Inspired by Flight - Open Orchestra initiative.

The BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Royal College of Music are extending their learning and participation programmes in collaboration with Drake Music and the Tri-Borough Music Hub of Westminster, Kensington & Chelsea and Hammersmith and Fulham. The new project, Open Orchestra, brings together schools from the three boroughs, both mainstream primary and special primary schools, with pupils from the schools using creative music technology to create new musical material. The resulting work will be played by the BBC Symphony Orchestra at a schools concert in May 2013.

New record label from Llandaff Cathedral

Jacob Epstein's Majestas in the nave
at Llandaff Cathedral

Llandaff Cathedral has launched its own label with a disc entitled Majestas, intended to showcase both the choir and the new Nicholson organ. The organ, which is described as 'the largest, wholly-new, British built organ to be commissioned in a UK cathedral for nearly half a century', had its first part installed in 2010 with the remainder (11 stops from the Solo organ and 4 from the Pedal) in 2013. The title of the disc refers to the Epstein sculpture which was commissioned as part of the renewal of the cathedral after the damage in the war.

Commissioning the new - interview with Matthew Barley (part 2)

The programme for Around Britten 2013, Matthew Barley's 2013 concert tour of the UK (see earlier post for the first part of my interview with Matthew Barley) is based on the third suite for solo Cello written by Benjamin Britten. Barley chose the third suite partly because he loves it so much, but partly because it offers so much in terms of programming works around it. Britten included fragments of Russian folksong and the Kontakion, the Russian Orthodox hymn for the dead, in the suite and Barley is building on this. He will be playing pieces by John Tavener and Gavin Bryars which echo the themes of spirituality and death. And in fact, all the music which Barley is recording for the CD which accompanies the project will meditate on these themes.

rough for opera again

Second Movement is presenting another rough for opera on 20 January 2013 at the Cockpit Theatre. This scratch night for new opera returns for a fourth instalment with an eclectic programme consisting of Danyal Dhondy's new version of Pergolesi's La Serva Padrona, a new staging of Peter Longworth's Pavane for an Invisible Princess and a new work by William Marsey based on a recipe for sourdough bread!

CD Review - A Flute Affair

When I lived in Scotland, some 30 years ago or more, I played the viola in a light orchestra and a couple of the older guys in it had actually had careers in light music before the war. A period when small ensembles, Palm Court trios, would play lighter classical pieces and pot-pourris of popular melodies, all arranged for the available forces. It is a style of playing which, if well done, can be full of charm.

This new disc from flautist Marlene Verwey reminds me of that era, in all the best ways. Verwey is joined by an instrumental group, Anne Marshal (piano), Evert van Niekerk (violin), Theuns Pienaar (violin), Ken Craig (viola), Carel Henn (cello) and Armandt Marais (double bass), and they play a selection of arrangements of popular classics and pot-pourris. Verwey is from North West South Africa and trained at the the Royal College of Music. This new CD has been produced on the South African record label, Salon Music.

Constant challenge - interview with Matthew Barley (part 1)

Matthew Barley (photo credit Nick White)

Next year, cellist Matthew Barley embarks on an amazing tour of Britain, taking a programme of solo cello music around a bewildering array of venues. Around Britten 2013 will feature concerts, workshops and special events in 100 different venues, with a programme based around Benjamin Britten's Third Cello Suite in celebration of the composer's centenary. I caught up with the cellist to talk about the tour suggested that the schedule was rather punishing. He happily agreed that it was a 'gigantic folly'. But Barley is a performer who constantly liked challenging himself in as many different ways as possible.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood! at the Music Hall Royal

Photography by David Sprecher

Last night’s performance (18 December 2012) of The Mystery of Edwin Drood!by Tower Theatre Company at Theatro Technis was perfect for getting into Christmas mood. This comedy musical written by Rupert Holmes, first shown in 1985 and the first play to have multiple ending decided by audience vote, has an excellent pedigree. It won for Holmes, Best Book, Best Original Score and five Tony Awards, including Best Musical.

