Colour & imagination: Rameau's Pigmalion plus music from Les Boréades, Early Opera Company at Temple Music

Rameau: Suite from Les Boréades, Pigmalion; Samuel Boden, Rachel Redmond, Jessica Cale, Lauren Lodge Campbell, Early Opera Company, Christian Curnyn; Temple Music at Middle Temple Hall
Reviewed 20 May 2025

An evening of Rameau in miniature; dances from his final opera and his best one-act opera in performances that brought out the sheer variety, colour and imagination in the music

Rameau's acte de ballet, Pigmalion, is one of the best of his one-act pieces and provides a nicely digestible sample of the composer's dramatic output without needing the full panoply of a five-act tragédie en musique. Rameau's operas are still frustratingly rare on the British operatic stage so it was a delight that Christian Curnyn and his Early Opera Company joined forces with Temple Music to present Rameau's Pigamalion and a suite of dances from Les Boréades at Middle Temple Hall. Pigmalion featured Samuel Boden as Pigmalion with Rachel Redmond as L'Amour, Jessica Cale as Céphise and Lauren Lodge Campbell as the statue.

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

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

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

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

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

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

A glorious, yet sophisticated noise: Handel's Solomon from Paul McCreesh & Gabrieli with Tim Mead as Solomon in Inner Temple Hall

Inner Temple Hall in its modern incarnation built in the 1950s

Handel: Solomon; Tim Mead, Rowan Pierce, Hilary Cronin, Frances Gregory, Anna Dennis, James Way, Morgan Pearse, Gabrieli Consort & Players, Paul McCreesh; Temple Music Foundation at Inner Temple Hall
Reviewed 16 January 2025

One of Handel's finest oratorios in almost perfect circumstances, glorious choral singing, fine orchestral playing, superb dramatic pacing and seven soloists who drew you into the drama. Pure magic.

Written in 1749, Handel's Solomon is a lavish work, large in scale, using a double chorus and with the one of the largest orchestras Handel would write for (strings, flutes, oboes, bassoons, horns, trumpets, timpani), yet Susanna which premiered the same season uses relatively compact forces. Clearly, in Solomon Handel wished the conception to match his eulogy of Georgian England.

After having written a whole sequence of martial oratorios in the years after the 1745 rebellion, Handel turned to a greater variety of sources for his oratorios, Susanna and Solomon are both Biblical, but the one has elements of a lighter operatic style, whilst the other has that large scale grandeur. Then in 1750 he would turn to a sentimental novel for Theodora, which though religious in nature is not Biblical at all, before the final towering masterpiece of Jephtha with its story combining the Bible with Euripides and the daring use of a dramatic tenor as the hero.

For Solomon, Handel seemed to be looking back. There is the use of Da Capo arias, but also the casting of the title role. This was written for a female alto, Caterina Galli, as if Handel was looking back towards the castratos of his Italian opera. Countertenors in Handel's day rarely had the dramatic range needed for the role, though nowadays Solomon is rarely played by a woman. Having also sung Joachim in Susanna, Caterina Galli would create a sequence of remarkable roles for Handel including Irene in Theodora and Storgé in Jephtha. In Handel's performances of Solomon the three soprano roles, Solomon's Queen, First Harlot and Queen of Sheba, were sung by the same singer though modern practice tends to have them sung by different singers.

On Thursday 16 January 2025, Temple Music opened their 2025 season with one of their largest events yet, Handel's Solomon performed in Inner Temple Hall by Gabrieli Consort & Players, conductor Paul McCreesh, with Tim Mead as Solomon, Rowan Pierce as Solomon's Queen, Hilary Cronin and Frances Gregory as the Harlots and Anna Dennis as the Queen of Sheba, plus James Way as Zadok and Morgan Pearse as a Levite.

The concert took place in Inner Temple Hall, this is a traditional classical style building dating from the 1950s, and the third incarnation of the hall. The original 17th century hall was replace in the later 19th century by a Gothic one, this in turn was destroyed during the war and replaced by the present one.

Letting in the Light: from Rameau's Pygmalion & Wagner's Parsifal to Christian Forshaw, Anna Semple and Schumann's Kerner Lieder at Temple Music

Temple Music has announced an intriguing range of events for 2025, with everything from Rameau and Wagnerian opera to song recitals from Helen Charlston and Roderick Williams. Things kick of in January 2025 with Handel's Solomon with Paul McCreesh and Gabrieli Consort & Players with Tim Mead, Rowan Pierce, Anna Dennis, Hilary Cronin and Frances Gregory (this was announced as part of their Autumn 2024 season).

