Sheer magic! Felicity Lott farewell recital at the Wigmore Hall

At her Farewell Recital on Friday evening, Dame Felicity Lott was presented with a framed programme
from her first-ever recital at the Hall in 1975, by Wigmore Hall Director John Gilhooly. Photo Wigmore Hall

Felicity Lott made her Wigmore Hall debut in 1975 and since then has been closely associated with the hall, performing more than 80 times in nearly four decades. And last night (15 November 2013) she made her farewell recital, her last solo recital in the house. Accompanied, as ever, by Graham Johnson, she performed a varied programme of Schumann, Wolf, Strauss, Frank Bridge, Britten, Bizet, Paul Bernard, Maurice Yvain, Mireille Hartuch and Offenbach. The proceeds for the concert were going to the Wigmore Hall Endowment Fund and, to enhance the rather festive atmosphere, there was a glass of fizz for every audience member at the interval.

My own memories of Felicity Lott on the concert platform go back to the 1980's when such Songmakers Almanac recitals as The Ladies Almanc and If Dorabella and Fiordiligi were lieder singers were a revelation as to what could be achieved.

Aurora Orchestra into 2014

The Aurora Orchestra has announced its 2014 programme and, as you might expect, the result is a rollercoaster of amazing music, ranging from a road trip across America to second Viennese school classics, with artistic director Nicholas Collon conducting many of the concerts. Guests include counter-tenor Iestyn Davies, mezzo-soprano Alice Coote, tenor Robert Murray and hang player Manu Delgado, there will be live visuals and even swing dancing.


Road Trip on 4 January 2014 at Kings Place sees the orchestra conducted by Nicholas Collon travelling across America with John Adams Chamber Symphony, Charles Ives The Housatonic at Stockbridge from Three Places in New England, Copland's Appalachian Spring and folk song arrangements by Nico Muhly, sung by the Kentucky born singer-songwriter Dawn Landes.

British Contemporary Piano Competition

The finals of the British Contemporary Piano Competition were held at the University of Surrey in Guildford last week. Founded by the pianist Philip Mead and now in its 9th year, the competition aims to encourage aspiring professional players to perform contemporary repertoire. The first competition was held in 1988 and the University of Surrey has hosted it since 2006. The winner was Eliza McCarthy, who played pieces by played pieces by Copland, Tansy Davies, Britten, Rzewski, Crumb, Jonathan Harvey, Joe Cutler, Sally Beamish, Berio and Ed Bennett. She wins a cash prize of £2,000, the chance to make a studio recording at the University of Surrey’s School of Arts facilities, opportunities for concert engagements, and career-development assistance through the London Sinfonietta.

Second prize of £1,000 went to Joseph Houston who played a programme of Holt, Matthews, Ives, Xenakis, Finnissy, Messiaen, and Harvey. Sally Wigan received £500 for finishing third after playing a programme of music by Jonathan Harvey, George Benjamin, Judith Weir, John McCabe and Arlene Sierra. The Jury consisted of Clive Williamson, Artistic Director of the Competition and Professor at the University of Surrey; British pianist and teacher Andrew Ball; and Rolf Hind, Professor at the Guildhall School.

Brahms's Die schöne Magelone with Roderick Williams

Brahms wrote a significant number of lieder but only one song cycle, Die schöne Magelone. Even that cycle doesn't have the cohesiveness of say Schumann's Dichterliebe or Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin. Instead Brahms set 15 songs (romances) from Ludwig Tieck's novella Wundersame Liebesgeschicte der schönen Magelone und des Grafen Peter aus der Provence (The Wondrous Love Story of the Beautiful Magelone and Count Peter of Provence). Tieck's story has 18 songs embedded in the text, each in a different chapter, so that the songs are about the character's states of mind rather than progressing any narrative. This means that Brahms's song cycle has difficulty standing on its own. Lacking familiarity with Tieck's original (which was popular in the 19th century), the audience needs to be helped along. For his performance of Brahms's song cycle for Temple Song at Temple Church on Thursday 14 November, baritone Roderick Williams was joined not only by pianist Julius Drake but by the actor Alex Jennings. Jennings read extracts from Tieck's story between the songs, giving us a clear dramatic context for the songs.