Early Opera Company at Spitalfields Winter Festival

Christian Curnyn

The final concert at this year's Spitalfields Music Winter Festival was given by the Early Opera Company under their director Christian Curnyn. It was a programme of Vivaldi centring on the music that he wrote for the Pieta, the orphanage where he worked in a variety of capacities for many years, teaching violin and writing both sacred and secular music for the girls. The concert was centred on Vivald's Gloria, but Curnyn's programme had a twist, in that the singers for the Gloria were all women, and came from Women sing East, which was formed as part of Spitalfields Music's Learning and Participation programme.

Lost but not forgotten

Aria from BWV105

I read recently that when J.S.Bach died the manuscripts of his cantatas were divided up between W.F Bach and C.P.E.Bach. C.P.E. Bach carefully preserved his and it is those that form the basis of the cantatas that we known today.  The other batch were eventually auctioned off, and have never been seen since. Leaving us with the possibility that somewhere in a library there are a batch of uncatalogued unknown Bach cantatas. It is one of those fascinating things isn't it, the possibility of lost masterpieces being uncovered.

We have had works re-discovered recently, though none quite on the scale of an entirely unknown Bach cantata. There was the premiere of a piano work by Beethoven this year (see blog posting) and a Bach aria and some organ pieces were discovered a few years ago. Handel's Gloria was re-attributed to him and a batch of sonatas by Vivaldi were re-discovered in a Manchester Library.

English Concert at Spitalfields

For the penultimate concert of the Spitalfields Music Winter Festival, the English Concert brought a concert with a seasonal theme to Christ Church, Spitalfields on Monday 17 December. Lawrence Cummings conducted the English Concert and the choir of the English Concert in Corelli's Concerto Grosso in G minor, Op.6 No. 8, Christmas Concerto, Bach's Cantata BWV 36, Schwingt freudig euch Empor and Bach's Magnificat in D BWV 243 with the Christmas interpolations.

Messiah - The Sixteen at the Barbican

The Sixteen, (c) Molina Visuals

Keeping a work fresh after multiple performances is something of a skill. With a work like Messiah, which comes round annually, it becomes something of an art. The Sixteen, under their conductor Harry Christophers, were at the Barbican Centre on Sunday 16 December to perform Messiah, a work which they have been performing since the 1980's. They were joined by the singers of Genesis Sixteen, the Sixteen's training programme for young choral singers, as well as a quartet of distinguished soloists, Carolyn Sampson, Catherine Wyn-Rogers, James Gilchrist and David Wilson-Johnson.

Gabrieli Consort at St Leonard’s, Shoreditch

Paul McCreesh

Last night, as part of the Spitalfields Music Winter Festival the Gabrieli Consort, along with the Copenhagen Royal Chapel Choir, performed a programme of carols. But not your usual selection of carols (although some of words might be familiar) – instead Paul McCreesh chose a set of old and new carols based mostly on mediaeval texts. Paul described his choice of carols as being 'beautiful, approachable but serious' and they were by turns sweet lullabies and rousing celebrations.

Peer Gynt at the Barbican

Henrik Klausen as Peer Gynt
in 1876

There never really was a definitive version Peer Gynt during Grieg's life-time. He didn't even attend the first performance in 1876 when his music was played with Ibsen's play for the first time. He was unhappy with the artistic compromises he'd had to make to satisfy the orchestra (a small pit-band of 35) and provide cheap theatrical effects. Some of the movements require a full romantic orchestra and it was only at the performances in Copenhagen 1886 that he was able to flesh out the orchestration for a full sized orchestra. But here the music included three of the Norwegian Dances, Op. 35 and the Norwegian Bridal Procession. Grieg himself continued to tinker with the music and there was never a complete edition published in his lifetime. It was, amazingly, only in 1988 that a definitive edition was produced. Musicologist Finn Benestad's edition restored the music to a state that never really existed. He used the order and content of that original 1876 performance, but with the Copenhagen orchestration and a few corrections Grieg made late. On disc, perhaps, a variorum approach can be usefully taken, but for his performances of the music in the dramatic context of Ibsen's play at the Barbican on 16 December 2012 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and BBC Singers, conductor Mark Minkowski chose to use Benestad's edition, with actors from the Guildhall providing extracts from Ibsen's play directed by Alain Perroux.

