In search of Louis Spohr: WDR Chamber Players record six discs of Spohr's string chamber music for Pentatone

Carl Heinrich Arnold (1793-1874) - String quartet in the Spohr house, c. 1840
CC BY-NC-SA © Internationale Louis Spohr Gesellschaft e.V., Spohr Museum Kassel

Two years older than Weber, as a violin virtuoso hailed as a "German Paganini", a pioneer in the use of the conductor’s baton and an important figure in the transition from Classical to Romantic music, Louis Spohr wrote ten symphonies, ten operas, 18 violin concertos and much else besides. 

Yet his reputation has never really risen following his death in 1859 when he was seen as a representative of the old order rather than a precursor of the new. The Neue Berliner Musikzeitung called Spohr "the last representative of that noble school whose roots reached deep into classical soil." 

His opera Faust, which is not actually based on Goethe but on Faust plays and poems by Friedrich Maximilian Klinger and Heinrich von Kleist, is an important work in German Romantic opera. It premiered in 1816 in Prague with Weber conducting, five years before Weber's Der Freischutz, and Meyerbeer conducted it in Berlin the same year. In 1851 Spohr turned it from singspiel into grand opera. Yet for all the work's importance, when it was staged in Bielefeld in 1993, it was probably the work's first staging since 1931!

Spohr remains best know for his Nonet, not so much because it is played frequently as because it became iconic, the precursor of many such works by other composers. Spohr's chamber music was often written for his own performance and there is a significant amount of it, including 36 string quartets! 

Now, having explored Brahms' string quintets and sextets, the WDR Chamber Players (all members of the WDR Sinfonie Orchester) have returned to Pentatone for The Romantic Room: Chamber Works by Louis Spohr. This expansive, six-disc set features Spohr's four double string quartets, seven string quintets and string sextet. The music spans Spohr's career, his first quintet dates from 1814 whilst they spread to 1850. His sextet dates from the revolutionary year of 1848, and in a brief note in his personal catalogue he refers to the work as "Written in March and April during the glorious people’s revolution for the revival of Germany’s freedom, unity, and greatness."

Full details on the Pentatone label. Happy exploring.

BBC Proms - Classics, bon-bons and an engagingly fresh account of an enduring masterpiece, Nil Venditti conducts BBC National Orchestra of Wales

Great British Classics - BBC Singers, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Nil Venditti - BBC Proms 2025 (Photo: BBC / Chris Christodoulou)

Great British Classics: Walton, Vaughan Williams, Coleridge-Taylor, Britten, William Mathias, John Rutter, Avril Coleridge-Taylor, Grace Williams, Elgar; Liya Petrova, BBC Singers, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Nil Venditti; BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall
Reviewed 5 August 2025

The Italian-Turkish conductor mixed establish classics with varied bon-bons including John Rutter's 80th birthday commission and ending with an engagingly fresh account of Elgar's enduring masterpiece

Tuesday 5 August's concert at the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall was billed as Great British Classics. True, Nil Venditti did conduct the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in Walton's Crown Imperial, Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending (with violinist Liya Petrova), Britten's Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes and Elgar's Enigma Variations but someone had been rooting around in the library cupboards and so these works were shaken up with a selection of lesser-known bon-bons in the manner of a pre-War programmes. It was a very Proms programme too, mixing a cappella music from the BBC Singers with full orchestra in a way that few promoters could afford. But it meant that we heard part-songs by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and his daughter, Avril Coleridge Taylor, along with William Mathias' Dance Overture, Grace Williams' Elegy for Strings and the premiere of a BBC commission, John Rutter's Bird Songs.

Italian-Turkish conductor Nil Venditti was appointed principal guest conductor of the Royal Northern Sinfonia last September and she seems to be developing a relationship with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, giving seven concerts with them during their 2025/26 season.

