Showcasing the talents of young Welsh musicians: Cowbridge Festival's Young Artists Programme features Bute Wind Quintet & Quartet Draig

Since 2010, the Cowbridge Festival has been bringing classical music, jazz and folk to the community in the Vale of Glamorgan. The festival, which is now under the direction of the husband and wife team of violist Rosalind Ventris and conductor Joseph Fort, runs this year from 13 to 22 September, opening with the Castalian Quartet and Rosalind Ventris in Schubert, Coleridge Taylor, Beethoven and Dvorak.

Ahead of this, the festival has announced its 2024 Young Artists Programme, showcasing the talents of young Welsh musicians in two emerging ensembles, the Bute Wind Quintet and Quartet Draig. 

Bute Wind Quintet

Based in Cardiff, the award-winning Bute Wind Quintet (Gabriella Alberti, Sam Willsmore, Hannah Harding, Nathan Barker, Meg Davies) promotes contemporary and underperformed chamber music, delivering an uncompromising artistic image to a range of audiences. In addition to their festival performance, the quintet will receive masterclasses from renowned musicians and mentorship in areas such as stage presence and the business aspects of a musical career.  

Quartet Draig (Elliot Kempton, Jessica Meakin, Ben Norris, Tabitha Selley) formed in 2020 at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, winning several prizes, and performing at the Wigmore Hall as well as being Junior Quartet in Residence at the 2021 ESTA Conference. From 2021-2023, they developed creative programming at Saxon Barn with concerts on various themes to engage broader audiences. 

Quartet Draig

Both ensembles will be performing at the festival on 17 September, with an eclectic programme of music by Ross Edwards, Mervyn Burtch, Valerie Coleman, Imogen Holst, Dilys Elwyn-Edwards, Edward Kempton, Ernest Bloch, and Percy Grainger. Further details from the festival website.

 

L'Olimpiade: Vache Baroque makes an engaging case for Pergolesi's penultimate opera

Vivaldi: L'Olimpiade - Natasha Page
Vache Baroque (Photo: Michael Wheatley)

Pergolesi: L'Olimpiade; Aoife Miskelly, Nazan Fikret, Natasha Page, Shafali Jalota, Bechara Moufarrej, Frances Gregory, Robert Forrest, director: Laura Attridge, musical director Jonathan Darbourne; Vache Baroque Summer Festival
Reviewed 8 September 2024

Outdoors and in the rain, yet enterprising Vache Baroque make an engaging case for Pergolesi's penultimate opera, along with some vividly virtuosic singing

Vache Baroque is an enterprising company centred on an annual festival in the grounds of The Vache, a 17th century house in Buckinghamshire. Previous operas presented include Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, Handel's Acis and Galatea and Charpentier's La descente d’Orphée aux enfers but the company is developed a year-round programme and last year included events celebrating Salmone Rossi [see my review], as well as an educational programme which includes collaborations with Bucks Music Trust and Bucks Council Multi Sensory Imparment team.

This year, Vache Baroque staged Pergolesi's L'Olimpiade in the grounds of The Vache in a production directed by Laura Attridge, designed by Caitlin Abbott, with movement by Ami Nagano, and directed from the harpsichord by Jonathan Darbourne. We caught the final performance on Sunday 8 September, with Aoife Miskelly as Licida [see my recent interview with her] Nazan Fikret as Aristea, Natasha Page as Megacle, Bechara Moufarrej as Clistene, Shafali Jalota as Argene, Frances Gregory as Alcandro and Robert Forrest as Aminta. The opera was accompanied by a period instrument ensemble of some fifteen players

Pergolesi's arias were presented in the original Italian but Attridge had replaced the original recitative with her own English script. The presented the plot engagingly, with a nice clarity and whilst never sending up Metastasio's libretto did have a wry view of the extreme coincidences on which the plot relies.

Vivaldi: L'Olimpiade - Vache Baroque (Photo: Michael Wheatley)

Metastasio's original libretto for L'Olimpiade was extremely popular, being set some 50 times, and Pergolesi's opera was a notably popular version. The sheer popularity of this piece of dramatic nonsense highlights the difference between the Baroque audience and the modern one. Not only does Metastasio's L'Olimpiade rely on coincidence but it has an extreme case of lost baby syndrome - Licida, who has caused havoc for three acts and is condemned to death, turns out to be the long lost son of King Clistene and brother of Aristea whose hand in marriage he was trying to win. 

Not only that, but after two acts where Licida is the main engine of the action, he is found out and then Metastasio loses interest in him and most of Licida's actions in Act Three take place off stage, whilst the final stages of the plot focuses much more on the positively homoerotic relationship between Licida and Megacle rather then the men's relationships to their female beloveds. Here all four leads (all sopranos!) were played by women (the original had castrati in all the role was female singers were banned on stage).

A subtle depiction of a complex man, Green Opera's 555:Verlaine en prison at Grimeborn

Verlaine drinking absinthe in the Café François 1er in 1892, photographed by Paul Marsan Dornac (Photo: Musée Carnavalet)

Logan Lopez Gonzalez, Eleanor Burke - 555:Verlaine en prison; Logan Lopez Gonzalez, Anna Sideris, Stella Marie Lorenz; Green Opera at Grimeborn Festival at Arcola Theatre
Reviewed 6 September 2024

Interweaving settings of Verlaine's poetry with contemporary narrative, an imaginative evening that sought to illuminate the remarkable interior life of poet Paul Verlaine set against the violence of his everyday existence

Green Opera's 555:Verlaine en prison is a music theatre piece that combines Verlaine's poetry and contemporary narrative with settings of Verlaine's poems by Fauré, Hahn, Debussy, Deodac de Severac, Léo Ferré and others, to explore the poet Verlaine's remarkable narrative. Verlaine comes over as a rather unpleasant and disreputable character, his relationship with Arthur Rimbaud less of a great love story and more of a giant conflagration of passion and violence. 

