Youthful tragedy and transcendental mystery: Riccardo Muti & Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in Schubert & Bruckner at Salzburg Festival

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Riccardo Muti - Grosses Festspielhaus, Salzburg Festival (Photo: SF/Marco Borelli)

Schubert: Symphony No. 4 'Tragic', Bruckner: Mass in F minor; Ying Fang, Wiebke Lehmkuhl, Pavol Breslik, William Thomas, Konzertvereinignung Wiener Staatopenchor, Wiener Philharmoniker, Riccardo Muti; Salzburg Festival at Grosses Festspielhaus, Salzburg
Reviewed 15 August 2025

Under veteran conductor Riccardo Muti's deft direction the Vienna Philharmonic were on form in large scale symphonic accounts of a youthful Schubert symphony and one of Bruckner's great masses

For the Vienna Philharmonic's concert at the Salzburg Festival on the morning of 15 August (the Feast of the Assumption) they were conducted by the apparently ageless (he is 84) Riccardo Muti in Schubert's Symphony No. 4 in C minor 'Tragic' and Bruckner's Mass in F minor with soloists Ying Fang, Wiebke Lehmkuhl, Pavol Breslik, William Thomas, and the Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus.

There is some 50 years between the two works. Schubert's symphony was written in 1816 (the composer was a mere 19) for a good amateur orchestra yet not highly regarded by the composer and apparently unperformed until ten years after his death. Bruckner's mass was written in 1867/68 for Linz but the conductor found the mass too long and unsingable and it had to wait until 1872 for its premiere. Both are works probably written for relatively compact forces yet both have what we might term symphonic aspirations and Riccardo Muti's large-scale approach in both reaped dividends.

Bruckner: Mass in F minor - Ying Fang, Wiebke Lehmkuhl, Pavol Breslik, William Thomas, Concert association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Riccardo Muti - Grosses Festspielhaus, Salzburg Festival (Photo: SF/Marco Borelli)

Strange & intriguing: Dmitri Tcherniakov directs his first Baroque opera with Handel's Giulio Cesare in Salzburg

Handel: Giulio Cesare in Egitto - Robert Raso (Curio), Lucile Richardot (Cornelia), Yuriy Mynenko (Tolomeo), Andrey Zhilikhovsky (Achilla) - Salzburg Festival (Photo: SF/Monika Rittershaus)

Handel: Giulio Cesare in Egitto: Christophe Dumaux, Olga Kulchynska, Lucile Richardot, Federico Fiorio, Yuriy Mynenko, Andrey Zhilikhovsky, director: Dmitri Tcherniakov, Le Concert d'Astrée, Emmanuelle Haïm; Salzburg Festival at Haus für Mozart
Reviewed 14 August 2025

Despite Dmitri Tcherniakov's updating of the drama, there was something weirdly compelling about the performance. The cast really convinced you that these people mattered, that we needed to watch their drama.

Asking Dmitri Tcherniakov to direct Handel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto, the director's first Baroque opera, was never going to produce a straightforward piece of music theatre. But that is what festivals are for, to push boundaries and to create events not possible in the regular theatrical mill. Salzburg Festival did just that, and Tcherniakov's take on Handelian Opera Seria is a big feature of this year's festival.

I caught the penultimate performance of Handel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto on 14 August 2025 at the Haus für Mozart as part of the Salzburg Festival. Dmitri Tcherniakov directed and designed the sets, with costumes by Elena Zaytseva, and Emmanuelle Haïm conducted Le Concert d'Astrée. Christophe Dumaux was Cesare with Olga Kulchynska as Cleopatra, Lucile Richardot as Cornelia, Federico Fiorio as Sesti, Yuriy Mynenko as Tolomeo, and Andrey Zhilikhovsky as Achilla.

In an interview in the programme book Tcherniakov commented that 'At first, it [Baroque Opera] left me baffled', going on to add, 'how to make the characters feel alive when all I have were about forty exquisite arias - and little else'.