We began with Walton's Coronation March 'Crown Imperial' which was written for the 1936 Coronation and gave the first glimpse of a rather different Walton to his earlier music. Here we heard it in Vilem Tausky's reduced orchestration (which still included double woodwind, five horns, three trumpets and three trombones). Venditti's approach was brisk, it opened full of impetus and energy enlivened by crisp rhythms with the noble second subject rather flowing and youthful in feel. Hardly Imperial at all.

Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending - Liya Petrova, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Nil Venditti - BBC Proms 2025 (Photo: BBC / Chris Christodoulou)

Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending was completed in 1914 and premiered in 1920, so it should not surprise us that the work's pastoral melancholy goes far beyond the George Meredith poem that inspired it. Soloist Liya Petrova made the violin's opening slow, meditative and thoughtful. The strings were impressively hushed when joining her, and there was a mysterious melancholy to the piece. Throughout Venditti avoided hints of folk rumbustiousness, the faster section was only just perky and the closing pages returned to the meditative feel.

Lammermuir Festival 2025: Laura van der Heijden in residence, complete Ravel piano music, Walton/Ravel opera double bill

This year's Lammermuir Festival runs from 4 to 15 September 2025, your chance to hear some of the world’s finest musicians in the historic venues and stunning landscape of East Lothian The festival's artist in residence this year is cellist Laura van der Heijden, with six appearances as both soloist and ensemble musician across the 12 days. Among her appearances are a recital with Jâms Coleman, a chamber programme with the Maxwell Quartet ranging from Schubert’s C major quintet to Gaelic psalms of the western isles of Scotland; a programme of dances and duos with friends which includes the Hungarian cimbalom in a journey through folk, jazz, baroque and contemporary music; and as soloist alongside Maria Włoszczowska in Brahms’s Double Concerto for Violin and Cello with Royal Northern Sinfonia.

I Fagiolini will also be in residence with performances of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610. A regular visitor to the festival is Scottish Opera and this year they bring an intriguing double bill of two contrasting comedies, Ravel's L'heure espagnole and Walton's The Bear, the one featuring a married woman keen to explore pastures new and the other featuring a widow who is anything but keen.

Continuing the themes of Ravel and Monteverdi, Rinaldo Alessandrini and Concerto Italiano will be performing music from Monteverdi 7th Book of Madrigals alongside Barbara Strozzi and others, whilst French pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet performs Ravel's complete piano works and tenor Joshua Ellicott explores Ravel’s influence on song. In addition to Ravel's 150th, this year is the centenary of both Berio and Boulez, and Scotland’s Hebrides Ensemble will be celebrating both.

Other complete cycles at the festival include the Van Baerle Trio, who return after last year’s successful debut, to play all of Brahms’s piano trios, and the Dudok Quartet Amsterdam bring all of Tchaikovsky’s quartets. The Kaleidoscope chamber ensemble perform two concerts ranging from Brahms and Bartok, to Duruflé and Poulenc.

Scottish composer Stuart MacRae’s atmospheric, folk-influenced song cycle Earth Thy Cold is Keen will be performed by mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean. And there is a chance to experience three events at Robert Adam's Gosford house, with The Lammermuir Basset Horn Ensemble, a lecture recital on the house's incredibly rare instrument the Claviorganum which combines the harpsichord and organ in one; and finishing with a recorder recital from Tabea Debus in the Saloon.

This year’s festival includes two children’s concerts. Flock from Red Note Ensemble in Musselburgh opens with a sonically and visually captivating musical performance, gently encouraging children to become more involved until, through their collective effort, a chirping flock comes into being. Saint-Saens' is Carnival of the Animals features Roger McGough and NYCOS National Girls Choir in Dunbar. 

After a successful pilot in 2024, Lammermuir Festival builds on Front Row to offer even more 12 – 18 year olds opportunities to attend rehearsals, meet artists and enjoy the best free front row seats. Free tickets are also available for school students attending certain concerts with an adult. 

There is a lot more besides. A trip to the festival offers the possibility of an action packed few days with nearl 40 events on offer. Full details from the festival's website.

Bayreuth Festival: Thorliefur Örn Arnarsson’s interpretation of 'Tristan und Isolde' is a well-planned and thoughtful affair.

