Irresistible warmth & charm - Haleluyáh – Il Mantovano Hebreo

Profeti della Quinta - photo Mel et Lac
(Ori Harmelin, Roman Melish, Lior Leibovici, Elam Rotem, Dan Dunkelblum, Doron Schleifer)

Haleluyáh – Il Mantovano Hebreo; Profeti della Quinta; London Festival of Baroque Music, St John’s Smith Square
Reviewed by Ruth Hansford on May 16 2016
Star rating: 4.5
Enthusiastic and engaging exploration of the music of Salomone Rossi

Profeti della Quinta – Prophets of the Perfect Fifth – are a mostly Israeli group from Galilee (with one Polish violinist), now based in Basel, where they studied together at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis.

For their first London concert at St John's Smith Square on 16 May 2016 as part of the London Festival of Baroque Music, they explored the sacred and secular music of the early-Renaissance Mantuan composer Salamone Rossi ((c.1570 – c.1630). The concert was dubbed ‘Il Mantovano Hebreo’ – but with the caveat that Rossi was definitely more Mantuan than Jewish. He wrote for the Synagogue, having first made his name as a violinist and composer for the Gonzaga Court. He lived in the ghetto, but he was excused the wearing of the yellow star that was compulsory for Jews at that period.

The programme for this St John’s concert mixed sacred and secular, Italian and Hebrew, with vocal and instrumental music interleaved. Rossi’s sound world is not what we would think of as Jewish; he is assumed to have studied with Monteverdi and certainly there are echoes of his fellow ‘Mantovano’ in his Italian madrigals. At a later stage in his career, and alongside his secular work, Rossi set about revolutionising the music of the synagogue, bringing together books of settings of Psalms and, famously, the ‘Hashirim Asher LiSh’lomo’ (Songs of Solomon). As a contemporary wrote: “His compositions of music in [Italian] that were printed in book form found favour with those not of Israel”.

Rossi’s contribution to this Jewish musical renaissance was short-lived, though; he is assumed to have died when the Austrian imperial troops invaded the Mantua ghetto in 1730.

Profeti della Quinta are enthusiastic and engaging champions of Rossi’s work. Their sound is mellifluous and light, yet grounded. Their Hebrew singing has a forward, Italianate quality and throughout the evening they exuded a warmth and charm that was irresistible. The instrumental pieces included various dances; the roller-coaster ride of a Gagliarda; the airy Corrente a 6. The Italian madrigals and Hebrew Psalms were delivered with sincerity and (for my taste) just the right amount of drama.

The first half ended with a piece by the music director, Elam Rotem – pure luxury from the Song of Songs. The official programme ended with Rossi’s powerful and highly charged setting of the Kaddish, and for the encore a complete change of mood: the two tenors, as shepherds, ardently and unsuccessfully attempting to woo the coy counter-tenors, as shepherdesses. A lovely London début for the group. I wasn’t the only one in the audience who hopes they come back soon.

Reviewed by Ruth Hansford

Profeti della Quinta
Doron Schleifer, David Feldman – cantus
Lior Leibovici, Dan Dunkelblum – tenor
Elam Rotem – bassus, harpsichord & musical director
Katya Polin, Jacek Kurzydło – violin
Orí Harmelin – chitarrone

Recommended recording:
The ensemble's disc Salomone Rossi: Il Mantovano Hebreo is available from Amazon.co.uk.

Elsewhere on this blog:

• God spake the word: Handel's Israel in Egypt - Concert review
• Energetic Shakespeare celebrations: Ex Cathedra in Arne and Sally Beamish - concert review
• Listening as if for the first time: Handel's original Dublin version of Messiah - concert review
• A work in progress: Bellini's first opera Adelson e Salvini - concert review
• The power of five: Songs to the Moon from the Myrthen Ensemble - CD review
• The art is in putting people together: artistic director Douglas Boyd talks about Garsington Opera's new season - interview
• Firmly intent concentration on the music itself: Vox Luminis at the Cadogan Hall - concert review
• Strength, discipline & delicacy: Alexandra Dariescu, Fabien Gabel and RPO - concert review
• Adelina Patti, hurdy-gurdies & a Scots dance band: How to be HIP at Kings Place - feature article
• Beethoven, Dvorak & a constellation: Trio Celeste - CD review
• Strongly characterised: new music by Reiko Füting - CD review
• Intimate charm: Handel's Acis and Galatea - Concert review
• Home

Decades: A Century of Song - Volume 1, 1810 to 1820

Beethoven, Gail, Garat, Schubert, Sor, Tomasek, Viotti, Weber; Michael Schade, Lorna Anderson, Florian Boesch, Ann Murray, Sylvia Schwartz, Malcolm Martineau; VIVAT
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on May 16 2016
Star rating: 4.0
A cross section of song from the 1810's from Schubert and Beethoven through to the Parisian salons

This is the first volume in a planned series from Vivat which promises a century of song, with each volume looking at songs from a particular decade. So on this volume, Decades - A Century of Song, volume 1 1810 to 1820, we have songs by Schubert and Beethoven, of course, but also Carl Maria von Weber and Goethe settings by the Czech composer Vaclav Jan Tomasek, French song from Joseph Dominique Fabry-Garat and Sophie Gall, Spanish song from Ferdinando Sor, and songs by the Italian composer Giovanni Battista Viotti. Tenor Michael Schade gets the lion's share of the songs but he is joined by sopranos Lorna Anderson and Sylvia Schwartz, mezzo-soprano Ann Murray and baritone Florian Boesch, all accompanied by Malcolm Martineau who is executive producer of the disc along with Robert King.

