JULIEN VAN MELLAERTS & JAMES BAILLIEU 2 Chamber Music New Zealand
Touring NZ 15 – 25 June
www.northernmigrations.co.nz Kia ora tātou I first heard baritone Julien Van Mellaerts sing in 2012 when he appeared as Bartolo in Opera Otago’s production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. I was immediately impressed by both his voice and vivacious stage presence. In 2020, Julien will be performing the title role from the same opera, in concert, as part of Mozart2020, an internationally renowned festival hosted by Mozarteum Foundation Salzburg. Sir András Schiff invited Julien to sing the role of Figaro after hearing him sing at an award ceremony at the Royal College of Music, London. Here, Julien was awarded the prestigious Tagore Gold Medal, one of many awards this exceptional young singer has won. With such an impressive trajectory thus far, I’m sure that Julien’s musical career is set to be a fine one. Coincidentally, I have also had the pleasure of hearing the remarkable collaborative pianist James Baillieu in concert at Wigmore Hall – performing with our friends from the CMNZ 2018 Season, the Heath Quartet. I am so looking forward to hearing these outstanding young musicians perform together in a programme aptly titled Songs of Travel. The programme is beautifully crafted and includes a new Gareth Farr work of settings of new poems by Bill Manhire about four New Zealand birds. Julien commissioned this work with support from CMNZ, along with the Festival of Colour, Wanaka, Jane Kominik and the Dame Malvina Major Foundation – we thank them for their generosity. We would also like to acknowledge the Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation for generously supporting Julien and James with their international travel. Julien and James will be performing for our subscription audiences in Hamilton, New Plymouth and Napier, the Festival of Colour, Wanaka and as part of our Regional Series. Ngā mihi nui,
Catherine Gibson Chief Executive Chamber Music New Zealand “…the baritone Julien Van Mellaerts brings the songs to life with warmth and wit.”
– The Times SONGS OF TRAVEL Hamilton, New Plymouth, Napier
FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797-1828) Page 8 Lieder: settings of poems by Geothe
MAURICE RAVEL (1875-1937) Page 9 From Histoires naturelles
GARETH FARR (b. 1968) Page 10 Ornithological Anecdotes
INTERVAL
RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS (1872-1958) Page 11 Songs of Travel
BALLADS AND LEGENDS Page 12 Jean Sibelius, George Gershwin, Manning Sherwin, Cole Porter
DURATION: 110 minutes including an interval *The Artists reserve the right to make changes to the programme.
The Hamilton concert is being recorded for later broadcast by RNZ Concert.
Please respect the music, the musicians, and your fellow audience members, by switching off all cellphones, pagers and watches. Taking photographs, or sound or video recordings during the concert is strictly prohibited unless with the prior approval of Chamber Music New Zealand. “James Baillieu is in a class of his own… a remarkable pianist.”
– The Daily Telegraph Julien Van Mellaerts & James Baillieu 7
James Julien Van Baillieu Mellaerts Piano Baritone
An accomplished chamber musician, soloist Julien Van Mellaerts has recently graduated from and accompanist, James’ partnerships include the Royal College of Music International Opera Lawrence Power, the Heath Quartet, Mark School, where he was a Fishmongers Scholar Padmore, Sir Thomas Allen, Dame Kiri te Kanawa studying with Russell Smythe. On graduation, he and Ian Bostridge. Venues include Wigmore Hall, was awarded the Tagore Gold Medal. Before Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Berlin Konzerthaus, moving to London, Julien studied music and Vienna Musikverein; and the Bergen, Spitalfields, languages at the University of Otago. Winner of Aldeburgh, Cheltenham, Bath, St Magnus, the 2016 Joan Chissell Schumann Song Prize, 2016 Norfolk & Norwich, Brighton, Verbier and Aix-en- Brooks-Van Der Pump English Song Competition, Provence Festivals. As a soloist, he has appeared and the 2015 Maureen Lehane Vocal Awards. with the Ulster Orchestra, the English Chamber Orchestra and the Wiener Kammersymphonie. Recent operatic roles include: second soldier and second Nazarene in Salome at the Verbier James has presented his own series at the Festival with Charles Dutoit; Dandini in La Wigmore Hall. This series was shortlisted for Cenerentola with Diva Opera; Schaunard in La the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Chamber Bohème as a