Conductor Peter Selwyn and director Julia Burbach (who brought us the Grimeborn Ring Cycle) are at the helm for a staging of Act Three of Wagner's Parsifal with Neal Cooper as Parsifal, Natasha Jouhl as Kundry, Simon Wilding as Amfortas and Freddie Tong as Gurnemanz. The opera will be given in Temple Church using a 35 piece orchestra. At the other end of the operatic scale, Christian Curnyn and the Early Opera Company are presenting Rameau's Pygmalion, with Samuel Boden, Hilary Cronin, Jessica Cale and Lauren Lodge-Campbell, preceded by a suite of music from Les Boreades.

Mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston is joined by pianist Sholto Kynoch for Note for Old, a recital that weaves together music by Bach, Monteverdi and Sweelinck with Schubert, Hahn, and Anna Semple, followed by Schumann's Kerner Lieder. Baritone Roderick Williams and pianist Julius Drake return to Middle Temple Hall for Eternal Summer, an evening of songs and readings from Shakespeare with music from Purcell, Haydn, Schumann to Britten, Tippett, and one of Williams' own songs.

In recital, Guitarist Plínio Fernandes will be performing Bach alongside, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Paulinho Nogueira, Mário Albanese and Sérgio Assad, violinist Sophie Rosa and pianist Martin Roscoe perform Beethoven's Spring Sonata and Franck's Violin Sonata

Stile Antico are performing a programme centred around Palestrina and his contemporaries, Thomas Allery directs Temple Singers in programme of arrangements and re-imaginings of music from ancient chant, through Renaissance polyphony to Barber’s own arrangement of his Adagio for Strings, including music by Anna Semple, who is Temple's featured emerging composer, and saxophonist Christian Forshaw joins the Choir of King's College London for Sanctuary, presenting works from Forshaw's acclaimed album.

The season closes in July with Temple Church Choir, director Thomas Allery in Marian music by Grieg, Giles Swayne, Bruckner, Tavener, Howells and Parsons.

Full details from the Temple Music website.

The Heart of the Matter: rare Britten and a new James MacMillan work in an imaginative programme for tenor, horn and piano

Richard Watkins, Julius Drake and Sir James MacMillan take a bow in Middle Temple Hall, after the world premiere of MacMillan's new work for horn & piano
(Photo: Temple Music Foundation)

Schumann: Adagio and Allegro, Liederkreis Op. 24, James MacMillan: Duet for Horn & Piano, Britten: The Heart of the Matter, Poulenc: Elegie, Tel jour telle nuit, Schubert: Auf dem Strom; Nicholas Mulroy, Richard Watkins, Julius Drake; Temple Music at Middle Temple Hall
Reviewed 30 October 2024

A rare outing for Britten's expansion of his Canticle III and the premiere of a new work by James MacMillan at the centre of this wonderfully intelligent programme, featuring a terrific performance from Nicholas Mulroy

Britten's The Heart of the Matter was a musical sequence setting Edith Sitwell's poetry created for the Aldeburgh Festival in 1956 with his third canticle, Still Falls the Rain at its centre. The canticle had premiered at the 1955 festival to great acclaim and Sitwell was invited to the 1956 festival and created The Heart of the Matter with Britten. It received no further performances till Peter Pears revived it in 1983 and the additional material was published in 1994. It remains undeservedly far less known than Still Falls the Rain.

Britten's The Heart of the Matter formed the centrepiece of a concert presented by Temple Music at Middle Temple Hall on 30 October 2024 when pianist Julius Drake was joined by horn player Richard Watkins and tenor Nicholas Mulroy (a last-minute replacement for tenor James Way, who was ill). Alongside Britten there was music by his great contemporary, Francis Poulenc with his Elegie for horn and piano written in memory of horn-player Dennis Brain, who gave the premiere of The Heart of the Matter, plus Poulenc's cycle Tel jour telle nuit. The final work in the programme was Schubert's great piece d'occasion, Auf dem Strom from tenor, horn and piano.

Schumann was a composer dear to Britten and Pears and in the first half of the concert we heard Schumann's Liederkreis, Op. 24 and his Adagio and Allegro, Op. 70 for horn and piano. The first half of the concert concluded with another centrepiece, the world premiere of James MacMillan's Duet for Horn and Piano, a work commissioned by Lord Justice Stuart-Smith, himself a horn player, specifically for this occasion.  Another name weaving itself around the concert was the late Paul Darling KC, Treasurer of Middle Temple. He was a sponsor of the concert but died suddenly this year before seeing the concert to fruition and the evening was dedicated to his memory.

