Truly captivating: bass baritone Nicola Alaimo & pianist Carlo Rizzi celebrate Opera Rara's Donizetti Song Project with songs by Donizetti, Rossini, Bellini & Mercadante

Carlo Rizzi & Nicola Alaimo at Wigmore Hall (Photo: Russell Duncan)

Donizetti & Friends: Donizetti, Rossini, Bellini, Mercadante; Nicola Alaimo, Carlo Rizzi, Hetty Snell; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 16 June 2026

Superb bel canto technique & brilliant comic timing make Nicola Alaimo's contribution to this concert of early 19th century Italian song something rather special, delightful & captivating.

Opera Rara is celebrating the completion of its Donizetti Song Project, eight discs of songs covering the whole of Donizetti's song output allied to a new edition of the solo songs created by Roger Parker and Ian Schofield. The eighth and final volume of songs, from bass baritone Nicola Alaimo and pianist Carlo Rizzi, has just been released [see Opera Rara website]. To celebrate Nicola Alaimo joined Carlo Rizzi and cellist Hetty Snell at Wigmore Hall on Tuesday 16 June 2026 for a lunchtime recital pairing Donizetti's songs with those of Rossini, Bellini and Mercadante.

I remember talking to a singer about Italian songs from later in the 19th century, particularly those of Tosti. The singer said that the songs were a challenge because they took for granted the singer's technique! This thought came back to me during Nicola Alaimo's recital as I realised that to make these songs work you needed a firm bel canto technique.

Most of the songs in the recital were based around an expressive melody over some sort of flowing piano accompaniment. They were all about the voice, and the way you used the melody for expressive purposes. Whether they were serious and intense or simply comic, Alaimo projected each song with maximum expressivity whilst always ensuring the primacy of expressive line. Yet his diction was admirable throughout, his lyric technique was no barrier to making the words count too. Unlike some opera singers, Alaimo seemed comfortable on the concert platform and proved a delightful companion and guide through the songs.

A remarkable combination of headlong energy with care & attention: Igor Levit & Leonkoro Quartet in Schumann's Piano Quintet at Wigmore Hall's 125 Anniversary Festival

Schumann: Piano Quintet - Igor Levit, Leonkoro Quartet - Wigmore Hall (Photo: Tom Wright/Wigmore Hall)

Henriëtte Bosmans: String Quartet, Robert Schumann: Piano Quintet; Igor Levit, Leonkoro Quartet; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 31 May 2026

A completely absorbing performance of the Schumann bringing a real sense of urgency to the music and refreshingly lacking romantic self-indulgence. The Quartet's performance of Bosmans' piece made you wonder why it was not better known 

Wigmore Hall's 125th Anniversary Festival continues apace. On Sunday 31 May 2026, pianist Igor Levit joined the Leonkoro Quartet - Jonathan Schwarz and Emiri Kakiuchi (violin), Mayu Konoe (viola), Lukas Schwarz (cello) - for the second of two collaborations. Having performed Brahms's Piano Quintet in F minor Op. 34 together on Saturday evening, Sunday morning saw them performing Schumann's Piano Quintet. The quartet began the concert with Henriëtte Bosmans' String Quartet.

Every detail mattered: Basel Chamber Orchestra & Vilde Frang in Bach, Mendelssohn & Grieg at Wigmore Hall

Kammerorchester Basel (Photo: Matthias Mueller)

Mendelssohn: String Symphonies Nos. 4 & 10, Bach; Violin concerto in A minor, Violin concerto in E major, Grieg: Holberg Suite; Basel Chamber Orchestra, Vilde Frang; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 20 May 2026

In a varied programme the Basel players brought real vitality the music, making Mendelssohn's early symphonies invigorating and Grieg's Holberg Suite anything but hackneyed. But the centrepiece was a pair of Bach concertos with Vilde Frang in elegant, expressive and plangent form

The name Basel Chamber Orchestra has resonance, it is associated with the patron and conductor Paul Sacher, who founded the Basler Kammerorchester in 1926 and commissioned works from Stravinsky, Bartók, Martinů, Frank Martin, Hindemith, Henze, Lutosławski, Birtwistle and more. The orchestra disbanded in 1987 and Sacher died in 1999 though The Paul Sacher Foundation continues.

The present Basel Chamber Orchestra (Kammerorchester Basel) began life in 1984 as Serenata Basel founded by graduates of Swiss music academies. Since 1999 it has operated without a chief conductor and also that year the name changed to the present one. And listening to the orchestra today, one can safely forget any Sacher resonances, the orchestra is simply one of the best chamber orchestras around.

On Wednesday 20 May 2026 they paid a visit to Wigmore Hall. Directed from the violin by Baptiste Lopez their programme centred on Bach's two violin concertos (in A minor and E major) with violinist Vilde Frang, alongside Mendelssohn's ;String Symphonies Nos. 4 & 10 and Grieg's Holberg Suite.

