Taking us on an emotional journey: Solomon's Knot in Bach's 1725 version of the St John Passion at Wigmore Hall

St Nicholas Church, Leipzig
Where Bach's St John Passion first performed

Bach: St John Passion (1725); Solomon's Knot; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 26 February 2025

Sung from memory with remarkable emotional directness, at times this was close to a concert staging and very much a powerful communal experience

We know frustratingly little about the details of Bach's actual performance practice in Leipzig. For instance, when Bach revived the St John Passion in 1725, having first performed it in 1724, how many of the performers were the same? We can make assumptions, but we don't know. This has relevance because for 1725, Bach made significant changes to the work, replacing the opening and closing choruses, adding and replacing arias. Given his musicians' workload, you might have assumed he would want to rely on their remembering the music.

We also don't know why he made the changes. The 1725 version, whilst not wildly different, has a couple of 'new' arias that make the reaction to Christ's Passion journey seem rather angrier. And for a modern listener the start of the piece is disorientating as the new opening chorus eventually found a permanent home in the St Matthew Passion.

Easter seems to be starting early this year, and on Wednesday 26 February 2025, Solomon's Knot gave us our first Passion of the year, Bach's St John Passion in its 1725 version at Wigmore Hall. Whilst the hall's acoustic is nothing like that of the churches in Bach's Leipzig. The very full platform, with eight singers and 13 instrumentalists, must surely have echoed the organ loft in Bach's performances. One quibble, an eternal one with Passion (and oratorio) performances in concert halls, we missed the characteristic depth sound of Bach's organ and had to live with a chamber one.

Opera is Us: Exploring the transformative power of music with Anna Starushkevych's Music Will Save The World & a new film inspired by personal experience

 "Consider the scenario where all live, organically-produced music, whether professional or amateur, suddenly vanished globally. The absence would profoundly affect people everywhere."

The above comes from a statement released by Music Will Save The World, a non-profit organisation founded by an opera singer, experimental music artist and director Anna Starushkevych, and dedicated to protecting and promoting organic music, music that is performed live and does not rely on any form of technology.

Anna Starushkevych was born in Lviv, Ukraine and first studied there before coming to the UK to study at the Guildhall School. A relative's disappearance at the frontline in Ukraine triggered thoughts of those missing in war and she has produced a film, Magura as part of Music Will Save The World's Opera is Us project. This seeks to illuminate pertinent social issues by extracting an operatic aria from its original context and creating a short film based on the aria's music.

Magura is dedicated to the missing people of war, both in Ukraine and globally and raising funds for the search group for the missing - Platzdarm 

The film blends Ukrainian mythology with modern storylines, highlighting cultural and historical elements. It features Magura, a Ukrainian pagan goddess of war and victory, who appears in the film’s climax. The soundtrack feature's Handel's aria Cara Sposa with its repetitive 'Where are you?' lyrics, accentuates themes of loss and hope, aligning with the film’s emotional journey.

Now Grade II Listed, this unassuming modernist house in Aldeburgh, was home to Imogen Holst, has links to her father, & was built by architects who worked on the 1951 Festival of Britain

9 Church Walk, Aldeburgh, Suffolk, home of Imogen Holst from 1964 to 1984 (Photo: © Historic England Archive)

A relatively unassuming modernist house in Aldeburgh, 9 Church Walk, has just been listed at Grade II by Historic England. The house was built in 1962 to 1964, designed by architects HT (Jim) and Elizabeth (Betty) Cadbury-Brown for composer, arranger and conductor Imogen Holst, daughter of composer Gustav Holst.

The house features innovative design elements including a soundproofed music room where Imogen Holst worked and thoughtfully positioned windows framing views of the parish church. It retains many original features, including built-in shelving systems, curtains with recessed tracking, and Imogen Holst's personal items such as her writing desk and coloured glass panel hung on the window in front of her desk to diffuse the sunlight. The property also houses Gustav Holst's oak music cupboard, where she stored her father's manuscripts.

9 Church Walk, Aldeburgh, Suffolk, home of Imogen Holst from 1964 to 1984 - Living room with Gustav Holst's music cupboard (Photo: © Historic England Archive)

After graduating Jim Cadbury-Brown worked for architect Ernő Goldfinger, assisting with the design of Goldfinger's Willow Road house, and became his lifelong friend. Jim and Betty Cadbury-Brown were also involved as designers for the 1951 Festival of Britain’s Southbank site. They built their own holiday home in Aldeburgh (3 Church Walk) which was listed in 2000, and Imogen Holst's house was on the same site.

In 1952, Imogen Holst was invited to assist Benjamin Britten who was working on his latest commission, the opera Gloriana. She accepted and became Britten’s musical assistant, then later Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival. She lived in a variety of lodgings and rented flats until moving to 9 Church Walk.

In thanking the Cadbury-Browns for the house, which was built on their land, She wrote: "…my IMMENSE and perpetual gratitude for the loveliest house in the world. I think of you both every night of the year and send blessings in your direction for having enabled me to get on with my work in such heavenly quiet and solitude and comfort."

Imogen Holst at her desk (Photo: Nigel Luckhurst, © Britten Pears Arts)

The house is now owned by Britten Pears Arts and is available as a holiday rental, allowing visitors to experience the special atmosphere of this artistic haven. It is also open to the public every year for Heritage Open Days.

For those interested in staying in the cottage, details are at the Britten Pears Arts website.

Notes of Old: Helen Charlston & Sholto Kynoch draw together a variety of composers, echoing common themes & preoccupation in music that they love

Sholto Kynoch & Helen Charlston in rehearsal (Image from YouTube video)

Notes of Old: Mompou, Hahn, Monteverdi, Bach, Schubert, Bach arranged by György Kurtág, Anna Semple Pauline Viardot, Ravel, Marc Antoine Charpentier, Schumann; Helen Charlston, Sholto Kynoch, Temple Music; Temple Church
Reviewed 25 February 2025

The two performers drew us into to their fascinating world of influences and connections, a real duo recital as voice and piano complemented and echoed each other. 

Mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston was joined by pianist Sholto Kynoch for Notes of Old at Temple Church as part of Temple Music's Spring season. Kynoch explained that it was a programme of music that the two performers loves, reflecting themes which are timeless preoccupations for everyone, love, nature and music. It was a programme that moved freely between the Baroque, the Romantic and the contemporary in a which which not only brought out themes, but reflected the way composers of one generation absorbed the music of another; Robert Schumann's obsession with Bach or Reynaldo Hahn's self-conscious classicism.

The first half mixed Mompou, Hahn, Monteverdi, Bach, Schubert, Bach arranged by György Kurtág, Anna Semple, Pauline Viardot, Ravel and Marc Antoine Charpentier. Then the second half consisted of Robert Schumann's Zwölf Gedichte von Justinus Kerner, Op 35 where the themes from the first half of the concert seemed to be refracted and reflected through Schumann's genius.

Vivid detail & white-hot performances: Gavin Higgins' Horn Concerto & The Faerie Bride now on disc

Gavin Higgins: Horn Concerto, Fanfare, Air and Flourishes, The Faerie Bride; Ben Goldscheider, Marta Fontanals-Simmons, Roderick Williams, Three Choirs Festival Chorus, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Jaime Martin, Martyn Brabbins; Lyrita
Reviewed 25 February 2025

Two of Gavin Higgins most substantial recent works in outstanding performances that reveal the wealth of vivid detail in the writing, with horn player Ben Goldscheider on white-hot form and strong performances from Marta Fontanals-Simmons, Roderick Williams

Composer Gavin Higgins has been having a busy time of it in the last few years, producing a clutch of impressive, large-scale works and now a new disc from Lyrita gives us a chance to catch two of them. Higgins' Horn Concerto was premiered in 2024 by horn player Ben Goldscheider, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, conductor Jaime Martin [we caught the work's London premiere with a different orchestra, see my review] and the same forces went into the studio to record the work. BBCNOW was joined by conductor Martyn Brabbins, baritone Roderick Williams, mezzo-soprano Marta Fontanals-Simmons and the Three Choirs Festival Chorus for Higgins' The Faerie Bride at the 2023 Three Choirs Festival [see my review] and we have a live recording of that performance on the disc. Linking the two are three movements for solo horn, Fanfare, Air and Flourishes.

Back for the 18th edition, the Winchester Chamber Music Festival has everything from Bach & Beethoven to George Crumb & Caroline Shaw

The Winchester Chamber Music Festival, artistic director Kate Gould, returns from 2 to 5 May 2025 for the 18th festival, with a wide range of performances, schools performances, family concerts, talks and masterclasses at venues across Winchester including St. Paul's Church, St Lawrence Church and the Theatre Royal.

Music performed includes the Clarinet Quintet by the English composer Pamela Harrison (1915-1990) who was a pupil of Gordon Jacob and Arthur Benjamin, the Voice of the Whale by George Crumb (1929-2022), Branching Patterns by New York-based composer Inti Figgis-Vizueta [whose orchestra piece devour I reviewed recently], Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony No. 1 in Webern's arrangement for piano quintet, Hanns Eisler's Scherzo, Ailie Robertson's Beannacht (Blessing) for solo viola and electronics, Jessie Montgomery's Voodoo Dolls, Clarinettino by Czech composer Ondrej Kukal, and Caroline Shaw's Punktum plus music by Bach, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Mahler, Saint-Saens, Fauré, Debussy, Ravel, Rachmaninov, Villalobos, Prokofiev, Holst, Shostakovich, Britten. 

For the festival performers, artistic director, cellist Kate Gould has gathered around her a group of distinguished chamber musicians many of whom have featured at previous festivals including David Adams violin, Lucy Gould violin, Magnus Johnston violin, Scott Dickinson viola, Richard Lester cello, Ronan Dunne double bass, Zenith Quartet, Matthew Featherstone flute, Robert Plane clarinet, Simon Crawford-Phillips piano, Philip Moore piano, and Julian Milford piano.

Full details from the festival website.

Planet Hugill featured in FeedSpot Top 60 Opera Blogs

I am never really sure about lists of things, the Top 50 Best whatevers. However, finding out that you are in such a list is terribly seductive, even if you wonder how the list has been produced. FeedSpot, the company that produces FeedSpot Reader which allows you to subscribe to all your online media needs in one place, has produced its Top 60 Opera Blogs list. Perhaps one's response should be wow, are there actually 60 opera blogs out there!

Planet Hugill, I am pleased to say, is at number eight. You can explore the whole list here.

New Music Biennial: 20 new works as part of the festival celebrating Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture

For the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad, the PRS Foundation's New Music 20x12 showcased a range of short (no longer than 15 minutes) pieces by contemporary music creators. Renamed New Music Biennial, the festival has become a showcase for works in a range of genres, including contemporary classical, jazz, R&B, folk, global, sound installations, and electronica, creating a pop-up, interactive space for audiences to discover and engage with new music and reaffirming new music is for everyone whilst highlighting the continuing important role commissioning new music has today in the UK.

This year's New Music Biennial is being presented by PRS Foundation, Southbank Centre and Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture in partnership with BBC Radio 3, and NMC Recordings. New Music Biennial 2025 feature 20 pieces of brand new works selected through an open call, alongside pre-existing new pieces that were premiered within the last four years.