Everyone clearly enjoyed themselves and brought the house down: Harry Christophers & The Sixteen in Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610 at Temple Church

Basilica of Santa Barbara at the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua
where Monteverdi was working when he wrote his Vespers of 1610

Monteverdi: Vespers of 1610; The Sixteen, Harry Christophers; Temple Music Foundation at Temple Church
Reviewed 8 October 2024

Technically assured and finely expressive performance that filled the Temple Church with extraordinary richness from bravura moments to intimate magic 

There is something rather tantalising about Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610, so many questions. We tend to view it in the light of Monteverdi's subsequent appointment to St Mark's in Venice, but if we think about Monteverdi at the time of writing it (working in Mantua, keen to leave and with an eye on a job in Rome) it is less clear where it was written for. The work is full of questions like that, and prime amongst those of course is whether it is a 'work' at all. But what we cannot question is the extraordinary richness of the music, and all those questions mean that each music director is free to take their own view of the work, make their own decisions.

At Temple Church on 8 October 2024, Temple Music Foundation presented Harry Christophers and The Sixteen in Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610. Christophers took a large-scale, choral view of the work so we had a choir of 20 plus and instrumental ensemble of 18 with soloists Katy Hill and Charlotte Mobbs (soprano), Jeremy Budd and Mark Dobell (tenor), Ben Davies and Eamonn Dougan (bass) stepping out from the choir, though this should not disguise the extraordinary quality of the individual soloists. 

Using full choir to perform the large-scale psalm settings in the work means that you need technically adept choral singers, and The Sixteen had that in spades. This was one of those performances where you never needed to worry about the significant technical difficulties, all was superbly realised, even to the Magnificat which was performed at the high pitch (another one of those questions).

Fire and water in the library: Siren Duo in an imaginative flute and harp recital for Temple Music

Siren Duo (Claire Wickes, flute, and Tomos Xerri, harp) in Middle Temple Library.

Debussy, Mozart, David Watkins, Astor Piazzolla, Adina Izarra, Toru Takemitsu, William Alwyn; Siren Duo (Claire Wickes, Tomos Xerri); Temple Music Foundation at Middle Temple Library
Reviewed 17 September 2024

Temple Music's first concert in the attractive 1950s neo-classical library with a wonderfully imaginative flute and harp programme based around images of fire and water

Temple Music puts regular concerts on in the grand historical spaces of Middle Temple Hall and Temple Church, but on Tuesday 17 September 2024, they presented their first concert in a smaller, more modern space, Middle Temple Library. Siren Duo (Claire Wickes, flute, and Tomos Xerri, harp) gave a chamber recital of music themed on Fire and Water (a theme perhaps not dear to the librarians' hearts) with music by Debussy, Mozart, David Watkins, Astor Piazzolla, Adina Izarra, Toru Takemitsu and William Alwyn.

The origins of Middle Temple Library are lost in the mists of time, but a new building was created in 1625, to be eventually replaced in the 1860s by a Gothic style building which was badly damaged in the Blitz. The present library was designed by Sir Edward Maufe and opened in 1958. Inside it is striking, mid-Century classical with the main library room having a mezzanine running around it. The acoustic was on the dry side, but highly sympathetic for an intimate chamber recital.

A glorious diversity: Temple Music Foundations 2024/25 season with everything from medieval French song & Arabic poetry to Benjamin Britten & James MacMillan

Temple Church

The Temple Music Foundation's 2024/25 season offers the opportunity to hear a diverse range of music in a variety of spaces in and around Temple. Things kick off with Siren Duo (Claire Wickes, flute and Tomos Xerri, harp) in the intimate confines of Middle Temple Library with an imaginative programme themed around fire and water including music by Mozart (from the flute and harp concerto), Debussy, Piazzolla (from Histoire du Tango), William Alwyn (evoking the rivers and reedbeds of Suffolk), Toru Takemitsu (inspired by Melville's Moby Dick), David Watkins, and Adina Izarra. We move to the glorious spaces of Temple Church for a performance of Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610 with Harry Christophers conducting the Sixteen.

One highlight of the season must be tenor James Way's recital with pianist Julius Drake and horn player Richard Watkins. Their exploration of music for tenor, horn and piano includes Schubert's wonderful, and relatively little done, Auf dem Strom, Britten's The Heart of the Matter (his expansion of his Edith Sitwell setting, Still falls the rain) and the premiere of James MacMillan's Duet for Horn and Piano, along with music by Schumann, and Poulenc.

Using the Round Church rather than the regular nave of Temple Church, Siglo de Oro, director Patrick Allies, will be collaborating with actors and readers, and scholars from the UKRI-funded Musical Lives project to bring together performance of medieval French songs, Arabic poetry and Latin charters with narration evoking the world of medieval knight, William Marshal (d.1219 and buried in Temple Church).

Thomas Allery will be direction the Temple Youth Choir which consists of young singers from across London, including choral scholars and former choristers of the Temple Church, coming together for their annual concert for Remembrance. This year they are performing Fauré's Requiem in the year of the centenary of his death.

