Back to the 1890s: Dinis Sousa & the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment move out of their comfort zone reveal magic moments in Elgar

Elgar - Dinis Sousa, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment - Queen Elizabeth Hall

Elgar: In the South, Sea Pictures, Enigma Variations; Frances Gregory, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Dinis Sousa; Queen Elizabeth Hall
Reviewed 4 June 2025

Far from an exercise in academic completism, OAE's exploration of the sound world of Elgar's 1890s helped us view familiar music in new ways and brought a subtly different palate of colours and approach, moments of sheer magic.

Elgar's Enigma Variations premiered in 1899 and the composer went on to record it twice, acoustically in 1924 and electrically in 1926. A lot happened to orchestral sound in those intervening 25 years with technological and stylistic developments that would lead to the modern orchestral sound. As something of an end of term experiment, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment's last orchestral concert of the 2024/25 season at the Southbank Centre featured the ensemble moving out of their comfort zone and explore the sound world of Elgar in the 1890s. They were joined by conductor Dinis Sousa, who in an engaging post-concert speech admitted that the concert was pushing the envelope for him too, and mezzo-soprano Frances Gregory. 

So, on 4 June 2025, Dinis Sousa conducted the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in Elgar's In the South, Sea Pictures (with Frances Gregory) and Enigma Variations at the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

Elgar: Sea Pictures - Frances Gregory, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment - Queen Elizabeth Hall

Life enhancing: the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in Bach's Brandenburg Concertos

Bach: Brandenburg Concertos; Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; Queen Elizbeth Hall
Reviewed 13 November 2024

The Brandenburg Concertos complete, vivid, vibrant and sometimes a little raw, the sheer energy, enthusiasm and technical nous really carrying you away

Bach almost certainly never intended his Brandenburg Concertos to be performed en masse, all six at once. In fact, we have no record at all of any performances of the concertos in this form during Bach's lifetime, his presentation manuscript (see illustration above) for Six Concerts Avec plusieurs instruments simply sat in the Margrave of Brandenburg's library; so, at least someone regarded the work well enough to look after it.

After all, the various different line ups for the concertos make this rather an extravagant gesture. We don't really know why this particular set of concertos with these particular scorings, and there remain plenty of questions about the pieces. But in the right performances the music lifts vividly off the page. 

This was ample demonstrated by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment's (OAE) performances of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos at the Southbank Centre's Queen Elizabeth Hall on 13 November 2024. The 21 musicians performed one to part, without a conductor with violinists Huw Daniel, Margaret Faultess and Rodolfo Richter sharing the directing, with violist Oliver Wilson directing the sixth concerto.

Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 - Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Queen Elizabeth Hall

The Brandenburg Concertos have played an important role in the OAE's life, ever since the ensemble's founding (they celebrate 40 years in 2026) and one of the players was actually around for the ensemble's very first performance of the music!

For the evening's concert, the concertos were arranged in non-numerical order, creating a nice balance of solo instruments. We began with first concerto, which features the horns, then the third, strings only, then the fifth, with flute, violin and harpsichord. After the interval it was more wind, with the fourth, with two recorders and violin, then strings again with the sixth concerto with its violas, cello and violas da gamba, then we finally returned to brass with the second concerto with its high trumpet part.

Lobesgesang: Mendelssohn's rarely performed symphony-cantata is a fine climax to Sir Andras Schiff and the OAE's exploration of the composer's symphonic music

Portrait of Mendelssohn by Wilhelm Hensel, 1847

Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto, Symphony No. 2 'Lobesgesang'; Lucy Crowe, Hilary Cronin, Nick Pritchard, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Choir of the Enlightenment, Sir Andras Schiff; Queen Elizabeth Hall
Reviewed 26 April 2024

A near ideal performance of the violin concerto followed by an account of Mendelssohn's great symphony-cantata that never compromised the work's idiosyncrasy yet brought out its rich detail and emotionalism

Sir Andras Schiff and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (OAE) have been celebrating Mendelssohn. It is strange that the effort needs making, but we still have a tendency to downgrade the composer's symphonic output. Schiff and the OAE, however, have been putting it top dead centre with three concerts at the Southbank Centre's Queen Elizabeth Hall which featured all of the composer's symphonies, two piano concertos with Schiff directing from the keyboard and the Violin Concerto in E Minor with Alina Ibragimova. 

