Category: Reviews, News and Commentary

Reviewed by John Dally-Peoples

NIGHTSCAPES

Auckland Philharmonia

Auckland Town Hall

July 19

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

The Auckland Philharmonia’s latest concert “Nightscapes”  went someway into describing  aspects of the night, the night sky and activities occurring at night, so the opening work, a  Strauss waltz was very appropriate.

For a Viennese at the end of the nineteenth century a nighttime’s entertainment would almost certainly involve dancing to one of the composer’s works.

The Emperor Waltz was originally called “Hand in Hand” and intended as a toast  made by the Emperor of |Austria to the German Emperor on the occasion of his visit to Germany and at the time, seen as a toast of friendship.

Strauss’ publisher suggested the title Kaiser-Walzer, as the title could allude to either monarch.

The work created a night under the twinkling stars or the sparkling chandeliers of the ballroom. Filled with gay, celebratory music its swirling music suggests whirling dancers and conjures up images of a night filled with gaiety, romance and pleasure.

The second work on the program didn’t seem to have much of a connection to the theme of night or nightscape but was one of the highlights of the orchestra’s recent concerts.

Mozart’s “Sinfonia Concertante for Four Winds “featured Bede Hanley (oboe), Ingrid Hagan (bassoon), Gabrielle Pho (Horn) and Jonathan Cohen (clarinet).

The work provided the audience with the pleasure of a quartet as well as the impact of a full orchestral concerto in which the various soloists responded to passages from the orchestra , building on themes to create and elaborate musical work.

Each of the soloists played short sequences but generally combined with each other, notably the clarinet and oboe.

The low burnished sounds of the bassoon  and the warm tone of the horn created some fulsome sequences while the sharper sound of the  clarinet and velvety sounds of the oboe were in marked contrast. The four instruments showed the full range of the wind instruments – jaunty, reflective and dramatic all bound together with Mozart’s showmanship.

When the soloists played, they showed considerable skill both with their individual playing as well as their ability to integrate with each other  and the orchestra.

For their encore they performed an arrangement of Libertango by Astor Piazzola where the jazzy Latin American sounds  they produced were dazzling  and inventive.

With the second half of the concert the two works on the program explored the notion of the nightmare and secret love.

First there was Richard Wagner’s Traume (Dream) featuring Andrew Beer as soloist.

Wagner composed settings of poems written by his lover Mathilde Wessendonck which eventualy appear as part pf his musical drama “Tristan and Isolde”. The Wesendonck Lieder portray an angel yearning for sublime bliss and eternity, escaping  the sorrows of the world through death. This desire is linked to the eroticism and longing that encapsulate Wagner’s bond with Mathilde.

The music  initially conjured up images of dusk and fading light followed by an ever-developing harmonies with moments of passion and stillness which are never quite resolved. Throughout the work Andrew Beer’s violin became an insistent voice in this melancholic tale.

Rather than end the dream summoned up by Wagner before beginning the final work Conductor Guiordano Bellincampi chose to seamlessly move the orchestra into the brooding final work, Schoenberg’s “Verklarte Nacht (Transfigured Night).

The work depicts a man and a woman  walking through a darkening forest. She tells of having conceived a child by another man and he declares his love of both the woman and the child.

The music reflected the physical journey through the forest – the moon moving above the trees and the scudding  cloud as well as the couples  emotional connection with each other while the notion of the  child’s transfiguration parallels the story of the birth of Christ.

The orchestra’s strings depicted the encroaching darkness and bleakness in which the couple walk. While these darker strings dominated there were also interventions  by lighter strings which helped create this psychological tone poem. There was both the description of the physical environment as well as the  psychological condition of the young woman who feels she has transgressed as well as offering some form of redemption, relief and spiritual calm.

The music presented a bleakness filled with sadness and anxiety but in the latter part of the work it became more joyous and lyrical with some ethereal bowing.

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Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Towards Modernism: The Walter Cook Collection at Te Papa

A treasure trove of design.

