Six look on the light side

Divertissement want to hear chuckles.

There is a certain honesty in calling a piece Divertissement. You know not to expect cerebral counterpoint or dense thematic intrigue - just good old-fashioned diversion and distraction.

"Sometimes you want serious stuff you can dig into, sometimes you just want to be entertained," says Preman Tilson, bassoonist with the touring New Zealand ensemble which shares the name of the piece.

So Divertissement will open their Saturday concert with a Divertissement by the French composer Jean Francaix. This is the work that gave the six NZSO players the inspiration for their collective moniker.

"Francaix is probably the funniest composer I can think of," says Tilson, "witty, charming, light - quintessentially French. When the piece finishes there's a big chuckle from the audience, although I must admit I've developed a little gesture at the end which seems to get laughs going."

The French composer doesn't have a monopoly on the chuckles.

"The strings are doing a Hindemith work which is very, very funny," says Tilson. "There aren't that many laughs in classical music, and we've got quite a few of them."

The word "fun" sneaks into Tilson's conversation every minute or so, although he is quick to point out that Divertissement's line-up of smaller pieces by Dvorak, Ravel, Rachmaninov and Weber would have been acceptable concert fare a few decades back.

"If you went to a recital by Kreisler or Heifetz, they would do their Beethoven sonata, but there might also be six or seven lighter pieces."

Tilson admits to a smidgen of envy when he looks at the extensive solo repertoire of his fellow musicians. "If Mozart had written a Bassoon Quintet like his Clarinet Quintet we'd be playing it."

But he has been taking matters into his own hands and arranging works for his instrument. On Saturday there will be Vocalises by Ravel and Rachmaninov, and a Spohr Adagio which started life as a slow movement for violin and harp and is now, thanks to Tilson, a piece for bassoon and string quintet.

Of the original works Divertissment is tackling, he singles out a D minor Quartet by Danzi - "by very far the best of the three quartets he wrote for bassoon and strings. The opening is quite original and it's like the musical language of Mozart has been taken into the Romantic period".

As it happens, Divertissement is bringing us the only local commission we will hear from Chamber Music New Zealand this year, Anthony Ritchie's Rites of Passage.

Ritchie was Tilson's first choice as a composer.

"His writing has really strong content and yet at the same time it's on the accessible side. I wanted something that would fit in with music that is beautiful, entertaining, enjoyable.

"The piece turned out to be very different from what I was expecting, much grittier and more intense than some of his other music, although it has fantastic rhythmic vitality."

Ritchie may claim Stravinsky's Rite of Spring as its starting point, but Tilson hears more of a relationship with Shostakovich and Bartok. "There's one passage that is very Shostakovich. It's definitely atonal but manages to be very accessible."

And lest we worry that Divertissement might stray from its avowed aim of fun and frolics, Tilson assures us otherwise.

"A bit of a chuckle goes through the audience after the Ritchie, always a good sign. It ends with a fantastic accelerando and has all these Transylvanian rhythms. Good stuff."

* What: Divertissement

* Where and when: Auckland Town Hall, Sat, 8pm