Wagner: Tristan und Isolde (Act 1) - Ekaterina Gubanova (Brangäne), Andreas Schager (Tristan), Jordan Shanahan (Kurwenal), Camilla Nylund (Isolde), Günther Groissböck (Marke) - Bayreuth Festival, 2025 (Photo: Bayreuther Festspiele / Enrico Nawrath)

Wagner: Tristan und Isolde: Andreas Schager, Günther Groissböck, Camilla Nylund, Jordan Shanahan, Alexander Grassauer, Ekaterina Gubanova; dir: Thorliefur Örn Arnarsson, cond: Semyon Bychkov; Bayreuth Festival
Reviewed by Tony Cooper, 3 August 2025 

A fine deuce! Camilla Nylund and Andreas Schager shine in the roles of Tristan and Isolde at the Bayreuth Festival

Based largely on the 12th-century romance, Tristan and Iseult, by Gottfried von Strassburg, Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde - widely regarded as the greatest paean to pure erotic love recalling the legendary days of King Arthur - is notable for the composer’s unprecedented use of chromaticism, tonal ambiguity, orchestral colour and harmonic suspension. Wagner’s inspiration for writing it was greatly influenced by the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer as well as by his love affair with Mathilde Wesendonck, the wife of the successful silk merchant, Otto Wesendonck.

While Wagner was working on Der Ring des Nibelungen he was intrigued by the legend of Tristan and Isolde, a tragic tale of forbidden love between Tristan, a Cornish knight and sea captain, and Isolde, an Irish princess. The scenario follows Tristan’s voyage to Ireland returning with Isolde to marry his uncle King Marke of Cornwall against her will. On their journey, Tristan and Isolde consume a love potion - being a daughter of a witch, I guess Isolde was used to potions and suchlike - which ultimately leads to an uncontrollable and passionate love affair leading to tragedy.

Wagner: Tristan und Isolde (Act 2) - Andreas Schager (Tristan), Camilla Nylund (Isolde) - Bayreuth Festival, 2025 (Photo: Bayreuther Festspiele / Enrico Nawrath)

The opera proved difficult to bring to the stage. Lots do, of course. Alois Ander, employed to sing Tristan, proved incapable of learning the part while parallel attempts to stage it in Dresden, Weimar and Prague came to nothing winning the opera a reputation as unperformable. Even the planned première on 15 May 1865 had to be postponed until Malvina Schnorr von Carolsfeld had recovered from a throat infection. The opera finally received it première on 10 June 1865 at the Königliches Hoftheater und Nationaltheater, Munich, with Hans von Bülow conducting and Malvina’s husband, Ludwig, partnering her as Tristan.

Having sung the role only four times, Ludwig died suddenly prompting speculation that the exertion involved in singing the part of Tristan had killed him. The stress of performing Tristan may have also claimed the lives of conductors Felix Mottl in 1911 and Joseph Keilberth in 1968. Both men died after collapsing while conducting the second act which, incidentally, Wagner finished at his home in Venice at Palazzo Giustinian overlooking the Grand Canal.

Eventually, Tristan found ground and was enormously influential to such distinguished composers as Alban Berg, Gustav Mahler, Arnold Schoenberg, Richard Strauss and, indeed, Benjamin Britten. In fact, during the playing of the Prelude, my thoughts wandered and caught up with the opening scene of Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier.

Enjoying 32 productions at Bayreuth between 1886 and 2022, this current production of Tristan, which first saw the light of day at last year’s festival thereby marking the 149th anniversary of its world première, fell to Icelandic-born director, Thorliefur Örn Arnarsson, making his début on the Green Hill.

So, too, is Lithuanian set designer and visual artist, Vytautas Narbutas, who created three impressive and imaginative sets fitting so well the overall scenario of such a fine and intriguing production. The conductor for this revival was Semyon Bychkov.