This is a fascinating project, selecting songs by time-slicing and giving us an overview of the whole times rather than a thematic selection running across history. The problem comes when, as with the 1810s, one composer stands head and shoulders above the rest. On this disc of the 32 tracks, 16 are by Schubert and the majority of the Schubert songs are sung by Michael Schade. Now, I have no complaints about his performances but at times this feels like a Michael Schade/Schubert recital with interruptions. And I did rather want to hear more of the others. Couldn't we have had more than one Weber song? Was there really no more depth in French song at the time than the pair of charming salon pieces on the disc, what about the songs of Meyerbeer and Cherubini? And it seems a shame the Beethoven's song cycle An die ferne Geliebte had to be omitted.

Part of the problem is that the majority of songs were written for domestic consumption. When composers had songs published these were usually designed to be popular with amateurs to attract sales. It took a composer like Schubert to take the genre to a new level, or Beethoven who constantly struggled to confine his inspiration within the limitations of the human voice.

The recital starts with a Schubert group.

Breaking the Rules, the imagined testimony of Carlo Gesualdo, composer and murderer

Clare Norburn's musical play Breaking the Rules, the imagined testimony of Carlo Gesualdo, composer and murderer originally made its debut at the Brighton Early Music Festival in 2013 (see my review), now the piece is being performed at the Newbury Spring Festival (on 19 May) and the Brighton Festival (on 20 May)  before going on a national tour. The work combines a monologue for actor Gerald Kyd in the role of Gesualdo, with the composer's astonishing music performed live by the Marian Consort (artistic director Rory McLeery) into one magical whole as the music forms a sound-track to Gesualdo's memories of his life and his murders. The work is directed by Nicholas Renton.

Further tour dates include Bury St Edmunds (22 May), Lichfield (2 July), Oundle (15 July), Cambridge Summer Music (18 July), Ryedale Festival (20 July), Buxton Festival (22 July), Branscombe Festival (29 July).

Hartmann’s Simplicius Simplicissimus staged by Independent Opera's latest Directing Fellow

Leigh Melrose - Biedermann and the Arsonists
Independent Opera, 2015 - (c) Robbie Jack

Independent Opera has announced its latest Director Fellowship. Director Polly Graham will staged the UK première of Karl Amadeus Hartmann’s Simplicius Simplicissimus, in a new English translation by David Pountney. (It seems amazing that such a seminal work has not yet made it to the UK). 

Polly Graham will received financial support, plus mentoring from David Pountney and Stephen Medcalf and Independent Opera will present her production of Simplicius Simplicissimus at the Lilian Baylis Studio at Sadler’s Wells on 11, 15, 17 and 19 November 2016.

Polly Graham was Welsh National Opera’s first Genesis Assistant Director (2012-2014) and her recent work there has included directing Iain Bell’s A Christmas Carol and working as Associate Director on his new work, In Parenthesis. Polly Graham commented "Independent Opera has given me wonderful encouragement from the start of the Fellowship; in supporting the production of Hartmann’s superb but little known opera, Simplicius Simplicissimus, they are allowing me to step into new territory and make work that I really believe in."

Independent Opera celebrated its 10th anniversary last year, and its new Director Fellowship, the largest of it's annual fellowships, enabled Max Hoehn to stage the UK première of Šimon Voseček’s Biedermann and the Arsonists with finance, support and mentoring from Independent Opera (see my review).

INSPIRATION = DOVER

Musical portraits of Dover by composer Nigel Clarke form the centrepiece of an evening of music and art at Dover's historic Maison Dieu on 20 May 2016. Clarke has collaborated with poet Malene Sheppard Skaerved and the evening will include the world premiere of Pulp and Rags based on Dover’s paper industry, and Dogger, Fisher, German Bight, Humber, Thames, Dover, Wight inspired by Dover’s maritime history. INSPIRATION=DOVER will be both a concert and exhibition celebrating Dover’s heritage though the eyes of contemporary artists. The performers include violinist Peter Sheppard Skaerved and musicians from the Longbow string ensemble. The programme also includes the world premiere of David Gorton's Lachrymae Variations (on a Theme by John Dowland).

INSPIRATION=DOVER is the final event of Chalk Up, a one-year cultural tourism pilot led by Dover Arts Development (DAD) organised under Culture Kent. It presents the culmination of two years' research by fourteen artists who have been exploring the WW1 collections and archives in museums and heritage sites across Dover District. The resulting art works will be exhibited, together with objects from their host museums' WW1 collections, in the Maison Dieu's historic rooms on 20 May 2016.