At the beginning of December, music at Temple is devoted to the Winter Festival which features a variety of events including Mark Padmore and Julius Drake in Schubert's Winterreise, Onyx Brass in music from Monteverdi and Bach to Imogen Holst and Emily Hall, an organ recital from Danish organist Hanne Kuhlman in music from Bach and Krebs to Karg-Elert and more, the Sacconi Quartet in Ravel, Mendelssohn and Roxanna Panufnik, the choir of Merton College in carols and anthems for Advent, and Thomas Allery directing Temple Church Choir and Temple Players in Handel's Messiah with soloists Jessica Cale, Rebecca Leggett, Stuart Jackson and Christopher Purves.

Full details from the Temple Music website.

Dramatick Opera: Christian Curnyn and the Early Opera Company in Purcell and Dryden's King Arthur at Temple

Dorset Garden Theatre, London in 1673
Later the Queen's Theatre where Purcell's King Arthur premiered in 1691

Purcell, Dryden, Thomas Guthrie: King Arthur; Lindsay Duncan, Rowan Pierce, Mhairi Lawson, Samuel Boden, James Way, Edward Grint, Early Opera Company, Christian Curnyn; Temple Music at Temple Church
Reviewed 27 September 2023

Stylish musical performances allied to an imaginative dramatic context create a very satisfying evocation of Purcell and Dryden's dramatick opera

17th century semi-opera (or dramatick opera as contemporaries called it) remains a tantalising genre, more akin to a modern West End musical theatre spectacular than anything. It is a curious hybrid that owes its existence to the particularity of late 17th century London where with a court whose tastes overran budget, a highly developed spoken theatre tradition, independent theatres where actors needed to be paid so economics forced the necessity of theatrical performances having a commercial element, and local taste. After all the fondness for mixing spoken and sung in a spectacular setting was still alive and well in 1826 when Weber was commissioned to write an opera for Covent Garden; Oberon in its original form is effectively a semi-opera.

There have been modern revivals of semi-opera in its full form, notably Glyndebourne's production of Purcell's The Fairy Queen (2009) and the Royal Opera's production of Purcell's King Arthur (1995), with a brave attempt at King Arthur by the Buxton Festival in 1986. But the style, dramatic inconsequentiality and sheer length mitigate against regular revival. So what to do? Too many of the best musical scenes in Purcell's semi-operas have little to do with the overall plot and often modern performances simply present the music on its own [Paul McCreesh and Gabrieli did that at their 2019 performance of King Arthur, see my review].

Temple Music presented a performance of Purcell's King Arthur in Temple Church on Wednesday 27 September when Christian Curnyn directed the Early Opera Company with sopranos Mhairi Lawson and Rowan Pierce, tenors Samuel Boden and James Way, and bass-baritone Edward Grint. The work was presented with a linking narration by Thomas Guthrie which was spoken by actor Lindsay Duncan.

Rückert lieder: Ian Bostridge and Julius Drake in songs by Robert & Clara Schumann, Schubert, Henze and Mahler

Friedrich Rückert

Robert & Clara Schumann, Schubert, Henze and Mahler; Ian Bostridge, Julius Drake; Temple Music at Middle Temple Hall
Reviewed 17 June 2023

All about the song; Ian Bostridge in remarkably direct and intense performances that spin magic in a wide-ranging programme

Faced with mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton's sudden withdrawal from her concert for Temple Music on Saturday 17 June 2023, pianist Julius Drake and Temple Music swiftly replaced the programme with the intriguing prospect of tenor Ian Bostridge in an entire evening of settings of the poetry of Friedrich Rückert stretching from Schubert's six Rückert settings, songs by Robert and Clara Schumann including songs from their Gedichte aus 'Liebesfrühling' to Henze's Das Paradies and four of Mahler's Rückert Lieder.

Friedrich Rückert (1788-1866) studied at the universities of Würzburg and Heidelberg, spent a year in Rome and eventually became a professor of Oriental languages in Erlangen and then Berlin, before retiring to his estate near Coburg. The beginning of his literary career coincided with Germany's struggles with Napoleon and his first, pseudonymously published Deutsche Gedichte (German Poems) expressed patriotic sentiments. His Östliche Rosen (Eastern Roses) came in 1822, and from 1834 to 1838 his Gesammelte Gedichte (Collected Poems) were published in six volumes. His best known work was Liebesfrühling (Spring Songs), some 400 love poems originally addressed to his beloved, a collection that Robert and Clara Schumann very much took as their own. 