Verlaine would die a destitute alcoholic. But in 1873 he was sentenced to two years in prison (in fact 555 days) for shooting his then lover Rimbaud, yet for Verlaine, the residence in prison was a positive experience, he wrote of it 'I once lived in the best of castles. In the finest land of white water and hills.  Four towers rose up from its four-winged front.  And one was my residence for long long days'. During his tenure he wrote poetry, poems that would change the face of French poetry and which, at first, seem remarkably out of keeping for the drunken sot that Verlaine appeared to be.

555:Verlaine en prison - Logan Lopez Gonzalez - Green Opera (Photo: Laurent Compagnon)

It is this dichotomy that Green Opera's 555:Verlaine en prison seeks to explore. Conceived by Belgian countertenor Logan Lopez Gonzalez and director Eleanor Burke, the work debuted last year and was performed at the Arcola Theatre in September 2023. 555:Verlaine en prison returned to the Arcola Theatre for further performances at the 2024 Grimeborn Festival, with Logan Lopez Gonzalez and Anna Sideris, plus Stella Marie Lorenz on piano.

Scaling the peak: David Skinner on completing his Byrd project with The Great Service with Alamire in a recording reflecting new ideas about pitch and scoring

Alamire & His Majesty's Sagbutts and Cornetts at All Hallows Gospel Oak for recording sessions for Byrd's Great Service

For such a large-scale and important work, William Byrd's Great Service remains tantalising in many ways and complete performances have been relatively rare on disc. We don't really know when it was written, the earliest partbooks date from the last years of the 16th century and it is thought to have been written for the the Ruby Jubilee of Elizabeth I.

The text used is that of the Elizabethan Book of Common Prayer which was superceded in 1604. It was never published in Byrd's lifetime and survives in a disparate group of early part books. Byrd wrote it for the Chapel Royal whilst his other surviving Anglican services are presumed to have been written for Lincoln Cathedral earlier in Byrd's career.

It is a substantial work, setting the seven seven movements which by tradition were sung during the main services of the Anglican liturgy - Matins, Holy Communion, and Evensong - for the two choirs of five voices (mean, two tenors, baritone, bass), ideally with at least two people to each part to take account of Byrd’s kaleidoscopic scoring requiring full passages and verse passages with only one voice singing each part. The full choir sections were doubled by organ (organ parts survive) though there is documentary evidence of the use of cornetts and sackbuts too.

David Skinner and his ensemble, Alamire chose to record the work as the last of their three albums celebrating Byrd's anniversary. They released Byrd 1588, the first complete recording of his 1588 collection, Psalmes, Sonets & songs of sadnes & and pietie on Resonus Classics Inventa label in 2021 with Byrd 1589, recording Byrd's 1589 Songs of sundrie natures in 2023, thus meaning that all of Byrd's early songs were now on disc. For their third disc, released this month, David Skinner conducts Alamire, His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts and organist Stephen Farr in Byrd's The Great Service and a selection of his English Anthems.

But David's choice of Byrd's The Great Service deliberately reflects another anniversary too, that 1924 represented the modern premiere of the work after it was rediscovered (in Durham) by E.H. Fellowes and included in his Tudor Church Music series in 1922. 

Discovering Imogen: A relatively underrated British composer, Imogen Holst is put centre stage in this brand-new recording on NMC

Discovering Imogen - Imogen Holst: Overture Persephone, Suite in F Allegro assai for strings, Suite for Strings, Variations on ‘Loth to Depart’, What Man is He?, Festival Anthem, On Westhall Hill; BBC Concert Orchestra, BBC Singers, Alice Farnham; NMC Recordings
Reviewed by Tony Cooper, 19 August 2024

A relatively underrated British composer, Imogen Holst is put centre stage in this brand-new recording of her works on the NMC label, Discovering Imogen, by the BBC Concert Orchestra and the BBC Singers conducted by Alice Farnham

Of mixed Swedish, German and Latvian ancestry, Imogen Clare Holst (the only child of composer Gustav Theodore Holst and Isobel née Harrison) was born April 1907, Richmond-upon-Thames, Surrey; died March 1984, Aldeburgh, Suffolk, aged 76. Her family had resided in England since 1802 and musicians for several generations while her father followed the family tradition and studied at the Royal College of Music (Benjamin Britten’s alma mater) where he met Isobel Harrison, who was a member of one of the amateur choirs he conducted. Immediately attracted to her, they married on 22 July 1901. 

Although particularly known for her educational work at Dartington Hall in the 1940s, come the early 1950s Holst became Benjamin Britten’s musical assistant at Aldeburgh. She immediately got down to business helping to arrange the annual Aldeburgh Festival which this year celebrated its 75th edition. During her time at Aldeburgh (from 1956 to 1977) Holst helped to engineer the festival to a position of strength and pre-eminence in British musical life. 

Exquisite vocal lines & imaginative storytelling: Harry Christophers & The Sixteen focus on Stanford's secular choral music in Partsongs, Pastorals and Folksongs

Stanford: Partsongs, Pastorals and Folksongs; The Sixteen; Harry Christophers; CORO
Reviewed 22 July 2024 by Tony Coooper

Punctuating Sir Charles Villiers Stanford’s centenary, Harry Christophers and The Sixteen have just issued 17 première recordings of his works, Partsongs, Pastorals and Folksongs on their CORO label. 

As a composer Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (who received his knighthood on King Edward VII’s coronation) might not be a household name but he’s well remembered as a teacher of several generations of British composers and untiringly campaigned for a national opera company as he saw the genre of opera as a vital catalyst in Britain’s musical renaissance.  

