• Traditional, arranged by Carol Shortis: Polskie Kwiaty
• Simon Eastwood: Jericho: Walls Will Fall
• Henryk Górecki: Three Pieces in Olden Style
• Witold Lutoslawski: Melodie Ludowe
• Krzysztof Penderecki: Allegro Moderato from Sextet
• Henryk Górecki: Totus Tuus
• Karol Szymanowski: Rymy Dzieciece  – Children’s Rhymes Op. 49
• Karlo Margetic: Hommage  à W.L.
• Carol Shortis: Tesknota (Yearning)

6 November at the ACR

• Traditional, arranged by Carol Shortis: Polskie Kwiaty
• Krysztof Penderecki: 3 miniature per clarinetto e pianoforte
• Grazyna Bacewicz: Quintet for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon and Horn
• Henryk Górecki: Piano Sonata No. 1
• Anton Killin: Podróze
• Aleksander Tansman: Sonatine for Bassoon and Piano
• Aleksander Tansman: Studio from Pièces brèves pour guitare and Canzonetta from Trois pièces pour guitare
• Andrzej Nowicki: Abstand und Nähe

7 November at St Andrew’s on the Terrace

• Traditional, arranged by Carol Shortis: Polskie Kwiaty
• Simon Dickson: Jericho: Walls Will Fall
• Henryk Górecki: Piano Sonata No. 1
• Henryk Górecki: Three Pieces in Olden Style
• Witold Lutoslawski: Melodie Ludowe
• Anton Killin: Podróze
• Henryk Górecki: Totus Tuus
• Karlo Margetic: Hommage  à W.L.
• Carol Shortis: Tesknota (Yearning)

SMP’s final concert series for 2009 was certainly an ambitious undertaking – three concerts featuring seventeen pieces by eleven composers. Each concert opened with a rendition of the Polish folk song Polskie Kwiaty. Jonathan Berkahn’s accordion offered both a connection to folk traditions and a keen timbre that echoed the song’s sentiments and matched well to Olga Gryniewicz’s voice. Her replacement in the second concert by countertenor Laurie Fleming due to family reasons could not be considered particularly successful – Fleming’s voice felt far too light for the arrangement – but this failed to prevent the Polish segments of the audience vocally endorsing each performance. Polskie Kwiaty was also an element in two of the commissioned works – Carol Shortis’ Tesknota and, to a lesser extent, Anton Killin’s Podróze.

Simon Eastwood’s work for trumpet, horn and trombone reflecting upon the Solidarity movement felt less successful. Jericho consists of a series of disjunct miniatures, with few discernable connections. Although it makes use of several appealing musical ideas and brass techniques, but none of these are explored in any detail, but are abruptly dropped in moving to the next section of music. Possibly some of these section changes could have been masked by the use of a slightly larger ensemble and a longer time frame, avoiding the necessity of an uncomfortable silence for the performers to change their mutes. The lengths of the miniatures also creates a rather unnatural, unresolved ending, that feels out of kilter with the messages of the work. Jericho shows defiance in spades, but not much hope.

The music of Henryk Górecki proved an integral part of all three programmes. The utterly unpretentious Three Pieces in Olden Style are amongst Górecki’s best known work and the SMP String Ensemble performed them with appropriate crispness. Only in the third of the pieces is there any hint of the angst that pervades much of the composer’s work; the first two pieces are based on simple folk-like melodies that might come from any country in Europe. These pieces could not be any more different from the Piano Sonata No. 1. This is a proto-minimalist work, foreshadowing Górecki’s later output. The first movement throws out melodic fragments from a thick – and violent – chordal texture before an abrupt departure into a sparse, quiet interlude. When the original texture returns it still possesses the latent fury of the opening, but with more positive undertones. The middle movement is an extreme contrast – a stagnant monophonic theme and subsequent harmonisation. Unfortunately, this does not in itself make a particularly effective piece of music – the movement feels as if it has been thrown in to justify the ‘sonata’ title. The third movement returns to the spirit of the first, although this time it is the chords that seem to be spat out of the melody; Laurel Hungerford experienced some difficulties with this movement during both performances, but still did a great job of harnessing the work’s energy. Totus Tuus simply does not measure up to either of these works. Although the sounds are attractive, they are simply repeated too often, rendering the music almost lifeless. In the first performance there also seemed to be some issues of balance with the choir – which felt a little bottom-heavy – although these cleared up on the 7th.