Temple Song: Kate Royal, Christine Rice & Julius Drake in Brahms, Schumann and Weill

Middle Temple Hall in its wisteria
(Photo courtesy of Julius Drake)

Brahms: Zigeunerlieder, duets by Brahms and Schumann, songs by Kurt Weill; Kate Royal, Christine Rice, Julius Drake; Temple Song at Middle Temple Hall

From Brahms in exuberant gypsy mode, to intimate duets from Brahms and Schumann, to Kurt Weill demonstrating his brilliant versatility

The Temple Music Foundation's Temple Song returned to Middle Temple Hall on Tuesday 2 May 2023 with its first song recital of 2023. Pianist Julius Drake was joined by soprano Kate Royal and mezzo-soprano Christine Rice for a programme of songs and duets by Brahms, Schumann and Kurt Weill.

We began with Brahms' Zigeuner Lieder. These were originally written in 1888 as a cycle for quartet and piano, setting German translations of Hungarian folk songs. Such was the work's popularity that Brahms recast eight songs for solo voice, the version we heard at Middle Temple Hall. The music is only vaguely Hungarian, belonging to the category of 19th-century composers appropriating the styles of the Hungarian gypsy musicians who could be found in Vienna. Brahms ate regularly at the Gasthaus Zum Roten Igel where gypsy musicians could usually be heard. In its original format, Zigeuner Lieder's lively exuberance proved popular, hence Brahms' recasting for solo voice. 

Farewell Comrade: Music written in the shadow of death, Theresienstadt 1941-1945

Pen and ink drawing of a Jewish worker in Theresienstadt assigned to Bedřich Fritta, Theresienstadt, 1942. In the collection of the Jewish Museum of Switzerland.

Farewell Comrade: Music written in the shadow of death, Theresienstadt 1941-1945, Ilse Weber, Viktor Ullmann, Gideon Klein, Pavel Haas, Adolf Strauss, Carlo Taube; Ema Nikolovska, Simon Wallfisch, Julius Drake; Temple Music at Temple Church
Reviewed 14 July 2022

A powerful evening of remarkable music, songs written by composers interned in Theresienstadt from the simply touching to the powerfully complex

At Temple Church last night (14 July 2022), Temple Music presented Farewell Comrade, a programme that had as its subtitle Music written in the shadow of death, Theresienstadt 1941-1945. Accompanied by pianist Julius Drake, mezzo-soprano Ema Nikolovska and baritone Simon Wallfisch sang songs by Ilse Weber (1903-1944), Viktor Ullmann (1898-1944), Gideon Klein (1919-1945), Adolf Strauss (1902-1944) and Carlo Taube (1897-1944), all of whom were imprisoned in Theresienstadt. Much of the music was written there; none of the composers featured survived. Music was preserved by friends, or buried to be retrieved when Theresienstadt was liberated. 

Viktor Ullmann was firm that his music was not written about Theresienstadt, he wrote "By no means did we sit weeping on the banks of the waters of Babylon. Our endeavour with respect to arts was commensurate with our will to live." But Ullmann's songs that were written and performed in the camp seem to have a slightly gnomic quality about them, a sense of being about more than they reveal on the surface, as if there was much that could not be safely said or sung explicitly, and perhaps that is what gives them their power.

The evening had personal connections. The programme was being given in memory of Adolf and Frieda Rix who were deported to Theresienstadt in 1942 and murdered in Auschwitz in 1944, and members of their surviving family were present at the concert. Baritone Simon Wallfisch (who was a last-minute replacement for Konstantine Krimmel who, unfortunately tested positive for COVID) is the grandson of Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, the cellist who is a surviving member of the Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz.

A snapshot of London musical life in 17th and 18th centuries from Ensemble Hesperi at Temple Church

John Playford (engraving by David Loggan)

Handel, Purcell, Blow, Playford, Oswald; Ensemble Hesperi; Temple Music at Temple Church
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 29 November 2021 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
The period instrument ensemble exploring music by the web of musicians who lived or worked near Temple during the late 17th and early 18th centuries

During the late 17th and 18th centuries, the area around the Temple was home to quite a number of musicians. During the 1640s, John Playford opened a music shop by Temple Church and his business would remain in the area, whilst John Walsh would open his music shop in the nearby Strand in the 1690s. Other musicians lived in the area also, and it was this web of connections that Ensemble Hesperi explored in their concert in Temple Church on Monday 29 November 2021 for Temple Music. The ensemble, Mary-Jannet Leith (recorders), Magdalena Loth-Hill (baroque violin), Florence Petit (baroque cello), Thomas Allery (harpsichord), has become known for its exploration of Scottish 17th and 18th century music, and their Temple Church programme included some of James Oswald's music from their recent disc Full of the Highland Humours [see my review] alongside music by Purcell, Handel, Farinel, Pepusch, Finger, Blow and Matteis plus tunes from Playford's A Collection of Original Scotch Tunes and the English Dancing Master.