Although highly lauded during his lifetime as an exceptional composer of large-scale works for chorus and orchestra, posterity, however, has been less kind to him. The musicologist, Robert Stove, wrote: ‘Sir Charles Villiers Stanford has not so much been neglected but posterity has derived malicious satisfaction from ostentatiously yawing in his face.’ A former pupil, Ralph Vaughan Williams, wrote: ‘In Stanford’s music the sense of style, the sense of beauty, the feeling of a great tradition is never absent. His music is in the best sense of the word Victorian, the musical counterpart of the art of Tennyson, Watts and Matthew Arnold.’ 

A busy man, Stanford composed roughly 200 works including seven symphonies, about 40 choral works, nine operas, 11 concertos and 28 chamber works in addition to songs, piano pieces, incidental music and organ works. Stanford’s technical competence was never in doubt as composer, Edgar Bainton, wrote: ‘Whatever opinions might be held upon Stanford’s music - and they’re many and various - it is always recognised that he was a master of means.’ 

Vampires, the Angel of Death and Prophets - our August e-newsletter is now out

Bizet: Carmen - dancers, Glyndebourne Chorus, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Anja Bihlmaier - Glyndebourne Festival at BBC Proms (Photo: BBC/Andy Paradise

In case you missed it

Our monthly e-newsletter is out - August on Planet Hugill: Vampires, the Angel of Death and Prophets

A month when we caught some rarities including Marschner's Der Vampyr at the Grimeborn Festival, Busoni's Piano Concerto, and Suk's Asrael Symphony at the BBC Proms, and a new recording of Marschner's Le prophète.  

Our interviews this month have something of a string quartet theme with Barbican Quartet and the Miró Quartet, soprano Aoife Miskelly on Pergolesi's L'Olimpiade and conductor Paul Mann on conducting in the Ukraine.

 Read more on our e-newsletter on MailChimp.

A Choral Celebration of Queen Mary II returns with Chapel Choirs of the Old Royal Naval College and the Royal Hospital Chelsea at Chelsea History Festival

A Choral Celebration of Queen Mary at Old Royal Naval College

The Chapel Choirs of the Old Royal Naval College and the Royal Hospital Chelsea are combining forces again in an historic commemoration of the life of Queen Mary II under music director Ralph Allwood and William Vann. 

The programme debuted earlier this year at the Old Royal Naval College [see my review] and now returns on Thursday 26 September in the chapel of the Royal Hospital Chelsea. As before, the programme includes music by John Blow and Henry Purcell for Queen Mary’s coronation, birthday, and funeral, along with George Frideric Handel’s Utrecht Te Deum, written for her successor to the English throne, Queen Anne.

The concert is part of the Chelsea History Festival which runs from 25 to 29 September 2024. The festival is a collaboration between three Chelsea neighbours, National Army Museum (founded in 1960 and in a building on the site of the old infirmary of the Royal Hospital Chelsea), Royal Hospital Chelsea (founded in 1682) and Chelsea Physic Garden (founded in 1673).

This year's festival also features the launch of the Chelsea Heritage Quarter, which brings together four remarkable institutions, the National Army Museum, Royal Hospital Chelsea, Chelsea Physic Garden and Cadogan Estates which has its origins in Sir Hans Sloane purchasing the Manor of Chelsea in 1712  and which was then developed by Sloane's son-in-law the first Earl Cadogan in the later 18th century. The Chelsea Heritage Quarter aims to tell a unique story of London and Britain from 1660 to the present day. 

The festival includes a wide variety of talks and lectures [see website] along with walking tours and a new exhibition in the Stable Yard of the Royal Hospital Chelsea. The Stable Yard is an architecturally significant Grade II* listed building, designed by Sir John Soane when he held the post of Clerk of Works at the Royal Hospital from 1807 until his death in 1837. Soane built the stables between 1814 and 1817, and they remained in use until the 1960s when they were converted into workshops and offices. Thanks to a National Heritage Lottery Fund grant, the Stable Yard will open this autumn following a major restoration project. The Stable Yard includes an exhibition of the history and stories of the Royal Hospital, a new shop, cafe and a regular programme of events.

Information about A Choral Celebration of Queen Mary from the website.

An orchestra re-invented: Chromatica Orchestra's new season with Emerging Conductor Fellowships for Charlotte Politi and Tess Jackson.

The Bath Festival Orchestra is reinventing itself as Chromatica Orchestra, and the new ensemble debuts at Battersea Arts Centre on Tuesday 8 October 2024. The ensemble focuses on gifted early-career musicians under the direction of emerging conductors and the 2024/25 season features two Emerging Conductor Fellowships for Charlotte Politi and Tess Jackson.

On 8 October, Charlotte Politi conducts a programme that includes Barber's Violin Concerto with soloist Kristine Balanas, Manuel de Falla’s El amor brujo with Georgian mezzo-soprano Natalia Kutateladze and music by Copland and Prokofiev. For Armistice Day, Tess Jackson conducts Strauss Horn Concerto No. 1 with soloist Ben Goldscheider, plus Butterworth and Shostakovich at Cadogan Hall (11/11/2024).

Further ahead, Peter Manning, fouding artistic director, conducts Britten’s Les illuminations with tenor Robin Tritschler at Wilton's Music Hall on 11 February 2025. And also in February 2025, Tess Jackson conducts Saint-Saens’ Carnival of the Animals with a new narration, in an interactive, immersive performance for primary school children that will include Music in Secondary Schools’Academy Orchestra.

The Saint-Saens' performance is several where school-age musicians from across the country will play side by side with the orchestra on the professional stage, and the orchestra is working with the David Ross Education Trust and Music in Secondary Schools Trust.