Royal Opera Live

The Royal Opera is letting cameras back-stage for a live look at the workings of the theatre on a typical day. On Monday 7 January 2013 from 10.30am they will be broadcasting live on the Royal Opera House website, the Guardian website and on The Space, the Arts Council's digital arts service. Whilst we can't expect what we see to be really typical, it does promise a fascinating glimpse into what happens backstage and there will be 10 hours of uninterrupted activity including rehearsals, interviews and insights.

Classical Opera - Messiah and More

Next Sunday, 23 December, Classical Opera will be performing Handel's Messiah at Wigmore Hall with a strong line-up of soloists. The advance information doesn't say which version they are performing, but whichever it is, there is the chance to hear the company's fresh and lively approach to a familiar work. And the scale will be right, Wigmore Hall being far closer in size to the sort of venue Handel first performed the work in. Soloists are Sophie Bevan, Christopher Ainslie, Allan Clayton and Jacques Imbrailo. Fitting them, the orchestra and chorus of Classical Opera onto the Wigmore Hall platform sounds rather a squeeze, but rather fun. The concert is the second in the company's enterprising 2012/13 London season under the direction of conductor Ian Page.

Traps for the unwary - making that carol concert go well

A comfortable pair of black shoes, thermal underwear and a pair of reading glasses are probably the essentials in any choral singer's wardrobe this time of year. Choral concerts, carol concerts; Christmas time is usually full of choral activity, but can also lead to many traps for the unwary both for the singer and the listener. Seasoned singers and audience members know that there are ways to make the season go well without suffering.

Developments at Co-opera

Co-Opera Co - Hansel and Gretel

Co-Opera Co, the opera company which trains emerging professionals, is going from strength to strength and, building on the success of their 2012 with performances of Hansel and Gretel and Don Giovanni in London and on tour, they have announced that in 2013 their operations will be divided into a two tiered-system. Co-Opera Development Programmes and the Co-Opera Touring company.

Being Sixteen - Being Busy

Harry Christophers

A busy day, a busy week for Harry Christophers and the Sixteen. Fresh from their concert at the South Bank on 10 December and performing Messiah in Vienna the next day, 11 December, Harry Christophers today (13 December) gets his CBE from the Queen at the investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace. Whilst, elsewhere in London, members of Genesis Sixteen are performing carols for Classic FM. Genesis Sixteen is the Sixteen's fully-funded training programme for young choral singers. Genesis Sixteen will be joining Christophers and the Sixteen for their performance of Messiah at the Barbican on Sunday 16 December at 6.30pm. (We'll be attending and will be reporting back next week.) Further information from the Barbican website.

Memories of Galina Vishnevskaya

I only heard Galina Vishnevskaya (1926 - 2012) live twice, but hers was a voice once heard never forgotten. Not just a voice, but artistry as well. The first time was in Scotland in 1976 in a new production of Verdi's Macbeth conducted by Alexander Gibson (you can hear her in the sleepwalking scene on YouTube). She was then 50. The production (directed by David Pountney) opened at the Edinburgh Festival, with Norman Bailey as Macbeth. I remember it as being rather gripping, with Vishnevskaya a blood-curdling Lady. There was a dangerous, dark edge to her voice and a very Slavic timbre to her diction. She sang the sleep-walking scene on a balcony, holding her hands over it so that they were spot-lit, a striking image, which was accompanied by some striking singing. She could undoubtedly encompass everything, technically, that the role needed but there was always a sort of undercurrent of instability. This worked well in Lady Macbeth, but I did wonder about other roles.