The fires of passion, immediacy & intimacy: Hugo Ticciati & O/Modernt in Lera Auerbach, Golijov, Janacek & Mahler at Wigmore Hall

Hugo Ticciati & O/Modernt Chamber Orchestra

The Fires of Love: Lera Auerbach, Janacek, Osvaldo Golijov, Mahler; Hugo Ticciati & O/Modernt Chamber Orchestra; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 28 April 2026

One of O/Modernt's usual freewheeling programmes juxtaposing Golijov's klezmer inspired clarinet with Mahler giving with speaking intensity, Lera Auerbach remarkable dialogue with Pergolesi and Janacek's intimate confessions writ large

Hugo Ticciati and O/Modernt's concert at Wigmore Hall on Tuesday 28 April 2026 was the final one of their residency. Entitled The Fires of Love the programme was supposed to feature the performance of a new commission featuring Iranian vocalist Haleh Seyfizadeh, but she has been unable to travel from Iran. The war thus spreading its tentacles to even the hallowed halls of Wigmore Street. Rather oddly, given the political circumstances, Hugo Ticciati replaced the planned work with Osvaldo Golijov's 1994 work, The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind where Jewish klezmer clarinet is the focus. Around this, the other works in the programme considered different types of love with Lera Auerbach's Sogno di Stabat Mater (2005), Janacek's String Quartet No. 2 'Intimate Letters' (1928) and Mahler's Adagietto from Symphony No. 5 (1901-2).

Memories of a County Kerry childhood & a travelling Scot: Stephen McNeff's Ballads of a Bogman & RVW's Songs of Travel at Wigmore Hall for St Patrick's Day

Stephen McNeff: Ballads of a Bogman - The Sigerson Clifford Song Cycle, Vaughan Williams: Songs of Travel; Gavan Ring, Fiachra Garvey; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 17 March 2027

Stephen McNeff's masterly settings of poetry inspired by County Kerry with performers who seemed to identify with the material so that tenor Gavan Ring did not so much perform the songs as embody them

Sigerson Clifford (1913-1985) was an Irish playwright and poet whose most successful work was his 1955 poetry collection, Ballads of a Bogman. Though Clifford worked in Dublin, in the Civil Service, his poetry focuses on the town of Cahersiveen on the Iveragh peninsula of County Kerry on Ireland's southwest coast. The town where Clifford had been born and brought up.

Tenor Gavan Ring was also raised in Cahersiveen,. When in 2021 Ireland's Contemporary Music Centre brought him, pianist Louise Thomas and composer Stephen McNeff together as part of a programme to encourage creative collaboration between musical colleagues, Ring suggested Clifford's poems to McNeff as a source for a song cycle.

The result was Stephen McNeff's Ballads of a Bogman - The Sigerson Clifford Song Cycle from 2022. The cycle was the centrepiece of Gavan Ring and pianist Fiachra Garvey's St Patrick's Day recital at Wigmore Hall on 17 March 2026. The recital's theme was Evocations of Home and Exile, and their programme also included Ralph Vaughan Williams's Song of Travel setting Robert Louis Stevenson.

The plaque, designed by Alan Ryan Hall, commemorating Sigerson Clifford in Cahersiveen, Co. Kerry.

Stephen McNeff's Ballads of a Bogman is a substantial piece, consisting of ten songs in all. Many of Clifford's poems are in the strophic ballad form, and you can clearly hear Irish folk-music and poetry in them. Clifford's focus is on Cahersiveen, but it is not an entirely soft-focus view. In The Ballad of the Tinker's Son the poet contrasts the tinker's life with his own, marooned in an office in Dublin, yet as the ballad progresses the Troubles rear their head, and we learn the poet shot the tinker's son. That is another thing about these poems, they often have a sting in the tail, a twist in the last line. So at the end of The County Mayo with its lyrical evocation of youth, the poet makes clear he is old and looking back, whilst in The Fiddler the poet is another figure who is old and looking back.

A life of quiet industry: songs by Ina Boyle alongside her teachers & friends from Ailish Tynan, Paula Murrihy, Robin Tritschler, Iain Burnside at Wigmore Hall

Ina Boyle

Ina Boyle: a Rediscovery, songs by Ina Boyle, Charles Wood, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Elizabeth Maconchy; Ailish Tynan, Paula Murrihy, Robin Tritschler, Iain Burnside; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 10 March 2026

An exploration of Irish composer Ina Boyle's song legacy in performances that were never less than engaging and sometimes profoundly moving, leaving one puzzled as to why we don't know this repertoire better 

Ina Boyle is an intriguing figure: she might be said to have lived a life of quiet industry, with music and family being important to her. She was relatively prolific even though she hardly travelled after World War Two, yet few songs were published in her lifetime.

Born and brought up in County Wicklow, family was important, and she lived in Wicklow all her life. Though she had some success during her lifetime, she remained somewhat on the fringes. Lessons with Ralph Vaughan Williams during the 1920s and 1930s and friendship with some of his other female pupils has led her to be associated with composers such as Elizabeth Maconchy (with whom she had a 50-year friendship), Elizabeth Lutyens and Grace Williams, but it is worth bearing in mind that she was around 20 years older than them.

Her music is in the process of being rediscovered yet though there have been discs of her songs (on Delphian) and her orchestral music (on Dutton Epoch), it has not yet reached common currency.

On 10 March 2025 at Wigmore Hall, Ina Boyle: a Rediscovery presented Ailish Tynan (soprano), Paula Murrihy (mezzo-soprano), Robin Tritschler (tenor) and Iain Burnside (piano) in a programme of Ina Boyle's songs performed alongside those of her teachers, Charles Wood and Ralph Vaughan Williams, and her friend Elizabeth Maconchy. Rather impressively for a programme of somewhat less-known music, all of Boyle's songs were performed from memory.