We caught the final concert, on Friday 26 April 2024 which featured Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor with Alina Ibragimova, and Symphony No. 2 'Lobesgesang' with the Choir of the Enlightenment and soloists Lucy Crowe, Hilary Cronin and Nick Pritchard (replacing Nicky Spence).

We began with Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, his last major orchestral work. Conceived for the concertmaster of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the work took Mendelssohn from 1828 to 1845 to write, belying its apparent effortlessness. Schiff used an orchestra based on 33 strings, double woodwind, two horns and two trumpets, quite a large group for a work which can sometimes be given chamber proportions. Alina Ibragimova began with a fine-grained tone, light and fluid playing allied to free phrasing. She never attempted to big-up her tone nor force her way into the spotlight, it all felt somehow effortless and natural, yet compelling and very stylish. In the first movement, there were moments that were daringly intimate, but for all the period manners, there was some very real drama. Schiff encouraged his players to bring out some beautifully vivid colours in the orchestral transition. When the second movement proper, began, it was all singing elegance and fine grained tone. Intimate and delicate, yet with an underlying strength. This delicate approach continued into the last movement, which was delightfully pointed and I loved the sound of Ibragimova's violin with the wind bubbling along beside her, and the excitement continued to the end. What this performance did was discover a work that was both stronger and more delicate than is often the case, and was notably lacking that sense of saccharine that an over-vibrato-laden violin solo can bring.

The Goldberg Variations Reimagined: Rachel Podger and Brecon Baroque at Kings Place

The Goldberg Variations Reimagined: Rachel Podger, Brecon Baroque; Kings Place

Bach/Chad Kelly: The Goldberg Variations Reimagined: Rachel Podger, Brecon Baroque; Kings Place
Reviewed 3 December 2023

A new orchestration of Bach for nine instruments brings out a sense of colour and style in a series of vivid reinventions, superbly played

Bach was an inveterate re-worker and re-user of material, most Baroque composers were. After all, the potential audience for any piece of music was usually relatively small, unless you were one of the lucky few with a wide published circulation, so composers could reuse without constantly worrying in the way modern composers might. 

And when Bach reused he could be quite creative in his reworking. After all, the Christmas Oratorio, which we heard on Saturday from Masaaki Suzuki and the OAE [see my review] is almost entirely based on pre-existing material.

So what might Bach have done to the Goldberg Variations? This thought kept popping into my head as I listened to The Goldberg Variations Reimagined, Chad Kelly's new version of Bach's Goldberg Variations created for violinist Rachel Podger and performed (in its London premiere) by her and Brecon Baroque at Kings Place on Sunday 3 December 2023.

Bach wrote the Goldberg Variations specifically for harpsichord, though it is common practice to perform it on the piano as well and there have been any number of transcriptions including that by Dmitry Sitkovetsky for string trio. Chad Kelly's avowed intention with his version was to ensure that the arrangement was idiomatic both to the historical instruments and to the styles and genres referenced in the work. What Kelly was trying to avoid was the sort of tricksy orchestration that remained true to Bach's keyboard notes, producing something stylistically anachronistic.

So we had an instrumental ensemble of Rachel Podger and Sabine Stoffer, violins, Jane Rogers, viola, Alex Rolton, cello and five-string cello, Carina Cosgrave, violone, Leo Durante, oboe and oboe da caccia, Katy Bircher, flute, Inga Kaucke, bassoon, and Marcin Swiatkiewicz, harpsichord. 

Bach's Christmas Oratorio from Masaaki Suzuki and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment

Masaaki Suzuki (Photo: Marco Borggreve)

Bach: Christmas Oratorio (Parts 1, 2 & 3), Singet dem Herrn; Jessica Cale, Hugh Cutting, Guy Cutting, Florian Störtz, Choir and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Masaaki Suzuki; Queen Elizabeth Hall
Reviewed 2 December 2023

The first of two concerts encompassing the whole of Bach's Christmas Oratorio in music making of the highest order, vividly bringing Bach's colourful music to life but also concentrating on the essential narrative

Written for performance across six occasions from Christmas to Epiphany, Bach's Christmas Oratorio was never designed for concert use and gives performers something of a challenge. Somewhat too long for the average concert, ensembles usually choose to perform a selection of the work's six parts, but for his performances with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, conductor Masaaki Suzuki chose a different approach, spreading the entire work across two days and adding extra music by Bach.