Stockwell Children's Orchestra - Christmas Concert

In Harmony Lambeth's Sullivan Orchestra
performs on the South Bank

Wednesday 12 December saw the massed ranks of the Stockwell Children's Orchestra assembling at the Clore Ballroom on London's South Bank, for their Christmas concert under project director Gerry Stirling. The orchestra consisted of 85 children of primary school age, all part of In Harmony Lambeth which is one of In Harmony - Sistema England's six projects. In fact the orchestra consisted of three orchestras (the Holst, Sullivan and Purcell Orchestras), with the Purcell orchestra for the beginners and the Holst for the most experienced, with the Sullivan Orchestra in between. The Sullivan Orchestra is new having been created since my visit to In Harmony Lambeth in November; the name comes from the fact that Sir Arthur Sullivan was born in Lambeth.

Finizi's Dies Natalis this lunchtime

St Botolph without Bishopsgate

For anyone in the City of London this lunchtime, St Botolph without Bishopsgate has an Advent Sequence of Readings and Music, which includes Finzi's Dies Natalis. The movements of the cantata, setting words by Thomas Traherne, will be interspersed with readings. Not a carol in sight! Tenor is Bene't Coldstream accompanied by Jo Ramadan. Further information from the church website.

Wilton's Music Hall - development progress

It is good to see that the plans for the development and preservation of Wilton's Music Hall, in London's East End, are coming together at last. They started this summer, with their phase 1 development which encompassed major works to the roofs and basement, plus sound-proofing, ventilation and electrics. This has been funded by the Foundation for Sport and Arts along with numerous charitable trusts. The theatre has also received one of the first grants from the Theatres Trust's Theatres Protection Fund. They have now been awarded a first round Heritage Lottery Fund grant which will enable them to develop phase 2 of the development work.

If you want to avoid the carols

Not everyone wants to get into the Christmas spirit by singing carols, and even if, unlike me, you actually enjoy carols then a little can go a long way. But  there are now a number of events around London which provide interesting music for those wishing to escape. The Spitalfields Winter Festival is now on, running from 7 December to 18 December at venues in and around Spitalfields. St Johns Smith Square's annual Christmas festival runs from 13 December to 23 December. And there are one or two intriguing events at the Barbican, plus The Flying Dutchman lands at the South Bank.

CD Review - Villazon Verdi

On this ambitious new disc from Rolando Villazon, the tenor traverses 10 of Verdi's operas from the earliest, Oberto, to the last, Falstaff, taking in some well known arias but also some lesser known ones. Supported by Gianandrea Noseda and the Orchestra Teatro Regio Torino it is an ambitious undertaking, because few tenor voices can do justice to every tenor role that Verdi wrote. Whilst Villazon does not include Otello, he does include both lyric roles and the more dramatic title role in Don Carlo.

Renaissance Christmas Vespers in Brighton

Missing the Brighton Early Music Festival already? 

The BREMF Consort of Voices is back on Sunday 16 December at St. Bartholomew's Church, Ann Street Brighton, East Sussex BN1 4GP, with their programme Renaissance Christmas Vespers. We are promised music from the Vespers service for Christmas Day by Victoria, Josquin, Michael Praetorius, Rore, Palestrina, Lassus and still more wonderful Giovanni Gabrieli. The music will be interspersed with chant and the venue will be candle-lit.

Sounds quite magical.
And tickets are only £12 (concessions £10).

ETO's Christmas Stocking

ETO have put together a Christmas list, things they would like in their Christmas stocking. Its not full of the usually exotica and playstations, instead it includes lots of practical help: batteries, electrical tape, food and drink, stage make up, lump of coal (!). Prices start at a pound, so its easy enough to spend a little and do some good.

Go one, visit their website.

Oxford Baroque in London

Next Tuesday (18 December) there is a chance to catch Oxford Baroque in London. The up and coming early music ensemble are making their debut at St. John's Smith Square as part of the venue's Christmas festival. Oxford Baroque's programme O Magnum Mysterium - Music for Christmas from Venice and Dresden is based on the Venetian polychoral style both with Venetian composers and those influenced by it, with music by G. Gabrieli, Monteverdi, Schutz, H. Praetorius and Bovicelli.  They are directed by Jeremy Summerly and will be joined by members of the English Cornett and Sackbut ensemble.