Storytelling, musicality & musicology: Hugh Cutting, Peter Whelan & Irish Baroque Orchestra in The Trials of Tenducci at Wigmore Hall

Thomas Gainsborough: Portrait of Giusto Ferdinando Tenducci (c. 1773)
(Photo: The Barber Institute of Fine Arts)

The Trials of Tenducci: Mozart, Johann Christian Bach, Gluck, Thomas Arne, Johann Christian Fischer, Tommaso Giordani; Hugh Cutting, Peter Whelan, Irish Baroque Orchestra; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 9 March 2026

Irish Baroque Orchestra makes a welcome visit to London with a wonderful evening combining story-telling and virtuosity, exploring music associated with the impecunious Italian castrato Tenducci on his travels in England & Ireland with performances of great presence and bravura

When I interviewed Peter Whelan last year he talked about his interest not only in music but in the stories behind it, [see my interview 'Spurred on by the story-telling'] and this is exemplified by his series of discs with Irish Baroque Orchestra exploring Ireland's 18th century musical heritage by focusing on particular characters. Notable amongst these was their 2021 disc The Trials of Tenducci on Linn Records [see my review] focusing on the Italian castrato, Tenducci who made a career in England and Ireland along with getting himself into one or two scrapes!

On Monday 9 March 2026, Peter Whelan and Irish Baroque Orchestra (IBO) were joined by countertenor Hugh Cutting for a concert version of The Trials of Tenducci at Wigmore Hall. The programme included music that Tenducci had sung, music by composers with whom he was friends and music by contemporaries in Ireland, including pieces by Mozart, Johann Christian Bach, Gluck, Thomas Arne, Johann Christian Fischer and Tommaso Giordani.

From Sappho to Strozzi to Errollyn Wallen: Nardus Williams, Elizabeth Kenny & Mary Beard's Women and Power at Wigmore Hall

Riana Duncan cartoon from Punch (1988) - From Flickr

Women and power: Maddalena Casulana, Isabella de’ Medici, Barbara Strozzi, Francesca Caccini, Settimia Caccini, Rosa Giacinta Badalla, Claudia Sessa, Errollyn Wallen; Nardus Williams, Elizabeth Kenny, Mary Beard; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 8 March 2026

Mary Beard brings out the political undertones and classical references in music by 16th and 17th century Italian women composers in pleasingly direct and intimate performances from Nardus Williams and Elizabeth Kenny leading to the premiere of a terrific piece by Errollyn Wallen.

International Women's Day at Wigmore Hall began with Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective in Fanny Mendelssohn's Piano Trio, plus music by Madeleine Dring, Amy Beach and Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, then in the afternoon violist Rosalind Ventris presented a programme of unaccompanied viola music from 20th and 21st centuries by Lilian Fuchs, Imogen Holst, Elizabeth Maconchy, Thea Musgrave, Sally Beamish, and Amanda Feery.

In the evening, Nardus Williams (soprano), Elizabeth Kenny (lute/theorbo) and Mary Beard (speaker) presented Women and Power, an evening that mixed 16th and 17th century Italian music by women composers with Beard's illuminating discourse and ended with the premiere of Errollyn Wallen's setting of Carol Ann Duffy, Eurydice.

There were seven historic composers featured, Maddalena Casulana (c.1544-1566/83), Isabella de’ Medici (1542-1576), Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677), Francesca Caccini (1587-1641), Settimia Caccini (c.1591-1660), Rosa Giacinta Badalla (c.1660-c.1710), and Claudia Sessa (c.1570-c.1613/9).

Vital, alive & compelling: Handel's Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno from David Bates & La Nuova Musica at Wigmore Hall

Handel: Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno - Jeanine De Bique, Polly Leech, Christopher Lowrey, Nick Pritchard, La Nuova Musica, David Bates - Wigmore Hall (Photo: image capture from Wigmore Hall live stream)

Handel: Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno; Jeanine De Bique, Polly Leech, Christopher Lowrey, Nick Pritchard, La Nuova Musica, David Bates; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 28 February 2026

Vivid musical presence and compelling drama make this concert performance of Handel's first oratorio an engrossing evening, vividly alive and vital playing combining with vocal beauty and sense of drama 

Handel's first oratorio, Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno (The Triumph of Time and Disillusion) had a remarkably long life. Premiered in Rome in 1707 during Handel's youthful Italian trip, the work not only provided source material for many of Handel's subsequent works, but resurfaced in London in 1737 (and 1739) in a revised and expanded version, still in Italian, as Il trionfo del Tempo e della Verità and finally was recast in English as The Triumph of Time and Truth in 1757 as a stop-gap because the blind and ageing Handel was no longer capable of writing new work.

It is a remarkably exuberant piece. Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili's highly intelligent libretto might be somewhat conceptual with conversion of Beauty from a yearning for worldly enjoyment personified by Pleasure to an aspiration to more secure rewards revealed by Time and Disillusion, but in execution Pamphili gave Handel sufficient character and drama that the composer was to create a quasi-opera. It is worth bearing in mind that the work was written at a time when there was no opera in Rome. The piece works as a psychological study, as demonstrated by Jacopo Spirei's staging at Buxton in 2024 which successfully recast the oratorio as family drama. But it also contains music which demonstrates Handel at his best. Italy had clearly been liberating for him and his musico-dramatic experiments in his cantatas paid dividends in works like Il trionfo.