Full information from the concert website and the Dover Arts Development website.

God spake the word - Handel's Israel in Egypt at Westminster Abbey

James O'Donnell, Choir of Westminster Abbey, St James' Baroque

Handel Israel in Egypt; The choir of Westminster Abbey, St James' Baroque, James O'Donnell; London Festival of Baroque Music at Westminster Abbey
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on May 13 2016
Star rating: 5.0
Handel's most choral oratorio in the grand spaces of Westminster Abbey

A concert at Westminster Abbey has been something of a regular event at the London Festival of Baroque Music and this year was no exception. On Tuesday 17 May 2016 we heard the choir of Westminster Abbey and St James' Baroque conducted by James O'Donnell performing Handel's Israel in Egypt. This year's festival has as its theme The Word: Voice and verse in harmony and the concert was the second under the title God spake the word; the first being Saturday's performance of Messiah from John Butt and the Dunedin Consort (see the review on this blog).

Whereas Messiah had been given in a very specific historical version (a reconstruction of the original 1741 Dublin version), Israel in Egypt was performed in the modern two-part version. When Handel premiered the oratorio in 1739 it was his first oratorio to set a text taken directly from the Bible, and there were three parts to it, with part one being a re-working of Handel's 1737 funeral ode for Queen Caroline, The Ways of Zion do Mourn. In this form the oratorio did not really work, with three rather static choral parts even though the funeral ode is magnificent music. In later revivals of the work Handel experimented with other ideas for part one. None of these took, and by the 19th century the work had settled into a form which would have been unfamiliar to Handel, just two parts (his original parts two and three) without an overture. Sensibly at Westminster Abbey, James O'Donnell chose to pre-fix the piece with the original overture (from The Ways of Zion do Mourn) which at least gives the piece a coherent opening. (If you are interested in hearing the full three-part version, then try Andrew Parrott's recording with the Taverner Choir and Players).

Despite the Biblical nature of the text, Israel in Egpyt was written as a theatre piece though Handel's audiences took some time to get used to the idea. All of Handel's own performances of the work were given in theatres, and 18th century performances in large ecclesiastical spaces would almost certainly have used a rather larger performing group than we heard at Westminster Abbey (34 singers, 30 instrumentalists). But we seem to have become squeamish about large-scale Handel performance even though there is good 18th century evidence for it. It would have been interesting to hear the work performed by three times this number of singers with a balancing number of instruments and with the Westminster Abbey organ playing continuo.


But James O'Donnell, as organist and master of the choristers at Westminster Abbey, is experienced at performing in the space and made a judicious choice of speeds so that the music really told in the large acoustic.

A walking tour of Kalamaja

Having been in Tallinn, Estonia recently for the Estonian Music Days, I have written about our non-musical exploits exploring the Kalamaja area of Tallinn in an article on the Culture Trip website.

A wander around the Kalamaja area of Tallinn in Estonia takes you past striking historic wooden houses, former industrial buildings reinvented as lively arts venues, and numerous delightful cafés; not to mention the former Russian sea plane harbor whose hangers now house large scale maritime exhibits. Read on for our walking tour of the area’s best art, cafes and everything in between.


Head over to The Culture Trip to read more.

International Opera Awards - winners in 2016

Ermonela Jaho as Sister Angelica in Suor Angelica
© ROH 2016. Photograph by Bill Cooper

The tenor Gregory Kunde, who has recently made the transition from Rossini & Donizetti tenor roles to Verdi (he makes his Covent Garden debut as Manrico in Il Trovatore and will return as Verdi's Otello) won the coveted Best Male Singer at the International Opera Awards on Sunday 15 May 2016. No mean achievement at an age (Gregory Kunde is 62) when many tenors are thinking of winding down. Those with longer memories will remember Kunde for his Eneé in John Eliot Gardiner's performances of Berlioz's Les Troyens at the Chatelet Theatre in Paris in 2003. 

Best Female Singer went to Mariella Devia whose recent performances have included the role of Elisabetta in the Alessandro Talevi's production of Donizetti's Roberto Devereux at the Teatro Real in Madrid (a production originally seen at Welsh National Opera). The Readers' Award when to soprano Ermonela Jaho who has recently pleased audiences and critics alike in Puccini's Il Trittico at Covent Garden, and as Leoncavallo Zaza for Opera Rara (soon to appear on disc).

Opera Rara popped up at the awards in the CD Complete Opera category, which was won by their recording of Donizetti's Les Martyrs (where Mark Elder conducted the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment with Michael Spyres, Joyce El-Khoury and David Kempster). Other companies recognised include English National Opera whose chorus won the Chorus category, and Glyndebourne which won the Festival category. Whilst the Opera Company category was taken by Dutch National Opera. Laurent Pelly was the winner in the Director category, whilst Vicki Mortimer (whose work included the recent Lucia di Lammermoor at Covent Garden) took the Designer category..