By Justine Olsen 

RRP $75

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

“In 1965 a twenty-four-year-old Bachelor of Arts student named Walter Cook bought an Art Nouveau tea set at the Willis St Wellington secondhand shop Odds & Ends. In the context of mid 1960’s design, with its flat patterns and stainless steel, the Liberty & Co pewter tea set would have seemed totally old fashioned to most but Cook saw it for style”.

This is how a new book on the unlikely art collector, Walter Cook opens. The book Towards Modernism: The Walter Cook Collection at Te Papa celebrates the collection which is a small jewel in Te Papa’s crown. It also acknowledges the Wellington collector’s life and commitment  over several decades with the book which illustrates over 200 works from the collection with full page colour illustrations

From that first work Walter Cook went on to amass a highly significant collection of ceramic, glassware and metal work. Apart from the collections importance it also shows how a collection can be built up without having to pay high auction house prices.

For most of Cook’s purchases the book documents the date of acquisition along with the place and price paid. These notes in themselves provide and insight into Cook’s buying. While a number of the works were bought in Wellington there are also purchases made in Auckland and London. There are purchases from department stores, antique shops, secondhand shops, and markets,

One of the earliest works is a Doulton “Jug” by Hannah Barlow (1873) bought from Alma Fosters antique store on Dixon St in 1980. And the latest purchase was of some1979 salt and pepper mills designed by Thygesen & Sorensen from the Danish firm PP Linie

Most of his purchases were from retail stores where he paid the current retail prices of $30 – $100 but he appears to have found many of his works in secondhand stores. So, a Susie Cooper tea set was bought in 1981on the Wakefield Markets at a stall run by Paul Orsman.

There was Pilkington Vase purchased for $30 in 1982, a Watcombe Pottery Palm Pot for $3.00 two “Morris” ware candlesticks for$5 in 1965, , a “Tudric” Vase for $5 and  a “Tudric” dish for $2.00.

Two bowls by the Swedish artist Stig Lindberg were purchased in 1985 – “Pungo for $35 and Veckla for $6.00.

The book has full page illustrations of the works from the collection grouped within particular periods – The Arts and Crafts Movement, Aestheticism, Art Nouveau, Art Deco and the interwar period and Postwar Modernism.

For each of these chapters Olsen provides descriptions of the history and aesthetic thinking behind the works created. So, we get details about the potteries and the individuals who created the works as well as an indication of how the works in the collection fit within the development of the art form.

Cook also acquired an example of Bretby Art Pottery which was purchased at the New Zealand Exhibition in Christchurch of 1906 / 07 and later purchased from Neale Auld’s Willbank Court Antiques.

In this early period there are also examples of Royal Copenhagen work with some ceramic plates

Along with information on the potteries and artists of the period including a profile of the importance of Christopher Dresser an important artist, designer and promoter English design in the latter part of the nineteenth century.

The Art Nouveau section features some of the elaborate work of the time with work from the Minton Pottery, Villeroy & Bosch as well as metalwork from the German company Wurttembergische Metallwarenfabrik.

The Art Deco section features a number of works from the Doulton and Co factory along with biographies of some of the importance female designers including Clarice Cliff, Truda Carter and Susie Cooper.

There is also a substantial entry about Keith Murray who worked for Wedgewood and whose designs influenced Ernest Shufflebotham who had a major impact on New Zealand pottery through Crown Lynn.

The Postwar Modernism section features work by Susie Cooper and Scandinavian Design which includes Rosenthal and designers Nittsjo Keramik, Carl-Harry Stallhane and Stig Lindberg.

What the book also reveals is that a collector of any type of artwork needs to have all the qualities Walter Cook had -.an understanding of the market, the history of the objects, a knowledge of aesthetics, dedication and a keen eye

To subscribe or follow New Zealand Arts Review site – www.nzartsreview.org.

The “Follow button” at the bottom right will appear and clicking on that button  will allow you to follow that blog and all future posts will arrive on your email.

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