His solution was to place the action in the present, after an apocalyptic event. The evening began with warning sirens and the events unfolded in a nuclear bunker. The chorus (sung by Bachchor Salzburg) was an invisible presence, singing from the balcony and playing no part in the stage action, leading you to wonder, did they even exist in Tcherniakov's revised scenario.

His fixed set presented three areas, one colonised by Cesare and Curio, another by Cornelia and Sesto and a third by the Egyptians. For much of Act One, the entire cast was present all the time, gone was the concept of the Exit Aria. At times it felt like Tcherniakov had been watching too many Katie Mitchell productions; he gave us two other visual contexts to compete with the main aria. For instance, towards the end of Act One, this meant Lucile Richardot's Cornelia and Federico Fiorio's Sesto having to compete with Christophe Dumaux (Cesare) stripping down to his underpants before retiring to bed!

Handel: Giulio Cesare in Egitto - Christophe Dumaux (Giulio Cesare), Federico Fiorio (Sesto), Lucile Richardot (Cornelia), Andrey Zhilikhovsky (Achilla), Olga Kulchynska (Cleopatra), plus Rene Keller as Pompeo - Salzburg Festival (Photo: SF/Monika Rittershaus)

What this did was enable Tcherniakov to recontextualise arias by having different characters present and reacting to the singer, thus creating a more complex web of inference and influence. When Olga Kulchynska's Cleopatra told Yuriy Mynenko's Tolomeo about the Roman's reception of Pompeo's head (here his full body), Tolomeo already knew this but Tcherniakov made it clear this was all part of the siblings' games with each other. Two lesser-known arias for Cesare and Cleopatra in Act One acted as an extension of their wooing. This recontextualisation got more problematic in Act Two when Yuriy Mynenko's Tolomeo ordered the arrest of Cornelia and Sesto, with Cornelia to be put into the harem, though by this point in the opera we had come to suspect that Yuriy Mynenko's Tolomeo may have been somewhat delusional.

The perspicacious amongst you will have realised that with this scenario Dmitri Tcherniakov rather dug himself into a hold when it came to Act Three.

Award-winning Michael Morpurgo-based animated film, Kensuke’s Kingdom with score by Stuart Hancock now on BBC iPlayer

The animated feature film Kensuke’s Kingdom had its British network TV premiere earlier this month on Sunday, 3 August on BBC One, which means that it is now available on BBC iPlayer until next year!

Adapted from the Michael Morpurgo novel of the same name the film was part of the BBC’s programming to mark the 80th anniversaries of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with the latter featuring in the backstory of the old Japanese soldier Kensuke (voiced by Ken Watanabe).  

It is a stunning hand-drawn animated adventure from Lupus Films, directed by Neil Boyle and Kirk Hendry, also starring the voice talents of Sally Hawkins, Cillian Murphy, Raffey Cassidy and Aaron Macgregor.

Most notably, the film features a terrific symphonic score by Stuart Hancock, and the score picked up 15 awards , including at last year’s British Animation Awards and International Music+Sound Awards.  And the IMFCA (International Film Music Critics Association) voted it one of the Top 5 Scores of the Year across all new film and television productions in 2024. 

Looking ahead, Hancock is composing the music scores for two contrasting new feature films: the sci-fi adventure Stargazers for director Jonathan Brooks, and the action film Bad Day at the Office, starring John Hannah and Radha Mitchell, for director Chee Keong Cheung.  The short films Largo and A Friend of Dorothy, featuring his scores, are now playing festivals so keep your eye out for them.

Kensuke's Kingdom is available on BBC iPlayer.

Violinist Zoë Beyers to replace Jacqueline Shave and Thomas Gould as Leader of Britten Sinfonia

Zoë Beyers leads Britten Sinfonia at Westminster Abbey (Photo: Shoël Stadlen)

Britten Sinfonia has announced that violinist Zoë Beyers is to become the orchestra’s new Leader. She will replace Jacqueline Shave and Thomas Gould, who shared this role for over a decade. Beyers’ association with Britten Sinfonia began over 20 years ago, when she was a frequent guest in then-leader Jacqueline Shave’s first violin section. In the past year, she has worked regularly with the orchestra as Leader and Director notably in a Westminster Abbey concert that featured her as soloist in Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending.