Robert le Diable at Covent Garden

I have long been fascinated by French grand opera, the style which developed between Auber's La Muette de Portici and Verdi's operas for Paris in the 1850's. It is a style which is still not really understood in terms of modern performance and the best known operas of the genre are those where major composers had to interact with the Parisian genre: Donizetti's La Favourite, Rossini's Guillaume Tell, Verdi's Don Carlos and Wagner's Rienzi. Covent Garden gave a concert performance of Halevy's La Juive a few years ago (2006), but their new production of Meyerbeer's Robert le Diable was their first staging of a French grand opera from this period. Well, the first staging since the war. In fact, the performance we attended on 9 December of Robert le Diable though it was the 2nd performance of this production was Covent Garden's 75th performance of the work. In the 19th century, Meyerbeer's operas were incredibly popular. So Laurent Pelly's production was our chance to find out whether Meyebeer's operas work on stage today.

The fascinating Mrs Mahler-Werfel

Manon, Walter and Alma Gropius
in 1918

When I was a student I got to know the songs of Tom Lehrer, and his song Alma (hear him sing it on Tube) was my first introduction to Alma Mahler-Werfel (1879 - 1964)  and the way her love-life intertwined the artistic consciousness of the 20th century, mainly via her choice of husbands and lovers. She was also a composer and, though initially discouraged by Mahler, wrote and published songs. On 18 January 2013 at at St. David's Hall, Cardiff, the Welsh National Opera Orchestra under conductor Lothar Koenigs, are giving a concert which explore's Alma's legacy.

Michelle Breedt will be singing songs by Zemlinsky and Alma Mahler, David Adam's will be playing Berg's Violin Concerto. And the orchestra plays the Adagio from Gustav Mahler's 10th Symphony. And all are linked.

Brodsky Quartet at 40: Angels and Maidens

Brodsky Quartet

As part of their 40 year celebrations last night the Brodsky Quartet performed Franz Schubert’s (1797-1828) Death and the Maiden and GeorgeCrumb’s (b1929) Black Angels at King’sPlace.

Schubert’s string quartet (no. 14) in D minor D810, also known as ‘Death and the Maiden’, was written in 1824 when Schubert had just been hospitalised with syphilis. As one of his last three string quartets ever written Schubert must have been feeling his mortality – and it is his struggle with impending death which fills this poignant piece.

The name ‘Death and the Maiden’ comes from the song which Schubert wrote seven years earlier, based on a poem by Matthias Claudius. This tune forms the basis of the second movement, and is the theme borrowed by Crumb in Black Angels.

New Lamps for Old - Chapelle du Roi

Last night, 7 December, Chapelle du Roi and Alistair Dixon performed their New Lamps for Old programme at St. John's Smith Square. The programme paired renaissance music with contemporary settings of the same texts with music by Tallis, Guerrero, Palestrina, Sheppard, Victoria and Daniel Burgess, Nicholas O'Neil, David Braid, Anthony Mudge Antony Pitts, Roxanna Panufnik and myself, Robert Hugill.

Rena Harms and Anyssa Neumann in recital

Rena Harms

American soprano Rena Harms is best known to UK audiences from her performances as Amelia in ENO's recent production of Simon Boccanegra. She will be appearing with Florentine opera as Michaela and with Staatstheater Braunschweig as Fiordiligi and we caught her and accompanist Anyssa Neumann at a private recital in London on Thursday, 6 December, at the end of a run recitals that the two have been doing in the UK.