The 20 pieces will make up two festival weekends of music taking place both in Bradford in various venues including new arts space Loading Bay, The Underground and St George’s Hall as part of the UK City of Culture celebrations and at venues and performance spaces in the Queen Elizabeth Hall at London’s Southbank Centre. The Bradford weekend is 6 to 8 June 2025, as part of Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture, with the music being performed at the Southbank Centre from 4 to 6 July 2025. Both festivals are free to attend but ticketed.

The composers showcased cover a wide range, Halina Rice, Jasdeep Singh Degun, Shae Universe, Ailís Ní Ríain, Shri Sriram, Uri Agnon, Xenia Pestova-Bennett, Verity Watts, Alex Groves, Dali de Saint Paul, Maxwell Sterling, Charlie Hope and Rebecca Salvadori, Stef Conor, Emily Levy and Matthew Bourne, Rylan Gleave, Ellie Wilson, Hardi Kurda, Daniel Kidane, m3UNTITLED, GOMID, Mark David Boden and Chisara Agor, with performers including BBC Concert and BBC Symphony Orchestras, Brìghde Chaimbeul, Ailis Sutherland, Maxwell Quartet, Kenzo Jae, Scout Bolton, Dave Kane, DJ Woody, Onyx Brass, Drum The Bass, CoMA, Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble, Zubin Kanga, Ensemble 1604, All Unto Me, The Carice Singers, Fenella Humphreys and Sinfonia Cymru.

New Music Biennial performances will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s New Music Show at a later date, with recordings available via all DSPs (including Apple Music and Spotify) through NMC Recordings following the festivals.

Jenny Harris, Director of Programme at Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture said, "The composers and musicians that will be performing at New Music Biennial have responded beautifully to the context in which this year's festival is set, with northern voices and sensibility reflected throughout. There's a huge variety of music genre reflected; from jazz, R&B and folk to contemporary classical, sound installations and electronica, all taking over our district's incredible venues. Audiences can come with open ears and take a risk on something they've not experienced before, or immerse themselves in music they love - it's a real opportunity to be curious. We're delighted for Bradford to become the canvas for this wonderful event, and to introduce composers and musicians from across the UK to our city and district."

Full details from the New Music Biennial website.

Beset by criticisms of Wagnerisme, Édouard Lalo cried off opera after Le Roi d'Ys but the work itself held the stage and is finally returning to London

Poster for the première performance of Édouard Lalo's Le roi d'Ys. 

During the 19th century, many French composers became fascinated by Wagner and his operas. Not every composer managed as balanced an attitude as Gabriel Fauré and André Messager. After their visit to Bayreuth, they produced Les Souvenirs de Bayreuth, a series of quadrilles based on Wagnerian themes for piano duet, a piece which remains a nerdy delight for Wagner enthusiasts.

Other composers were influenced both by Wagner's techniques and his choice of subject matter. Composers attempted to bring Wagnerian sweep to French lyric drama with mixed success, resulting in a clutch of works based on myth, legend or simply set in Anglos Saxon or Viking times that are interesting but never quite take off.  Only occasionally do works rise above this, and even then the late romantic French opera style has fallen out of fashion during the 20th century, making formerly popular works into rarities.

Chausson's Le Roi Arthus is based on the Arthurian legend was written in the late 1880s and early 1890s but not performed until 1903 and it never took flight properly. The opera was inspired both by Wagner and by Chausson's teacher Franck's opera, Hulda, this time set in 11th century Norway. Hulda was performed in the 1890s but again, never had great success. Chabrier, despite being known nowadays for his music in lighter style, repeatedly tried to succeed in Wagnerian opera. Gwendoline, set in eighth century Britain, was performed in Brussels, Paris and elsewhere, but then lay forgotten. During his final illness he struggled to continue work on Briséïs, set in Corinth during the reign of Emperor Hadrian.  Too often, the librettos for these operas leave rather a lot to be desired, pianist Graham Johnson described Catulle Mendès libretto for Chabrier's Gwendoline as catastrophic!

Some successful composers managed to copy Wagner without emulating. Ernest Reyer was a moderately successful opera composer and for his fifth opera, Sigurd he turned to the Scandinavian legends of the Edda Völsunga saga (Nibelungenlied), the same source which Richard Wagner drew upon for the libretto for his Ring cycle. However, Reyer's sound world is not that of Wagner, but much closer to Berlioz who was something of a mentor to the young composer.

Critics, however, were less than enamoured of this trend and complaints of being too Wagnerian were levelled at composers including Bizet for Carmen, unlikely though it seems nowadays. This was a criticism also levelled at Édouard Lalo's opera Le Roi d'Ys, despite its popularity with audiences.

The composer Édouard Lalo married a contralto from Brittany, Julie Besnier de Maligny, in 1865 and this seems to have been one of the impetuses for an operatic project. Based on the Breton legend of Ys, Lalo's opera Le Roi d'Ys is his most complex and ambitious creation, with the role of Margared was originally written for his wife.

The legend of Ys, a mythical city on the coast of Brittany that was swallowed up by the sea, is the same on that inspired Claude Debussy's La cathédrale engloutie. 

Initially, Lalo struggled to get the work performed, it was rejected by Parisian theatres in the 1870s, but after revisions it premiered in 1888 at the Opera Comique. Within a year of its premiere, Le roi d'Ys had reached its 100th performance there and by 1940 had reached 490 performances there. Perhaps part of the success of the opera might be down to its libretto which is by an experienced librettist, Édouard Blau who wrote operas for Bizet, Offenbach and Massenet (Le Cid and Werther).

Despite this eventual popularity, the work initially incurred criticism for being "too progressive" and "Wagnerian" and this put Lalo off writing any more for the stage and he concentrated on chamber music and orchestral works.

The post-War history of Lalo's opera is rather more patchy, though there have been influential stagings in France including in Toulouse in 2007.  On Sunday 30 March 2025, Chelsea Opera Group are giving us a rare opportunity to hear Lalo's Le Roi d'Ys at Cadogan Hall, when Paul Wingfield conducts with a cast including Thomas D Hopkinson, Hye-Youn Lee, Maria Schellenberg, Alexei Gusev, and Luis Gomes.