Full details from the orchestra's website.

Music of a Silent World: Chanticleer in an eclectic recital exploring the natural world

Chanticleer

Earlier this Summer, I had the delight of being part of a small audience at the Voces8 centre when the American male-voice ensemble, Chanticleer, music director Tim Keeler, recorded a concert for Live from London, Summer 2024. The whole series is now available from the Live from London website.

Chanticleer's recital is titled Music of a Silent World and is designed to explore the beauty and complexity of the natural world, centring on a song cycle by song-writer and composer Majel Connery, The Rivers are our Brothers written especially for Chanticleer and heard in a new arrangement by Connery and Doug Balliett. The ensemble sings Connery's three songs surrounded by linking items to create an intriguing recital evoking the natural world in popular-style music.

The programme running from Joni Mitchell and Kurt Weill to Hoagy Carmichael and Max Reger, has the ensemble's trademark eclecticism, mixed in with superb technique, and admirably smooth tone, along with a wide variety of musical styles when it comes to the arrangements. Here we move flexibly from close harmony to doo-wop to pop/jazz to gospel. The ensemble is admirably mixed, but you still start to worry a little about cultural appropriation when hearing them in full-throated emulation of gospel performance style.

They begin with a set about stars, Kurt Weill's Lost in the Stars and Hogy Carmichael's Stardust, both given close-harmony style makeovers. Then a set about trees, with I am a tree from Connery's cycle, I miss you like I miss the trees by the ensemble's composer in residence, Ayanna Woods, Abschied from Max Reger's Op. 83 songs which were written for male-voice ensemble, and Ann Ronell's 1932 standard, Willow weep for me. It is a set that is not without stylistic lurches, which the singers all take in their stride, and I felt the Reger might have fitted better sung in English. Connery's style is somewhat unquantifiable, her music here is akin to a lyrical ballad but then it develops somewhat and the arrangement clearly has contemporary classical links. Ayanna Woods' rather touching song is serious with popular hints, then after the rich tone and po-faces of the Reger we emerge into doo-wop with Ann Ronell's song.

The next set moves to the air, with I am the air from Connery's cycle, then two Reger songs, Hochzommernacht and Eine gantz neu Schelmweys, one evoking the Summer breeze and the other something more roguish. Clouds come next with Connery's I am a cloud, given in a highly virtuoso arrangement, followed by an elaborate arrangement of Joni Mitchell's Both sides now which threatens to leave the song too far behind for my taste. The recital ends with an elaborate arrangement of the traditional song, Shenandoah and finally a virtuoso accound of JW Alexander and Jesse Whitaker's Straight Street.

The line up consists of countertenors (high and low), tenor and baritone/bass but all the singers seem to have great flexibility with the countenors going into chest register and tenors going high so that in his solo tenor Vineel Garisa Mahal floats a fine high C.

The sheer virtuoso skill and engagement of the singers is undeniable and all the soloists are of the highest order. The group sings without a conductor and clearly they are engaged with the material. I am not sure that the presentation, with them in white tie, really works and I longed for something a bit more casual. In some songs there is a little movement, and but they feel a bit constrained.

This was the first time I had heard Chanticleer live and was extremely impressed. 

Music of a Silent World
Tavian Cox, Cortez Mitchell, Gerrod Pagenkopf. Bradley Sharpe, Logan Shields, Adam Brett Ward – countertenor
Vineel Garisa Mahal, Matthew Mazzola, Andrew Van Allsburg – tenor
Andy Berry, Jared Graveley, Matthew Knickman – baritone and bass
Tim Keeler – Music Director

Live from London: Summer 2024 is available until 15 September and also features recitals from Voces8, Apollo5,  Mars Smith, Evolution, Ex Cathedra (in Monteverdi's Vespers), Lyrya, Ringmasters, soprano Paula Sides, pianist Sergey Rybin, and pianist Fiachra Garvey

A Road Less Travelled: in advance of its London premiere, Alec Roth discusses his 2017 song cycle to poems by Edward Thomas

Edward Thomas by Frederick Henry Evans
bromide print, circa 1904
NPG P476 © National Portrait Gallery, London

On 17 September 2024, St Martin-in-the-Fields opens its 2024/25 season with the London premiere of Alec Roth’s song cycle A Road Less Travelled, performed by tenor Mark Padmore and Morgan Szymanski on guitar. Roth composed his song cycle for Mark Padmore to commemorate the centenary of Thomas’s death at the Battle of Arras in 1917; it was commissioned by the Autumn in Malvern Festival for its premiere in September 2017.

In advance of the London performance, I was able to have an email conversation with Alec Roth (who is based in Germany) about the cycle.

RH: Can you introduce A Road Less Travelled?

AR: A Road Less Travelled is a work for tenor and guitar and/or string quartet, with words by Edward Thomas (1878- 1917), lasting about 35 minutes. It was commissioned by the Autumn in Malvern Festival and first performed by Mark Padmore, Morgan Szymanski and the Sacconi Quartet in Great Malvern Priory in 2017.

The title A Road Less Travelled is a reference to the well-known poem by Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken. Less well known is that the poem is about Edward Thomas. As Frost explained, Thomas was “a person who, whichever road he went, would be sorry he didn’t go the other”. This gentle mocking of indecision has been misunderstood and taken for something more serious, not least by Thomas himself (it has been suggested that Frost’s poem was influential in Thomas’s decision to enlist in the army).

When the two first met in 1913, Thomas was known as a nature writer and book reviewer. Frost heard something distinctive in Thomas’s style, and during their walks together through the countryside around Dymock and the Malvern Hills in the summer of 1914, he encouraged his friend to turn to poetry.