David Bates and La Nuova Musica treated us to Handel's original Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno at Wigmore Hall on Saturday 28 February 2026. Soprano Jeanine De Bique was Belezza, mezzo-soprano Polly Leech as Piacere, countertenor Christopher Lowrey as Disinganno and tenor Nick Pritchard was Tempo. David Bates directed the 17 players of La Nuova Musica from the harpsichord.

Catching lightning: Solomon's Knot explore George Jeffreys & the birth of the English Baroque at Wigmore Hall

Solomon's Knot at Kirby Hall in 2023

George Jeffreys & the Birth of the English Baroque; Solomon's Knot, James Garnon, Helen Schlesinger, writer & director: Federay Holmes; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 24 February 2025

A dramatised presentation that brought to life the almost forgotten English composer George Jeffreys and his turbulent times, illuminating his impassioned, Italianate music

George Jeffreys, the most important English Baroque composer between Byrd and Purcell, still remains a name that many have not heard of. But thankfully, he seems to be having something of a moment. In 2024, Solomon's Knot released an album of Jeffreys's music on Prospero Classical [see my review] and I chatted to organist William Whitehead about his enthusiasm for Jeffreys's music [see my interview].

Now Solomon's Knot has developed a live programme based on Jeffreys's music, collaborating with director and writer Federay Holmes (an associate artist of Shakespeare's Globe) and actors James Garnon and Helen Schlesinger. George Jeffreys & the Birth of the English Baroque was performed at Wigmore Hall on 24 February 2026. The evening wove together works Jeffreys' and other composeers with a dramatic presentation of Jeffreys's life with Garnon as the composer and Schlesinger playing his wife and Lady Hatton, the wife of his patron. The singers were Zoe Brookshaw, Clare Lloyd-Griffiths, Kate Symonds-Joy, James Robinson, David de Winter and Jonathan Sells. James Robinson was replacing tenor Thomas Herford who was unwell, though some of Herford's solos were sung by David de Winter.

In her programme note, Federay Holmes points out that if Jeffreys's scores and part books had been lost or destroyed then we would have known him only as the unremarkable Steward of the Hatton family working away at Kirby Hall. Jeffreys's surviving letters to Lord Hatton, Lady Hatton and their son cover the 1630s to the 1680s, yet none mentions music. We know a lot about Jeffreys, relating to his work as steward, and we know the music he was writing and copying. But we have no texts to link the two.

Britain's longest-established string quartet? Sacconi Quartet celebrates 25 years with the line-up unchanged

The Sacconi Quartet - Ben Hancox, Hannah Dawson, Robin Ashwell, Cara Berridge (Photo: Clive Barda)

The Sacconi Quartet is celebrating its 25th anniversary with the line-up unchanged since Ben Hancox, Hannah Dawson, Robin Ashwell and Cara Berridge formed the quartet at the Royal College of Music in 2001, making them seemingly Britain's longest-established string quartet. The quartet will kick off their 25th birthday celebrations with a gala concert at the Wigmore Hall on Friday 20 February 2026.

The Wigmore Hall programme includes the world premiere of Freya Waley-Cohen’s Dances, Songs & Hymns for Friendship, commissioned for the occasion - a testament to "25 years of enduring friendship, all the different twists and turns of life they have seen each other through”. And Waley-Cohen's piece will feature in Sacconi programmes throughout the year. At Wigmore Hall the quartet will also be playing Haydn's String Quartet in C Op. 33 No. 3 'The Bird' and Beethoven's String Quartet No. 15 in A minor Op. 132.

The quartet has given over 30 world premiere performances and made premiere recordings of works by Roxanna Panufnik, Jonathan Dove, Graham Fitkin and John McCabe. The quartet's performance film of Dove’s first quartet Out of Time’ was released on Amazon Prime in 2021 and is now available to all, via the quartet’s YouTube channel.

Three members of the quartet perform on instruments made by the great Italian violin maker Simone Sacconi (1895-1973), who studied fellow luthier Antonio Stradivari extensively during his lifetime. The blend of these instruments, combined with many years of intimate work and understanding, have led to the quartet’s unique sound. 

The Sacconi Quartet is Quartet in Association at the Royal College of Music and Quartet in Residence for the town of Folkestone. The Sacconi Chamber Music Festival in Folkestone, which runs from 14 to 17 May 2026, is now in its 19th year and firmly established among the UK’s major chamber music festivals.

See Wigmore Hall website for details of the birthday concert. 

125 years young: Wigmore Hall celebrates its anniversary with two weeks of goodies from Igor Levit & Lisa Davidsen to Rhiannon Giddens & Stockhausen's Stimmung

Foyer of Wigmore Hall in 1901 when it was Bechstein Hall (Photo courtesy of Wigmore Hall)

Like many major cities, London's concert halls are largely recent phenomenon and old halls have had a habit of disappearing. Kingsway Hall (beloved of recording companies) was deemed unsafe and demolished in the 1990s, Aeolian Hall still exists but is now Sotheby's in Bond Street, whilst the Queen's Hall in Langham Place was demolished thanks to bomb damage. But there is one hall that has stuck it out and, in terms of ambience and sound, remains thankfully unchanged. This is Wigmore Hall. 