On Saturday 2 December 2023, Masaaki Suzuki conducted the Choir and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in Parts One to Three of Bach's Christmas Oratorio along with the motet Singet dem Herrn. Then on the Sunday, he conducted Parts Four to Six along with the Sanctus from the Mass in B Minor. We caught the first of the concerts, with soloists Jessica Cale, Hugh Cutting, Guy Cutting and Florian Störtz.

The soloists sang in the choir, making 16 vocalists in all, stepping out for their solo moments which made sense both of what we know of Bach's own performance practise and of the way the allocation of solos is somewhat uneven. Though it did mean that the performance was counterpointed by rather a lot of walking about from the soloists.

Ida revealed: John Wilson & the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment take a fresh look at Gilbert & Sullivan's unjustly neglected opera

Gilbert & Sullivan: Princess Ida - Benjamin Hulett, Sophie Bevan, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (Photo: Zen Grisdale)

Gilbert & Sullivan: Princess Ida; Sophie Bevan, Benjamin Hulett, Catherine Wyn-Rogers, Simon Butteriss, Robert Hayward, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, John Wilson; Queen Elizabeth Hall
Reviewed 7 June 2023

A near ideal cast having the time of their life and, with the historically informed performance, revealing the romantic (and comic) delights of this rarely performed gem

 Gilbert & Sullivan's Princess Ida is surprisingly little known considering that, in their output, it comes between Iolanthe and The Mikado. It was in the D'Oyly Carte company's canon and received occasional revivals, but since the company's demise the opera's appearances in the UK have been rare and English National Opera's ill-fated production in 1992, directed by Ken Russell, probably did not help the opera's reputation.

The opera satirises feminism, women's education and Darwinian evolution, though as Richard Bratby's article in the programme book for the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment's performance points out, Gilbert is really poking fun at idealism taken to extremes. The opera has some unusual features, in many ways it is an experimental departure, never to be repeated. For a start it is in three acts, not two, and the dialogue is in blank verse. This is because plot and a lot of dialogue were lifted from Gilbert's 1870 play The Princess which satirised Tennyson's narrative poem of the same name. 

Gilbert & Sullivan: Princess Ida - Morgan Pearse, Robert Davies, Jonathan Brown, John Wilson & Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (Photo: Zen Grisdale)

The soprano part of Ida requires a more dramatic voice than the usual G&S heroine; Ida is certainly no soubrette and has a couple of distinctly operatic numbers. And the music itself has a more serious cast than usual. The Topsy-Turvy-dom of the plot is far less farcical than in some G&S operas and Sullivan's music for Act Two, in particular, has a lyric vein rather more serious than usual. It makes you think of some of the late Offenbach operettas where the cast of the piece is veering closer to the romantic opera comique. After Princess Ida came The Mikado and Ruddygore, then Yeomen of the Guard, the most serious opera in the G&S canon. 

On Wednesday 7 June 2023, I caught Gilbert & Sullivan's Princess Ida, or Castle Adamant at the Queen Elizabeth Hall (the first of two performances). John Wilson conducted the Choir & Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment with Sophie Bevan as Ida and Benjamin Hulett as Hilarion. Robert Hayward was King Hildebrand (Hilarion's father), whilst Ruairi Bowen and Charles Rice were Cyril and Florian (Hilarion's friends). Simon Butteriss was King Gama (Ida's father), with Morgan Pearse, Robert Davies and Jonathan Brown were Arac, Guron and Scynthius (Ida's brothers). Catherine Wyn-Rogers was Lady Blanche, Bethany Horak-Hallett was Lady Psyche, Marlena Devoe was Melissa and Claire Ward was Sacharissa.

Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment's 2023/24 season: from community Purcell and complete Bach to Mendelssohn and Sibelius

Clockwise from left: Masaaki Suzuki, Sir András Schiff, Peter Whelan, Louise Alder, Riccardo Minasi, Maxim Emelyanychev, Alina Ibrigamova. 