Johannes Brahms (1833 - 1897) was clearly very taken with the romance of Count Peter's story.  He read it as a 14 year old on summer holidays (with his host's 13 year old daughter). There was more than one telling of the story and Ludwig Tieck's version (written 1796 and revised in 1812) only came to Brahms's attention in 1861 when it delighted him. Also at that time Brahms was performing song recitals (including Dichterliebe,  Die schöne Müllerin and Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebte) with the baritone Julius Stockhausen. It was for Stockhausen that Brahms wrote the songs between1861 and 1869.

Future Tense - Challenge or Problem?

Yesterday (13 November 2013) the Opera and Music Theatre Forum held its conference at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Administrators from opera companies across the UK plus a selection of other opera professionals met to consider what opera was going to be like in 2030. Under the title Future Tense? the conference considered what 2030 might be like and how opera companies might respond.

After a funny and inspiring speech from Kasper Holten (director of opera at the Royal Opera House), we heard from three people who helped project what 2030 might be like. Holten's speech, though heavily laced with humour, was a distinct call to arms for opera professionals to co-operate more and to talk about opera with confidence, to celebrate opera and the importance of the arts. That we might need to do so was apparent in the talks that followed.

Amore e Morte - Ekaterina Siurina

The Russian lyric soprano Ekaterina Siurina gave a recital for Rosenblatt Recitals in 2009 and here she has released a disc in the Rosenblatt Recitals series on Opus Arte. Accompanied by Iain Burnside, Siurina's disc is entitled Amore e Morte and explores the songs of Giuseppe Verdi, Vincenzo Bellini and Gaetano Donizetti.

Though Verdi wrote songs throughout his life, his output dropped radically after publishing his set of songs in 1845. Siurina starts with one of his later songs, Stornello (1869). It is a delightful character piece which is lightly ironic and Siurina brings out the song's perky charm. She has a slimline lyric voice, and in this repertoire gives us something of the soubrette, singing with fine focus and pinpoint accuracy. Perduta ho la pace comes from Verdi's Sei Romanze published in 1838. It is a setting of Goethe's Gretchen am Spinnrade in Italian translation. Verdi concentrates on Gretchen's states of mind creating almost a scena and not a bit of spinning in sight. Siurina brings out the drama in the song, giving a nice edge to the voice and shaping the lines well.

Back to the Future

Gotz Friedrich's production of The Ring which appeared
at Covent Garden in 1996

Today the Opera and Music Theatre Forum's conference takes place at the Royal Opera House, a one day event in which opera professionals will be looking at what the future holds for opera. The conference's title is Future Tense? and the intention is to answer the question 'what will the world be like in 2030 and how will we deal with it?' So I started to think about what was the world like 17 years ago, and how has our opera going changed? What follows isn't a definitive history, instead its an assemblage of what I can remember, a patchwork of events and opera doings from 1996.

The Internet was only just beginning and certainly you would never use it to watch opera, internet streaming was years away. If you wanted to watch opera at home then you needed a video tape. DVD's had only just been invented, and everything was on CD and on video tape. Recordings were still a big deal even though record companies had started to reduce investment in new recordings. The LSO Live label would not appear for another four years, and that was very much a trail blazer.

A Mid-Autumn Night’s Dream with the Brodsky Quartet...

Brodsky Quartet - Picture credit: Eric Richmond

The climax of a weekend long series of concerts ‘Trees, Walls, Cities...’ by the Brodsky Quartet at King’s Place, tonight’s (Saturday 9 November 2013) concert was a resounding success. The main attraction was an adaptation of Elvis Costello’s 2000 ballet ‘Il Sogno’ (the dream) written for the Aterballeto Dance Company and based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream. As fitting the Brodsky’s attitude to encouraging music in others, their numbers were swelled by students from the Royal Academy of Music

The program began with ‘Fantasia XIII in F - Upon one note’ arranged by Britten. Written towards the end of Henry Purcell’s life (1659-1695) this piece requires, in addition to the quartet, a steady C. But in fact the concert began before this – as the audience were settling down Clare Newton sashayed out of the side stall door with her viola and newspaper and proceeded to sit on the edge of the stage and read.