In the Philanthropists, there were join winners; Bill & Judy Bollinger whose philanthropy includes Independent Opera, and the late Christine Collins who created the Christine Collins Young Artists at Opera Holland Park.

The full list of categories and winners follows after the break.

Energetic Shakespeare celebrations 150 and 400 years on

A Shakespeare Masque in Stratford, Ex Cathedra Consort and Chamber Choir with local Stratford school children
photo credit John James, University of Birmingham

Thomas Arne & David Garrick The Garrick Ode, Sally Beamish & Carol Ann Duffy A Shakespeare Masque; Ex Cathedra, Samuel West, Jeffrey Skidmore; Milton Court Concert Hall
Reviewed by Ruth Hansford on May 12 2016
Star rating: 4.0
Garrick's Shakespeare ode re-constructed with a new work by Sally Beamish

Soloist Katie Trethewey,
Ex Cathedra Consort & Chamber Choir
photo credit John James, University of Birmingham

Milton Court hosted the London performance (on 12 May 2016) of Ex Cathedra’s Shakespeare Project, a wide-ranging collaboration of words and music involving all parts of what is dubbed the 'Ex Cathedra family', local schools and the live audience. There have already been performances in Stratford Upon Avon, Birmingham Town Hall, Hereford Cathedra and St Peter’s Collegiate Church, Wolverhampton, and the final outing will be to Southwell Minster at the end of May. Ex Cathedra was conducted by Jeffrey Skidmore, with actor Samuel West as David Garrick.

The programme consisted of two ‘occasion pieces’, one from 1769 and one from 2016, The Garrick Ode by Thomas Arne and David Garrick, and A Shakespeare Masque by Sally Beamish and Carole Ann Duffy. This gave us the opportunity to reflect on how our view of Shakespeare – and of what makes a national treasure – has evolved over four centuries. 

The Garrick Ode was written as a tribute to Shakespeare by one of his most important champions, actor-manager David Garrick, to mark the creation of a statue of Shakespeare in Stratford upon Avon. Garrick’s text was read on this occasion by Sam West. The music consisted of Airs and semi-choruses by Thomas Arne and reconstructed by Adrian Horsewood, with two missing choruses provided by Sally Beamish. Ex Cathedra members took the parts of named actors of the day, and the accompaniment was provided by a harpsichord, violin and bass viol. The accompaniment had a hypnotic feel – possibly a good thing as far as the text was concerned; David Garrick may have been a great actor and very important for the history of the theatre, but really, he was not much of a poet. Well, not to our twenty-first-century ears, anyway: think Oscars ceremony written in 1769 doggerel. The performers worked hard to make it resonate for us, but I doubt it will get many outings except as a companion piece for the Beamish.

The second half had an immediate appeal.

Listening for the first time: Messiah with the Dunedin Consort

John Butt and the orchestra of the Dunedin Consort

Handel Messiah; Dr Ruth Smith, Dunedin Consort, John Butt; London Festival of Baroque Music, St John’s Smith Square
Reviewed by Ruth Hansford on May 13 2016
Star rating: 5.0
Powerful stuff: Handel's original Dublin version of Messiah performed by 12 singers

This year’s London Festival of Baroque Music is the second of the post-Lufthansa era and has as its theme 'The Word: voice and verse in harmony'. Two concerts are dubbed 'God Spake the Word': the festival opener with the original Dublin version of Messiah, and the Westminster Abbey performance of Israel in Egypt on 17 May. Amazingly, this was the first performance of Messiah in the 30-year history of the Festival. Performed by John Butt and the Dunedin Consort at St John's Smith Square on 13 May 2016, with soloists Joanne Lunn, Meg Bragle, Esther Brazil, Joshua Ellicott, Edward Grint, and Robert Davies. Messiah was preceded by a talk by Dr Ruth Smith and followed by a post-concert discussion with John Butt.

The Great Music Hall in Fishamble Street, Dublin,
where Messiah was first performed

In her pre-concert talk, Dr Ruth Smith put Handel’s oratorios into the context of 18th Century thought and political events. Musically, the tension in England (and Protestant Ireland) at the time was between the Catholic, effete Italian opera sung by ‘half-men’ and ‘overpaid women’, and the need for a strong, robust, Protestant music. Discussion about the role of words in church music had been going on for two centuries already: one thing to be worked around was the decree that the name of God could only be set to a single syllable, for fear of creating an insidious effect on our minds…

The King James Bible, set to music, was thought to have the potential to bring a fractious nation together. This was a document intended to be read aloud, ideal for rousing choruses and memorable, thought-provoking images: ‘refiner’s fire’, ‘potter’s vessel’. It was intended to supplant the ‘heathen texts’ of Virgil and Homer whilst also having a broader appeal than some of the rarefied Enlightenment texts. A non-native speaker of English, Handel was intimately acquainted with the King James Bible. Ruth Smith suggested that he set out to ensure that listeners properly took in the text of Messiah, by changing the stressed words in a sentence, giving every line of the Word of God its best chance of being heard and understood.

So with that in mind, I decided to set myself a reviewer’s challenge of listening to the piece with the ears of someone in that first audience in Dublin in Holy Week in 1742.