Opened as Bechstein Hall in 1901, the venue is celebrating its 125th anniversary this year.  The building was designed by Thomas Collcutt (whose other buildings included the Palace Theatre and Lloyd's  Register of Shipping) for piano manufacturers Bechstein to showcase their pianos, and the interior still features the mural The Soul of Music in the cupola, designed by painter and muralist Gerald Moira, as striking then as it is today.

The opening concert was on 31 May 1901, and to celebrate Wigmore Hall is having a 125th anniversary festival from 25 May to 7 June, full of all sorts of goodies. Things kick off at lunchtime on 25 May when the Modigliani Quartet joins forces with the Leonkoro Quartet, winner of the 2022 Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition, for Mendelssohn's Octet. The festival closes with violinist Christian Tetzlaff celebrating his 60th birthday with unaccompanied Bach, the Six Sonatas and Partitas.

There will be the launch of Julia Boyd's book, There is Sweet Music Here, celebrating 125 years of the Hall. On 31 May 1901, the opening concert featured Busoni, Ysaye and other distinguished soloists in a programme of Beethoven, Schubert, Bach, Schumann, Brahms and more. A gala concert with Thomas Adès (piano), Alina Ibragimova (violin), Cedric Tiberghien (piano), Louise Alder (soprano) and Joseph Middleton (piano) will reproduce many of the elements from that first concert, missing out the songs by Delayre, Wekerlin and Auber and adding music by Thomas Adès.

Soprano Lise Davidsen and pianist James Baillieu will be giving an all-Schubert recital on the very day of the anniversary. Another anniversary gala, the day after, features pianist Igor Levit in Ravel's Kaddisch, Shostakovich's Piano Sonata No. 2 in B minor and Liszt's Après une lecture du Dante 'Fantasia quasi Sonata'. And soprano Carolyn Sampson and pianist Joseph Middleton will be exploring songs from 1901, the year the hall was born, from Bonis, Hahn and Massenet to Strauss and Schoenberg, plus Mahler, Debussy and Charles Bordes.

The festival features two grand old men of Early Music. Jordi Savall directs his ensemble Hesperion XXI and singers from La Capella Reial de Catalunya in a programme of Monteverdi and his contemporaries, whilst William Christie directs Les Arts Florissants in Handel's Acis and Galatea.

Soprano Asmik Grigorian and pianist Lukas Geniusas create a programme that begins with Rachmaninov's Vocalise and explores that genre ending with Strauss's Four Last Songs. Baritone Christian Gerhaher and pianist Gerold Huber's programme centres around Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebte and Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen. Tenor Ian Bostridge and pianist Piotr Anderszewski will be performing two great Schumann cycles, Dichterliebe and Liederkreis Op. 24

The pianistic line-up also includes Alexandre Kantorow [whom we heard last month in recital in Lucerne, see my review] in Liszt, Medtner, Chopin and Beethoven; Yunchan Lim, the youngest ever winner of the Van Cliburn Competition in 2022, in fantasies by Chopin, Schumann and Schubert; Angela Hewitt in Bach, Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart and Schubert; and Lukas Sternath in Liszt and Schubert  

Pianist Igor Levit also joins the Leonkoro Quartet for two programmes which include Brahms' Piano Quintet in F minor, Op.24 and Schumann's Piano Quintet in E flat, Op.44, whilst violist Tabea Zimmermann joins the Belcea Quartet for quintets by Mozart and Brahms.

London Voices, which was founded back in 1973 by Terry Edwards and which is now directed by Ben Parry, will perform Stockhausen's classic Stimmung. Vocalist Elaine Michener joins lutenist Elizabeth Kenny for a programme that mixes Dowland, Strozzi and Robert Johnson with Bob Marley, Joni Mitchell and Robert Johnson the Blues maestro. Other guests at the festival include singer, composer, fiddle player and banjo virtuoso Rhiannon Giddens, and cellist Abel Selaochoe and his Bantu Ensemble

Full details from Wigmore Hall's website.

In sparkling form: Kate Lindsey joins The English Concert for an evening exploring Handel in Italy ending with something of a rarity

Kate Lindsey, The English Concert, Harry Bicket at Wigmore Hall (Photo from Kate Lindsey's Instagram feed)

Corelli: Concerto Grosso in D Op.6 No.1, Vivaldi: Trio Sonata in D minor Op.1 No.1 RV63 'La follia'; arias from Handel's Agrippina, Handel: Overture-Suite from Rodrigo, Handel: Donna, che in ciel; Kate Lindsey, The English Concert, Harry Bicket; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 28 January 2026

A sparkling programme focused on Handel's early years in Rome with mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey in fine form in arias from Handel's Agrippina and a rare performance of a relatively unknown cantata celebrating Rome's deliverance from an earthquake

The last time we saw mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey she was playing Elisabetta in Ulrich Rasche's astonishing staging of Donizetti's Maria Stuarda on the wide-open spaces of the Grosses Festspielhaus in Salzburg [see my review]. On Wednesday 28 January 2026 she was performing in rather different repertoire in a more intimate space. Lindsey joined Harry Bicket and The English Concert for a programme of Italian Baroque music from the early 18th century centred on Rome. Lindsey sang three arias from Handel's opera Agrippina and his cantata Donna, che in ciel, and the orchestra played a suite from his early opera Rodrigo. Alongside this was instrumental music by Corelli and Vivaldi.