Thomas produced some 140 poems in little more than two years before his death at the battle of Arras in 1917. He mentions the war, but it is never centre-stage in his verse, which is focussed on the natural world and our existential relationship to it. In Andrew Motion’s words, Thomas’s poems “brilliantly prove that you can speak softly and yet let your voice carry a long way”.

JAM on the Marsh: VIRTUAL - highlights from this year's festival free, online, from Beethoven & Mahler to four new operas inspired by Derek Jarman

JAM on the Marsh - Aki Blendis with JAM Festival Orchestra, conductor Michael Bawtree

Following sell-out performances from this year’s JAM on the Marsh festival, set in the mediaeval churches of Romney Marsh, Kent, from 2 - 15 September, JAM on the Marsh: VIRTUAL is free to watch on the JAM website. 

JAM on the Marsh: VIRTUAL consists of a playlist of individual pieces from the concerts by the London Mozart Players (LMP), the JAM Festival Orchestra formed of LMP alongside local players, singers from the Royal College of Music, and the JAM Sinfonia.

The playlist includes LMP in Holst, Delius, Elgar and the world premiere of Jago Thornton's Mumurations, and the JAM Festival Orchestra in Warlock, Beethoven and RVW's The Lark Ascending with 17-year-old soloist Aki Blendis (shortlisted BBC Young Musician of the Year 2022). The hand-picked JAM Sinfonia perform Iain Farrington's reduction of Mahler's Symphony No. 4 and Cameron Biles-Liddell’s Concerto for Flute and Chamber Orchestra with soloist Daniel Shao.

Four resident composers, Toby Anderson, Sam Butler, Roseanna Dunn and Jago Thorton, set libretti by Grahame Davies depicting the life of late Romney Marsh resident Derek Jarman, and the resulting 15-minute operas are performed by singers from the Royal College of Music.

Full details from the JAM website.

Drawing you in: Ensemble OrQuesta combined physical theatre with comedy & a sense of anger in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro at Grimeborn

Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro - Rosemary Carlton-Willis, Marcio da Silva, Joshua Furtado-Mendes - Ensemble OrQesta at Arcola Theatre's Grimeborn Fesitval

Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro; Marcio da Silva, Helen May, Oshri Segev, Hollie-Anne Clark, Rosemary Carlton-Willis, Anna-Luisa Wagner, director: Marcio da Silva, Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra Ensemble, conductor: Kieran Staub; Ensemble OrQuesta Company at Arcola Theatre's Grimeborn Festival
Reviewed 31 August 2024

Comedy and physical theatre along with veins of seriousness and anger in a chamber production that really drew you into Mozart and Da Ponte's world

And interesting influence on Mozart and Da Ponte's operas is the sequence of operas created by Galuppi and Goldoni in Venice in the mid-18th century which mixed serious aristocrats with comic servants running rings around them. In Galuppi's operas the count is usually a castrato, but if you transfer him to a baritone, you have the situation in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro. Here the mix of characters, seria, buffa and semi-seria recalls Mozart's letter about this mix of character types in Don Giovanni. The challenge with any production of Le nozze di Figaro is to get this balance of the serious and the comic.

At Arcola Theatre's Grimeborn Festival, Marcio da Silva's Ensemble OrQuesta returned for the company's sixth visit to the festival, this time moving from the Baroque to the Classical with Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro (seen 31 August 2024). Marcio da Silva directed (and played Figaro) with Kieran Staub conducting a septet drawn from the Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra (of which da Silva is founder and artistic director), Izabela Stocka and Andrew Kelly, violins, Jordi Morell, viola, Natalie Hancock, cello, Adam Churchyard, double bass, Boyan Ivanov and Fresca David, clarinets.

Marcia da Silva was Figaro, Helen May was Susanna, Oshri Segev was the Count, Hollie-Anne Clark was the Countess, Rosemary Carlton-Willis was Marcellina, Anna-Luise Wagner was Cherubino, Flavio Lauria was Don Bartolo, Tara Venkatesan was Barbarina, Joshua Furtado-Mendes was Basilio and Don Curzio, and Jay Rockwell as Antonio.

To Lviv with Love: Paul Mann combines conducting in the Ukraine with investigating neglected composers for Toccata Classics, including the Swiss composer Richard Flury

Paul Mann

British conductor Paul Mann is the principal guest conductor of Lviv National Philharmonic (based in Lviv, the largest city in Western Ukraine) and has a significant discography with Toccata Classics recording undeservedly forgotten repertoire. One composer Paul has espoused is the Swiss, Richard Flury (1896-1967) and as well as recording his works for Toccata Classics, Paul will be conducting Flury's opera A Florentine Tragedy in Switzerland during the 2024/25 season.

Paul's relationship with Lviv National Philharmonic began with a recording in 2018. He had no history with the orchestra, didn't know anyone there and had no knowledge of the language. Still, unexpectedly, he made a connection with an orchestra that Paul describes as young, energetic with a desire to work. Since the war, the orchestra finds itself in an impossible situation, they have no money, they cannot bring foreign conductors in and it is impossible to fly there. But Paul felt that he could do something that he would not be able to do anywhere else. So, a few times a year, he flies to Poland and then crosses the border at night, which he describes as John le Carré-ish. Whilst in Lviv, he and the musicians are subject to everything going on including nightly air raids; Paul finds himself becoming part of the life that they are trying to lead.

Lviv National Philharmonic

In such circumstances, you would think that the musicians would not be inclined to put so much of themselves into the music-making, but they do. The repertoire is similarly surprising, as Paul comments that he is finding tragic music reanimates, it brings us back to life. The musicians feel the same thing, and he has made an emotional connection with them. He finds it very inspiring, yet is horrified by the circumstances in which they have to live. He says it would be naive to think that what he does with the orchestra is anything more than a gesture, but it is one of solidarity and he can do little else.