With the various press announcements for the 2023/24 season coming out, it is noticeable that many organisations are opting for safety, and the mixture as before. So, it is heartening that some organisations are continuing to programme with imagination and daring (do check out the Scottish Chamber Orchestra's tempting 2023/24 season plans). The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment has recently announced plans for its season at the Southbank Centre, and very tempting they are too.

The season opens with a concert directed by violinist Matthew Truscott that includes Haydn's first and last symphonies, along with Symphony No. 51 and the Sinfonia Concertante in B flat major, lovely to see Haydn being put squarely in the centre rather than tucked in behind someone else.

Masaaki Suzuki returns to conduct a complete performance of Bach's Christmas Oratorio, spread over two evenings alongside other choral works by Bach. Easter sees Bach returning, with Peter Whelan conducting the Easter Oratorio. 

Conductor James Redwood and writer Hazel Gould have been applying their imagination to the problem that is Purcell's The Fairy Queen, and have come up with The Fairy Queen: Three Wishes, a new community opera which will include students from Acland Burghley, primary schools in Camden and the orchestra’s musical communities around the country. Redwood and Gould transform Purcell’s 1692 opera into a magical adventure for the whole family. 

Acland Burghley School, the North London comprehensive, is the base for the orchestra’s offices and library, a number of in-school programmes - such as Musical Connections, supporting students with special educational needs and disability, and the Dreamchasing Young Producers funded with support from former F1 boss Ron Dennis’ foundation - as well as community performances and rehearsals. 

Riccardo Minasi conducts the orchestra in an all-Mozart programme featuring soprano Louise Alder arias from Così fan tutte and Le nozze di Figaro plus two concert arias. Maxim Emelyanychev, principal conductor of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, conducts a programme centred on Sibelius' Symphony No. 5 with music by Glinka, Rachmaninoff and Grieg. Definitely one for the diary to hear how a historically informed approach changes the sound world in Sibelius.

The season ends with Sir András Schiff joining the orchestra for another one of his marathons. This time it is Mendelssohn. At first, this does not feel like pushing the boat out, but we still take Mendelssohn for granted; when was the last time you heard all his symphonies. Schiff, directing and playing, will be giving us all four symphonies, two piano concertos and the Violin Concerto with Alina Ibragimova.

The OAE recently announced its new cohort of Rising Stars of the Enlightenment. During the 2023/24 season at the Southbank Centre, the Rising Stars will appear as soloists in the Easter Oratorio and the Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 4 ‘Lobgesang’. The Rising Stars for 2023 - 2025 are: Madison Nonoa (soprano), Frances Gregory (mezzo-soprano), Rebecca Leggett (mezzo-soprano), Laurence Kilsby (tenor), Malachy Frame (baritone) and Florian Störtz (bass).

The OAE’s 2023/24 activity in London doesn't stop here and plans also include OAE Tots concerts at the Southbank Centre and Acland Burghley School, another series of Bach, the Universe and Everything at Kings Place - in which Bach’s cantatas meet astronomy - and The Night Shift will return to pubs and bars around the capital.

Music for wind from the OAE's Night Shift at Brixton's The Blues Kitchen

The Blues Kitchen, Brixton - the audience for the OAE's Night Shift

Night Shift - Telemann, Beethoven, Tomasi, Kagel, Françaix; members of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; The Blues Kitchen, Brixton

An evening full of colour and vivid character as four of the OAE's wind players presented an engaging exploration of wind music, mixing the serious with the witty and the downright funny

The Night Shift is the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment's more casual concert series, popping up in pubs and other non-traditional venues, places that you might not associate with period instruments or even classical music. The only Night Shift that I had previously attended was an event in hall two at Kings Place, so it didn't really count, which meant that when one of my neighbours mentioned picking up an OAE leaflet in the local supermarket, I was intrigued.

The OAE's Night Shift popped up in Brixton's The Blues Kitchen on Tuesday 25 April 2023, when Katherine Spencer (clarinet), Katy Bircher (flute), Leo Duarte (oboe) and Chris Rawley (bassoon) performed a programme that moved from Telemann and Beethoven to French composers Henri Tomasi (1901-1971) and Jean Françaix (1912-1997) to Mauricio Kagel (1931-2008) and beyond. Not quite a programme that you might expect from the OAE and certainly not one you'd expect in a blues bar in Brixton, yet it was all presented with style, aplomb and not a little fun and theatricality.