NMC appeal - new operas

NMC Recordings celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2014 and as part of this they have launched an appeal to raise funds to issue recordings of three significant contemporary operas, by Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Judith Weir and Gerald Barry. Amazingly, NMC is a charity run as a not-for-profit and started with substantial support of the Holst Foundation. This means, of course, that they can take a long view and issue recordings which a commercial organisation would not. So far they have recorded over a dozen contemporary British operas to-date. The new appeal needs to raise £43,0000 to support Birtwistle's Gawain, Weir's The Vanishing Bridegroom and Barry's The Importance of Being Earnest.

Jonathan Harvey

Jonathan Harvey, who died this week at the age of 73, was one of those quiet souls who become eminent without you quite noticing. He studied at St. John's College, Cambridge, and was advised by Britten to take lessons with Erwin Stein. (Stein, formerly Schoenberg's assistant, was an editor for Boosey and Hawkes where he worked with Britten). But Harvey's influences developed quite widely; on a Harkness Scholarship at Princeton, Harvey would meet Milton Babbitt, he discovered Stockhausen and was invited by Pierre Boulez to work at IRCAM.

New Music 20x12 now on-line

The PRS for Music Foundation's New Music 20x12 project involved commissioning 20 works, each 12 minutes long, to be performed in the UK in 2012. The composers and partner organisations were highly diverse, including Sally Beamish writing for the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Howard Skempton writing for the Central Council of Bell Ringers, Graham Fitkin writing for the London Chamber Orchestra, Luke Carver Goss for the Black Dyke Band, Gavin Higgins writing for the Rambert Dance Company.  Now you can view the works on-line.

Last month on Planet Hugill

Vanity Fair scene from Pilgrims Progress

at ENO (c) Mike Hoban

Just in case you missed it! November opened with the launch of this year's London Song Festival and the tragic news of Robert Poulton's death. We closed with a guest review of the last night of the festival and I participated in the Courtauld Community Choir.

Guildhall School of Music and Drama presented an enterprising triple bill of operas by Massenet and Martinu, ENO were equally enterprising with their production of Vaughan Williams's Pilgrims Progress and Chelsea Opera Group performed Massenet's Don Quichotte with Robert Lloyd.

Cool poster - cool concert

I couldn't resist featuring this concert because of the rather striking flyer design. The London Gay Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Christopher Braime are performing their Christmas themed programme on Sunday 9 December, at St. Sepulchre without Newgate. The programme consists of Dvorak's Slavonic Dances,  Sibelius's Finlandia, Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite and a suite from Rimsky Korsakov's The Snow Maiden. It is the last item, taking music from Rimsky Korsakov's rarely performed opera which rather lifts the programme out of the ordinary.

Motets from Tempus per Annum in London this month

Two motets from my collection Tempus per annum will be performed this month. On Thursday 13 December London Concord Singers, conductor Malcolm Cottle, will be giving the premiere of the Advent motet Propre es tu and on Friday 7 December, La Chapelle du Roi, conductor Alistair Dixon, will be performing Puer natus est nobis which they premiered in 2009.

British Composer Awards

The winners of this year's British Composer awards were announced this week, and the full list can be seen on the British Composer Awards website. Sir Harrison Birtwistle's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra won the orchestral category. The work was premiered by Christian Tetzlaff with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Boston, and received its UK premiere at the Proms with Tetzlaff, this time with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. The stage awards went, for the second year running, to a non-operatic work. This time DESH, Jocelyn Pook's evocative score for Akram Khan's astonishing stage work. DESH means homeland in Bangladeshi, and the piece is a journey with Khan discovering his roots. Pook's score mixes in found material from trips to Bangladesh. You can buy a disc of the piece from Pook's website.

Universe of Sound - The Planets Remix

The Universe of Sound was a brilliant installation/exhibition which enabled visitors to experience what it was like to be really inside an orchestra whilst it was playing Holst's The Planets (see my review of the exhibition at the Science Museum). At the centre of the installation was an HD recording made by Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia with films being made from various points of view within the orchestra. Now these are available on-line at The Space, the Arts Council's digital download site.