Prom 52: Intelligent, vivid & satisfying account of Bizet's Carmen from Rihab Chaied, Evan LeRoy Johnson & Anja Bihlmaier at Glyndebourne's visit to the BBC Proms

Bizet: Carmen - Rihab Chaieb, Evan LeRoy Johnson, Glyndebourne Chorus, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Anja Bihlmaier - Glyndebourne Festival at BBC Proms (Photo: BBC/Andy Paradise )

Bizet: Carmen; Rihab Chaied, Evan LeRoy Johnson, Lukasz Goliński, Janai Brugger, director: Diane Paulus/Adam Torrance, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Anja Bihlmaier; Glyndebourne Festival at the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall
Reviewed 29 August 2024

Strong cast, a stripped down yet intelligent production and superb conducting lead to a profoundly involving and musically satisfying performance

Glyndebourne Opera has been performing Bizet's Carmen this Summer in a new production by Diane Paulus, with the lead roles double cast and with two conductors. Following the end of the run, the company brought the production to the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall on Thursday 29 August 2024. Anja Bihlmaier (the recently announce principal guest conductor with the BBC Philharmonic, who conducted the August performances at Glyndebourne) was the conductor with a cast that mixed the first cast Carmen, Rihab Chaieb [whom we saw as Charlotte in Zurich Opera's production of Massenet's Werther earlier this year, see my review], and the other principals from the second cast with Evan LeRoy Johnson as Don Jose, Lukasz Goliński as Escamillo and Janai Brugger as Micaëla, plus Dingle Yandell as Zuniga, Thomas Mole as Moralès, Elisabeth Boudreault as Frasquita, Kezia Bienek as Mercédès, Loïc Félix as Le Dancaïre, and François Piolino as Le Remendado, with the Glyndebourne Chorus and London Philharmonic Orchestra, Glyndebourne Youth Opera and members of Trinity Boys Choir. Adam Torrance directed, based on Diane Paulus' production for the Glyndebourne Festival.

For all its extreme popularity, Carmen presents a series of challenges, the Spanish-isms and Opéra Comique element cannot be ignored and directorial decisions have to be made. But more than that, too often productions concentrate on what we might call the socialogical elements, creating intense drama at the expense of the whole. For all the difficulty of the work's reception, Carmen is a carefully crafted drama that mixes tragedy with comedy and poignant moments, along with the need to entertain.

Bizet: Carmen - Lukasz Golinski, Dingle Yandell, Glyndebourne Chorus, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Anja Bihlmaier - Glyndebourne Festival at BBC Proms (Photo: BBC/Andy Paradise )

Reading reviews of Diane Paulus' original productionn and seeing Adam Torrance's semi-staging based on it, what impressed was the way that we had all the features from the libretto, without any adjustments. Torrance gave us a very straightforward and insightful modern-dress Carmen, stripped down but with all the elements including the lighter scenes in Act Two, and plenty of dancing. It provided a strong showcase for some vivid characters. There was dialogue too, not heaps, but more than in some productions; though no-one was credited for sound design, the dialogue was amplified which was probably sensible given the venue.

Prom 50: Two rarities and a classic from Jakub Hrůša and Czech Philharmonic

Dvorák: Piano Concerto - Mao Fujita, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Jakub Hruša - BBC Proms (Photo: BBC/Andy Paradise )

Vítězslava Kaprálová: Military Sinfonietta, Dvořák: Piano Concerto in G minor, Janáček: Glagolitic Mass; Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Mao Fujita, Corinne Winters, Bella Adamova, David Butt Philip, Pavel Švingr, Christian Schmitt, City of Prague Philharmonic Choir, Jakub Hrůša; BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall
Reviewed 28 August 2024

Two rarities and a classic in a prom which showed the Czech orchestra's superb quality, allied to fine performances and soloists

Jakub Hrůša and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra returned to the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall on Wednesday 28 August 2024 giving us another treat pairing Czech rarities with something familiar. Their second programme featured the first ever performance at the BBC Proms of Vítězslava Kaprálová's Military Sinfonietta, Dvořák's Piano Concerto in G minor with soloist Mao Fujita, and Janáček's Glagolitic Mass with soloists Corinne Winters (soprano), Bella Adamova (mezzo-soprano), David Butt Philip (tenor) and Pavel Švingr (bass, replacing Brindley Sherratt), plus Christian Schmitt (organ) and the City of Prague Philharmonic Choir.

Vítězslava Kaprálová is one of those figures who blazed brilliantly yet briefly. Born in Brno in 1915, she studied in Brno and Prague, but an encounter with Bohuslav Martinů led her to Paris where she had a long and intense relationship with the composer, both professional and personal. She married the son of Czech painter Alphonse Mucha in 1940, but died in June that year. Her Military Sinfonietta was written whilst she was still a student at Prague Conservatory and the work was written against the backdrop of pressure from Nazi Germany for the Czech Republic to cede territory. 

Janácek: Glagolitic Mass - Corinne Winters, City of Prague Philharmonic Choir, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Jakub Hruša - BBC Proms (Photo: BBC/Andy Paradise )

She conducted the Czech Philharmonic in the premiere at a gala in Prague in 1937, the first woman to conduct the orchestra. She conducted a performance in London in June 1938 for the International Festival of Contemporary Music, when she became the first woman to conduct the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Rather embarrassingly, given this link, the performance of her Military Sinfonietta is the first time any of her works have been performed at the Proms.