Puccini's final version of La Rondine, a recital from Simon Boccanegra and Donizetti Songs: Opera Rara's 2025/26 season

Ermonela Jaho & Carlo Rizzi recording Donizetti for Opera Rara (Photo: Russell Duncan)

By and large, Puccini's operas do not have complex musicological issues surrounding them. He made substantial revisions to Madama Butterfly, but the final version has largely been adopted as the most satisfactory. However, the composer never quite seemed to settle on La Rondine, his attempt at creating a lighter opera. The opera premiered in 1917 with a second version in 1920, before Puccini had another go in 1921. This third version involved a new scene in Act Three. This was the version Puccini was most satisfied with, unfortunately parts and score were damaged in the war.

In 1994, the final act from this version was performed in Turin with the orchestration restored by Italian composer Lorenzo Ferrero, alongside the original versions of the first two acts but the 1921 has never been performed complete since the 1920s. Now Opera Rara plans to perform the 1921 version of La Rondine as part of its 2025/26 season.

Carlo Rizzi will conduct the BBC Symphony Orchestra with Ermonela Jaho, Iván Ayón-Rivas, Nicola Alaimo, Ellie Neate and Juan Francisco Gatell with a concert performance on 5 December 2025 at the Barbican Centre, and the opera will be recorded in the studio a week before, for release in autumn 2026.

Also as part of Opera Rara's 2025/26 season, they will be releasing the fifth and sixth volumes in its Donizetti Song Project, featuring 18 songs in Italian and 19 songs in French performed by Ermonela Jaho and Carlo Rizzi. Jaho and Rizzi performed a selection of the Italian songs at the Wigmore Hall in May 2024 as part of Opera Rara’s Donizetti & Friends London concert series, which launched in September 2023. 

On 10 October, Opera Rara launches its 55th season Salon Series at Temple Music Foundation with Germán Enrique Alcántara who sang the title role in its most recent revival of the 1857 version of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra.

Full details from Opera Rara's website.

All-consuming: Kateřina Kněžíková's account of the title role lights up Damiano Michieletto's overly conceptual production of Janáček's Káťa Kabanová at Glyndebourne

Janáček: Káťa Kabanová - Kateřina Kněžíková - Glyndeburne (Photo: Richard Hubert Smith)

Janáček: Káťa Kabanová; Kateřina Kněžíková, Nicky Spence, Rachael Wilson, Sam Furness, Susan Bickley, John Tomlinson, director: Damiano Michieletto/Eleanora Gravagnola, London Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor: Robin Ticciati; Glyndebourne Opera
Reviewed 3 August 2025

For all the ideas that director Damiano Michieletto threw at the work, it was in the pit and in the singing that the real drama happened, centred on an all-consuming performance from Kateřina Kněžíková in the title role

From the late 1980s onwards, productions of Janáček's works at Glyndebourne were associated with the director Nikolaus Lehnhoff but this changed in 2021 when Damiano Michieletto directed a new production of Janáček's Káťa Kabanová. On 3 August 2025 the production returned to Glyndebourne for its first revival, with Eleonora Gravagnola as revival director. Robin Ticciati conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra with Kateřina Kněžíková returning to the title role, plus Sam Furness as Kudrjáš, Sarah Pring as Glaša, John Tomlinson as Dikoj, Nicky Spence as Boris, Rachel Roper as Fekluša, Susan Bickley as Kabanicha, Jaroslav Březina as Tichon, Rachael Wilson as Varvara, and Charles Cunliffe as Kuligin. Designs were by Paolo Fantin and costumes by Carla Teti.

I never saw the 2021 production, but it seems to have undergone some adjustment in the intervening years. Gone are the dancers and the choreographer, whilst the angel that haunts the stage has changed from man to woman with a significant costume change.

Detect Classic Festival 2025: Exploring 'The Meaning of Live' Music in a Digital Age

Tucked away in the rural quiet of northern Germany, Detect Classic Festival has, over the past few years, established itself as one of the most distinctive events on the European classical music scene. Set against the backdrop of Schloss Bröllin, a 13th-century estate near the German/Polish border hosting artist residencies, the festival brings together contemporary classical, experimental, electronic, and improvised music in a setting that feels as much like a collective experiment as a traditional festival. 