Big Give: The English Concert

The English Concert's Big Give project is to raise £52,000 to support a week-long Master Class on Handel's Radamisto for young singers and players at the Centre for Early Music Performance and Research in Birmingham. There will also be public showcases of excerpts from the opera at the Barbican and at Birmingham Town Hall. Their 2011 Big Give project was a residency at the Foundling Museum which included a master class for young harpsichordist directors. Further information, and donations, from their Big Give project page

CD review - Open your eyes

For her recital disc with Malcolm Martineau, Open your eyes, soprano Katherine Broderick has chosen lieder from the turn of the 19th century, with Richard Strauss's Acht Gedichte aus 'Letzte Blätter' Op 10, Alban Berg's Sieben frühe Lieder and Arnold Schoenberg's Brettl Lieder. The Strauss songs include Zueignung, his first published song. The songs illustrate the way that the lied was changing at this period. Rather neatly, Strauss was 10 years older then Schoenberg, whilst Schoenberg was 9 years older than Berg. There are other linkings, with Schoenberg's songs related to the Überbrettl cabaret, founded by the librettist of Richard Strauss's early opera Feuersnot.

Soane by candle light

To the Soane Museum on Monday 4 December, for a candle-lit evening event for patrons and supporters of Grange Park Opera. The library on the ground floor and the yellow drawing room were lit as normal, but the remainder of the ground floor and the magical basements were all lit by candles. This, of course, is how Soane's visitors would have seen the rooms if they visited him in the evening. I believe that Soane himself used to take visitors round with a candle. It is, in fact, an amazing experience; to wander round the basements full of antiquities just by candle light. There were, of course, plenty of room stewards to keep their eye on us, but there were all highly knowledgeable as well. And then there was the music.

O Magnum Mysterium

The Choir of Queens' College Cambridge, director Silas Wollston celebrates the release of its CD.

Thursday 6 December sees the choir of Queens' College Cambridge performing under their director Silas Wollston at the Dutch Church in the City of London. They will be celebrating the release of their CD And comes the Day on the Orchid Classics label. The concert includes an eclectic mix of music for Christmas and Advent, including Bob Chilcott's Advent Antiphons and carols by Britten, Howells and Wollston. There is also the opportunity for the audience to compare and contrast, with settings of O Magnum Mysterium by Gabrieli, Poulenc and Morten Lauridsen. The concert is being repeated on 7 December at Queens' College Chapel, Cambridge, and on Sunday 9 December at L'eglise de la Madeleine, Paris.

Out with a bang

The Peter Moores Foundation has announced that it is winding down its activities, but it is going out with a bang. The foundation's Swansong Project will mark the end of the foundation and celebrate 50 years of philanthropy (the foundation was set up by Sir Peter Moores in 1964). They will be supporting projects at 8 of the companies with which they have been closely associated, Birmingham Opera, English Touring Opera, Opera North, Scottish Opera, Welsh National Opera, English National Opera, Covent Garden and Glyndebourne. There will also be one final opera for Chandos's Opera in English series.

Christmas on the BBC

The BBC has published information about what delights we have to look forward to during the Christmas season, a period which usually frankly has me running for the digi-box and our back-log of recorded programmes. We have the usual suspects, there is Carols from Kings, and we revisit the Military Wives Choir. The Archbishop of Canterbury gives his New Year's message and, in a separate programme muses on his departure from Canterbury. The present Queen's message is, of course, a staple of Christmas Day. There is also a three part programme on Queen Victoria's fraught relationships with her children, and BBC 4 has a Screen Goddesses season.

CD review - Cantata for the Children of Terezin

Mary Ann Joyce-Walter's Cantata for the Children of Terezin sets poems written by the children who were incarcerated in the Terezin concentration camp. Joyce-Walter says that the work was composed with the intention of evoking compassion for the most innocent and vulnerable. This disc on the  Ravello label includes the cantata as well as Joyce-Walter's orchestra piece Aceldama, recorded by the Kiev Philharmonic Orchestra and the King Singers of Kiev conducted by Robert Ian Winstin.

