Martinborough Music Festival 2023: Benjamin Baker, Donald Armstrong (vlns), Wenhong Luo, Amanda Verner (violas), Ashley Brown, Matthias Balzat (cellos) Photo: Pete Monk Photography
The sixth annual Martinborough Music Festival took place in the wine village's fully restored Town Hall in September of 2023. The festival was founded to bring some of New Zealand's best classical musicians to the small Wairarapa town each year for a weekend of stellar chamber music. The festival's co-artistic directors are long time friends and colleagues Wilma Smith and Donald Armstrong, both violinists and both concert masters (former and current) with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.
Each year the festival calls top New Zealand performers home, and often joined by friends found on their travels. This year violinist Benjamin Baker and cellist Matthias Balzat returned from Europe, and bassoonist Todd Gibson-Cornish and violist Amanda Verner took time away from the Sydney Symphony Orchestra to return home. Cellists Ashley Brown and oboist Robert Orr made the short trip from Auckland and Wellington. Adding to the lineup were invited guests Chinese violist Wenhong Luo and Australian pianist (and accompaniest hero of the festival) Laurence Mattheson who came from Sydney and Melbourne respectively.
The programme favoured rich romantic works by Brahms, Schumann, Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky, adding both charm and nostalgia with works for winds by Francaix, Poulenc and Marsalis, and two beautiful works by Kiwi composers Anthony Ritchie and Salina Fisher.
The opening night concert was a rich affair with Elgar's Romance for bassoon, Rachmaninov's cello sonata, and Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence.
Martinborough Music Festival 2023 Photo: Pete Monk Photography
Elgar's Romance for Bassoon in D minor introduced Todd Gibson-Cornish to the festival audience, who at the age 21, having graduated from the Royal College of Music in London, was appointed as Principal Bassoon in the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
The Romance was originally composed for bassoon and orchestra in 1910, reflecting Elgar's love of the instrument which he'd played as a young man.
Martinborough Music Festival 2023: Matthias Balzat and Laurence Matheson perform Rachamaninov's Cello Sonata Photo: Pete Monk Photography
The second work in the programme, Rachmaninov's Cello Sonata, showcased two of the festival's young rising stars, cellist Matthias Balzat and pianist Laurence Matheson. Balzat is currently living in Germany and performing as a soloist and chamber musician around Europe, the UK and Australia.
Laurence Matheson studied at the Australian National Academy of Music, joining in 2013 as one of its youngest ever students, and since has been in demand as a recitalist, chamber musician, and soloist with leading Australian orchestras.
Both Balzat and Matheson have joined Wilma Smith in the Argyle Trio which is heard regularly on RNZ Concert.
Rachmaninov's Cello Sonata gives both musicians hefty virtuosic music, as the great pianist had intended it to be like a conversation between good friends, although perhaps friends who might enjoy a vigorous disagreement. The work was dedicated to the best man at Rachmaninov's weddding, a cellist by the name of Anatoliy Brandukov. The two gave the premiere together in 1901.
Martinborough Music Festival 2023: Benjamin Baker, Donald Armstrong (vlns), Wenhong Luo, Amanda Verner (violas), Ashley Brown, Matthias Balzat (cellos) Photo: Pete Monk Photography
The final work in this concert brought nearly all the string players to the stage in Tchaikovsky's 'Souvenir de Florence' for string sextet. British-Kiwi violinist Benjamin Baker was in the hot-seat as the lead violinist. He graduated from the Yehudi Menuhin School and the Royal College of Music in London, and has since been in demand as a soloist and chamber musician in the UK. Recently he's started his own chamber music festival in Queenstown called At The World's Edge with Co-director Justine Cormack.
Along with familiar local musicians, the Festival welcomed to the stage two wonderful violists visitng from Australia, Kiwi Amanda Verner and Chinese Wenhong Luo. Both studied at prestigious schools, Verner at the Curtis Institute of Music Philedelphia and Wenhong at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. Amanda Verner is currently guest principal violist with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Wenhong Luo is a faculty member at the Melbourne Conservatorium.
Violinist Donald Armstrong and cellists Ashley Brown and Matthias Balzat filled out the sextet.
The Souvenir de Florence took nearly five years for Tchaikovsky to complete, but it was a visit to Florence that helped the composer find the inspiration to complete the work, juxtaposing both Russian and Italian styles in the music, from lyric bel canto in the Adagio to whirling Russian folk melodies in the finale.
Recorded at the Martinborough Town Hall, 22 September, 2023
Producer/engineer: David Houston