When the quartet was applauded on to the stage via the normal route, they all made an act of noticing Clare and wondering what she was doing there. All became apparent when they started to play – she was the missing C. Purcell was a master of heart-wrenching suspensions and in the right hands his music could have been written yesterday.

Spectacular Magic Flute at the ENO

Ben Johnson and Devon Guthrie  (c) Robbie Jack

The spectacular opening of the Magic Flute at the ENO was a night not to be missed (7 November at the London Coliseum).

The orchestra, conducted by Gergely Madaras, was raised up almost to the level of the stage and indeed some of the action centred around the pit, the first few rows of audience (although this was projected onto the back screen of the stage so everyone could see). There were also two booths, one each side of the stage which were integral to Simon McBurney’s interpretation of Mozart’s classic 1791 opera.

On the left was a video set-up allowing the audience to see the operator interacting with the action on stage. This included real-time ‘cartoons’ drawn on a blackboard and projected onto screens across the stage, puppets, and manipulated backdrops including a giant bookcase. On the right was a more complex arrangement with both video and audio capabilities – and also became the venue for some of the comic asides in the plot.

Coming to a device near you - the digital revolution

I was recently reading a column in a magazine (not a musical one) and the columnist, who is somewhat younger than I, was proudly proclaiming that he never used Twitter or Facebook and was too old to do so. Yet many of my correspondents do not fit into the youth category, and many arts organisations are finding digital communications (social media in its widest form) important for communicating not only with the young. 

If you are reading this, then you have some sort of engagement on-line and like many people will probably be used to receiving marketing information via email rather than by post. All arts organisations have entered the digital market in this way. But Arts Council England, the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Nesta have commissioned independent research to track the digital usage by Arts organisations over the next two years. And of course, this doesn't just involve emailing people!

Emmanuel Despax in concertos by Goss, Franck and Saint-Saens

This new disc from London-based French pianist Emmanuel Despax is to some extent rather surprising. Known for his fine interpretations of the classic piano repertoire, you might have expected his first concerto disc to encompass perhaps Schumann, Chopin or Mozart. But instead he opts for two major French works, Saint-Saens Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor and Cesar Franck's Symphonic Variations plus a new concerto commissioned specially for Despax from Stephen Goss. Despax is accompanied by the Orpheus Sinfonia conducted by Thomas Carroll. The disc is based on the live performance of the Goss concerto which Despax and the Orpheus Sinfonia gave at London's Cadogan Hall on 29 April 2013.

The Sixteen at Temple Church

The Sixteen, conductor Harry Christophers, brought their programme Ceremony and Devotion: Music for the Tudors to Temple Church on Monday 11 November, as part of the concert series organised by the Temple Music Foundation. A packed Temple Church heard the choir performing music by John Sheppard, William Byrd and Thomas Tallis. The programme explored the Latin church music of all three composers with Sheppard's Media vita and Sacris solemniis, and Tallis's Jesu salvator, saculi redemptis and Iam Christus astra ascendera all written during the reign of Queen Mary when Latin church music played a vital role in the liturgy. Plus Tallis's Miserere mei and Byrd's Laudibus in sanctis, Haec dies and Infelix ego from the reign of Queen Elizabeth when Latin sacred music had a less clear cut role.

They opened the programme with the plainchant hymn Veni creator spiritus sung alternim by the basses and sopranos, initially from the body of the round church and then processing through the nave. The chant was sung at a lovely steady pace with good full toned voices.