Whitgift School music competition

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
and the Whitgift Chamber Orchestra
at Cadogan Hall in April 2012
(photo: Danny Fitzpatrick)

The Whitgift School in Croydon has launched an International Music Competition for young players. There are three categories, (12-13, 14-15 and 16-17) and entry is initially via YouTube video! The prizes include £150,000 in scholarships as well as opportunities to perform with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. The winners will be selected from live performances in June and July next year with a jury which includes cellist Guy Johnston, Remus Azoitei (professor of violin at the Royal Academy), journalist Jessica Duchen and a member of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Further information from the Whitgift School website; the closing date is 1 March 2013.

Lost and Found - a Brodsky Quartet Adventure

The Brodsky Quartet is currently celebrating their 40th anniversary (see our blog post) with a series of concerts which includes their Wheel of 4Tunes, where the audience gets to choose the programme from 40 different string quartets. Whilst touring the Netherlands, their car was broken into, a laptop stolen along with a bag containing all the viola and cello parts for all the 40 quartets being offered. A devastating loss.

Inaugural performance of the Orchestra Musica Romantica

Orchestra Musica Romantica
Cadogan Hall, 1 Dec 2012

Last night, 1 December, was the inaugural performance (or should I say debut) of the Orchestra Musca Romantica in aid of Action Medical Research at Cadogan Hall, Sloane Square. Dubbed a ‘super-orchestra’ by Classic FM, Orchestra Musica Romantica is the child of Jörg Hammann, who also plays violin with the London Symphony Orchestra and conducts the Orchestra of the Guildhall Music College. It is a project orchestra with the specific aspiration of giving back to the community. As he explains is his blog for Gramphone, it is ‘an orchestra for those in need’.

The Mikado at the London Coliseum

ENO - The Mikado
credit Chris Christodoulou

After a crisply sparkling account of the overture, from David Parry and the English National Opera orchestra, the curtain opened on Stefanos Lazarides dazzling white, Grand Hotel set. Jonathan Miller's production of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado was back, with a strong cast which mixed innocence and experience. The production is 26 years old and looking as good as ever, and celebrating 25 years of Richard Suart's association with the role of Ko Ko. We saw the opening night (Saturday December 1), though the cast had already performed a matinee that afternoon.

I fagiolini - live in York

There is a fascinating film on YouTube of I Fagiolini's July 2012 performances of Striggio's Mass in 40 Parts done live in York Minster, with the audience free to move around within the circle of the performers. Looks as if it was magical. Further information from the I Fagiolini website. See the film after the jump.

Richard Strauss and the gay sensibility

What? Strauss is a composer known for his devotion to the female voice and a who used his own family life as the subject for his work. So where does gay sensibility come in? In 1897 Strauss wrote Vier Lieder Op. 27 as a wedding gift for his wife. The songs include Morgen and Heimlich Aufforderung, songs which have been beloved of sopranos ever since. The opening of Morgen with its long violin melody which is taken up by the soprano is just about perfect. Except of course that Strauss originally wrote it for piano, and when he recorded it himself (which he did twice) he used a male voice. Now, I once heard Dietrich Fischer Dieskau sing the song and frankly, was not completely convinced. So what is going on?

The Big Give - Gabrieli Young Singers' Scheme

Paul McCreesh and forces recording Elijah in 2011
© Ben Ealovega

The Gabrieli Consort and Players' project in this year's Big Give is their Young Singers' Scheme. The first fruits of this scheme were unveiled this year with the stupendous recording of Mendelssohn's Elijah (see my review on this blog), with a choir which included the Young Singers alongside Wroclaw Philharmonic Choir and Gabrieli. In January 2013 Paul McCreesh is going back into the studio to record Britten's War Requiem with the Young Singers and their Big Give project will help.

The basic financial facts are that Gabrieli already has money pledged, if they can raise £10,000 during the three days of the Big Give (6, 7, 8 December) then they will have a total of £20,000. Some of this will go towards the War Requiem recording, but the majority will go towards other activities with the Young Singers.