Classical
Vulcanalia
by Ian Dando
Ruaumoko, Gareth Farr. NZSO/Kenneth Young. Trust MMT2042.
Ruaumoko’s movements, like Autumn, with its slow unfolding of beautiful melody, and Winter, with its traditional thematic development of a four-note jagged motif, show the versatile Gareth Farr able to integrate tradition with his true 21st-century sonority. This absorbing work benefits from Farr’s newly acquired stylistic breadth against the narrower, rhythm-driven mimimalism of his earlier period.
The noisy and heavily scored Beowulf and Rangitoto are not his most subtle works. The same goes for the coda of Te Papa, but the more transparent remainder shows the impressively militant edge of Mere Boynton’s taha Maori soprano in contrast to the operatic styles of Richard Greager and Deborah Wai Kapohe. The longer Orakau unfolds with the masterly expansiveness of a one-movement symphony. Farr is at his best here, with broad brush strokes for the orchestra and a fine voice setting for Conal Coad’s sure bass voice.
Taurangi. Bridget Douglas (flute), Rachel Thomson (piano). MMT2053-4. 2CDs.
All New Zealand music here. On CD one, Ross Harris’s Ka wawara te hau, packed with microtones, multiphonics and fluttertonguing, is one shimmering piece of atmosphere. Gillian Whitehead’s Taurangi is the most visionary work, often extending to expressive microtonal passages and gently stroking the piano’s innards in the final section. John Elmsly’s Dialogue 1 is my personal favourite. His contrasty writing profiles the unusual aggressive power of Bridget Douglas (NZSO principal flutist) in the work’s opening and her softly contoured warmth with the alto flute in the middle part. I am a fan of anything she plays. She has an empathetic partner in pianist Rachel Thomson.
Among the more astringent unaccompanied flute content of CD two, Maria Grenfell’s Four Pooh Studies passes muster for its touches of humour and direct simplicity; Elmsly’s Three
Doubles, too. Each miniature exploits a specific technique so precisely. Best of all is Chris Cree-Brown’s The Waterhole for his imaginatively interwoven electronic tape sounds with Douglas’s
sensuous alto and bass flute playing.
Mozart String Quartets K 465, 499. Belcea Quartet. EMI 3 44455 2.
Straddled between Mozart’s six Haydn and three Prussian string quartets is a remarkable standalone – the K499 dedicated to his publisher, Hoffmeister. It brims with counterpoint and learned devices but is not self-consciously intellectual. Mozart shapes the musical conversation with a deftness that makes it a model of quartet writing. Britain’s leading young quartet articulates its complexity with polished elegance, as it also does in the K465 “Dissonant” quartet.
Ruaumoko, Gareth Farr. NZSO/Kenneth Young. Trust MMT2042
Taurangi. Bridget Douglas (flute), Rachel Thomson (piano). MMT2053-4. 2CDs
Mozart String Quartets K 465, 499. Belcea Quartet. EMI 3 44455 2