Full details from the Chelsea Opera Group website.

Musical magic moments: Bellini's The Capulets & the Montagues at English Touring Opera takes us firmly into the 1950s and New York's mean streets

Bellini: The Capulets & the Montagues - Brenton Spiteri, Jessica Cale, Masimba Ushe - English Touring Opera, 2025 (Photo: © Richard Hubert Smith)

Bellini: The Capulets and the Montagues; Jessica Cale, Samantha Price, Brenton Spiteri, Timothy Nelson, Masimba Ushe, director: Eloise Lally, conductor: Alphonse Cemin, English Touring Opera; Hackney Empire
Reviewed 22 February 2025

A 1950s Mafia based account Bellini's star-crossed lovers imbued with magic thanks to engaging and stylish soloists, along with a strong musicality for the ensemble

Following the failure of his opera Zaira in Parma in 1829, and the resultant straining of Bellini's relationship with his librettist, Felice Romani, the composer found himself without a contract for a new opera. In Venice, for Carnival performances of his opera Il Pirata, he ended up taking up a contract for a new opera when it became apparent that the planned composer, Pacini, was not going to be able to deliver.

The new work had to be written at speed, something Bellini was not good at. A new Bellini opera was 'reassuringly expensive' because the composer prided himself on the time he devoted the writing. In this case, Romani quickly reworked an existing libretto, originally written for Giulietta e Romeo by Niccola Vaccai which premiered in Milan in 1825. The original source was an Italian play of 1818, based on a source related to that Shakespeare used. Not only was the libretto based on existing material, but Bellini reused material from Zaira as well as lifting two arias from his first opera, Adelson e Salvini (written for the conservatoire in Naples, but never professionally performed).

The new opera was a success, sealing Bellini's fame, and it was performed at La Scala, Milan the following season. However, during the 19th century Bellini's opera remained inextricably linked to Vaccai's. In 1832, Maria Malibran performed the role of Romeo in Bellini's opera but asked for the final scene to be replaced by the corresponding scene in Vaccai's opera. This became common practice in Italy during the 19th century, making the mezzo-soprano role of Romeo more accessible to contraltos.

Bellini: The Capulets & the Montagues - Samantha Price, Jessica Cale - English Touring Opera, 2025 (Photo: © Richard Hubert Smith)

It is a relatively compact work, focused strongly on the two lovers and with a plot that, though differing somewhat from Shakespeare, requires little explanation for audiences. As such, it is a relatively popular choice with opera companies seeking a Bellini opera for performance.

Covent Garden's 1984 production of the work (last seen in 2009), designed and directed by Pier Luigi Pizzi, is the only one I have seen to stage the work in the original setting and most companies opt for an updating, transposing the violence to more modern gangsters.

English Touring Opera's Spring season is taking Shakespeare as its theme. Alongside a new studio work, What Dreams May Come using settings of the playwright's texts by diverse composers and a new opera by Michael Betteridge, The Vanishing Forest, aimed at children, the company is touring its production of Bellini's Capulets and Montagues directed by Eloise Lally [who directed the company's 2023 production of Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia, see my review]. 

We caught the opening night at Hackney Empire on Saturday 22 February 2025. The conductor was Alphonse Cemin [whom we heard as pianist earlier this year accompanying baritone Julien Van Mellaerts in his music exploration of a Paris cemetery at Wigmore Hall, see my review], with Jessica Cale as Giulietta [Poppea in ETO's 2023 production of Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea, see my review], and Samantha Price as Romeo (she sang the title role in G&S Iolanthe at ENO in 2023, see my review), plus Brenton Spiteri as Tebaldo, Timothy Nelson as Capellio and Masimba Ushe as Lorenzo. The orchestra was admirably full, with 12 strings, double woodwind, single brass, timpani and harp, plus an choral ensemble of seven men.

Two violas: Peter Mallinson on exploring the surprisingly fertile ground of music for two violas with fellow viola player Matthias Wiesner

Matthias Wiesner, Lynn Arnold & Peter Mallinson recording Two Violas: Regeneration at St Peter's Church, Boughton Monchelsea, Kent in 2024

Viola players Peter Mallinson and Matthias Wiesner have been exploring the perhaps surprising yet remarkably fertile ground of music for two violas (both with and without keyboard). In March, they release their fourth disc, Two Violas: Regeneration on the Meridian label with pianist Lynn Arnold, features arrangements of Bach and Elgar, original works by York Bowen, Alexander Wunderer and Orlando Gibbons, alongside new pieces by Sally Beamish (herself a viola player, see my 2019 interview), Detlev Glanert, Raymond Yiu and Peter Letanka.

Peter explains that when they started exploring this repertoire, there were a few pieces that 'floated their boat' but they did not realise quite how much material there was, and that it was good to be able to showcase works that were far more than simply interesting fillers. They also began commissioning pieces and arrangements of existing material. Peter points out that many places, concert societies, need to have works in the programme by composers that people have heard of. After all, the line-up of two violas (with or without piano) is not an obvious one. If you say string quartet, people have a clear idea of the music, so having names people recognise is helpful. And Peter feels that they are nowhere near running out of repertoire.

The new disc's theme is the loose one of Regeneration. All their discs have had a theme, but Peter admits that themes come second, repertoire comes first. For him, it is interesting finding different ways of grouping pieces together and such groupings can help people to think about the music in new ways. Each of the pieces on the new disc involves regeneration of one sort or another, though Peter admits that it is a fine line between inspiration and regeneration.

The Norfolk & Norwich Festival, which evolved from the old Norfolk & Norwich Triennial, blazes a cultural trail for the East Anglian region.

