Friday 15 February 2013

Garden of surprises and delights - Wigmore Hall Summer programme

The Wigmore Hall's Summer programme starts on 1 April, with a pair of delightful concerts; Christine Rice and Roger Vignoles give a lunchtime recitall of Wolf, Mahler, Purcell, Britten and Ireland then in the evening the London Handel Orchestra under Adrian Butterfield performs Handel's La Resurrezione with Julia Doyle, Stefanie True Anna Starushkevych, Alexander Sprague and Lukas Jakobski. And the final evening concert on 27 July is given by Diana Damrau accompanied by harpist Xavier Maistrre in a fascinating programme of Schumbert, Strauss, Hahn, Chausson and more. Between these there is a glorious garden of surprises and delights ranging from a mass by Byrd to opera by George Benjamin, all three of the Schubert song cycles, Eisler's Hollywood Songbook.

Herve Niquet and Le Concert Spirituel bring a programme devoted to the Splendour of the Cathedrals under Louis XIV with music by Charpentier and many more drawn from a rich but little known repertoire.(14 April). Nicholas Collon and the Academy of Ancient Music perform Mozart and Haydn and draw us into the night with a programme including Mozart's wonderful Serenata Notturno (18 April).

Stile Antico and Fretwork join forces for a programme of music by William Byrd including the Mass in Four Parts and the propers for the feast of Corpus Christi (30 May). Whilst Carolyn Sampson joins Fretwork for a feast of Byrd's consort songs and instrumental works on 22 June. 

At a late afternoon concert on 6 July, Gallicantus perform all 20 of Lassus's spiritual madrigals, Lagrime di San Pietro, which were assembled just before the composers death in 1594 and dedicated to the Pope.

Christoph Rousset makes a solo appearance at the harpsichord playing Rameau and his contemporaries (31 May). And veteran viol player Jordi Savall is joined by harpist Andrew Lawrence King and bodhran player Frank McGuire for an intriguing programme entitled The Celtic Viol.

John Butt's Dunedin Consort makes a welcome appearance in the south, performing Handel's Esther, the work in which Handel effectively invented Handelian oratorio (25 April). More Italian Handel on 11 June, as the Academy of Ancient Music with sopranos Lucy Crowe and Sophie Junker perform Handel cantatas.

Ian Page's Classical Opera return with a programme entitled Tales from Ovid with Anna Devin, Christopher Ainslie and Benjamin Hulett performing Dittersdorf, Gluck, Haydn and Mozart. (20 May). The Akademie fur Alte Musik Berlin brings a programme celebrating he music of Corelli (8 June)

The Britten Sinfonia perform a programme of Britten's solo works, including the Suite for Harp and the Six Metamorphoses after Ovid (5 April). And the Basel Chamber Orchestra is joined pianist by Angela Hewitt for a programme of Mozart and his contemporary Joseph Martin Kraus (24 May).

Nowegian trumpeter Tine Thing Helseth and Kathryn Stott mix contemporary works by Teivitt, Hagerup and Graham Fitkin with 20th century masters (3 April). The Prince Consort (Anna Leese, Jennifer Johnston, Tim Mead, Andrew Staples, Jacques Imbrailo, Alisdair Hogarth) is joined by American composer John Musto for a programme of his music (7 April), and then on 12 July the Prince Consort perform another American programme, this time music by Jake Heggie, Ned Rorem and Copland. 

Christopher Maltman and Julius Drake's 1 June recital showcases Hanns Eisler's remarkable Hollywood Songbook written whilst the composer was in exile in Hollywood. (1 June).

Saturday 6 April is George Benjamin day with a lunchtime chamber music concert and an evening event with the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group which includes a performance of George's first opera Into the Little Hill with Susanna Andersson and Hilary Summers. And 11 May is Simon Bainbridge Study day with concerts by musicians from the Royal Northern College of Music throughout the daytime.

More opera, on 19 July when Andrew Kennedy and the chamber ensemble Ingite will be appearing alongside a cast of over 140 local participants in the staging of a new community opera by Kerry Andrew and Hazel Gould.

Faure's chamber music gets extensive examination in the Faure Project, (30 April, 2 May, 4 May).  The Takacs Quartet are joined by cellist Ralph Kirshbaum for Schubert's String Quintet in C D956 (8,10 May). And cellist Truls Mork, accompanied by Christian Ihle Hadlan, performs sonatas by Bach, Dohnanyi, Debussy and Franck.

The Brodsky Quartet perform Beethoven's String Quartet in F Op95 with Britten's 2nd Quartet. (10 June).