Work in Progress - Bellini's first opera Adelson e Salvini

Simone Alberghini & Maurizio Muraro with the BBC Symphony Orchestra,
Opera Rara Chorus and conductor Daniele Rustioni_(c) Russell Duncan

Bellini Adelson e Salvini; Simone Alberghini, Daniela Barcellona, Enea Scala, Maurizio Muraro, Rodion Pogossov, Leah-Marian Jones, David Soar, Kathryn Rudge, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Daniele Rustioni; Opera Rara at the Barbican
Reviewed by Ruth Hansford on May 11 2016
Star rating: 3.5
A rare outing for Bellini's first opera

Enea Scala, Daniela Barcellona & Rodion Pogossov
(c) Russell Duncan

In 1824, at the age of 23, Vincenzo Bellini was given the title ‘primo maestrino’ of the Naples Conservatory, together with a room of his own and a twice-weekly pass to the opera, plus a chance to write an opera for an all-male student cast. The result, premiered in early 1825, was Adelson e Salvini. Though for today’s tastes it had a rather messy plot and a reliance on long-winded spoken dialogue, that did not prevent the piece being repeated at the conservatoire every Sunday for the best part of 1825, but it had to wait until 1985 for a professional performance. It was revived by Opera Rara at the Barbican on 11 May 2016, with Daniele Rustioni conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Opera Rara Chorus and soloists Simone Alberghini, Daniela Barcellona, Enea Scala, Maurizio Muraro, Rodion Pogossov, Leah-Marian Jones, David Soar and Kathryn Rudge.

For us, though, the main interest in this second Opera Rara / BBCSO collaboration (the first being Leoncavallo’s Zazà last autumn - see the review on this blog) was in spotting the many clues as to the direction Bellini’s short career was heading: those famous long spun-out vocal lines, and the gorgeous writing for woodwinds, were already much in evidence. He subsequently recycled some of the musical material such as the ‘heroine’ Nelly’s Act 1 aria that evolved Guilietta’s ‘O quante volte’ in I Capuleti e i Montecchi and the Act 2 duet for the eponymous Adelson and Salvini that was to foreshadow the Norma-Adalgisa showpiece.

Along with the elements for which Bellini is famous, there were also elements he didn’t pursue. This was dubbed an ‘opera semi-seria’ and there were some good gags: we had Bellini’s only buffo character the Neapolitan servant Bonifacio; we were offered the notion that the rivals for Nelly’s affections should solve the problem by cutting her in half, and of course for British audiences the Nelly / Fanny innuendo provided a smirk or two. On the whole, though, we are lucky Bellini subsequently found a better librettist in Felice Romani and stuck with the brooding Romanticism we love him for.

Songs to the Moon from the Myrthen Ensemble

Songs to the Moon, Peter Warlock, Brahms, Schumann, Samuel Barber, Elizabeth Maconchy, Joseph Szulc, Mompou, Saint-Saens, Debussy, Chausson, Hahn, Duparc, Massenet, Faure; Myrthen Ensemble; Signum Classics
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on May 13 2016
Star rating: 4.0
The power of five, young ensemble explore moon-struck songs, duets and ensembles

The Myrthen Ensemble (Mary Bevan, Clara Mouriz, Allan Clayton, Marcus Farnsworth, Joseph Middleton) is a group of young performers (four singers and a pianist) who use group recitals to explore theme not possible in the solo recital. This disc, Songs to the Moon, on Signum Classics is their debut disc and it brings together songs of the moon and of the night by composers as diverse as Peter Warlock, Brahms, Schumann, Samuel Barber, Elizabeth Maconchy, Joseph Szulc, Mompou, Saint-Saens, Debussy, Chausson, Hahn, Duparc, Massenet and Faure.

It is Graham Johnson and the Songmakers Almanack who cast a long shadow on the disc, with their concept of the group recital. And on this disc the Myrthen Ensemble give very much a group performance, of the 28 tracks on the two discs, three are quartets and ten are duos. The repertoire on the disc mixes the well known with the lesser known, and even with a composer like Brahms, his vocal quartets are relatively rare visitors to the recital room.

Michael Finnissy, King Arthur and more - Club Inégales new season

Peter Wiegold and notes inégales by Frederique Bellec

Club Inégales opens its latest season on 19 May when the club will be celebrating Michael Finnissy's 70th birthday. Michael Finnissy will perform his own piano works as well as performing with Peter Wiegold and resident band Notes Inégales. The evening will be preceded by a discussion on the ‘Art of Remaking’ at which Michael Finnissy will discuss alongside composer and Professor of Composition at Oxford Brookes University Paul Whitty and Helen Julia Minors, Head of Music and Creative Music Technologies at Kingston University.

Further ahead Club Inégales presents a re-imagining of Purcell's King Arthur at Wilton's Music Hall as part of the Spitalfields Music Festival. Reinterpreted, recreated and rearranged, Club Inégales will mix new orchestrations and improvisation with performers including soprano Alya Marquardt and counter-tenor Iestyn Morris, all directed by Peter Wiegold.