Nothing less than astonishing: Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610 from Graham Ross and the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge

In April this year, Graham Ross directed the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge in a performance of Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610 at Smith Square Hall (formerly St John's Smith Square). The performance featured the English Cornett & Sackbutt Ensemble, plus Margaret Faultless, violin, Jonathan Manson, bass violin, William Hunt, violone, Elizabeth Kenny, theorbo and Silas Wollston, organ, alongside instrumentalists from Cambridge University. Nicholas Mulroy did the heavy lifting as soloist alongside other soloists from the choir.

The result was filmed, beautifully, by Andrew Staples for Studio 2359, with recorded sound by John Rutter. The film has now been released and is available the Choir of Clare College's YouTube channel. The results are nothing less than astonishing and extremely engaging. Despite using a college choir, this is a relatively intimate performance and I have great admiration for the way a series of soloists step out from the choir and perform all those solos with terrific aplomb. 

I could listen to Nicholas Mulroy for ever in this style of music and his performance remains a treasure. But credit music go to the women who do all those concertos, going way beyond the technical and giving each appearance real character. Then there are the two baritone soloists in the Magnificat going high into the upper reaches with real aplomb. But I think the palm must go to a series of tenors, especially those who duet with Nicholas Mulroy, so that for instance in Duo Seraphim the second and third tenors match Mulroy ornament for ornament. 

The full performances is available on YouTube. As it is free of charge, please do consider making a donation to the college's music if you are enjoying the performance.

Prom 49: A consumate & deeply felt account of Suk's masterful Asrael Symphony crowns the Czech Philharmonic's first appearance at the 2024 BBC Proms

Dvorák: Cello Concerto - Anastasia Kobekina, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Jakub Hruša - BBC Proms (Photo: BBC/Andy Paradise )

Dvořák: Cello Concerto, Suk: Asrael Symphony; Anastasia Kobekina, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra; Jakub Hrůša; BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall
Reviewed 27 August 2024

The Czech orchestra impresses with its superb accompaniment to Kobekina's idiomatic approach to the concerto, and then Suk's huge symphony receives a superb performance, completely consumate and deeply felt

The Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and its principal guest conductor, Jakub Hrůša, have been on a tour of European Summer festivals with stops at Elbphilharmonie Sommer in Hamburg, the Lucerne Festival and Wiesbaden's Rheingau Musik Festival with a final stop at the BBC Proms with two concerts. For their first concert, on Tuedsay 27 August 2024 at the Royal Albert Hall, Jakub Hrůša conducted the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in Dvořák’s Cello Concerto, with soloist Anastasia Kobekina, and Josef Suk's Asrael Symphony.

Suk's masterwork was making only its second appearance at the BBC Proms. Czech Philharmonic and Hrůša have recorded Asrael for a Suk cycle they are currently preparing for Pentatone, whilst Hrůša conducted the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra (of which he is chief conductor) in Suk's Asrael Symphony at the Edinburgh International Festival earlier this month.

Dvorák: Cello Concerto - Anastasia Kobekina, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Jakub Hruša - BBC Proms (Photo: BBC/Andy Paradise )

Dvořák’s Cello Concerto was written for his friend cellist Hanuš Wihan in 1894 whilst Dvořák was working in New York at the National Conservatory for Music, and one of the more unlikely impetuses for the work is that whilst in New York, Dvořák heard the premiere Cello Concerto No. 2 by composer and cellist Victor Herbert, one of the teachers at the conservatory. Herbert's use of a cello in a concerto was unusual at the time but the writing convinced Dvořák. Another inspiration is that whilst writing it, he learned that his sister-in-law was dying and she was the woman that Dvořák had originally been in love with!

Far from special interest: discs of brass band music by Arthur Bliss and Malcolm Arnold, two brilliant and highly satisfying portraits

Arthur Bliss: Works for Brass Band; Black Dyke Band, John Wilson; Chandos
Malcolm Arnold: Music for Brass Band; Foden's Band, Choir of Chetham's School of Music, Michael Fowles; Beckus
Reviewed 24 August 2024

Two discs focussing on 20th century composers whose works for brass band are performed alongside arrangements to create two brilliant and highly satisfying portraits

Brass bands emerged in the UK in the mid-19th century as a popular pastime, the result of a combination of circumstances, industrialisation, which produced a large working class population, technological advances in instrument design, and the mass production to manufacture and distribute the instruments. It can be argued that bands were an expression of solidarity by growing communities, but the association of brass bands with industrial concerns often arose because they were seen as a way to keep workers from organising in radical groups. The first British open brass band championships took place in Manchester in 1853, and competition remains a strong feature of brass banding. Moving into the 20th-century, the movement developed sufficient confidence that well-known, non-specialist, composers would be approached for pieces, particularly for competitions. 

Two recent discs illuminate the way 20th century British composers have interacted with brass bands. 

On Chandos, John Wilson conducts the Black Dyke Band in music by Sir Arthur Bliss, his two brass band works, Kenilworth and The Belmont Variations, along with arrangements of music from Adam Zero, Checkmate, and Things to Come. The Black Dyke Band traces its history continuously from 1855 when it formed as the band of the Black Dyke Mills in Queensbury, Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, a company owned by John Foster.  

On the Malcolm Arnold Society's Beckus label, Michael Fowles conducts Foden's Band in music by Malcolm Arnold, his brass band works, Fantasy for Brass Band, Song of Freedom, and Litte Suites Nos. 1 & 2, plus arrangements of his Peterloo: Overture, suite from Sweeney Todd, The Roots of Heaven: Overture and March: Overseas. Foden's Band traces its origins back to 1900 when the village of Elworth, near Sandbach in Cheshire, formed its own band, and from that base local industrialist Edwin Foden formed the Fodens Motor Works Band.