Thomas Playford's shop was the first music shop as we know it, and it was home to his music business. Samuel Pepys would queue up at the shop to buy the latest music by Henry Purcell, and Playford's son Henry would collaborate with Purcell's widow in printing more of the composer's music. Henry Playford also conducted auctions of music libraries (generally after someone had died), and when the composer Gottfried Finger failed to win the competition to write an opera based on John Eccles' libretto, The Judgement of Paris, the composer left London for good and Walsh auctioned his library. As Playford's business declined, John Walsh developed his, notable for his publishing of Handel's music (at first pirating it and then in collaboration with the composer).

From a puppet 'Liederspiel' to men behaving badly: Thomas Guthrie and Barokksolistene at Temple Music

The Alehouse Session - Thomas Guthrie, Bjarte Eike and Barokksolistene in Oslo (Photo Knut Utler)

Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin, The Alehouse Sessions; Thomas Guthrie, Bjarte Eike, Barokksolistene; Temple Music at Middle Temple Hall
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 18 November 2021 Star rating: 3.0 (★★★)
A very free interpretation of Schubert's song cycle which returned the work to its roots, and an evocation of a 17th century alehouse in an evening which by turns dazzled the imagination and frustrated.

Last night's Temple Music concert at Middle Temple Hall brought together several different strands with director and baritone Thomas Guthrie at their centre. Guthrie's association with Middle Temple goes back to when he sang with Temple Church Choir, and more recently he has directed such events as Purcell's The Fairy Queen there. Guthrie also has a long association with Bjarte Eike's Barokksolistene, performing with them as singer and violinist in their iconic Alehouse Sessions. And Guthrie's own recent projects with his Music and Theatre for All [see my interview with him] include plans to reinterpret the three great Schubert song-cycles, bringing an element of story-telling back to them. And in fact, last night's audience included participants in another of his projects, Lewisham Urban Opera.

So, on 18 November 2021, Thomas Guthrie, Bjarte Eike and Barokksolistene presented a theatrically staged event in Middle Temple Hall which saw Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin in a dramatic re-interpretation performed by Guthrie along with puppeteer Sean Garrett and narrator Rhiannon Harper Rafferty, plus a new accompaniment from Barokksolistene. Then after the interval we gathered for one of Barokksolistene's Alehouse Sessions. The result was an evening of music making which pushed the boundaries of convention in various imaginative ways, and by turns delighted, intrigued and frustrated.

When we listen to a work such as Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin performed today, it is so iconic and all-embracing that performers rarely interrogate the piece's form, function and dramatic structure. It's origins are somewhat anecdotal, contemporaries of the composer remembering stories after his death, and the tradition of performing the work as a whole only started some twenty-something years after Schubert's death. Indeed, the idea of a public song-recital as such was a later 19th century development, and with limited public performances of his music during his lifetime, Schubert can hardly have anticipated his work being at the centre of an iconic recital tradition.

Intimate and intense: Mahler with just voice and piano, Alice Coote, Stuart Jackson and Julius Drake at Temple Song

Gustav Mahler (etching by Emil Orlik, 1902)

Songs of Life and Death - Mahler: Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Rückert-Lieder, extracts from Des Knaben Wunderhorn & Das Lied von der Erde.; Alice Coote, Stuart Jackson, Julius Drake; Temple Song at Middle Temple Hall
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 11 November 2021 Star rating: 5.0 (★★★★★)
And evening of Mahler on the piano; without the rich orchestration, these prove performances of remarkable intensity, intimacy and directness

For a concert on Remembrance Day (11 November 2021), Temple Song chose the theme of Songs of Life and Death. At Middle Temple Hall, mezzo-soprano Alice Coote, tenor Stuart Jackson and pianist Julius Drake performed a programme of music by Mahler, his Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, and Rückert-Lieder plus two songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn and 'Der Abschied' from Das Lied von der Erde.

Apart from 'Der Abschied', all the songs in the programme were produced by Mahler in versions for piano and for orchestra ( the piano version of 'Der Abschied' is Mahler's arrangement of the orchestral version). Without Mahler's richly evocative orchestral writing the music can often taken on a greater intimacy and directness. In a survey of recordings of Rückert-Lieder, Richard Wigmore was completely dismissive of the piano version of the songs, yet I find benefits in the greater sense of intimacy, allied to the fact that the singers are performing on a smaller scale. And that was certainly true of this evening, when both Stuart Jackson and Alice Coote brought a remarkable directness and intimacy to their performances, effectively talking to us in song. Apart from 'Der Abschied', everything was done without the benefit of the score, so there was an even greater level of directness.