For the final events of the season, Stepping Out with Academy Inégales, are the culmination of a 10 month project and will feature the premieres of work by associate artists whose backgrounds range from composition to classical, jazz, Arabic, Indian and free improvisation musics.

Full information from the Club Inégales website.

A striking new concert hall - Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie opens in 2017

Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg - Photo Maxim Schulz

Hamburg's striking new Elbphilharmonie concert hall opens in January 2017 and so the 2016-17 Hamburg orchestral season recently announced includes not only the regular concerts in the historic Laeiszhalle but the opening festival for the Elbphilharmonie and a series of concerts there in 2017. The NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra and Ensemble Resonanz are the resident orchestra and ensemble at the Elbphilharmonie whilst the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra is resident at the Laeiszhalle. (You can read about my 2013 visit to the unfinished Elbphilharmonie in my article on this blog). Both orchestras along with the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra will be performing during the concert hall's opening festival.

Elbphilharmonie aims to be a 'Concert Hall for Everyone', the publicly accessible Plaza opens on 4 November 2016 and the Elbphilharmonie’s concert programme is intended to appeal to all with its carefully structured design, quality and accessibility. The building itself promises to be highly striking, but the opening festival includes all the local orchestras and many visitors in a highly enticing series of concerts. In many ways they need to be, the hall was supposed to open in 2010 and since then costs have rocketed (the final budget being around ten times the original planned).

Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg - Photo Maxim Schulz

For the opening of the Elbphilharmonie on 11 & 12 January 2017 Thomas Hengelbrock conducts the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra with soloists including Jonas Kauffmann and Bryn Terfel. Then on 13 January, Kent Nagano conducts the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra and choir of Hamburg State Opera in the premiere of Jorg Widmann's Oratorium. Also in the opening festival, Jeffrey Tate conducts the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra in Beethoven's Missa Solemnis with soloists Camilla Nylund, Sarah Connolly, Klaus Florian Vogt and Luc Pisaroni, and Ingo Metzmacher conducts the Elbphilharmonie Orchestra in Schoenberg's Moses und Aaron with soloists Franz Grundheber and John Daszak.

Visitors to the opening festival include Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra, Ingo Metzmacher and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the Arditti Quartet, Mitsuko Uchida, and Iveta Apkalna will put the hall's new organ through its paces.

Further ahead, highlights include the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra's Into Iceland festival, the Salaam Syria Festival,  Diego Fasoli's conducts Rossini's La Cenerentola with Cecilia Bartoli, Frederic Wake-Walker and Mahogany Opera Group will be taking Rolf Hind's Lost in Thought, Ian Bostridge and the Britten Sinfonia perform Britten's Curlew River,

Full information and tickets from the Elbphilharmonie website and the on-line concert year-book is on Issuu

The art is in putting people together - artistic director Douglas Boyd talks about Garsington's 2016 season

Cosi fan tutte - Garsington Opera 2015, conductor Douglas Boyd
Kathryn Rudge (Dorabella) - photo credit Mark Douet

Garsington Opera's 2016 programme includes Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, Rossini's L'Italiana in Algeri and Mozart's Idomeneo as well as a staging of Haydn's The Creation with a new collaboration with Rambert. I met up with Garsington's artistic director, Douglas Boyd (who is conducting Eugene Onegin) to find out more. Meeting in the lunchtime break of rehearsals (the chorus rehearsing Act One of Eugene Onegin) we sat in a nearby park on a rare sunny day to talk about the new season and about Douglas's relatively new role as artistic director (he joined in 2012)

I was curious as to how the season was put together, and whether there was any underlying programme. Douglas explained that whilst he always tried to programme operas he loves, it was surprisingly difficult to tick all the boxes, what language they are in, whether they use chorus, musical style and of course popularity. Garsington is not publicly funded so the company has to be able sell the operas to the public without compromising artistically.

Since the company was founded (by Leonard Ingrams in 1989  ), it has been known for its investigations of rarer repertoire such as Rossini's Maometto II and Strauss's Der liebe der Danae. This year, Douglas admits that the season is somewhat more popular than usual, but there is a very good reason. The festival is growing.

The demand for tickets and growth in their regular supporters has led to the company to move to four operas per season in 2017 along with more performances. For a small company this is a huge undertaking so this year Douglas and his team are making sure that they have a secure season and carry the audience with them by programming more popular items. So far, demand has been excellent and both Eugene Onegin and L'Italiana in Algeri are fully booked with Idomeneo nearly so. (Idomeneo is perhaps the rarest of the three operas and Garsington last performed it 20 years ago). The trio manages to tick most of the right boxes. Douglas feels that there are two operas for the young singers of the wonderful Garsington Chorus to get their teeth into (Eugene Onegin and Idomeneo) with a third that barely uses chorus at all, so there will be no problems of rehearsal logistics (they couldn't manage to to three chorus heavy operas). And the three operas balance comedy and tragedy rather nicely.