Her first concerts as Leader take place this August at the BBC Proms in Bristol Beacon (23 August) and Snape Maltings Concert Hall (27 August), where she will direct and lead Britten Sinfonia in music by Sibelius, Arvo Pärt, Gavin Higgins and Mozart. She then returns for several further performances in early 2026, before taking on the role fully for the 2026/7 season. In addition to her new post with Britten Sinfonia, she will continue to serve as Leader of the BBC Philharmonic.

Britten Sinfonia will also continue to collaborate with a range of guest directors, including Jacqueline Shave, who returns for a project with Jeneba Kanneh-Mason  this September, and Max Baillie with his ZRI Quintet next April. After 20 distinguished years with Britten Sinfonia, Thomas Gould will step down following concerts in October 2025.

Zoë Beyers commented: "I’m absolutely delighted to be joining Britten Sinfonia as Leader. I’ve felt a special affinity with this brilliant group of players since Jackie first introduced me to them when I was fresh out of music college. The orchestra’s adventurous spirit, dedication to new music and deep chamber music sensibility make it a very inspiring place to work. I’m really looking forward to this next chapter together."

Full details from Britten Sinfonia's website. 

 

Pianist Cyrill Ibrahim joins World Heart Beat Embassy Gardens as artist in residence

Cyrill Ibrahim

From September 2025, pianist Cyrill Ibrahim will be the new artist in residence at World Heart Beat Embassy Gardens. A firm believer in bringing classical music into the mainstream, Ibrahim will support World Heart Beat’s mission to make music accessible to all, enriching lives. He will be taking part in series of immersive performances in both the auditorium and communal café at World Heart Beat Embassy Gardens. He will also be taking part in masterclasses, mentoring and other engagement opportunities over the course of the year. Ibrahim will be joining existing artist in residence and patron, Julian Joseph, virtuoso pianist, bandleader, composer, arranger, broadcaster. 

On 26 September 2025, Ibrahim will be joining soprano Simona Mihai for Harmonie du Soir a recital in World Heart Beat’s Season of the Song concert series. The concert is inspired by Charles Baudelaire’s poem, Harmonie du Soir, published in his 1857 collection Les Fleurs du mal. The recital interweaves solo piano works by Liszt, Debussy, Philip Glass and two new commissions alongside Simona Mihai performing Liszt’s Tre sonetti di Petrarca.

World Heart Beat's Season of the Song runs from September until the end of December, and will be an inspiring and immersive concert season celebrating the human voice in all its expressive beauty—across opera, jazz, folk, world, and contemporary music.

Wandsworth-based World Heart Beat Music Academy was founded in 2009 to meet the need for affordable music education, from grassroots to professional level, for South Londoners, no matter what their age, background or skills, and known for its inclusive global music programmes, youth-led approach, and contribution to a more diverse and representative  music sector. In 2023, World Heart Beat opened World Heart Beat Embassy Gardens, a state-of-the-art digital music education and concert venue in Nine Elms, featuring a 200-capacity auditorium and industry-standard recording studio. 

Full details from World Heart Beat's website.

Celebrating Barbara Hepworth: a new violin concerto by Nick Martin with Tamsin Waley-Cohen & Manchester Camerata

Barbara Hepworth: Sphere with Inner Form, 1963, at the Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, the Netherlands

50 years after her death, a new violin concerto will be celebrating the life and legacy of sculptor Barbara Hepworth. Commissioned by Manchester Camerata, Nick Martin's Violin Concerto will be premiered at Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester with violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen as soloist on 4 September, with  further performances at The Hepworth, Wakefield on 5 September and at Kings Place, London on 18 September. The programme also features music by Mozart, Britten and the South African-British composer, Priaulx Rainier which celebrate themes of youth or have a connection to Hepworth herself.