The performance took place in the upstairs bar, think distressed wood panelling, recycled stained glass, low lighting and red glitter balls, oh and a smoke machine just before the event started. And it began not with music, but with a sound installation by Gawain Hewitt that evoked birdsong, which gradually merged into Katy Bircher's performance of Telemann's Fantasy for Flute. She was wearing a gauzy cloak, dressed in green with green lighting, all very evocative and afterwards Katherine Spencer explained that the programme was exploring the idea of colour and music. Different pieces in the first half were presented in different colour lighting, and we even got to listen to a passage from Tomasi's Trio to decide what colour it should be (a purple-ish blue!).

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner: a glorious pot-pourri of Purcell's music alongside Coleridge's poem read by Rory Kinnear

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner: poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge with various pieces by Henry Purcell; Rory Kinnear, Zoë Brookshaw, Bethany Horak-Hallett, Jeremy Budd, Jonathan Brown; Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment dir. Steven Devine; Queen Elizabeth Hall
Reviewed by Florence Anna Maunders, 5 October 2022

A demonstration of the power of Purcell & poetry

One of the most beloved of English-language poems, the weird nightmare-parable of Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, was the framing device for this concert of music over a hundred years older than the poem – a glorious pot-pourri of some of Henry Purcell's best-known music, sprinkled with some less familiar items at the Southbank Centre's Queen Elizabeth Hall on 5 October 2022.

Holding court with an impassioned and theatrical recitation of the complete poem, Rory Kinnear commanded the audience's attention throughout, maintaining a ferociously intense poise even when not speaking. Interspersed through the dramatic deliver of the text, and matched in theme, mood or lyrics to the action or emotion of the poem, the musicians of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (OAE) directed from the harpsichord by Steven Devine, along with a fine quartet of solo voices, Zoë Brookshaw, Bethany Horak-Hallett, Jeremy Budd, and Jonathan Brown, presented a series of instrumental and vocal works, starting with the extended ode Welcome, welcome glorious morn and including almost two dozen other shorter pieces.

Mendelssohn and Schumann from Antonello Manacorda and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment

Antonello Manacorda & the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in rehearsal
(Photo: the OAE)

Mendelssohn The Hebrides Overture, Schumann Violin Concerto, Symphony No. 2; Isabelle Faust, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Antonello Manacorda; Royal Festival Hall
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 15 February 2022 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
Schumann's highly personal second symphony paired with the less well known and rather experimental late violin concerto in an evening of powerful performances and striking timbres and colours

We have a somewhat complex relationship with Robert Schumann's output and whilst his symphonies are no longer routinely re-orchestrated and 'corrected', we can still be somewhat selective. The latest concert by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (OAE) as part of their season The Wilderness Pleases, rather demonstrated this, pairing two mature Schumann works, one routinely performed, the other rather less so. At the Royal Festival Hall on Tuesday 15 February 2022, Antonello Manacorda [see my recent interview with him] conducted the OAE in a programme that paired Schumann's Symphony No. 2 in C major (from 1846) with his Violin Concerto (from 1853) with Isabelle Faust as the soloist. The concert opened with Mendelssohn's The Hebrides Overture.

In The Hebrides Overture the young Mendelssohn (just 21 when it was premiered) demonstrated his mastery of small-scale symphonic form. With apparently effortless ease he took the classical concert overture and pushed in the direction of the tone poem, creating a work that is at once classically balanced and highly descriptive. It was very clear from the opening notes that Antonello Manacorda relished the timbres and textures of the period instruments, and the new relationships that these instruments create, so that at the opening it was very much the wind instruments' moment until the violins entered. Manacorda's speeds were on the steady side, allowing plenty of space for detail, and this brought out the works descriptive nature rather than it being simply an orchestral showpiece. There was plenty of excitement and climax, but always within context, and the care with balance and dynamic meant that Mendelssohn's spatial effects in the music came over well.

Schumann's relationship with symphonic form was complex; his symphonies did not quite come out in the seamless manner that their numbering implies, there were also stray symphonic movements and whilst he only wrote three 'proper' concertos, there are in fact seven concertante works. His Violin Concerto was written in 1853, in the wake of hearing violinist Joseph Joachim in Beethoven's Violin Concerto. Joachim was not impressed, and though Joachim gave the work an orchestral play-through with the composer present, it was never publicly performed and was omitted from the collected edition of the composer's works and the manuscript squirrelled away, effectively hidden until rediscovered in the 1930s and performed. It has never achieved the popularity of the earlier concertos, and it is clear from the work that Schumann's view of symphonic form was changing. 