Rodrigo (1707), Donna, che in ciel (1707) and Agrippina (1709) all date from Handel's amazingly productive and fertile period in Italy where his music, particularly the cantatas, became a testing ground for later operatic developments. Alongside these we had Corelli's Concerto Grosso in D Op.6 No.1. Handel would model his own Opus 6 concerti grossi on Corelli's influential set (printed in 1714) and Corelli played in the orchestra for some of Handel's premieres in Rome (and the two famously had a dispute in rehearsal). Also in the programme was a Vivaldi trio sonata published in 1705. Not Roman but a complete delight as it is a set of variations on the well known tune, La Follia.

We began with Corelli and a very full stage. The orchestra fielded a whopping 13 strings (4, 4, 2, 2, 1) which gave us a wonderfully rich sound in the hall.  But given my chat with conductor Jakob Lehmann about early 19th century Italian orchestras using a surprising number of cellos [see my interview], I did wonder whether there should have been more bass instruments in the mix.

Carrying the narrative strongly & directly: Solomon's Knot in Handel's Israel in Egypt at Wigmore Hall

Solomon's Knot

Handel: Israel in Egypt; Solomon's Knot; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 22 December 2025

Daringly performing Handel's great choral oratorio with just eight singers, Solomon's Knot bring out the work's narrative quality in a performance the was something of a tour de force

Handelian oratorio was a lot less settled in form than we like to think with the advantage of hindsight. Handel followed Saul, a large-scale dramatic work, with a work that minimised solo contributions and concentrated on the chorus. We now see Israel in Egypt as a Handelian oratorio par excellence, beloved of choirs and choral societies, but Handel's contemporaries were not so sure. The reactions to the premiere of Israel in Egypt in 1739 may well have had as much to do with anti-Handel feeling as the work itself, but certainly Handel's initial conception involving an adaptation of the Funeral Anthem for Queen Caroline never survived beyond the first couple of performances. Handel himself tried various solutions, but the version of the work that has come down to us is in two parts (confusingly usually called Parts Two and Three).

In later works such as Belshazzar, Handel would go to great pains to characterise the chorus but in Israel in Egypt we find him using the chorus of Israelites as almost the only character, narrating the story directly to us. It was this aspect of the oratorio that came over most strongly in Solomon's Knot's daring presentation of Handel's Israel in Egypt at Wigmore Hall on Monday 22 December 2025.

Beyond St Cecilia: Purcell's large-scale ode alongside superb anthems by his contemporaries Humfrey & Blow from The English Concert & Harry Bicket at Wigmore Hall

The Stationers' Hall where Purcell's Hail, Bright Cecilia was premiered in 1692

Humfrey: O Lord my God, Blow: I was glad, Purcell: Three Parts upon a Ground, Hail bright Cecilia; Amy Carson, Alexander Chance, Anthony Gregory, Nicolas Brooymans, The English Concert, Harry Bicket; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 16 December 2025 

Purcell's largest ode for St Cecilia alongside music by two of his contemporaries brings a striking element of compare and contrast in fantastically vivid performances. 

There is a grim element of 'last man standing' about English music in the late 17th century. Pelham Humfrey, John Blow (two years younger than Humfrey) and Henry Purcell (ten years younger than Blow) all learned their trade as trebles in the Chapel Royal, reconstituted by King Charles II after the Restoration. The Interregnum meant that there were few senior composers in their way and for a few years, life must have seemed exciting and full of promise. Humfrey was sent to France and Italy by the King. But his time was short-lived, he died aged only 27 in 1674. Three years later, Matthew Locke died, one of the few pre-Civil War composers to return at the Restoration. This left Blow and Purcell, but Purcell's precocious talent meant that Blow stood aside for his talented pupil and friend. Only, Purcell died at the age of 36. 

Playing 'what if' we can wonder what English music would have been like if Purcell had lived. But take that further and consider an England where Humfrey lived too, making English music the province of a trio of friends and colleagues.

The latest concert at Wigmore Hall from The English Concert and Harry Bicket on 16 December 2025 brought these thoughts to the fore as they performed Purcell's large-scale ode Hail, bright Cecilia alongside substantial anthems by Humfrey and Blow. The ensemble was joined by soprano Amy Carson, countertenor Alexander Chance, tenor Anthony Gregory and bass Nicolas Brooymans for Humfrey's O Lord my God, Purcell's Three Parts upon a Ground, Blow's I was glad and Purcell's Hail, bright Cecilia.

The English Concert was directed from the harpsichord by Harry Bicket with an ensemble led by Charlotte Spruit (single strings plus oboes/recorders, trumpets and timpani) with a continuo group including Sergio Bucheli (theorbo), Jonathan Byers (cello), Alexander Jones (bass) and Tom Foster (harpsichord/organ). The four soloists were joined by four ripieno singers, Ailsing Kenny, Nathan Mercieca, Edward Woodhouse and Christopher Webb to make a vocal ensemble of eight.

Fatto per la Notte di Natale: the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin in festive Baroque mood

Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin

Biber, Vivaldi, Locatelli, Corelli, Telemann, Dall'Abaco, Bach; Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 3 December 2025

A programme that was seasonally Baroque, played with a lovely sense of collective engagement. But whilst we might have come for the Corelli, it was Locatelli's ravishing concerto gross that stayed in the memory

The Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin with concertmasters Georg Kallweit and Mayumi Hirasaki brought Christmas to Wigmore Hall on Wednesday 3 December 2025 with a programme of Baroque works evoking the season, centred on Corelli's Christmas concerto. 