Nick Martin is a composer based in Copenhagen. The concerto was inspired by Hepworth’s sculptures and addresses themes of tenderness, birth, heartache, family and friendship. Composed whilst staying in St Ives, Martin says, "A particular point of inspiration has been Barbara Hepworth’s Landscape Sculpture—a carved torso-sized, cradle-like form in elm with nine strings of fishing line. I found the number nine resonant, suggestive of the nine months of pregnancy".

Martin has a lifelong love of Hepworth’s work, having visited The Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden in St Ives as a child. The orchestra has a strong relationship with Nick Martin’s music. In 2023, it performed a version for strings of his Kolysanka written for Camerata and violinist Daniel Pioro. And last year, it performed an expanded version of Falling with another of its artistic partners, Kantos Chamber Choir.

Full details from the Manchester Camerata's website.

Glasgow Cathedral Festival: celebrating the city's 850th anniversary with a poetic imagining of the story of St. Enoch, mother of the city's founder

Evening concert at Glasgow Cathedral Festival 

Glasgow Cathedral Festival returns from 18–21 September 2025, for its ninth edition bringing life to Glasgow’s medieval cathedral with site-specific live music, film, theatre, art, talks and tours, and this year also celebrating the city's 850th anniversary.

This year’s festival draws together cultural and scientific influences across a range of art forms: from established classical music favourites to cutting-edge contemporary sounds, and intimate theatre to immersive, cult cinema.

Maiden Mother Mage brings a poetic reimagining of the legend of St Enoch to the imposing surroundings of the quire. St. Enoch is in fact a corruption of St. Teneu, a legendary Christian saint who was venerated in medieval Glasgow. Traditionally she was a sixth-century Brittonic princess the mother of Saint Mungo, apostle to the Britons of Strathclyde and founder of the city of Glas Ghu (Glasgow). She and her son are regarded as the city's co-patrons, and Glasgow's St Enoch Square allegedly marks the site of a medieval chapel dedicated to her, built on or near her grave. 

Created and directed by Rebecca Sharp, Maiden Mother Mage is the tale the exiled Brittonic princess which weaves dramatic verse performed by three Scottish actors with a live score by composer Alex South. The performance is supported with new iconography by artist Frances Law—presented as part of a multi-sensory exhibition crafted by Scottish community groups that will be displayed throughout the festival.

The festival's silent film series continues with Fritz Lang’s genre-defining Metropolis (1927) paired with the UK premiere of a live score for percussion by sisters Linda and Irene Buckley—presented in association with Cork International Film Festival. There will be opportunities to catch the film at both early evening and late-night screenings.  

Another film link sees organist Roger Sayer performing his arrangement of Hans Zimmer's score for the film Interstellar 10 on the cathedral's 140-year-old pipe organ. And the festival will feature the first complete performance of Roxanna Panufnik’s Cum Jubilo Organ Mass, performed as part of a vibrant and eclectic programme by organist Katelyn Emerson.

The Twilight in the Crypt programme offers moments of quiet listening and personal contemplation, as violinist Emma Lloyd presents a programme of new music exploring the expressive depths of her instrument, and artistic duo Ollie Hawker and Zoe Markle create atmospheric soundscapes with double bass and electronics.

There are free, daytime events. Joining forces once again with partners across the precinct, a free Thursday lunchtime performance by the acclaimed Resol Quartet is given in collaboration with the Friends of Glasgow Royal Infirmary Museum—featuring new works inspired by the hospital’s cultural and historic context. Free talks and tours also return in 2025, continuing the Glasgow 850 celebrations in collaboration with Glasgow Life, Historic Environment Scotland and St Mungo Museum.

Full details from the festival website.