From a year-long exploration of rare Telemann to Bach at Christmas: adventures online with Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment

Using filmed performance online can enable ensembles to do things rather differently to their concert hall presence. And now that they have returned to live concert giving, the Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment is doing just that. 

Telemann’s Essercizii Musici is a colourful feast of 24 musical delights; dating from around 1740 (or before) it consists of 12 solo sonatas (for flute, violin, viola da gamba, recorder, oboe) and 12 trio sonatas. It is difficult to do justice to the collection in concert, and the pieces were not intended to be performed en masse. So, over a year, OAE Player is featuring a monthly concert, Tales with Teleman which will include music from Essercizii Musici, thus enabling us to explore the complete collection. The journey started last month, and November's episode features Violin Sonata in F major and Trio for oboe, violin and basso continuo in G major alongside one of Telemann's sacred cantatas. And the performers don't just include members of the OAE and rising stars, but also students from the orchestra's home, Acland Burghley School reading from Aesop's Fables.

Also released this month on OAE Player, Look no bass! is an intriguing recital in which the violinists from the OAE present music for violins alone, from concertos for four violins by Telemann to arrangements of Matthew Locke, John Adson and Gabrieli. 

Further ahead, there is more conventional Christmas repertoire; on 17 December the OAE joins forces with the choir of Clare College, conductor Graham Ross, for Bach's Magnificat (the version with Christmas interpolations) and Handel's Dixit Dominus, with a fine cast of young soloists, Lucy Knight and Emilia Morton (sopranos), James Hall (counter-tenor), Hugo Hymas (tenor) and Andrew Davies (bass). Further information from OAE website.

Dark Matter and Bach: The Undiscovered Universe from the OAE and Dr Harry Cliff

The Undiscovered Universe - Bach, Byrd, Telemann and 'Dark Matter'; Bethany Horak-Hallett, Guy Cutting, William Gaunt, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Dr Harry Cliff, Steven Devine; Kings Place
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 11 July 2021 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
Particle physics, Dark Matter and the Large Hadron Collider alongside wonderfully engaging Bach and more

The Undiscovered Universe, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment's latest edition of Bach, The Universe and Everything was due to premiere at Kings Place in December 2020, first postponed to May 2021, the concert finally happened on Sunday 11 July 2021. Steven Devine directed the OAE in Bach's cantata Ich steh mit einem Fuss im Grabe, BWV 156 with soloist Bethany Horak-Hallett, Guy Cutting and William Gaunt plus music by Byrd and Telemann and a talk by Dr Harry Cliff, a particle physicist from the University of Cambridge

We began with Steven Devine's delightful account of Bach's chorale prelude, Machs mit mir, Gott nach deiner Gut, followed by an unconducted performance of William Byrd's anthem Praise the Lord, all ye Gentiles, a setting of text from Psalm 117 first published in his 1611 Psalms, Songs and Sonnets, which opened things up with vivid brightness, yet there was delicacy too and a sense of the eight voices forming a real vocal ensemble with a sense of individual lines and voices.

Next, Dominika Feher (one of the OAE's violinists) read an intriguing extract from David Whyte's 2014 book Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words, a lovely poetic discussion about the meaning(s) of the word 'shadow'.

Bach's cantata Ich steh mit einem Fuss im Grabe was his fourth and last cantata for the Third Sunday after Epiphany, written in Leipzig in 1729.

What Power Art Thou: Dingle Yandell and the OAE channel Goyte in their new video of Purcell

The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (OAE) has produced another of their videos of Baroque arias done in the style of visually striking pop videos. This time, Goyte's Somebody that I used to know [see it on YouTube], which was directed by Natasha Pincus, has inspired a video of Purcell's 'What power art thou' (sung by the Cold Genius in King Arthur) performed by OAE's Rising Stars alumnus, bass-baritone Dingle Yandell. In the video the singer is covered in paint and gradually merges with the background; in the original song, a metaphor for the way the man's ex-girlfriend has wiped their relationship out of existence, and perhaps in the Purcell a metaphor for the Cold Genius' desire to return to the cold. 