Norfolk & Norwich Festival opening event in 2022

By far the largest arts festival in the East of England and the fourth largest in the UK, the 2025 Norfolk & Norwich Festival (which has been held on an annual basis since 1988) runs from Friday 9th to Sunday 25th May offering a huge variety of work staged in and around the fine city of Norwich.

Poster for Norfolk & Norwich Festival in early 20th century

Established in 1772, the Norfolk & Norwich Festival continues the tradition of presenting world-class international performances and this year’s edition gets underway with Grammy Award winner, Pakistani-born singer, composer and music producer, Arooj Aftab (9 May), who’s primarily active in the field of minimal music performing in the medieval and gracious space of Norwich Cathedral. Declared ‘the coolest rock star in the world right now’ by ‘Uncut’ magazine, Aftab has earned her position at the vanguard of creative music for her embrace of risk and nonconformity.  

Following Ms Aftab into Norwich Cathedral (10 May) comes Gilles Peterson, a French-born DJ, broadcaster, avid record collector, curator and music-label owner whose musical spectrum includes dub, reggae, jazz, nu jazz, broken beat, house, drum-and-bass and hip-hop. He has played a pivotal role in supporting and promoting underground music in the UK and beyond over the past three decades. In what he describes is ‘a unique sit-down affair’ he’ll join the musical dots while playing and chatting about some of his favourite sounds past, present and future. Much like a radio programme but in front of your very own eyes!

Another highlight comes with Scottish-born composer/producer Liam Shortall aka corto.alto (22 May) who fuses jazz improvisation, electronic production and bass-heavy dub into a heady mix which saw his 2023 début album, ‘Bad With Names’ nominated for the 2024 Mercury Prize. Always pushing sonic boundaries, his performance in the Adnam's Spiegeltent promises subverted expectations and transcendent grooves.

Welsh artists and Welsh stories: Welsh National Opera celebrates its 80th birthday with a 2024/25 season that manages to make a stir, even with insufficient funding

Edward Dick's production of Puccini's Tosca with Robert Hayward as Scarpia at Opera North in 2023 (Photo: James Glossop)

Welsh National Opera celebrates its 80th anniversary during the 2024/25 season and whilst the current financial climate in the arts is hardly a reason for blowing balloons and throwing streamers, the company under its new management team of Sarah Crabtree and Adele Thomas, has put together a season that celebrates both Welsh stories and Welsh artists. No, the season is nowhere near as extensive or as experimental as in the past, but includes major Welsh singers in signature roles, a contemporary work telling a very Welsh story and a new production that gives the chorus a chance to shine.

The Autumn season consists of Puccini's Tosca and Bernstein's Candide. Tosca is seen in WNO's first showing of Edward Dick's fine production first seen at Opera North in 2018 [see my review of Opera North's 2023 revival]. Natalya Romaniw is Tosca with Andrés Presno as Cavaradossi [returning to the production having sung it in 2023], and conductor Gergely Madaras making his WNO debut. 

Bernstein: Candide - Ed Lyon, Francesca Saracino - WNO, 2023 (Photo: Johan Persson)

James Bonas' production of Bernstein's Candide was first seen at WNO in 2023, and returns with Ed Lyons again in the title role. Joining him are Aled Hall as the Governor and Soraya Mafi as Cunégonde, conducted by Ryan McAdams.

The Summer season features a new production of Wagner's The Flying Dutchman with Welsh director Jack Furness making his WNO debut, and the production is conducted by the company's music director Tomáš Hanus. 

Jack Furness, whose recent work has included a poetic account of Dvorak's Rusalka at Glyndebourne [see my review], Gounod's Faust at Irish National Opera, and an intriguing take on Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel at the Royal Academy of Music [see my review], will be giving contemporary reimagining of the opera. 

David Hackbridge Johnson: Blaze of Glory - Rebecca Evans - WNO, 2023 (Photo: Kirsten Mcternan)

Also in the season is a revival of David Hackbridge Johnson's opera Blaze of Glory! [described in The Stage as 'Utterly thrilling', see the review] which follows a group of Welsh miners as they embark on a musical journey to reform their male voice choir after a local mining disaster. The opera has particular resonance at WNO as not only is a Welsh story, but WNO emerged during the post-War period as a result of the passion for music held by a group of amateur performers from across South Wales, including doctors, miners and teachers. 

Caroline Clegg directs with many of the original cast returning, including Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts, Rebecca Evans, Themba Mvula and Feargal Mostyn-Williams, conducted by James Southall.

WNO's family show, Play Opera LIVE returns with a Shipwrecked! theme, with WNO Orchestra and Chorus, and Tom Redmond as presenter. The WNO Chorus and Orchestra are presenting A Night at the Opera concerts, whilst the orchestra will ring in the New Year with their popular tour of Viennese music which will tour to venues in Wales and the Southwest of England.

WNO’s extensive programme and engagement activity will also continue into this year, which includes regular schools activity and concerts, WNO Youth Opera and the Wellness with WNO programme.  

Autumn 2024 sees performances in Cardiff, Southampton, Llandudno, Bristol and Plymouth, whilst Summer 2025 sees performances in Cardiff, Plymouth, Birmingham, Milton Keynes and Swansea.

Full details from the WNO website.

Many happy returns: György Kurtág celebrates his 99th birthday

György Kurtág and Benjamin Appl during the recording of Lines of Life

The great Hungarian composer György Kurtág is 99 today. 

This week Kurtág's album, Lines of Life, with baritone Benjamin Appl, and pianists James Baillieu and Pierre Laurent Aimard is released, the centrepiece of which is Kurtág's Hölderlin Gesänge. In my recent interview with Benjamin Appl, the baritone commented that working with Kurtág on the songs was a highly demanding process.