Hearing Colour: classical music at the Royal Pavilion with a piano made for King George IV

A detail of A C Pugin’s drawing of the Entrance Hall, Brighton Pavilion c1821

English piano maker Thomas Tomkison (c1764-1853) made a succession of instruments for the Prince of Wales (later Prince Regent and then King George IV) from 1807. In 1821 he made a piano for the Brighton Pavilion. When the Pavilion was sold to Brighton in 1850, Queen Victoria stripped it of its contents which were taken to other royal palaces. Tomkison's piano seems to have been taken to Windsor, but was evidently sold. In 2017, Royal Pavilion & Museums bought the instrument back so that it could be displayed again in the Brighton Pavilion.

It is a handsome instrument, but not just something to look at. It has been restored and is played. On 26 September and 3 October there is a chance to hear the instrument in concert. In Hearing Colour – An Evening of Classical Music at the Royal Pavilion, the instrument will be played by Maggie Cole and she will be joined by cellist Sebastian Comberti performing on a fine 19th-century instrument. Together they will transport you to the elegance of the Regency era with works by Beethoven, Hummel, Schubert, Rossini, Diabelli and Eley. The evening will begin with Dr Alexandra Loske, who will explore the Pavilion’s remarkable connections between colour and music, revealing the creative spirit and tastes of the early nineteenth century.

Tomkison's 1821 piano in Royal Pavilion Music Room (Photo: Royal Pavilion & Museums)

Whilst the piano is normally displayed in the Entrance Hall, for the concert there is a chance to hear it in the gorgeous splendour of the Music Room. 

Full details from the Brighton Pavilion's website.

Going where no other company has dared: Green Opera gives the stage premiere of Joubert's Jane Eyre in a full-blooded performance at Grimeborn Festival

Joubert: Jane Eyre - Laura Mekhail (Jane) - Green Opera at Grimeborn Festival, Arcola Theatre - (Photo: Camilla Greenwell)

John Joubert: Jane Eyre; Laura Mekhail, Hector Bloggs, Lawrence Thackeray, Alexander Semple, director Eleanor Burke, conductor Kenneth Woods, Green Opera; Grimeborn Festival at Arcola Theatre
Reviewed 8 August 2025

Amazingly, the stage premiere of Joubert's final opera, a work which has tantalised for decades. Here receiving an admirably full-blooded performance

Composer John Joubert wrote eight works for the stage and if you had asked him, evidently he would evidently have said his best opera was Under Western Eyes from 1968. But his final opera, Jane Eyre, written without commission from 1987 to 1997, remained a tantalising possibility. Never fully staged in the composer's lifetime, for his 90th birthday, Kenneth Woods conducted a concert performance with the English Symphony Orchestra and this was issued on disc by SOMM in 2017 [see my review]. Now Woods has had the chance to conduct a full staging.

Green Opera in collaboration with the Grimeborn Festival at the Arcola Theatre presented a new staging of John Joubert's Jane Eyre at the Arcola Theatre. We caught the performance on Friday 8 August 2026 with Laura Mekhail as Jane, Hector Bloggs as Rochester, Lawrence Thackeray as Richard Mason and St John Rivers, plus Anna Sideris, Emily Hodkinson, Alexander Semple, Chris Murphy and Steffi Fashokun. The production was directed by Eleanor Burke with designs by Emeline Beroud and movement by Alex Gotch. Kenneth Woods conducted an instrumental ensemble of eight playing an arrangement of the score by Thomas Ang.

Joubert: Jane Eyre - In the Rivers' household: Anna Sideris (Diana), Laura Mekhail (Jane), Emily Hodkinson (Mary), Lawrence Thackeray (St John) - Green Opera at Grimeborn Festival, Arcola Theatre - (Photo: Camilla Greenwell)

The libretto is by the Richard Strauss scholar, Kenneth Birkin who was a PhD student of John Joubert at the University of Birmingham. Originally the opera was in three acts, but with the prospect of the 2016 performance which would lead to the recording, Joubert revised the opera. He removed secondary scenes and orchestral interludes, material from which would find its way into his third symphony. The resulting opera has just two hours of music, and a great deal of plot to get through.

