused by the number of scene changes, and a real sense of occasion which came from an attraction to a number of the characters.
A seductive entertainment indeed.