Witold Lutoslawski’s Melodie Ludowe are hardly the  most exciting part of his output; one cannot help wondering whether the time of both the composer and the string ensemble could have been put to better use. Karlo Margetic’s homage to Witold Lutoslawski has everything that Melodie Ludowe does not; Hommage  à W.L. uses a variety of interesting sounds arranged within a clear structure. The overall tripartite form is delineated by woodblock interludes, while sectional changes within these parts are dictated by the conductor. Particularly effective were the use of bowed cymbal in the first part, which really sang at times, and the densely packed second part. There were some aethetic similarities between Margetic’s work and the Allegro Moderato from Penderecki’s Sextet. Although the music is hardly boneshattering, Penderecki does not flinch from some quite complex instrumental interactions that provide a superb sonic soup. The miniatures performed in the second concert provided a further stripped down iteration of the composer’s style that showcased the skills of Andrzej Nowicki to marvellous effect.

Karol Szymanowski, although a prominent part of Polish compositional history, never made a significant impact in the wider world; his music lacks the distinctive style that propelled Czech and Russian nationalists to prominence. The Children’s Rhymes written for his niece might be a very personal compositional statement, but they largely lacked the most important trait of the genre – that any child or parent might ever want to sing them. Perhaps Szymanowski was simply well ahead of his time in this one area, or perhaps a Polish upbringing is even further from the New Zealand experience than one might imagine, but a children’s song really ought to have an attractive melody. Olga Gryniewicz sang better than the music deserved.

Alexander Tansman provided three works of varying quality for the second programme. The Sonatine for Bassoon and Piano is an attractive work that manages to be energetic without Studio betrays its faults in its title; while it may function perfectly well as an etude for study, the absence of textural or rhythmic variation makes it unsuitable as concert piece, particularly as the somewhat fractured performance revealed an apparent host of technical difficulties for little aural reward. While the Canzonetta was played with more surety and expression, it did much less than the Sonatine to make a case for the composer’s abilities. Grazyna Bacewicz’s wind quintet proved an accessible, yet oftentimes intriguing piece of music. In particular that “Air”, which played with both the musical and literal meanings of the title in the swirling interludes of the flute, oboe and clarinet.

It tends to be quite difficult to consider a piece of New Zealand anecdotal/radiophonic music without thinking of John Cousins, but although Podróze displays many of the signs it manages to move beyond these. The use of unnervingly loud bangs at sectional points is one link, but these tend to be used as part of dramatic events rather than as changes in focus. Podróze is electroacoustic music for an audience not necessarily very familiar with the genre. Unlike in Cousins’ work (and that of his protégés), the narrative takes a linear form, and many of the sound choices are obvious emphases of various elements of the journey – particularly things like water noises. Other sounds, like the long, barely heightening drumroll near the beginning might be assigned several meanings. The gamelan interlude, however, really needs an explanation of some kind.

Andrzej Nowicki’s piece Abstand und Nähe, originally written for gamelan and bassoon, survives the transfer to marimba and bassoon remarkably well. Unsurprisingly, the marimba writing is hardly idiomatic, which leaves the audience to consider the missing elements, but it is still an engaging work. Carol Shortis’ Tesknota, which finished the 1st and 3rd concerts, is an entirely different kettle of fish. Much of its material originates from Polskie Kwaity and a second traditional song, but the string parts appear to reference Górecki’s style. The choir sings a complex array of murmured fragments, while soprano and countertenor bear the pieced together verses. The second performance (with better balance between the soloists) was utterly intoxicating between the unchecked power of the folksong and the churning background noise.