Music: The Definitive Visual History

This new book is firm in its confident credentials, with 'Definitive' in the title. Music: The Definitive Visual History is from Dorking Kindersely so we can expect a high standard of presentation and plenty of images, all this in a substantial coffee table sized book running to 400 pages. There are a lot of images here. The editorial team is pretty impressive too, with Robert Ziegler as consultant and a 15 person authorial team including Malcolm Hayes, Nick Kimberley and Tess Knighton. 

The book is divided into eight sections, Early Beginnings, Music in the Middle Ages, Reniassance and Reformation The Baroque Spirit, The Classical Age, Nationalism and Romance, Music in the Modern Age and Global Music. The last two take up around half of the book, and Global Music covers both classical and world music since 1945 so that this isn't a history which is skewed towards classical music. The only area which is not specifically covered is folk music, though this is implicit in some chapters.

Proust and Music

The Aspect Foundation is exploring the world of Marcel Proust and the music (both real and imagined) associated with him in a concert in their Words and Music series. On 13 November 2013 at the 20th Century Theatre, 291 Westbourne Grove, London W11 2QA, the Ebene Quartet, Ekaterina Derzhavina (piano), Anton Martynov (violin) and Shani Diluka (piano) will be performing music by Beethoven, Saint-Saens, Faure and Debussy, with a talk by Richard Wigmore. Faure was the model for the composer Vinteuil in Proust's A la recherce du temps perdu whilst the 'petite phrase' associated with Swann's love' for Odette comes from Saint-Saen's Violin Donata in D minor. Late Beethoven was one of Proust's loves as was Debussy's String Quartet in G minor.

The Aspect Foundation was established to promote the idea of concerts which place music in context, fusing various art forms. They return to the 20th Century Theatre, with the Borodin Quartet and clarinettist Alexander Bedenko for a concert in their Music Capitals series. There will be a pre-concert talk by Patrick Bade. The concert is the first of three to be devoted to Vienna and in the first the music of Schubert and Brahms is explored with Schubert's Death and the Maiden Quartet and Brahms's Clarinet Quintet. Further information from the Aspect Foundation website.

If you fancy your music vocal, then it has been pointed out to me that also on 13 November, the London Song Festival is performing music by Proust's friend Reynaldo Hahn. His Portraits du Peintres a recitation for voice and piano is in a programme which includes music by Britten and Finzi at St. Paul's Church, Covent Garden.

BREMF: St John Passion

This year's Brighton Early Music Festival (BREMF), the theme of which has been Passion, concluded on 10 November 2013 with a performance of J.S.Bach's St John Passion given by festival forces in St Bartholomew's Church, Brighton. John Hancorn conducted by BREMF Singers and BREMF Players, leader Alison Bury, with Andrew Griffiths as the Evangelist, George Humphreys as Christus and soloists Mhairi Lawson, Esther Brazil, Nick Pritchard and Robert Davies.

Using a choir of 40 and an orchestra of 15, this was a small to medium-scale performance of Bach's work. Hancorn's tempi were lithe and lively and he encouraged the BREMF Singers to sing lightly. The soloists were all young singers bringing a freshness and vitality to the performance. Tenor soloist Nick Pritchard had just won the first prize in the London Bach Society's Bach Singers Prize with mezzo-soprano Esther Brazil also as a finalist.

The venue, St Bartholomew's Church in Brighton is a large atmospheric space which is used for many of BREMF's concerts. Unfortunately Hancorn's tempi and general approach failed to take account of the very definite personality of the St Bartholomew's acoustic. The glorious opening chorus failed to tell, registering simply as a fuzzy buzzing and humming as the speed and lightness of touch applied by orchestra and singers meant that the details simply evaporated and just did not register. Only the long oboe lines seemed to count for anything. We were sitting in row 10, and judging by people's comments during the interval, the sound quality was worse further back. Theses aural effects were worst in the busier choral passages, so that the various turbae counted for very little, and the lovely final chorus was similarly rendered rather fuzzy.