New challenge and new repertoire: trumpeter Matilda Lloyd her new disc, Fantasia, pairing four contemporary pieces with Baroque music

Matilda Lloyd (Photo: Geoffroy Schied)

When I met up for coffee with Matilda Lloyd last month, she was laden down with five trumpets, ranging from a piccolo trumpet to a flugelhorn, all of which come into play on her new disc Fantasia on Chandos Records, recorded at Waltham Abbey Church earlier this year with organist Richard Gowers. The disc features Baroque music by Bach, Krebs, Martini, and Pachelbel, alongside four premiere recordings of music by Roxanna Panufnik, Richard Barnard, Owain Park, and Deborah Pritchard. However, Matilda explains that the idea for the disc has been in the works for a long time, dating right back to when she played Bach's Toccata and Fugue in an arrangement for brass quintet while at Junior Guildhall and enjoyed the majestic sound.

Richard Gowers & Matilda Lloyd at Wiener Musikverein
(via Facebook)

The idea for performing music for trumpet and organ developed with her duo partner, Richard Gowers, who was the organ scholar whilst she was at university. Having exhausted the existing repertoire, they made new arrangements. 

They had the idea of expanding the repertoire, effectively developing the legacy of playing Baroque music on a trumpet, which began with the French trumpeter Maurice André (1933-2012), who rose to international prominence in the 1960s and 1970s with a series of recordings of Baroque works on piccolo trumpet.

Matilda and Richard expanded further by contrasting the new arrangements with new pieces.

The four pieces on the new disc are all new commissions, designed to complement the Baroque pieces. The album is called Fantasia, which in the Baroque period implied a work that was lyrical and improvisatory, but Matilda asked the four composers to compose a work inspired by whatever Fantasia meant to them. Each composer took the word 'Fantasia' in a different direction with dreams and the borders of sleep, poetry, landscape and stained glass.

Matilda had an existing relationship with each of the four composers. She and Owain Park studied music at Trinity College together. She has known him for over a decade and admired his compositional voice, whilst he was both an organist and a trumpet player. She has recently recorded a collaborative programme with Park and his ensemble, Gesualdo Six, and the disc Radiant Dawn was recently released. His piece for the Fantasia disc, Warm, hazy rain, is inspired by landscape, Park suggests "perhaps gazing out of a train window or reminiscing about a leisurely bicycle ride through warm, misty country lanes."

I Shall Hear In Heaven: Tama Matheson impressively incarnates Beethoven in an evening that puts music alongside the spoken word

Tama Matheson as Beethoven in his play, Beethoven: I Shall Hear In Heaven

Tama Matheson: Beethoven: I Shall Hear In Heaven; Tama Matheson, Jayson Gillham, Quartet Concrète, English Chamber Choir; Opera Holland Park
Reviewed 6 August 2025

Tama Matheson effective combines spoken drama with music to illuminate Beethoven's life in an evening both theatrical and musical

Biographies of artists are, in the main, tricky because if you are not careful you can lose sight of the essential, the act of creation. Writers at least leave something that can be included, but with other artists the written word struggles as can anything dramatised. Director, playwright and actor Tama Matheson has been extending the way we dramatise musicians' lives by writing plays that incorporate their music, not as simple background but as an integral part of the theatrical experience.

Beethoven's life was eventful enough, but a simple recitation or dramatisation of the facts would lose sight of the essential core of his life, the creation of music, everything else was largely irrelevant. Tama Matheson's Beethoven: I Shall Hear In Heaven debuted at the Wimbledon International Music Festival in 2021 and was nominated for the 2022 RPS Storytelling Award. In it, Matheson combines a dramatised biographical portrait of Beethoven with the man's music, performed live.

Matheson's Beethoven: I Shall Hear In Heaven played the first of two performances at Opera Holland Park on 6 August 2025. Matheson played Beethoven and was artistic director of the project and was joined by pianist Jayson Gillham along with actors Robert Maskell and Suzy Kohane, plus Quartet Concrète (Anna Brown, Leon Human, Dominic Stokes, Joseph Barker) and the English Chamber Choir.

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.