The programme opened with the 'Ciacona' from Biber's Mystery Sonata IV in D minor 'The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple', and continued with Vivaldi's Violin Concerto in E RV270 'Il Riposo per il Santo Natale', Locatelli's Concerto grosso in F minor Op. 1 No. 8, Corelli's Concerto grosso in G minor Op. 6 No. 8 'Fatto per la Notte di Natale', Telemann's Overture in F 'à la Pastorelle' TWV55:F7, Evaristo Felico Dall'Abaco's Concerto a più istrumenti in B minor Op. 6 No. 4, and Bach's Double Concerto for 2 violins in D minor BWV1043.

Engaging delight & profound melancholy: Purcell celebrates St Cecilia whilst Blow & Henry Hall lament his death in Dunedin Consort's concert at Wigmore Hall

John Blow by Robert White, line engraving, published 1700
NPG D1075 © National Portrait Gallery, London

Purcell: Welcome to all the pleasures; Raise, raise the voice, Blow: An Ode on the Death of Mr Henry Purcell, Hall: Yes, my Aminta, 'tis too true, Draghi, Croft; Jessica Cale, Samuel Boden, Nicholas Mulroy, Chris Webb, Dunedin Consort; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 18 November 2025

Blow's fabulous Ode for the death of Purcell given its due in a programme that explored Purcell's later music alongside that of his contemporaries and friends in performances that engaged and delighted

In 1695, John Blow and Henry Purcell published Three Elegies Upon the Much Lamented Loss of our Late Most Gracious Queen Mary as a shared homage. By the end of the year, Purcell would be dead at only 36 and Blow, some ten years Purcell's senior, would resume his post as Organist at Westminster Abbey which he had relinquished in favour of his talented pupil.

In 1696, Henry Playford published Blow's Ode on the Death of Mr Henry Purcell, ‘Mark how the lark and linnet sing’. The Ode set a poem by John Dryden, one of Purcell's favourite collaborators, and twelve poems in Purcell's honour were produced; of these, at least five inspired musical settings. These include works by Daniel Purcell (setting another Henry Purcell collaborator, Nahum Tate), Godfrey Finger, Jeremiah Clarke and Henry Hall.

Blow's Ode on the Death of Mr Henry Purcell and Henry Hall's own tribute, Yes, my Aminta, 'tis too true formed the centrepieces of the Dunedin Consort's concert at Wigmore Hall on 18 November 2025. Purcell died on the eve of St Cecilia's Day so it was appropriate that the concert included two of his St Cecilia odes, Welcome to all the pleasure from 1683 and Raise, raise the voice (c. 1685). Along with these there were instrumental pieces by Purcell, Giovanni Draghi and William Croft. The performance was directed by tenor Nicholas Mulroy (Dunedin Consort's Associate Director) who was joined by Jessica Cale (soprano), Samuel Boden (tenor), and Chris Webb (bass) with the instrumentalists Matthew Truscott and Huw Daniel (violin), Thomas Kettle (viola), Jonathan Manson (cello), Laszlo Rozsa and Olwen Foulkes (recorder), Toby Carr (theorbo) and Stephen Farr (organ).

In terms of length and musical complexity, Blow's Ode on the Death of Mr Henry Purcell is a substantial piece but it uses compact musical forces: two voices, two recorders and continuo, the use of recorders leaning into the instrument's association with mourning. The voices intended were probably high tenors, as here, singing full voice lightly with some falsetto: what the French termed haut-contre. For the post-War revival of music by Purcell and his contemporaries we got used to hearing this music sung by modern countertenors and the change in sound world can be remarkable.

A concert celebrating the legacy of the legendary classical guitarist, Julian Bream, at Wigmore Hall promises a great night for guitar aficionados.

Thibaut Garcia,

Continuing the legacy of the brilliant and pioneering British classical guitarist, Julian Bream, the equally brilliant French-born classical guitarist, Thibaut Garcia, joins forces with the award-winning ensemble, Quatuor Arod, to perform the world première of Leo Brouwer’s new guitar quintet, Cuban Landscape with Danzas, at the Wigmore Hall on Friday 21 November (7.30pm).  

Founded in 2013, Quatuor Arod enjoy a good working relationship with Garcia while enjoying a blossoming and globetrotting career. For instance, in the present season, they’re quartet-in-residence at the Mendelssohnhaus, Leipzig and with La Belle Saison (a French chamber music network that organises concerts and fosters young artists) and clarinettist, Pierre Génisson, they’ll be performing at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, Paris, whilst also visiting Brussels, Tenerife, Den Haag and Hamburg. 

They are also participating at the String Quartet Biennales in both Paris (Philharmonie) and Amsterdam (Muziekgebouw) where they’ll team up with Klaus Mäkelä, chief conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic. They’ll also team up with Quatuor Danel for concerts at London’s Southbank Centre and Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. Recently, the Danels took part in a series of celebratory concerts in Paris marking the centenary of Valentin Berlinsky, founder and cellist of the Borodin String Quartet. 