BREMF: Profane Deliriums - Passionate love songs from Portugal and Brazil

L'Avventura London is a period instrument group, directed by Zak Ozmo, dedicated to exploring the music of the 16th to 18th centuries. For their concert at the Brighton Early Music Festival on Saturday 9 November their explorations reached 18th century Portugal and the modinhas. At St George's Church, Kemp Town, laid out cabaret style with tables and with an audience drinking wine and eating picnics, the ensemble seduced us with an attractive selection of 18th century Portuguese salon songs, modinhas. L'Avventura was led by Zak Ozmo on baroque guitar, with two Portuguese sopranos Joana Seara and Sandra Medeiros, plus Marta Goncalves on flute, Joanna Lawrence on violin, Taro Takeuchi on six-course guitar and English guitar (a metal stringed instrument, a member of the cittern family) and Natasha Kraemer on cello and percussion (often using the body of her cello as a percussion instrument).

Part of the interest in the modinha is that it is one of the ancestors of the Fado. The style of song involves a very seductive vocal line, with much sighing and the subject is, of course, love. The form seems to have come from Brazil (a Portuguese colony) in the mid 18th century but no-one is quite certain of its origins. Many of the faster numbers that L'Avventura performed had a lovely rhythmic lilt to them which came across as Brazilian. Some are in fact based on the syncopated rhythms of a Brazilian dance-song genre known as the lundum. Many musicians in Portugal were of mixed-race, children of white fathers and slave mothers, so that it is unsurprising to find popular styles merging.

Christiane Karg and Malcolm Martineau - Wigmore Hall Live

This new disc on the Wigmore Hall Live label captures a recital given on 19 July 2012 at the Wigmore Hall by the German soprano Christiane Karg with Malcolm Martineau.  The perform songs by Richard Strauss, Gabriel Faure, Claude Debussy, Francis Poulenc, Hugo Wolf and Alban Berg. They open with songs by Strauss, Faure, Debussy and Poulenc on the subject of flowers, followed by songs by Strauss, Wolf and Berg on the subject of night.

Karg and Martineau open with Strauss' Die erwachte Rose is nicely flowing, with Karg displaying a lovely silvery soprano voice. It is an early song, from Strauss's teens (1880) with a lovely rippling piano part. This rippling continues with Rote Rosen, another early song (1883) which shows that Strauss's melodic gift developed early. Karg and Martineau bring out the charm of the song.

Orchestras Live - 'Taking Music Further' (2)

The theme of the Orchestras Live conference 7 November 2013) at Kings Place, was 'Taking Music Further'. Over 100 people from music eduction hubs, orchestras, festivals and concert halls gather to hear a variety of presentations looking at what Orchestras Live has done in the last year, and considering what could be done and needs to be done in the future. I covered the morning sessions in an earlier post. In the afternoon sessions there was a live-link-up with the Aurora Orchestra, conductor Nicholas Collon and actor Samuel West, giving us a preview of the orchestra's concert that evening in Southampton. This was followed by a panel discussion on what could be done next.

Journeying Boys at Guildhall School

Dominic Sedgwick and Adam L Sullivan as Britten and Auden
photo Matt Holliday

What do you get when you put both Britten and Rimbaud on stage together with only Britten's setting of Les Illuminations to link them. This was the challenge set by Iain Burnside's new play Journeying Boys which was staged by the Guildhall School of Music and Drama last night (8 November) in the new theatre at Milton Court. The work was performed by a large cast of singers and pianists, and here lies the clue to the work's raison d'etre. In a conservatoire it is important for students to pick away at the various onionskin layers of the work, meanings in Rimbaud's text, meanings in Britten's music, historical backgrounds, why Britten set Rimbaud's text and Journeying Boys came about partly as a challenge from Nick Sears the head of vocal studies at the Royal College of Music where Journeying Boys premiered in February.

