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23 reviews
Though obviously pure coincidence, each of two consecutive Thursday concerts which I recently attended at Old St.Paul’s Cathedral in Mulgrave St, was beset by bad weather – the real pity was that the first of them – Quang Hong Luu’s…
Composers over the course of time have often demonstrated a fondness, and, indeed, a facility, for writing descriptive music representing people, animals, objects or events. As early as the Renaissance, there was a penchant for imitating…
A chance to revisit the ineffable beauties of the ambience and atmosphere of St. Michael’s Church in Kelburn, a place I’d actually discovered for myself earlier this year as a venue for music-making, came with the announcement of a concert…
For those Wellingtonians and others who may not know, the name Papaioea refers to a particular location in the city of Palmerston North – in fact I grew up there being told that it was a Maori name for the city’s once-beautiful but now…
I’ve already acclaimed the occasion of this concert given by the Korimako Trio in Middle C’s previous review ( https://middle-c.org/2026/05/nztrios-sensational-dreamscape-concert-sweet-relief-for-wellington/ ), regarding it as one of an…
Oh, to be in Wellington! – annus mirabilis 2026! How ironic that, when we’re in the throes of an unprecedentedly savage institutionalised attack by the Coalition Government on our city’s lifeblood of productive public employment activity,…
Trio Obscura’s name reminded me somewhat of TS Eliot’s wonderfully idiosyncratic poem “The Naming of Cats”, in which the poet describes a cat’s reverie when contemplating “…his ineffable, effable, effanineffable, deep and inscrutable,…
To my surprise I discovered my last encounter with the justly-vaunted NZTrio took place no less than seven years previously – though the Covid pandemic can be held responsible for numerous cancellations, dislocations and reorganisations of…
“New Zealand has so many great musicians that we have decided to have eight concerts” proclaimed the Wellington Chamber Music’s 2024 series website at the year’s beginning. Having been fortunate enough to attend (and review) six of these…
This was a distinctly youthful concert. Not because it was packed with music students (although there were a few there amongst the grey heads, chins thoughtfully propped on knees, listening intently), but because most of the music was…
Sunday 19 June 2022 A cold grey afternoon in the middle of winter. But the programme looked interesting: a Czech club sandwich with a slice of Bowater. The New Zealand Chamber Soloists have a history of commissioning new works. The work by…
Wednesday, 13 th October, 2021 What a year for Chamber Music Hutt Valley! – a glance at my season ticket brings back ripples of musical pleasure as memories crowd in of concert following extraordinary concert, with only one pang of…
Sunday 27 September, 3 pm Perhaps because of Auckland’s continued restrictions, and limits on audience size, Wellington, and no doubt other cities, seem to benefit from more concerts. This was the first of three concerts by the NZ Trio,…
Friday 28 August, 12:45 pm This was a promising recital by three young women who have lived around Worser Bay in Wellington: two are sisters, the cellist a long-time friend. Both Tarrant-Matthews are violinists who have played in Orchestra…
Sunday, 9 th August 2020 It’s a bit of a truism to say that Beethoven and his music represent a kind of apex of enduring creative expression for modern-day humankind; and while such pronouncements can be literally questioned in terms of…
Saturday 14 September 7:30 pm Musicians of the stature of Viktoria Mullova are much rarer visitors to New Zealand now than they were 30, 50 years ago. Then the entire season of chamber music concerts arranged by the then Federation of…
Sunday 18 August 2019, 2:30 pm It might be unusual to give a common name to a group of three musicians who are clearly going to have only a few weeks together because one of its members lives in another country. The owner of the first…
Sunday 30 th June, 2019 On paper, a programme for the prospective listener to savour – and this was an expectation I would guess was largely fulfilled, judging from the reception accorded the musicians’ efforts by the audience, and the…
Music by Vivaldi, Donizetti, Chris Adams, Respighi, Ben Hoadley, Bellini (via Eugene Jancourt) and Bizet (via Peter Simpson)
Wednesday, 21 February 2018, 12.15 pm An ambitious chamber music programme by an enterprising and highly skilled trio was attended by a larger-than-usual audience, confounding the fears of organiser Marjan van Waardenberg, who thought the…
Saturday 8 April, 7:30 pm In addition to the advertised Requiem by Cherubini, the programme was fleshed out with the most popular movement from Rachmaninov’s Vespers (‘All Night Vigil’), Op 37, and Arensky’s first piano trio.
Thursday 28 July, 7:30 pm A programme of what, twenty years ago, might have been seen as a bit forbidding, drew a very good house at this concert, and at the end they responded very enthusiastically.
Sunday 3 July 2016, 2.30pm A Canadian cellist, a Finnish violinist and a New Zealand pianist got together at Prussia Cove in England in 2013, and have made a very competent and successful trio. We were honoured to hear such a fine group of…