As he enters his 100th year, Kurtág has released some thoughts on music, singing and the new disc.

Which qualities do you look/listen for in a singer in the performance of your compositions?

"For me, real singing is my late wife Márta's dark silver voice from her youth and the way she sang. What I teach singers is how Márta was able to express every nuance of the text and melody with her voice. It is not the tradition that is really important to me, but the lyrics of each song and the memories and feelings I have associated with them."

Benjamin Appl's new album Lines of Life, on which you are featured as composer and pianist, has just been released. How did the repertoire selection come about? 

"Benjamin first came to me for the Hölderlin-Gesänge in 2018, and then we started working on other songs. On this recording you can hear everything that a solo baritone or a baritone and piano can perform. We chose most of Schubert's songs and the Sonntag by Brahms because of my memories of Márta."

What role does music play in your life now that you enter your 100th year?

"Music fills my everyday life. I still read literature and everything else that interests me, I also teach, but somehow everything always revolves around music. Since my hearing deteriorated, I have been reading a lot of scores, because now I can only really hear the music, from the inside, by reading it." Lines of Life

Real musical riches: Thea Musgrave's major operatic statement, Mary, Queen of Scots returns to the UK after an embarrassing period of neglect

Musgrave: Mary, Queen of Scots - Heidi Stober - English National Opera, 2025 (Photo: Ellie Kurttz)

Musgrave: Mary, Queen of Scots; Heidi Stober, Alex Otterburn, Rupert Charlesworth, John Findon, director: Stewart Laing, conductor: Joana Carneiro; English National Opera at the London Coliseum
Reviewed 18 February 2025

Strong performances from soloists and in the pit bring out the real musical and dramatic riches of Musgrave's unfairly neglected opera, though the rather cut-price production does the work few favours.

In the 1970s, Scottish Opera commissioned a sequence of four contemporary operas from significant Scottish composers. These were large-scale company commissions, presented in main seasons. Whatever the operas themselves, this was a gesture of confidence. In fact, works like Iain Hamilton's Catiline and Thomas Wilson's Confessions of a Justified Sinner deserve to be seen again, and this is particularly true of Thea Musgrave's Mary, Queen of Scots. Premiered by Scottish Opera at the 1977 Edinburgh Festival, the production was toured around the UK and there was a performance in Germany. Musgrave's husband, Peter Mark, conducted it in the USA in 1978 (when it was recorded) and 1981, and there have been later productions in Germany and the USA. In 2024, Oper Leipzig performed the work in a new production [see Tony's review]. But it has been resolutely absent from British stages.

English National Opera's two performances of Thea Musgrave's Mary, Queen of Scots on 15 and 18 February 2025 at the London Coliseum fill a profoundly embarrassing lacuna. Musgrave (born 1928) travelled from the USA and was present at both performances. The performances had originally been billed something like a concert staging, but a co-production with San Francisco Opera meant that we were presented with a full, albeit spartan staging by designer and director Stewart Laing.

We caught the second performance on 18 February 2025 with Heidi Stober as Mary, Alex Otterburn as Moray, Rupert Charlesworth as Darnley, John Findon as Bothwell, Barnaby Rea as David Riccio, Darren Jeffery as Cardinal Beaton, Alastair Miles as Lord Gordon, Ronald Samm as the Earl of Ruthven and Jolyon Loy as the Earl of Morton. The conductor was Joana Carneiro.

Musgrave: Mary, Queen of Scots - closing scene - English National Opera, 2025 (Photo: Ellie Kurttz)

The definitive musical Mary, Queen of Scots must remain Donizetti's romantic heroine. But there was more than one historical Mary, and Musgrave is interested not in romance but in politics, the turbulent few years of Mary's (ultimately disastrous) direct rule in Scotland. Musgrave, writing her own libretto based on a play by Amalia Elguera (librettist of Musgrave's previous opera, The Voice of Ariadne) adjusts history somewhat, so that she can focus on Mary and her troubled relationships with three unruly men - James Stewart, Earl of Moray (her illegitimate half-brother), Henry Stuart, Earl of Darnley (her husband), and James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell (in the opera he assaults her, in history it remains controversial whether she was accomplice or unwilling victim).

Student and professor collaborations, music by Bacewicz, Beamish, Takemitsu, Turina, & more at the Guildhall School's Chamber Music Festival

Guildhall Chamber Music Festival. Photo by Paul Cochrane.

From 14 to 16 March 2025, Guildhall School of Music & Drama presents its annual chamber music festival at Milton Court Concert Hall, bringing together most talented current Guildhall students and world-renowned chamber professors in works ranging from Haydn and Brahms to Sally Beamish, Stravinsky and Takemitsu.

The weekend's events are opened by Elmore String Quartet, Guildhall School’s Hans Keller Chamber Fellows, in music by Imogen Holst and Benjamin Britten. Then over the weekend there is a chance to hear music by Barber, Bacewicz, Sally Beamish, Bruch, Dohnanyi, Guillermo Lago, Stamitz, Takemitsu, Turina, and much else besides with the Saturday Student Showcase featuring an abundance of talented current student groups - from string quartets to brass quintets.

Full details from the Guildhall School's website.

Piano in the Elms Festival: World Heart Beat's celebration of all things piano

Julian Joseph

 All things piano are being celebrated at the Piano in the Elms Festival, curated by World Heat Beat. The festival takes place from 12 to 15 March 2025, at World Heart Beat Embassy Gardens, state-of-the-art digital music education and concert venue in Nine Elms which opened in January 2023.

There will be performances from pianist and composer Julian Joseph, GKO, and Armenian-British classical pianist, Kristina Arakelyan and jazz pianist and composer Alberto L Ferro.