Christine Collins Young Artist at Music and Song Award for an outstanding Opera Holland Park; . contribution to the performance of chamber music and song in the UK during 2016. Recent Highlights this season include baritone soloist collaborations include Benjamin Appl, Kathryn with the Royal Ballet in their production of Elizabeth Rudge, Jamie Barton and Lise Davidsen. This , with performances at the Barbican season’s engagements include appearances at and on tour, the world premiere of ‘Christmas Wigmore Hall in London, Park Avenue Armory Carol’ by Will Todd with Opera Holland Park, La Bohème in New York, Phillips Collection in Washington, Schaunard in with New Zealand Eugene Onegin Art Song Festval in Cleveland and performances Opera, the title role in with the Mozart at the Heidelberger Frühling and Konzerthaus Cambridge Philharmonic, the Referee in vs the Machine Dortmund. for Mahogany Opera Group, recitals with Julius Drake in Madrid, performances Born in South Africa, James studied in Cape at Wigmore and Cadogan Hall, baritone soloist Town and London. He was a Borletti-Buitoni in Fauré Requiem at the Royal Albert Hall, and Trust and Young Classical Artist Trust artist. James recitals at the London Song, Leeds Lieder and enjoys working with young musicians and is Oxford Lieder Festivals. a Professor at the Royal Academy of Music, a coach at the Royal Opera House, a course leader This year Julien will be singing Papageno in for the Samling Foundation, and head of the Mozart’s Magic Flute at Verbier as well as in Song Programme of the Atelier Lyrique at the Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten with Gergiev, also Verbier Festival Academy. at Verbier. Julien is set to star in The Marriage of Figaro at Salzburg’s Mozart Week 2020. Julien’s tour to New Zealand is made possible with ongoing support from the Dame Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation. 8 Chamber Music New Zealand
Franz Schubert (1797-1828) Lieder: settings of poems by Geothe Ganymed 1817 Rastlose Liebe 1815 Erster Verlust 1815 An den Mond 1816 Erlkönig 1815 Auf dem See 1817 Wanderers Nachtlied II (Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh) 1824 Der Musensohn 1822
Long before the advent of email, Johann songs are ultimately about emotional turmoil. In Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) complained ‘Ganymed’ piano and voice together evoke the to a friend that he received so much unsolicited erotic excitement of the beautiful young boy for correspondence that he no longer bothered Zeus. In the ‘Wanderers Nachtlied’ (‘Wanderer’s replying. One writer thus neglected was Franz Nightsong’), it is the piano the creates the sense Schubert who, in 1817, had sent him some of nature at peace before the singer so magically settings of his poems. These, including some describes it. of the songs we hear tonight, were returned unopened. Goethe was interested in music and Schubert’s treatment of Goethe’s poetry is surrounded by musicians eager to set his poetry always utterly responsive to its meaning. The – but Schubert never made it on to his radar piano accompaniment in ‘Auf dem See’ (‘On (despite an eventual total of 71 Goethe songs). the Lake’) evokes changing weather and rising winds. A poem like ‘An den Mond’ (‘To the The Schubert Lied (plural Lieder) is Moon’) has four stanzas. Instead of a strophic quintessentially music-up-close – intimate setting (the same music for each stanza), the music written for drawing room performance. wonderful repose of the outer sections frame What became known as Schubertiads were a more animated central section where the private concerts to a select number of invited singer remembers his lover sitting surrounded by guests in the house of one of Schubert’s bushes rustling in the wind and a burbling brook. admirers. Schubert, who is often referred to (not quite accurately) as the ‘father’ of the Lied, This beautiful selection of Lieder traverses an championed this genre. Lied simply means emotional range from the calm of ‘An den Mond’ ‘song’, but in this context it is a setting in which and ‘Erster Verlust’ (‘First Loss’, but also about first the piano is an equal partner with the voice. In love) through to the jubilation of Der Musensohn ‘Erlkönig’ (‘The Elf-king’) the father’s desperate (‘The Muses’ Son’). ride through the night is dramatized in the virtuosic piano accompaniment. ‘Rastlose Liebe’ (‘Restless Love’) is similarly turbulent. Both Duration: 22 minutes Julien Van Mellaerts & James Baillieu 9