What sets Detect Classic Festival apart isn’t just its genre-fluid line-up or the unconventional performances staged in barns and former stables, it’s the sense of curiosity that runs through everything. Big names appear alongside upcoming artists. Unexpected collaborations unfold. Audiences are encouraged not to consume passively, but to explore, to listen closely, and to be surprised. This year’s edition, taking place August 8-10, revolves around a theme that feels especially timely: The Meaning of Live. In a culture where nearly everything is streamed, captured, and shared, what do we really mean when we talk about live music? What value does it still hold for creators, for listeners, and for our collective cultural life?

To find out more about the ideas driving this year’s edition, we spoke with the festival’s founder, Konstantin Udert, about how Detect Classic Festival began, what it’s become, and why the question of what it means to truly experience music in real time has never felt more urgent.

Detect Classic Festival has developed a unique identity over the years. What originally sparked the idea, and what gaps in the cultural landscape were you hoping to fill when you first created it?

We were fortunate that two things happened at the same time. Firstly, the junge norddeutsche philharmonie was looking at ways of better reaching the orchestra musicians' friends and family as concertgoers. Between 19 and 27 years of age, the orchestra musicians are significantly younger than the average classical concertgoer. Secondly, a Berlin cultural collective had begun to integrate classical music into events and was fascinated by the idea of experiencing a large orchestra at a festival weekend or rave. So it all started with the search for a new audience and artistic interest. These intentions still drive us today!

What makes the setting of Schloss Bröllin so special for the festival?

BBC Proms: Arvo Pärt at 90

Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Tõnu Kaljuste - BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall (Photo: BBC/Chris Christodoulou)

Arvo Pärt, Galina Grigorjeva, Rachmaninov, Bach, Veljo Tormis; Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Tõnu Kaljuste, Kadri Toomoja; BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall
Reviewed 31 July 2025

An iconic Estonian ensemble celebrating the great Estonian composer's 90th birthday with a wide-ranging programme of his music alongside that of contemporaries and influences.

This year Arvo Pärt is 90 and everyone is celebrating. At the BBC Proms, rather than including one of the composer's larger scale works, the focus of the celebrations was a visit by the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir which has had a long association with the composer's music. I have heard the choir live before, in Tallinn, performing in the relatively grateful acoustics of a former church [see my review] and the large hall of Kultuurikatel (Cultural Cauldron), a former industrial building [see my review], whilst in 2018 as part of Estonia's centenary celebrations they performed at the Barbican [see our review]. The vast spaces of the Royal Albert Hall are, perhaps, a less sympathetic arena but there is no doubt that an invitation to perform Arvo Pärt at such an iconic venue as part of the BBC Proms was a significant moment.

At the late night Prom on Thursday 31 July 2025, Tõnu Kaljuste conducted the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, with Kadri Toomoja organ, in Arvo Pärt's Da pacem Domine, Veni creator, Magnificat, The Deer's Cry, Fur Jan van Eyck, Peace upon you, Jerusalem and De Profunds, along with Galina Grigorjeva's Svyatki - 'Spring is Coming', two movements from Rachmaninov's All-Night Vigil (Vespers), Bach's motet Ich lasse dich nicht, and Curse upon Iron by Veljo Tormis who would have been 95 this year.

Veljo Tormis: Curse upon Iron - Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Tõnu Kaljuste - BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall (Photo: BBC/Chris Christodoulou)

In the Royal Albert Hall there was less sense of the choir's vibrant tone quality that you can appreciate in smaller venues, but throughout the evening there was an impressive strength to the performance, a muscular quality to set against the English style of Arvo Pärt choral singing. Though it is worth bearing in mind that the choir fielded around 27 singers. The BBC producers had obviously decided that as this was a late-night concert of Baltic minimalism, we ought to have a light show too. The pictures here do not quite do justice to the rather lurid light effects that accompanied some of the music.