Or perhaps we should just enjoy a visual and aural feast, and spare a thought for Yandell, spending 10 hours wearing very little and being covered in body paint!

Dingle Yandell and the OAE's What Power Art Thou is available on YouTube

A Life On-Line: Rosary Sonatas and St John Passion

Bach: St John Passion - Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (Photo from film directed by Grant Gee)

Easter Sunday saw us continuing our rich feast of on-line Easter music, with a complete cycle of Heinrich Biber's Rosary Sonatas from St John's Smith Square, and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment's filmed performance of Bach's St John Passion (a co-production with Marquee TV).

Sunday began with Biber's Rosary Sonatas, throughout the day there were instalments of violinist Bojan Čičić and organist Steven Devine's performance of Biber's astonishing cycle of violin sonatas, The Joyful Mysteries in the morning, The Sorrowful Mysteries in the afternoon and The Glorious Mysteries in the evening. The sonatas were written in the 1600s, but it is uncertain whether Biber wrote them specially or used pre-existing works, and as the sole manuscript's title page is missing we don't even know what Biber intended for his continue instruments. Here, Čičić and Devine use just violin and organ, throwing attention on the violin and its array of colours. The cycle is very much about the violin, Biber's use of scordatura (alternative tunings) means that throuughout the cycle he manipulates the violin's tuning to create different colours and tensions. 

Reimagining 1700s ballet for the modern GCSE syllabus: Acland Burghley School and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment

 

In September 2020, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (OAE) moved into offices in Acland Burghley Comprehensive School in Camden. For the first time, the orchestra's players, staff and library were all in the same place. But the move isn't just about office space, it is a creative residency and the first fruits of this are now being seen. Last week the OAE released a video featuring the year 10 students from the school dancing to the 'Danse des Sauvages' from Rameau's Les Indes galantes. The group of GCSE students worked in partnership with the OAE to choreograph, direct and record the music video.

This wasn't a case of an arts group coming in, telling the students what to do and then leaving again. The students themselves took inspiration from Baroque dance videos on YouTube, and were drawn to the 'Danse des Sauvages' with its strong and distinctive rhythmic pulse, and the music sparked enthusiastic discussion, music and choreography evolved hand in hand.

Adrian Bending, OAE Principal Timpani, began the collaboration by overseeing the marriage of music to dance and later directed the Orchestra's recording. He says: 'This project wasn’t a case of us telling the students what to do. After our initial introductions, the students were increasingly willing to healthily disagree, taking from us only what sat well with them. Every voice was heard. We are eager and excited for these collaborations to become a regular fixture of a long, happy and most rewarding partnership between Acland Burghley School and OAE.'

The video isn't the only creative part of the residency, the OAE has delivered numerous interactive workshops for all students in Years 7, 8 and 9. These workshops have ranged from exploring the instruments of the orchestra, illustrated sessions on blues and jazz compositional techniques as part of curriculum studies and a study day for all GCSE music students on Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 4.

The video being made in the hall of Acland Burghley School (Photo Acland Burghley School / OAE)

Further information from the school website, and the OAE website.

Inspired by Coldplay's video for The Scientist, Helen Charlston and the OAE put a very contemporary take on Dido's Lament

I have to confess to being entirely ignorant of Coldplay's hit The Scientist, whose video (directed by Jamie Thraves) told the story of a young man's loss of his lover in reverse, but the trope of telling tragedy in reverse is a familiar one. In the second of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment's Baroque and contemporary remixes [the first featured baritone James Newby drowning in water in a diving helmet], the OAE and mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston take Dido's Lament, 'When I am laid in earth' from Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and apply the Coldplay video's treatment.

So we have a contemporary setting for Dido, she is a very modern girl and we watch her in reverse going from tragedy to pleasure, and during the filming Helen Charlston actually did speak the words of the aria in reverse (with a great deal of practice evidently!).

The result is intriguing, even for those like me who have never seen the original video. See Helen Charlston and the OAE's video above, or on YouTube.