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) From Histoires naturelles i. Le paon iii. Le cygne v. La pintade
Ravel’s Histoires naturelles, composed in 1906, French rather than sounded separately are settings of five prose poems by Jules shocked his colleagues – even Debussy. Renard. Renard’s complete Histoires had been Throughout these settings are lots of mixed published just six years earlier with illustrations rhythms (the use of triplets, quintuplets etc.) by Toulouse Lautrec. These ironic vignettes that create the natural fluid profile of the of human and animal behavior sit delightfully spoken word. alongside the Farr/Manhire Ornithological Anecdotes. ‘Le paon’ (the peacock) is – needless to say – a vain creature whose dignity must Maurice Ravel stands alongside Claude be maintained even after his fiancée fails Debussy (1862-1918) as a giant of early 20th to show up for the wedding. The piano century French music. While he has sometimes accompaniment, with its dotted groups been accused of imitating his mentor and reminiscent of that most royal of forms, the friend’s revolutionary style (one that uses a French Overture, underlines the peacock’s familiar harmonic vocabulary of the late 19th sense of self-importance. century in profoundly new ways), Ravel’s approach to word setting is, in fact, more Ravel’s swan (‘Le cygne’) begins – like Saint- radical than Debussy’s. He aimed – recitative Saëns’ – by gliding over sparkling water like – to bring the vocal line as close as (shimmering pianissimo semiquavers blurred possible to natural speech. by the sustaining pedal). This swan – Narcissus like – is in love with its own reflection. The prose syntax of Renard’s vignettes lends itself to this approach. Ravel’s insistence ‘La pintade’ (the guinea fowl) opens (through his notation) that the unstressed final (rageusement – furiously) with its raucous cry vowel in words like ‘usage’ (the first example fortissimo on the piano. The singer carries the in ‘Le paon’) should be treated as in spoken narrative about this mean-spirited creature while the piano dramatizes the disturbances she creates.
Duration: 12 minutes 10 Chamber Music New Zealand
Gareth Farr (b. 1968) Ornithological Anecdotes Dotterel Takahe Huia Tui
Gareth Farr, one of our most feted Manhire’s Huia poem captures all the sadnesses New Zealand composers, has an extensive list associated with this vanished bird: its iconic of works, including vocal works, but not until beauty (imprinted on postage stamp and coin); Ornithological Anecdotes has he written just for its musical call (Ngā Taonga Sound and Vision voice and piano. This commission, instigated by say that their recording of Henare Hāmana Julien Van Mellaerts, brings Farr together with remembering the sound of the huia is their most this country’s greatest living poet, Bill Manhire requested item); and the damage wrought by (b. 1946). human greed. Farr’s setting, with its pianissimo arpeggiated chords and haunting repeated call, ‘Dotterel’ is not the first poem by Manhire to is beautifully apt. Finally the Tui. Manhire’s poem, have been inspired by watching these brave with its characteristically whimsical tone, portrays little birds protecting their young on the the tui as a show-off and a talented mimic. Farr’s sandspit at Opoutere. The filigree of sound setting (marked ‘cocky – with attitude’) plays in the accompaniment captures the lightness with the tui’s call – principally the high-pitched, (‘a fluttering and a scurrying’) of the text. The flamboyantly virtuosic flourishes rather than the Takahe, on the other hand, (‘plod a lot’) has vulgar coda. an asymmetrical, galumphing 5/8 metre.
Duration: 8 minutes
‘Commissioned with assistance from the Chamber Music New Zealand Trust and Wanaka Festival of Colour to be performed by Julien Van Mellaerts and James Baillieu’. Julien Van Mellaerts & James Baillieu 11
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) Songs of Travel i. The vagabond ii. Let beauty awake iii. The roadside fire iv. Youth and love v. In dreams vi. The infinite shining heavens vii. Whither must I wander viii. Bright is the ring of words ix. I have trod the upward and the downward slope
Vaughan Williams and Sibelius are exact and inflections of the English language. Only contemporaries – and the Songs of Travel Purcell before him and Benjamin Britten after (first performed in 1904) were written at the have done this quite so well. same time as the two Sibelius songs in the next bracket. Both composers were intent on finding As a cycle, the Songs of Travel traverse a deeply a voice for their own culture. satisfying emotional range – from the confident bravura of ‘The vagabond’ to the reflective The Songs of Travel, settings of poems by sadness of ‘In dreams’. Robert Louis Stevenson, demonstrate Vaughan Williams’ ability to capture the rhythmic contour Duration: 25 minutes