Scheduling one would be pointless if you haven't got a clue who will sing the lead roles

Douglas Boyd - © Alan Stratton, Medialane

Certainly Douglas has a wish list of operas he would like to do, but he points out that scheduling one would be pointless if you haven't got a clue who will sing the lead roles. How the process works becomes apparent when Douglas talks about the casting of Eugene Onegin which has two interesting role debuts.

Douglas had worked a lot with Roderick Williams in concert (but not opera) and it turned out that Roderick Williams had been dying to singing Onegin. Douglas describes him as 'a wonderful singer' and points out that not only is Williams making his role debut at Garsington but that the role is something of a departure for him. The Tatyana in the production is Natalya Romaniw whom Garsington has had its eye on for some time; some years ago she did a general audition for the company and it was apparent that she is a talent to watch. Natalya Romaniw has been on the young artist scheme at Houston Grand Opera, and by co-incidence the Director of Artistic Administration at Garsington, Laura Canning, was previously at Houston and brought amazing reports of Natalya Romaniw with her. Previously Douglas had worked with Natalya Romaniw in 2014 when the music from Beethoven's Egmont was performed at Garsington, and he wanted her back to sing Tatyana.

Another exciting piece of casting is Toby Spence singing the title role in Idomeneo; Douglas had worked with Spence in concert and they had been having discussions about Idomeneo, and Douglas calls Spence 'a fantastic tenor', going on to add that overall it is a great cast. Idamante is being sung by Caitlin Hulcup (who sang in Garsington's production of Rossini's Maometto II) with Louise Alder as Ilia and Rebecca von Lipinski as Elettra (Von Lipinski has previous sung Leonore in Fidelio at Garsington).

Michael Boyd speaks Russian, knows Pushkin and studied in Moscow

Revolting Rhymes and Marvellous Music

As part of the 100th anniversary celebrations of the birth of Roald Dahl, the Magnard Ensemble (Suzannah Watson - flute, Mana Shibata - oboe, Joseph Shiner - clarinet, Jonathan Farey - horn, Catriona McDermid - bassoon, Suling King - piano) and actress Rebecca Kenny are to tour UK festivals from 14 May 2016, performing Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs as imagined by Dahl in his collection of 1982 poems Revolting Rhymes. The music has been adapted especially for the ensemble by Paul Patterson, from his orchestral works of the same name. The programme is completed by Martin Butler’s setting of Dahl’s collection of poems, Dirty Beasts.

Clarinettist of the Magnard Ensemble, Joseph Shiner, has been a City Music Foundation Artist since 2014, and the foundation is providing major support for the project. The Magnard Ensemble have recorded Revolting Rhymes and Marvellous Music, to be released on 18 September 2016, on Orchid Classics; the first time chamber arrangements of Patterson’s settings of Dahl’s work have been recorded.

The tour opens on 14 May 2016 at Gambier Parry Hall, Higham, for the Carducci Festival, and then travels to the Hay Festival (31 May), this is followed by a day of workshops, performance and panel discussions at The Forge in Camden on 1 June, and further dates include Dean & Chadlington Summer Festival (23 June), Thaxted Festival (2 July), Jam on the Marsh (15 July), MusicFest Aberystwyth (24, 25 July), and National Centre for Early Music (27 November).

Full information from the Roadl Dahl project pages on the Magnard Ensemble's website.

#SaveEUYO

In the UK, where government support for the Arts can seem penny-pinching at best, funding for the arts in Continental Europe can seem rather better when viewed from across the Channel. That this is not necessarily the case has become apparent with the announcement by the European Union Youth Orchestra that it will cease operations on 1 September 2016 owing to the lack of funding from the European Union. This is rather ironic because the orchestra celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, and is the only entity in Europe which represents and presents young cultural performers from all 28 member states at a high level of excellence.

Until 2013 the orchestra was supported by the EU as a cultural ambassador, a role which it plays admirable. The orchestra has developed a summer home at the Grafenegg Festival and as part of the 40th anniversary celebrations has performances at the Grafenegg European Music Campus, the Slovak EU Presidency concert, the Wrocław European City of Culture concert, the Alpbach European Forum opening concert and the launch of a major 40th anniversary 3 year tour to all the 28 Capital cities of the EU'S member states. All the events this summer will go ahead, and the trustees will take responsibility for the tour and find funding. But without further support from the EU, the orchestra will cease operations.

From the point of view of the slightly sceptical Briton, this is profoundly ironic because such organisations as the EUYO provide an important cohesive force in an increasingly fragmented EU. And of course, the orchestra's performances are terrific too.