Burnside takes three entirely separate strands of plot, Britten's relationship with W.H.Auden culminating in Auden's famous letter to Britten in 1942; Rimbaud's relationship with Verlaine culminating in Verlaine's trial, their split and Rimbaud's journey to East Africa; forming the glue between these is a group of present day music students studying and performing Verlaine settings notably Britten's songs but also Debussy and Faure. In both historical strands we have a relationship and a journey, with Britten journeying to the USA to visit Auden and then, journeying back, Rimbaud and Verlaine travel to London and Brussels, it is in London that much of Rimbaud's Illuminations is written.

Burnside runs the Auden/Britten and the present day strands pretty straightforwardly but his Rimbaud/Verlaine strand dots about in time. The whole piece starts with Rimbaud dying and dictating a letter to his sister (including a completely non-existent place). All of the letters that Burnside uses are completely true as is the play's most outrageous moment, when Rimbaud masturbates into a cup of milk and then gives it to his then lover to unwittingly drink.

The glass of milk moment - Steffan Donnelly, Bertie Watson, Joanne Evans, Jevan McAuley as Rimbaud and friends
photo Matt Holliday

The whole play is effectively about the creative disjunction between the personalities of Rimbaud and Britten, towards the end of the play Rimbaud recites part of an important letter he wrote about how an artist had to experience everything, and push the boundaries to become a seer. By contrast we see Britten hesitating to go into a Turkish Bath with Christopher Isherwood, nervous of letting go. It is part of Burnside's brilliance that he can see something of the Rimbaud 'method' in Auden's letter to Britten and in fact he has both Auden and Rimbaud reading the letter to Britten.

Another streak of brilliance is that the play is very funny and, like the episode with the milk, Burnside wears his learning lightly and ensures we are both challenged and amused. The young modern day students give a platform for thoughts and suggestions about the linking between the two great geniuses, but they are also characters in their own right and experimenting with their own forms of love and relationship.

Anyone who has seen one of Burnside's plays before will be familiar with his method, the music and the songs are split up and allocated to various performers, with Les Illuminations sung by various singers, as well as in ensemble. We hear other songs of Britten's from the 1930's and 1940's though Burnside was a little too reliant on the 1944 choral piece A Shepherd's Carol with extraordinary words 'O lift your little pinkie and touch the winter sky'.

When Verlaine was in jail in Brussels we heard him singing RVW's The sky above the roof (a setting of Mabel Dearmer's translation of Verlaine), as well as two of Faure's Verlaine settings (Spleen and Une Sainte en son aureole) and Debussy's Chevaud de bois. (Another delightful point brought into the play was mother-in-law as the piano teacher to the young Debussy).

The cast were lead by two recent graduates from the Guildhall School, Steffan Donnelly and Paapa Essiedu. Donnelly was remarkably vivid and life-like as Rimbaud, whist Essiedu played his African servant Djami. Both Donnelly and Essiedu are acting alumni, the remaining cast were all undergraduate and post-graduate singers and pianists (the pianists were expected to sing and act too), in total a cast of 27 people, bringing to life the people around Rimbaud and Britten as well as students, plus the five vowels! Rimbaud wrote a poem characterising the vowels, and Burnside brought them to life as five young women who accompany Rimbaud on his journey, a way of bringing Rimbaud's extraordinary thought processes to life.

Performances were strong from everybody, with Dominic Sedgwick as Britten, Adam L Sullivan as Auden and Gethn Lewis as Isherwood, all delightfully accurate. In France, Dominic J. Walsh was perhaps a little too personable as Verlaine, with Agathe Peyrat as his wife and Roisin Walsh as his mother in law.

The play will probably not have life outside a conservatoire, the cast is simply too big, but Burnside and the students vividly brought the fascinating conjunction of Britten and Auden to life in a work which as both illuminating, challenging, entertaining and laugh-out-loud funny.