Prize-winners all the way, too, they took full honours by winning First Prize at the ARD International Music Competition of Munich in 2016 while a year earlier they were awarded the First Prize at the Carl Nielsen International Competition of Copenhagen and the First Prize at the European Competition of the FNAPEC Concours a year before. They participated in the BBC New Generation Artists scheme from 2017 to 2019 and became an ECHO Rising Star for the 2018-19 season.  

Signed to Warner Classics, Garcia’s celebrated for his poetic artistry and refined technique while Quatuor Arod - Jordan Victoria (playing a violin by Francesco Goffriller), Alexandre Vu (violin by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini), Tanguy Parisot (composite viola by Carlo Ferdinando Landolphi, Pietro Giovanni Mantegazza, 1775) and Jérémy Garbarg (cello by Giovanni Battista Ruggieri, circa 1700) - offers a delightful programme at the Wigmore Hall traversing centuries of guitar music ranging from classical masterworks to contemporary innovation. 

From bel canto to Harlem Renaissance: Lawrence Brownlee & Iain Burnside's recital at Wigmore Hall

Lawrence Brownlee

Tenor Lawrence Brownlee is on of the premier bel canto tenors around at the moment. And he's rightly busy, his season included a last-minute step-in as Elvino in Bellini's La sonnambula at the Met, where he recently opened in Donizetti's La fille du régiment, alongside Erin Morley, and further ahead there he stars in a new production of Bellini's I Puritani - the Met’s first in nearly fifty years.

The good news is that Brownlee is making a London appearance on 22 November 2025 in recital at Wigmore Hall with pianist Iain Burnside. Their programme is a fascinating showcase of music by Italian and American composers with nary an operatic aria in sight.

Instead, Brownless and Burnside open with a selection of songs by Donizetti before moving onto Respighi. Then they move on to Liszt's Tre sonetti di Petrarca in the virtuosic first version. Arias in all but name, this is music inspired by Liszt's sojurn in Italy in the 1830s and we can almost hear distant hints of Bellini in the vocal line, which makes it all the more desirable having them sung by a bel canto tenor.

The second half of the programme reflects Brownlee's engagement with more recent music. First there is Dominick Argento's Six Elizabethan Song and songs from Ricky Ian Gordon's Genuis Child.

Argento's songs were written in the late 1950s for the tenor Nicholas Di Virgilio. The composer said of them, "The songs are called 'Elizabethan' because the lyrics are drawn from that rich period in literature, while the music is in the spirit (if not the manner) of the great English composer- singer-lutenist, John Dowland. The main concern is the paramount importance of the poetry and the primacy of the vocal line over a relatively simple and supportive accompaniment."

Ricky Ian Gordon's Genuis Child is a cycle of ten songs written in 1993 for soprano Harolyn Blackwell. They set poems by Langston Hughes and the songs were described as "one of the freshest English language song cycles to come along in recent memory". 

Brownlee's project Rising, commissioned six of today’s leading African-American composers to set poetry from the Harlem Renaissance to song. Brownlee recorded their cycles alongside selections by Margaret Bonds and Robert Owens.  

And at the concert Brownlee will be singing Robert Owens' Desire, settings of four poems by Langston Hughes. Robert Owens (1925-2017) was born in Texas and studied in Europe after the War, returning to Germany in the late 1950s where he developed a career as a film and stage actor, composer, and pianist.

Brownlee will also be performing songs by Jasmine Barnes and Joel Thompson from his Rising project.

Full details from the Wigmore Hall website. 

 

La Grande Audition de Leipzig: Paul Agnew & Les Arts Florissants take us to Leipzig in 1722 & 1723

A 1723 engraving by Johann Gottfried Krügner of the Thomaskirche, Leipzig

La Grande Audition de Leipzig; Telemann, Kuhnau, Graupner, Bach; Miriam Allan, Maarten Engeltyes, Thomas Hobbs, Edward Grint, Les Arts Florissants, Paul Agnew; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 26 September 2025

Bach's contemporaries and rivals in a concert exploring what Leipzig heard in 1722 and 1723 as the city authories sought to replace the late Johann Kuhnau 

When Johann Kuhnau died in June 1722, the city authorities in Leipzig moved fairly quickly to find a worthy successor. Kuhnau had been in post since 1701 and wrote a significant amount of church music (of which only around 30 pieces survive). The search, however, was not simple and between August 1722 and February 1723, the city authorities went through a total of four possible candidates. One (Johann Friedrich Fasch) refused even to audition, but three did - Georg Philipp Telemann, Christoph Graupner and Johann Sebastian Bach. The first two passed with flying colours, but Telemann managed to get better conditions in his existing job in Hamburg (where he would remain in post until 1767) whilst Graupner failed to get permission to leave from the authorities in Darmstadt (he would remain in post until 1754 when he went blind).

This has left us with a tantalising selection of cantatas which Telemann, Graupner and Bach wrote for their auditions. For their concert at Wigmore Hall on Friday 26 September under the title of La Grande Audition de Leipzig, Paul Agnew and Les Arts Florissants performed a programme of cantatas by Telemann, Kuhnau, Graupner and Bach related to these events. Les Arts Florissants fielded an instrumental ensemble of nine led by Tami Troman, with vocal ensemble of Violane Le Chenadec, Nicolas Kuntzelmann, Sean Clayton and Benoit Descamps joined by soloists Miriam Allan, Maarten Engeltyes, Thomas Hobbs and Edward Grint with all eight singers performing the choruses.