Benjamin Grosvenor's lunch-time piano recital on 17 June, includes a selection of Bach transcriptions and Liszt's operatic paraphrase from Gounod's Faust/

Graham Johnson's French Song series continues its delightful way. Sarah Connolly and John Mark Ainsley perform a programme called The Lure of Bayreuth with songs by Chausson, Duparc, Franck and Chabrier (12 April).Geraldine McGreevy and Henk Neven look at New Directions with the New Century with song by Debussy, Caplet, Satie, Faure and Roussel (22 April). Then in The Last Masters? Sarah Fox and Ivan Ludlow sing songs by Poulenc and Ravel (29 June).

Johnson's three-volume encyclopaedia Franz Schubert: The Complete Songs is launch on 13 April with a gala concert with a cast including Ailish Tynan, Sarah Connolly, Mark Padmore and Christopher Maltman

Sarah Connolly returns with her own solo recital on 1 May accompanied by Malcolm Martineau in a fascinating programme of Roussel, Faure, Chausson, Honegger  Poulenc (Trois chansons de Federico Garcia Lorca), Caplet, Satie and Turina. Then on 20 July she returns with actress Fiona Shaw and pianist Julius Drake to perform Dominic Argento's From the Diary of Virginia Woolf a cycle of eight songs written in 1974 for Dame Janet Baker which will be presented with readings from the writer's letters and journals.

Distinguished Finnish soprano Karita Mattila makes a welcome appearance with Ville Matvejeff (piano) performing Poulenc, Debussy, Duparc, and Marx, plus Sallinen's 4 Dream Songs (1972) which are connected to the composer's opera The Horseman. (4 April). 

Dorothea Roschmann and Ian Bostridge join forces with Julius Drake for a programme of Mahler songs (7 April). Soprano Annette Dasch and pianist Helmut Deutsch's concert on 9 July takes Mahler as the starting point for an examination of music in Fin de Siecle Vienna, with songs by Zemlinsky, Schoenberg and Korngold.

Juliane Banse and Martin Helmchen perform Wolf and Schubert on 21 May on texts by Morike and Goethe. Baritone Georg Nigl and Gerard Wyss perform a selection of Wolf's Morike Lieder on 26 May. 

The three Schubert song cycles make their appearance. German tenor Werner Gura accompanied by Christoph Berner performs Schubert's Schwanengesang  on 3 June. Die Schone Mullerin is performed by tenor Daniel Behle with Sveinung Bjellan on 28 June. James Gilchrist and Anna Tilbrook perform Der Winterreise on 26 July. And you can catch Imogen Cooper in an all Schubert recital on 2 July. Christoph Pregardien and Michael Gees all Schubert recital on 25 July is full of songs of taking leave and of travel.

Camilla Tilling is accompanied by Paul Rivinius in a lunch-time recital of Schubert, Zemlinsky and Grieg (15 April). Whilst tenor Allan Clayton and Malcolm Martineau combine Beethoven and Schubert with Faure and Duparc (15 April).

French mezzo-soprano Gaelle Arquez has been the recipient of an Independent Opera/Wigmore Hall Voice Fellowship and completes this with a recital accompanied by James Baillieu mixing French and Spanish song (21 April). Another French mezzo-soprano, Nora Gubisch, makes her Wigmore Hall debut on 7 July performing Debussy, Ravel, Granados and Falla.

Italian diva Anna Caterina Antonacci is joined by the Heath Quartet for a varied programme which includes Respighi's Il tramonto (based on Shelly), along with Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder and Debussy's Chansons de Bilitis (9 May).

Bernada Fink finishes her residency with a concert where she is joined by her brother bass-baritone Marcos Fink, with pianist Anthony Spriri for a programme of duets including a number reflecting her Slovenian and Argentinian heritage. (20 June). And Iestyn Davies finishes his residency with a programme of songs for lute, viol and voice where he is joined by Thomas Dunford (lute) and Jonathan Manson (viol). (5 July).

There are more duets on 23 July when Christiane Karg and Wolfgang Holzmair, accompanied by Graham Johnson, perform Liszt and Peter Cornelius (friend and colleague of both Liszt and Wagner). And more lute songs in Theatre of the Ayre's programme on 24 July of 17th century dialogues and duos.

The hall is starting a new late night series of concerts, starting at 10pm, these continue with entertainment running in the bar until late. A diverse programme includes the Prince Consort singing Jake Heggie (12 July) and Patricia Routledge as Dame Myra Hess (14 June).

Further information from the Wigmore Hall website.
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