Julian Joseph will premiere a brand-new composition, commissioned by the festival with Nine Elms as its theme. Pianist GKO returns to London with a vibrant new program inspired by the colours of the rainbow from his upcoming album Color Studies, a kaleidoscopic journey, blending timeless pieces from cinema classics and beloved animated films with impressionistic, unreleased original compositions.

Alberto L Ferro's concert will feature music from his newly released album Introspections (2025), combined with improvisations inspired by renowned jazz and classical composers. Kristina Arakelyan will launching her solo debut album, Dreamland. 

As well as these more formal events, there will be performance opportunities for local talent of all ages and backgrounds, as well as free lessons for young people. Intimate café piano concerts, inspiring masterclasses and vibrant performances will help foster a deep sense of pride and connection across Nine Elms and beyond. 

Full details from the World Heart Beat website.

In collaboration with the Royal Northern College of Music, the Hallé proudly mounted a three-day mini festival saluting the music of Philip Glass.

Philip Glass: Ifè: Three Yorùbá Songs - Angélique Kidjo, The Hallé - The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester (Photo: Sharyn Bellemakers/The Hallé)

Philip Glass: Days and Nights in Rochina; Ifè: Three Yorùbá Songs (UK première), Eleventh Symphony; Angélique Kidjo, The Hallé, conductor: Robert Ames; Bridgewater Hall, Manchester
Philip Glass: Águas da Amazônia, Glassworks; musicians from the Hallé and RNCM, conductor: Colin Currie; RNCM Concert Hall, Manchester
Philip Glass: LIFE: A Journey Through Time, arranged for orchestra by Michael Riesman; Concepts/images: Frans Lanting, visual choreography/technical direction: Alexander V. Nichols, life project editing: Christine Eckstrom, introduction narrated by Peter Coyote, conductor: Colin Currie; Bridgewater Hall, Manchester
Reviewed by Tony Cooper (13-15 February 2025)

Philip Glass’ music is instantly recognizable with its pulsating rhythms, hypnotic repetition and slowly shifting patterns of notes. His music seems to fit somewhere between classical and rock intricately constructed and filled with familiar chords punctuated by clean-cut electronic sounds

The opening concert of this valued Philip Glass Festival, on 13 February 2025, presented by the Hallé in collaboration with the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM), fell to Days and Nights in Rocinha (subtitled ‘Dance for Orchestra for Dennis Russell Davies’) offering a fitting tribute to the poor and deprived Rio de Janeiro neighborhood of Rocinha located between Gávea, São Conrado and Vidigal. The proximity between the upper-class residences of the first two mentioned and the lower-class residences of Rocinha marks a profound urban contrast in the region's landscape, often cited as a symbol of social inequality in Brazil.

Receiving its first performance on 8 February 1998 by Radio Symphonie Orchester Wien (also the commissioning body) conducted by Dennis Russell Davies, Days and Nights in Rocinha focuses upon the neighborhood’s annual Carnival of fun, food and music - one of the highlights of their cultural calendar.

Philip Glass made frequent visits to Rocinha leading up to the Carnival thoroughly enjoying the event’s unique development therefore his musical impression and tribute to this eponymous favela evolves over a 23-minute work with the strings capturing so well the Latin-flavoured atmosphere of what is a sophisticated, gentle and intricate work so lovingly punctuated by the relaxing, pulsating and melodic opening bars as Glass gives a big nod to Ravel’s haunting, mystical and well-loved work, Bolero.

Here the percussion section adds so much to the drama and the overall excitement of the piece while the brass section particularly the bass slide trombone and bass tuba had quite a say in the matter while a host of excited xylophone runs were complemented by timpani, snare drum (and other ‘knocking’ instruments of all shapes and sizes) adding greatly to the intricacies and texture of the score overall while highlighting the fun and temperament of this Carnival-inspired work.

Philip Glass Festival - The Hallé, Robert Ames - The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester (Photo: Sharyn Bellemakers/The Hallé)

The second work in this thrilling opening concert of the Philip Glass Festival at Bridgewater Hall introduced an enthusiastic and appreciative house to the UK première of Ifè: Three Yorùbá Songs commissioned and premièred by Philharmonie Luxembourg and Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg on 17 January 2014 conducted by Jonathan Stockhammer.

Reclaiming Love: An Alternative Valentines - Song in the City's contribution to LGBT History Month including rare Smyth & Grieg plus Brahms' Love Song Waltzes

Reclaiming Love: An Alternative Valentines - Britten, Grieg, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Cole Porter, RVW, Brahms; Song in the City, Sam Cobb, Charlie Morris, Jonathan Hanley, Thomas Litchev, Gavin Roberts, Anna Reiley; St Giles Cripplegate
14 February 2025

Billed as an alternative Valentines, we had an engaging selection of songs as the performers shared what love meant to them, including rare Smyth and Grieg, ending with a satisfying account of Brahms' Love Song Waltzes in Neil Jenkins' fine new translation

As its contribution to LGBT History Month, Song in the City presented Reclaiming Love: An Alternative Valentines at St Giles Cripplegate on Friday 14 February 2025, when soprano Sam Cobb, alto Charlie Morris, tenor Jonathan Hanley, baritone Thomas Litchev and pianist Gavin Roberts (artistic director of Song in the City) performed a selection of songs chosen by the performers that share what 'love' meant to them including Britten's Tell me the truth about love, Grieg's Elsk (from Haugtussa), Ethel Smyth's Possession, Mendelssohn's Ich wollt' meiner lieb' ergösse and Nachtlied, Schumann's In der Nacht (from Spanisches Liederspiel), Cole Porter's In the still of the night, Britten's Canticle I: My beloved in mine and RVW's It was a lover and his lass, then the performers were joined by pianist Anna Reiley for Brahms' Love Song Waltzes (Liebeslieder Waltzer) in a new English translation by Neil Jenkins.