O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort: Music, neuroscience and fear of death in OAE's Bach, the Universe and Everything

Johann Rist, author of the hymn
use in Bach's Cantata BWV 60

Bach, the Universe and Everything - Bach Cantata BWV 60 'O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort'; Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; Kings Place
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 1 November 2020 Star rating: 4.5 (★★★★½)
A vivid performance of Bach's dialogue cantata about fear of death at the centre of this engaging programme

On Sunday 1 November 2020, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment's Bach, the Universe & Everything series returned to Kings Place with Bach on the Brain: Exploring the Brain Dynamics of Music. Directed from the organ by Steven Devine, the ensemble performed Bach's Cantata BWV 60 'O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort' with soloists Helen Charlston, Hugo Hymas and Dominic Sedgwick, plus Johann Gottfried Walther's chorale prelude O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort, Byrd's motet Beati mundo corde and the 'Allegro' from Johann Georg Pisendel's Sonata in C minor. Professor Morten Kringelbach, professor of neuroscience at the University of Oxford talked about the neuroscience of music.

We began with an organ chorale prelude,  O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort by Johann Gottfried Walter, a relative of JS Bach's who is known for his Musikalisches Lexicon, one of the first musical reference books written in German. The concerts in this series always follow an established pattern, so the chorale prelude led to a piece of unaccompanied polyphony, William Byrd's Beati mundo corde. A communion motet for All Saints from volume one of Byrd's Gradualia of 1605. Sung without a conductor by the eight voices of the vocal ensemble, this was quite a strong sound, with rather a sculptural feel to the slowly unfolding phrases. 

An Illustrated Theory of Music: Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment's new on-line resource

The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment has launched a new on-line resource, an Illustrated Theory of Music, a series of short, informal videos created by musicians from the orchestra which are intended to animate the stories behind Western music theory. Topics to be covered will be broadly based on the Grade V music theory syllabus, but the structure of the series of videos will not be linear, the topics will zoom in and out on interesting and pivotal moments in music history, from intervals and ornamentation to the structure of the trio sonata, challenging the notion that history is a straightforward timeline with one right answer for everything. The material should be relevant to UK GCSE and A level music students and the American APs (Advanced Placement) equivalent level of education.

The first video, What are barlines? has already been released and it covers material as diverse as 12th and 16th century manuscripts, Lully and Bach, Stravinsky and Howard Skempton. All the videos will be available on the orchestra's YouTube channel.

(And apologies for managing to type entirely the wrong ensemble in the first version of the piece)

Bach, the Universe and Everything on-line: Can Bacterium Compute?

The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (OAE) has a regular Sunday morning series, Bach, the Universe and Everything at Kings Place which combines the performance of a Bach cantata with a science lecture, a slightly surprising combination but one that works.

The concert for Sunday 5 April 2020 (Palm Sunday) was cancelled but nothing daunted, the OAE and Professor Susan Stepney from the University of York have gone on-line to present the concert, with each member of the OAE recording their part separately and the results then being mixed together. Stepney's talk looks at how harnessing the power of bacteria might lead to exciting new developments in the future of computing, alongside Bach's Cantata BWV 172 'Erschallet, ihr Lieder', with soloists Zoe Brookshaw, Sinead O'Kelly, Laurence Kilsby and Dominic Sedgwick, directed by Steven Devine, and there is also music by Buxtehude and Lassus.

You can see the event at the OAE's YouTube channel, and also download a programme (PDF).

Introducing the Baroque Spoons: the OAE launches an ambitious bid for 100,000 subscribers on YouTube

Given that music making has had to go almost exclusively on-line, it seems that everyone is trying to boost their subscribers on YouTube (if you have favourite performers, do them a favour and find their channel on YouTube and subscribe, it can really make a difference).

On Wednesday, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment launched an ambitious bid to get 100,000 subscribers on its YouTube channel before September 2020. The OAE's chief executive, Crispin Woodhead explains the difference this could make:

'The more subscribers a channel has, the better placed the videos will be in YouTube’s organic ‘suggested content’ algorithm. For the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, this will increase the exposure of the organisation’s videos and therefore provide work and generate revenue for the players during a worrying time of cancelled engagements and lost income.'

To celebrate the launch, the OAE released a new video, a history of the Baroque Spoons. And yes, Wednesday was April Fools' Day.

Enjoy the video, then head over to the OAE's YouTube channel and click subscribe.