Dancing in Daylight - Contemporary Piano Trios from Ireland

Dancing in Daylight John Buckley, Fergus Johnston, Rhona Clarke, Seoirse Bodley; The Fidelio Trio; Metier`
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on May 10 2016
Star rating: 4.0
Contemporary Irish piano trios from four very different composers

The Fidelio Trio (Adi Tal, Darragh Morgan, Mary Dullea) has just completed a three year residency at St Patrick's College, Drumcondra, a college of Dublin City University. When programming, the trio tries to mix new and traditional works, and this disc from Metier, Dancing in Daylight - Contemporary piano trios from Ireland represents the frit of their commissioning during their residency. There are new trios from four Irish composers: John Buckley's Piano Trio, Fergus Johnston's Piano Trio, Rhona Clarke's Piano Trio No.2 , and Seoirse Bodley's Piano Trio 'Dancing in Daylight'

John Buckley's Piano Trio was written for the Fidelio Trio in 2013. In three movements, each movement draws its title and imagery from mechanical devices. 'Shadows and Echoes', inspired by the flickering images of the zoetrope, mixes sustained string tone with piano arpeggios creating wisps and fragments which are evocative and intense, with edgy harmonies. 'Kaleidoscope' uses a short motif which undergoes transformations, in a brilliant up-tempo movement where you sense the rhythmic motif being passed round. 'Music Box' is evocative and rather rhapsodic with a strikingly eerie sense of the music box in the piano figurations.

Vox Luminis - Light and Shadow, music at the time of Elizabeth I

Vox Luminis

Tallis, White, Sheppard, Byrd, Tomkins, Ramsey, Weelkes, Morley; Vox Luminis, Lionel Meunier; Cadogan Hall
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on May 12 2016
Star rating: 4.0
The Belgian vocal ensemble bring their distinctive style to bear on a programme of Tudor sacred music

It needs a certain sort of courage for a Belgian ensemble (whose singers comprise a wide variety of nationalities) to take a programme of 16th & 17th century English music on tour in the UK. But Vox Luminis, artistic director Lionel Meunier, have done just that. We caught their programme Light and Shadow at Cadogan Hall on 11 May 2016 (as part of Choral at Cadogan), the first leg of a tour which takes them to St John's College Cambridge, Brighton and Chipping Camden. Their programme included Latin and English sacred music from the 16th and 17th centuries under the title Light and Shadow: Music at the time of Elizabeth I with Tallis's O nata lux,, Videte miraculum and Hear the voice and prayer, Robert White's Christe, qui lux es et dies, John Sheppard's In manus tuas and In Pace, William Byrd's Ave verum corpus, Thomas Tomkins' When David heard, Robert Ramsay's How are the mighty fall'n, Thomas Weelkes' Death hath deprived me, and Thomas Morley's Funeral Sentences. So we had a programme which started in the light and then moved into the shadows, at first metaphorically and then physically as the lights were first dimmed and then extinguished completely for the Funeral Sentences.

Vox Luminis is led by Lionel Meunier who sings baritone and directs from within the ensemble. They used a flexible group of 15 singers to enable them to sing all the music with two singers per part (in fact some was done one to a part). The performers generally stood in a semi-circle and there was a very real sense of us overhearing a quietly intense performance. There was little in the way of showmanship either physical or vocal, just a firmly intent concentration on the music itself.

The group makes a rich, vibrant sound with individual voices very present. The sound is very particular and distinctive, especially combined with the group's preference for steady tempos and beautifully shaped phrases. The results lacked the sheer surface perfection of some groups, but replace this with a vibrantly numinous quality.

And the language?

New audiences and alternative classical musics - the 2016 RPS Music Awards

Graham Vick (right) presented with Honorary Membership of the Royal Philharmonic Society by John Gilhooly (left)
at the RPS Music Awards, 10 May. photo credit - Simon Jay Price

The winners of the 2016 Royal Philharmonic Society (RPS) Music Awards were announced on Tuesday 10 May 2016, and a remarkable group of artists has been honoured. What was particularly striking was the vein of alternative approaches to classical music and to audiences, which threaded its way through the awards. 

Katy Whitley & Chris Stark of Multi-Story, winner of the
RPS Music Award for Audiences and Engagement
photo credit Simon Jay Price

Opera director Graham Vick was made an honorary member of the RPS. Vick is a director who has become known for his more community based approach to opera production with his Birmingham Opera Company, taking performances out of the theatre. In his address he said that 'Music effects change by touching humanity. Through music we can harness and share the richness of cultural background and identity, the breadth of life experience and alternative perspectives available in our expanding communities and enrich all our understanding'.

Also taking music out of its usual venue is Multi-Story who received the RPS Music Award for Audiences and Engagement for its concert season in the Bold Tendencies car park in Peckham. And Michael Church collected the RPS Music Award for Creative Communication for the book The Other Classical Musics (Boydell Press) which he edited, presenting a range of different classical musics from various traditions.

Young artists and learning were also at the forefront, with pianist Clare Hammond (whose 2015 schedule included world premiere performances and her film debut as the younger incarnation of Maggie Smith’s character, Miss Shepherd, in The Lady in the Van) taking the RPS Music Award for Young Artists with the jury commending her support for contemporary repertoire. The National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain took the Ensemble aware for its 'campaign to engage hundreds more teenagers with the orchestra', and Tri-borough Music Hub won the Learning and Participation Award for a retelling of the Persephone Myth, Seven Seeds, (music John Barber; libretto Hazel Gould) which involved 1200 young singers and performers from three London boroughs alongside several leading ensembles.