An enormously intense, personal experience: composer Michael Zev Gordon on writing A Kind of Haunting, his new piece inspired by his family's experience of the Holocaust

Michael Zev Gordon at site of his grandfather's murder in Summer 1941 (image from DW video).

Any human calamity raises thoughts about how such events might be referred to in music, and how an essentially abstract art might relate to such acts. And when we are talking about something like the Holocaust then the rational mind rather quails. The subject is difficult for those of us for whom the event is history but is rendered all the more complex when family ties link directly. On 25 March 2025, the Britten Sinfonia will premiere Michael Zev Gordon's A Kind of Haunting, a work which arose directly out of Michael's family's experience of the Holocaust.

The work is a large-scale piece for two narrators, baritone and string orchestra which uses words both by leading Holocaust memory scholar Marianne Hirsch and poet Jacqueline Saphra. Michael describes it as a somewhat hybrid piece for the relatively unusual combination of spoken word, sung word and music and he comments that the work's predecessors are rare. Prime amongst these must be Schoenberg's 1948 work, A Survivor from Warsaw and Copland's Lincoln Portrait (from 1942), along with such works as Walton's Facade and Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale. However, Michael adds that the combination of spoken and sung texts is relatively unusual. Michael chose the form because he wanted to come at the subject in a layered way.

He admits that he has thought of addressing the Holocaust in music in the past but has each time put the work to one side, finding it difficult if not impossible. He was drawn to it again thanks to his family's own story. His Grandmother's memoir, written in Yiddish, opened the door to his present approach to the Holocaust. His grandfather, Zalman, was killed in a forest north-east of Warsaw, one of the approximately 1.5 million Jews killed during the operation often called the 'Holocaust by Bullets'. This provided a way to think about the Holocaust more directly, allowing Michael to trace more of what happened to his Grandfather.

Image of Michael Zev Gordon's Grandfather, Zalman & memorial to those killed in the forest

Music in the Museum: London Transport Museum's Transported by Culture: Music presents a weekly programme of music in the museum's gallery

Starting today (14 February 2025) and running until 24 October 2025, the London Transport Museum's Transported by Culture: Music presents a weekly programme of music in the museum's gallery at 2pm every Friday, apart from holidays. The young musicians are from four London conservatoires: Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Royal Academy of Music, Royal College of Music, or Trinity Laban and the programme has been developed to equip young classical and jazz musicians at the start of their careers with real-world performance experience.

The performers are as follows:

• Uruguayan countertenor Agustín Pennino 
• Harpist Aisha Palmer who has performed with orchestras such as the London Symphony Orchestra and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
• Mezzo-soprano Angelina Dorlin-Barlow who studies at the Royal College of Music was awarded Best Undergraduate Vocal Performance at the Brooks Van Der Pump English Song Competition 2021 and the Poppy Holden Prize for Vocal 2023
• Caribbean-British oboist Anton Brown who is studying at the Royal Academy of Music and is the principal oboist of the Chineke! Junior Orchestra
• London-based cellist Jayden Lamcellari who has earned top prizes in an array of international competitions
• Violinist Jordan Brooks from South Africa who is studying at the Royal College of Music
• The Juno Duo, a British-Ukrainian voice and guitar chamber ensemble formed by Isabella Hulbert and Maryna Vosmirova, selected as Young Artists of the ‘International Guitar Foundation’ for 2023-2024
• Polish flautist Justyna Szynkarczyk, studying at the Guildhall School. She made her debut at BBC Radio 3 performing Maderna's works as part of The BBC SO Total Immersion "Italian Radicals" concert
• Oskar Jones, a London-based musician who both jazz saxophone and classical piano from a young age
• Azerbaijani pianist, Vusala Babayeva studying at the Guildhall School with Alexandra Dariescu

Full details from the Museum's website.

Make some noise to save the School of Music: Musicians gather in mass demonstration to protest proposed axing of Cardiff University’s School of Music on Saturday 22 February

Last month (28 January), Cardiff University confirmed plans to close Cardiff University School of Music, a facility that has produced outstanding musicians, boasting a wealth of alumni, including lWelsh composers Karl Jenkins, Grace Williams and Alun Hoddinott, as well as contemporary composer David John Roche and current Head of Composition at Royal Academy of Music, Philip Cashian. 

The School also hosts a number of well-known academics, including the composer Arlene Sierra, researcher and Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres awardee Caroline Rae, and concert pianist Kenneth Hamilton. The School of Music consistently ranks as one of the highest performing schools in the university with particularly high student satisfaction.

On Saturday 22 February, musicians from across the country, including past and current staff and students from Cardiff University’s School of Music as well as concerned musicians from across the sector, will gather in a musical protest against proposed course closures, job losses and cuts. Musicians will play in solidarity for the staff and students at the institution, who face the loss of a secure place for work, study and education. 

The demonstration will see concerned musicians, students and alumni gather from 12pm outside the University of Cardiff Chemistry Building before marching up Museum Avenue to Gorsedd Gardens where the performance will continue to the public. There will be performances by the specially formed, Cardiff University Salvation Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, conducted by a talented line-up of conductors, as well as Cardiff University Brass Band and other ensembles who will gather for the occasion with repertoire championing Welsh music making, featuring Cardiff University alumnus Karl Jenkins’ Adiemus and Palladio, as well as alumna Morfydd Owen’s Threnody, plus Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, the ‘Hallelujah chorus’ from Handel’s Messiah, and the Welsh national anthem   

Any musicians wishing to attend are requested to register their interest on the Google form provided https://forms.gle/YdY5TwA9ubGRj74e7 to allow sheet music and information about the performances to be circulated.

We also encourage readers to sign the original change.org petition: https://www.change.org/p/save-cardiff-university-school-of-music

And recent petition to the Senedd: https://petitions.senedd.wales/petitions/246499