“No surprise that Van Mellaerts, witty and wiry-toned, walked away with the top prize.” – The Times 12 Chamber Music New Zealand
Ballads and legends Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) | Svarta rosor Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) | Säv, säv, susa George Gershwin (1898-1937) | The Lorelei Manning Sherwin (1902-1974) | A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square Cole Porter (1891-1964) | The Tale of the Oyster
The Sibelius songs – described by Fabian ‘Lorelei’ is supercharged through the implied Dahlström and James Hepokoski as ‘deeply reference to Heinrich Heine’s poem (set as melancholic and soberly chilling’ – were written a Lied by Liszt, Clara Schumann and others). at the turn of the century. Both have Swedish Heine’s Lorelei, a mysterious femme fatale texts: ‘Svarta rosor’ (‘Black Roses’) by the painter luring sailors to a tragic death becomes an exu- and poet Ernst Josephson (1851-1906) and ‘Säv, berant protagonist in Ira Gershwin’s hands. säv, susa’ (‘Sigh, rushes, sigh’) by Gustaf Fröding (1860-1911). Sibelius, the champion of Finnish Cole Porter’s witty ‘Tale of the oyster’ comes culture, grew up as part of a Swedish-speaking from the 1929 musical Fifty Million Frenchman. It elite, thoroughly versed in Swedish culture. repulsed at least one opening night critic, who called it a “tasteless song of regurgitation”. As a young man he explained to his fiancé that he would reply to her letters in Swedish “so The last bird in this concert, is Manning Sher- that it does not take five minutes to write out win’s ‘Nightingale’ (lyrics by Eric Maschwitz). each word”. Written in France on the eve of World War II, its sense of nostalgia was soon to become more George Gershwin’s ‘Lorelei’ (with lyrics by poignant. Along with ‘We’ll meet again’, It was his brother, Ira) comes from the ill-fated 1933 popularised by Vera Lynn. musical Pardon My English. The comedy of the Duration: 14 minutes
Programme notes kindly provided by Peter Walls Thank You To all of our generous donors who support CMNZ throughout the year
Founders' Circle Members Roger and Jenny Mountfort Anonymous Barbara Peddie Graeme Edwards Roger Reynolds Arnold and Reka Solomons Martin and Catherine Spencer The Estate of Jenni Caldwell Basil & Jenny Stanton The Estate of Aileen Claridge Alison Thomson The Estate of Walter Freitag Ann Trotter The Estate of Chisne Gunn Judith Trotter The Estate of Warwick Gordon Harris Anna Wilson The Estate of Joan Kerr Bruce Wilson and Jill White The Estate of Monica Taylor Ann Wylie David Zwartz Ensemble ($10,000+) Anonymous Trio ($500+) Robin & Sue Harvey Anonymous (6) Kaye & Maurice Clark Diane Baguley Gill and Peter Davenport Philippa Bates Peter and Carolyn Diessl Harry and Anne Bonning Professor Jack Richards JD Cullington Jonathan Cweorth Octet ($5,000+) Hanno Fairburn M Hirschfeld Children's Trust Tom and Kay Farrar Hylton LeGrice and Angela Lindsay John Farrell The Lyons Family - in memory of Ian Lyons Anne French Consulting Ltd Murray Shaw Belinda Galbraith Kerrin and Noel Vautier C & P Gibson Lloyd Williams and Cally McWha Laurie Greig Gary and Helena Hawke Quintet ($2,500+) Douglas and Barbara Holborow Joy Clark E Prof Les Holborow John and Trish Gribben Michael Houstoun and Mike Nicolaidi Ann Harden Caroline List Jane Kominik Fiona Macmillan and Briony Macmillan Collin Post Margaret Malaghan Arnold and Reka Solomons Raymond and Helen Matias Peter and Kathryn Walls AE McAloon Fiona McAlpine Quartet ($1,000+) Andrew and Mary McEwen Anonymous (2) Heather Miller Donald and Susan Best Margaret Nielsen Roger and Joanna Booth Prue Olde Philip and Rosalind Burdon Robert and Helen Philpott MD and MA Carr Miles Rogers Rick and Lorraine Christie Sylvia Rosevear Roger Christmas Peter and Juliet Rowe The Cranfylde Charitable Trust John and Kathryn Sinclair Graeme and Di Edwards Ross Steele Peter and Rae Fehl Mary Smit Finchley Trust Priscilla Tobin Dame Jennifer Gibbs David Tripp Patricia Gillion Patricia Unger David and Heather Hutton Richard and Elaine Westlake Linda MacFarlane Tim Wilkinson Elizabeth McLeay Board Kerrin Vautier CMG (Chair), Hon Chris Finlayson, Quentin Hay, Andreas Heuser, Matthew Savage, Vanessa Doig REGIONAL CONCERTS
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