Darbar Festival: the world’s largest festival of Indian classical music (outside India) returns to the Barbican Centre

The world’s largest festival of Indian classical music (outside India) returns to the Barbican Centre from 24 to 27 October 2024 when Darbar Festival presents the finest international and UK Indian classical musicians with a mix of emerging  talent, master performers making their UK debut, and a medley of world class legends.

Launched 19 years ago in memory of Gurmit Singh Ji Virdee, an inspirational tabla player, teacher and the father of artistic director Sandeep Virdee, the 2024 programme includes concerts, workshops, talks, free family events and a pop-up market. Sandeep Virdee said: "Indian classical music is often misunderstood as an obscure artform that distances the audience. Far from it. With a vast repertoire of music styles and subgenres depending on your emotional state, it has the power to stir, thrill and inspire the soul. We are delighted to showcase the world’s finest proponents of this magical artform and welcome audiences from richly diverse backgrounds near and far."

Performers include India’s finest tabla legend, Pandit Anindo Chatterjee with his son and fellow tabla player, Anubrata Chatterjee, India’s foremost female vocalist, Ashwini Bhide-Deshpande, sitar player Pandit Kushal Das, violinist, composer and conductor, Dr L Subramaniam, makes his Darbar Festival debut with his son Ambi Subramaniam, to champion contemporary Carnatic percussion, sarod instrumentalist Amaan Ali Bangash who makes his UK solo debut  accompanied by Anubrata Chatterjee on tabla, and Carnatic vocalist, Aruna Sairam.

Jayanthi Kumaresh, a virtuoso of the Saraswati veena, hosts Veena Unwrapped a  lecture demonstration that shares her expertise, insights and passion for the veena. Dr L Subramaniam's lecture East West Composition Unwrapped explores his approach to composition.

Full details from the Darbar Festival website.

Royal Birmingham Conservatoire launches a French season with Berlioz' Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale

Eugène Delacroix: Liberty Leading the People - painted to commemorate the 1830, July Revolution

Berlioz' Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale was written in 1840 to be performed by a huge military band as part of commemorations for marking the tenth anniversary of the July Revolution of 1830 which had brought Louis-Philippe I to power. The celebrations involved erecting the July Column in the Place de la Bastille and the symphony's first movement was performed during the march to the Bastille, the central movement during the ceremony and the third on the return march. The work was such a success at the dress rehearsal that it was performed twice more in August and became one of the composer's most popular works during his lifetime.

It was originally written for a military band of around 200 players, but in 1842 Berlioz revised it, adding option string parts and a chorus at the end. Richard Wagner attended a performance of this new version at the Salle Vivienne on 1 February 1842. On 5 February, he told Robert Schumann that he found passages in the last movement of Berlioz's symphony so "magnificent and sublime that they can never be surpassed."

The work only gets very occasional outings. It has been twice at the BBC Proms, in 2009, Thierry Fisher conducted the military band version with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and back in 1983, Sir John Pritchard conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra in the revised version with strings and choir to open the BBC Proms that year. 

Now, the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire (RBC) is launching a season of French music with a performance of Berlioz' Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale on 25 October 2024. Michael Seal conducts the RBC Symphony Orchestra at the Bradshaw Hall, performing a new orchestration of Berlioz' work.

RBC's focus on French music include a week of salon-style concerts devoted to Fauré and his contemporaries, the first known performance of a work by the black composer, violinist and conductor Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Poulenc’s opera La voix humaine, a 150th anniversary all-Ravel recital on RBC’s 1890 Érard piano, and a centenary tribute to Boulez with his dazzling Sur incises.  

Full details from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire's website.

Bohuslav Martinů's The Greek Passion launches Den Jyske Opera's 2024/25 season in Aarhus, Denmark

Bohuslav Martinů: The Greek Passion - Den Jyske Opera

Bohuslav Martinů's opera, The Greek Passion, is one of those complex works that continue to resonate, even though actual performances are still relatively rare. Whilst the work is technically about a village's preparations for Easter, central to the action is how the villagers deal with a group of refugees, subject that remains alarmingly topical.

Jutland Opera (Den Jske Opera), Denmark's touring opera company based in the country's second city, Aarhus, opens a new production of Martinů's The Greek Passion tonight, 23 August 2024. The production is a co-production with Theater Osnabrück where the production debuted in 2022. Directed by Philipp Kochheim and conducted by Andreas Holz, The Greek Passion features Rhys Jenkins, James Edgar Knight, Michael Ha, Amira Elmadfa, Stephanie Hershaw, Norbert Schmittberg, Mikolaj Bonkowski and Sten Byriel.

The work has a somewhat complex history. Written for Covent Garden in 1957, to Martinů's own English libretto (based on Jonathan Griffin's translation of the novel Christ Recrucified by Nikos Kazantzakis), the opera was rejected by Covent Garden, Zurich Opera and Universal Edition, Martinů radically revised the work and it was premiered in Zurich in 1961. The two versions are very different and the 1957 original was regarded as too radical, it has however been reconstructed and performed. Jutland Opera will be performing the work in the composer's 1961 revision, in English.

Looking ahead, the company has two more operas in the 2024/25 season. This Autumn they are performing Puccini's Madama Butterfly, conducted by Christopher Lichtenstein and directed by Ulrich Peters with Chunxi Stella Hu and Victoria Kaminskaite sharing the title role. 

Perhaps even more interesting, the final production of the season is Fete Galante, the only opera by Danish composer, Poul Schierbeck (1888-1949), which premiered in 1931. A pupil of Carl Nielsen, Schierbeck was known as a teacher in the Conservatory at Copenhagen, and the overture to Fete Galante retained a place in the orchestral repertoire, but his opera remains a relative rarity.

Details from Den Jyske Opera's website.