Seven Ages: Mark Padmore, Roderick Williams, Julius Drake, Victoria Newlyn at Temple Music

Titian: Three Ages of Man (image from Titian.org)

Seven Ages - Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Fauré, Poulenc, RVW, Bridge, Clarke, Butterworth, Gurney, Ives, Barber, Copland, Purcell; Mark Padmore, Roderick Williams, Victoria Newlyn, Julius Drake; Temple Music at Middle Temple Hall
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 21 July 2021 Star rating: 5.0 (★★★★★)
The seven ages of man bring Temple Music's season to a magical close with a wide-ranging recital

The final concert in Temple Music's season on Wednesday 21 July 2021 represented at return to Middle Temple Hall with a live audience for a recital themed on the Seven Ages of Man by tenor Mark Padmore, baritone Roderick Williams and pianist Julius Drake with reader Victoria Newlyn. The programme made no explicit reference to our current situation, yet the way the music and readings reflected on the human experience from Shakespeare's mewling and puking infant right through that haunting image of 'Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything', made you reflect. The programme played without breaks for applause, allowing the sequence of words and music to unfold with some intriguing inclusions and thoughtful juxtapositions, with composers ranging from Schubert, Schumann and Brahms, to Fauré and Poulenc, to RVW, Bridge, Butterworth, and Britten, to Ives, Barber and Copland, ending with Purcell's Evening Hymn.

Autumn season at Temple Music: intimate Mahler, Alehouse Sessions, Historical Fiction and more

Temple Music concert in Middle Temple Hall

Temple Music Foundation has announced its Autumn 2021 season of concerts in Temple Church and Middle Temple Hall, with 'fingers tightly crossed' that 'full capacity concerts, interval socialising and musicians congratulating each other with an embrace at the end of another stunning performance' will be possible.

From September to December there are eight, highly varied concerts. Soprano Grace Davidson and saxophonist Christian Forshaw start things off with Historical Fiction from their album of Baroque arrangements. American pianist Jeffery Siegel brings one of his Keyboard Conversations concerts, events which mix performance with Siegel's introductions and a lively Q&A, whilst Harry Christophers and The Sixteen return with Tudor sacred music. Pianist Julius Drake is joined by mezzo-soprano Alice Coote and tenor Stuart Jackson for Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, a rare chance to hear the symphonic song-cycle in more intimate form. 

Temple Youth choir performs Romantic choral music, then Tom Guthrie joins Barokksolistene for one of their amazing Alehouse Sessions [see my interview with Tom where we chat about these events]. Temple Singers (the adult choir at Temple Church) are joined by alumni from Genesis Sixteen for a programme of large-scale unaccompanied choral music including Tallis' Spem in alium. Thomas Allery, director of the Temple Singers, brings his Ensemble Hesperi for a programme of 18th century music by composers who lived within sight of Temple! [see my 2019 interview with members of Ensemble Hesperi]. And the season ends with the annual performance of Handel's Messiah.

Full details from the Temple Music website.

Live again: Temple Music launches season with three live concerts

Temple Church
(Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC BY-SA 3.0)

Temple Music is starting live concerts again in October and November, with three concerts in Temple Church all done in a socially distanced manner. The season opens with soprano Ruby Hughes, cellist Natalie Clein and pianist Julius Drake in recital (6/10/2020), followed by the Sixteen, conductor Harry Christophers (13/10/2020) and then a concert of the jazz-inspired music of John Ashton Thomas (12/11/2020).

Tre Voci, Ruby Hughes, Natalie Clein and Julius Drake's recital will feature Judith Weir's On the palmy beach which they premiered in 2019 (see my review) along with John Tavener's Akhmatova Songs, Brahms Two Songs (originally for alto, viola and piano, in a version for soprano, cello and piano), Kodaly's Sonatina for cello and piano and music by Schubert, Ravel, Bloch, and Chabrier plus two songs for soprano, cello and piano by Pauline Viardot and by Hector Berlioz.

Harry Christophers and the Sixteen will be performing music by secular music by William Cornysh, a pair of motets Philippe da Monte's Super flumine Babylonis and William Byrd's Quomodo cantabimus which were written as complements to each other, and solo songs by Thomas Campion with lutenist David Miller.

The final concert of the three is music by the film composer John Ashton Thomas, who has also written for Temple Church Choir. For this concert Anna Noakes (flute), Roger Chase (viola), Hugh Webb (harp), Trans4mation String Quartet and Roger Sayer (organ) will be performing John Ashton Thomas' jazz-based music including works specially written for the concert.

Full details from Temple Music website.

Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610 from The Sixteen at Temple Church

Monteverdi Vespers of 1610; The Sixteen, Harry Christophers; Temple Church
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 19 November 2019 Star rating: 5.0 (★★★★★)
Moving fluidly between thrilling brilliance and intimacy, this was performance which really meant something

Harry Christophers and The Sixteen first toured their performances of Monteverdi's Vespers to cathedrals and major churches in 2014 (the first time the group had done a major UK tour with orchestra), and since then I have caught them performing the work in Cadogan Hall. But the chance to hear Monteverdi's Vespers in the lovely acoustic of Temple Church was not to be missed.

Harry Christophers conducted The Sixteen in Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610 in Temple Church on Tuesday 19 November 2019 as part of Temple Music's season. The soloists, all singers in the choir, were Charlotte Dobbs, Katy Hill, Mark Dobell, Nicholas Mulroy, Eamonn Dougan, Ben Davies, and the trebles of Temple Church Choir sang the 'Sonata Sopra Santa Maria'.

We don't know a lot about Monteverdi's so-called Vespers. We don't know who or where the music was written for, we have little knowledge of performances directed by Monteverdi in his lifetime, and for much of the 20th century there was even disputes about the key some of the movements were supposed to be in!

When it was published in 1610, it was Monteverdi's first published sacred music. By then he had worked for the Duke of Mantua for 20 years, published five books of madrigals and written two major operas. Part of his responsibilities for the Duke included music for the Duke's chapel, but we know little about Monteverdi's liturgical music in detail. We have to assume that the Vespers, even if largely written in 1609/1610, were the product of long experience. And there is a good case to be made for the music being written for the public chapel of Santa Barbara in the palace at Mantua.

The publication of 1610 has the complex title of Sanctissimae Virgini Missa senis vocibus ad ecclesiarum choros, ac Vespere pluribus decantandae cum nonnullis sacris concentibus ad Sacella sive Principum Cubicula accommodata" (Mass for the Most Holy Virgin for six voices for church choirs, and vespers for several voices with some sacred songs, suitable for chapels and ducal chambers), though one of the part-books refers to it as Vespro della Beata Vergine da concerto composta sopra canti firmi" (Vesper for the Blessed Virgin for concertos, composed on cantus firmi. It was published as a sort of CV, a presentation work to show other employers what Monteverdi could to. He was angling for a post in Rome (the work is dedicated to the Pope), and it almost certainly helped to get him the post at St Mark's in Venice which he took in 1613.

It is not so much a single unified work as a kit for choir masters to use to construct services. Two Vespers services are possible, a long elaborate one and a shorter one with few instruments, the motets serve to dazzle and may have been used to replace the antiphons, or they may just be Monteverdi showing off. And, of course, no-one tacks the mass, which was also in the 1610 publication, onto performances of the Vespers!

Harry Christophers opts for minimal intervention and full grandeur. We get the more complex of the Magnificats (in the now unfashionable higher key which maximises the glittering brilliance of the piece), and full instrumental panoply, with strings, recorders, dulcian (a sort of early bassoon), cornetts, sackbutts, theorbo, harp and organ. In all 18 instrumentalists and 20 singers (not including the trebles).

A Rachmaninov Drama - Scenes from a Love Affair

Rachmaninov in 1902

Rachmaninov songs; Sofia Fomina, Roderick Williams, Julius Drake; Temple Music at Middle Temple Hall
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 5 July 2019 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
Around a quarter of Rachmaninov's mature songs presented as a striking dramatic sequence, highlighting discoveries old and new

For the last Temple Song concert of the season, Temple Music presented A Rachmaninov Drama - Scenes from a Love Affair, a programme of Rachmaninov songs performed by Sofia Fomina (soprano), Roderick Williams (baritone) and Julius Drake (piano). Drake had selected a sequence of some two dozen of Rachmaninov's songs on the theme of love, unattainable, attained, and lost, ending with Rachmaninov's sole duet (actually more of a dialogue).

Rachmaninov wrote songs throughout his career in Russia, excluding juvenilia he wrote some 83 songs between 1890 (when he was 17) to 1916, but after 1917 when he left Russia as an exile after the Revolution he stopped writing songs. His disconnection from his home country, and the fact that the Russia of his youth now no longer existed, had a large effect on Rachmaninov's compositions. Settled in the USA, his main source of income came from piano and conducting engagements with demanding tour schedules, leading to a reduction in his time for composition; between 1918 and 1943, he completed just six works, including Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Symphony No. 3, and Symphonic Dances. One of the ironies of Rachmaninov's songs (and his smaller piano pieces) is that their prevailing mood of yearning, lyric melancholy seems to evoke the exiled Rachmaninov yet they were actually written by the younger composer settled in Russia.

It is not that the songs offer no stylistic development, and the six songs Opus 38, written in 1916 just before Rachmaninov left Russia, set Symbolist poets rather than the Russian Romantics that Rachmaninov had previous favoured, and in style we can hear how Rachmaninov moved away from the Tchaikovsky-inspired melody of the earliest songs. Song for Rachmaninov seems to have been intimately bound up with the personal, his songs were dedicated to friends and relatives, wives and mistresses, and also to the great singers who performed them, perhaps offering a hint as to why he stopped writing songs when these relationships were severed by his exile.