Elsewhere on this blog:

• WIN a copy of Music: The Definitive History our latest Competition
• Taking Music Further - Orchestras Live conference
• Giorgio Berrugi at Rosenblatt Recitals
• Handel's Israel in Egypt at the Royal Hospital
• Lily Afshar and the Collaborative Orchestra
• Sheer delight - Gallay horn trios and quartet - CD review
• Sweet indeed - Douce France - Anne Sofie von Otter - CD review
• Mesmerising and Magical - Breaking the Rules - BREMF
• 40th Birthday - Tallis Scholars in Taverners Missa Gloria Tibi Trinitas - CD review
• Music and Murder - Passion and the Princess - Musica Secreta at BREMF
• We take a second, longer look at Les Vepres Siciliennes at Covent Garden
• Imaginative programme - Francesco Meli in Liszt and Britten - CD review
• Home

BBC Symphony Orchestra season at the Barbican

BBC Symphony Orchestra and Jiří Bělohlávek
at the Barbican (c) BBC / Lara Platman

Having launched the new BBC Symphony Orchestra season last week, with their first concert with their new chief conductor Sakari Oramo, the orchestra continues in exciting mode with Britten's War Requiem at the Royal Albert Hall on Sunday with Semyon Bychkov conducting and soloists Marina Polavskaya, Andrew Kennedy and Roderick Williams (10/11). There is more Britten in 23 November at the Barbican when Steuart Bedford conducts a stellar cast led by Christine Brewer with Andrew Staples in the title role (23/11)

Francois-Xavier Roth conducts the orchestra and the BBC Symphony Chorus in Berlioz's L'enfance du Christ with soloists Karen Cargill, Yann Beuron, Marcus Farnsworth and Christopher Purves (15/12, Barbican). And Christine Brewer returns to join the orchestra in Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder and Berg's Seven Early Songs conducted by Edward Gardner (20/12, Barbican).

Orchestras Live - 'Taking Music Further' (1)

Orchestras Live is a charity which focuses on providing high quality orchestral experiences for people regardless of who they are or where they live. The charity targets communities where orchestras usually fail to go. The theme of the conference yesterday (7 November 2013) at Kings Place, was 'Taking Music Further'. Over 100 people from music eduction hubs, orchestras, festivals and concert halls gather to hear a variety of presentations looking at what Orchestras Live has done in the last year, and considering what could be done and needs to be done in the future. 

After an introduction from Orchestras Live's chieve executive Henry Little we heard a keynote speech from broadcaster Tom Service entitled Orchestras: more like Mothers of Invention... we saw a film from Scunthorpe about one of Orchestras Live's First Time Live projects (where the young people are involved in the actual organisation of the concert). In the afternoon there was a live link-up with the Aurora Orchestra who were rehearsing for an Orchestras Live concert that evening in Southampton, again followed by a panel discussion. This article, the first of two, covers the activities of the morning session. (the second article can be read here)

Giorgio Berrugi at Rosenblatt Recitals

Giorgio Berrugi and Eytan Pessen
at Wigmore Hall, photo Rosenblatt Recitals

One of the joys of the Rosenblatt Recitals series is the discovery of voices entirely new to you. I have to confess that until his recital last night (7 November) for Rosenblatt Recitals at the Wigmore Hall, I had never come across the Italian tenor Giorgio Berrugi. Accompanied by Eytan Pessen, Berrugi dislayed a fine lyric tenor voice in an imaginative programme which mixed opera arias by Donizetti, Puccini and Cilea with songs by Bellini, Respighi, Gounod, Faure and Hahn plus arrangements of Ladino songs.

Berrugi's musical career started with the clarinet, he was a solo clarinettist with the Orchestra Sinfonica in Rome. He made his debut as Rodolfo in La Boheme in Treviso and Venice in 2008 and from 2010 to 2013 was a member of the ensemble at the Staatsoper in Dresden. The fact that Berrugi was over 30 when he made his debut (he was born in 1977) is perhaps significant, his voice has a beauty and sheen to it which speaks of great care being taken and pressure not being applied too early. Looking at his schedule, his roles are continuing in the lyric tenor fach which is heartening. Judging from last nights recital, Berrugi's voice clearly has the potential for greater power and intensity, but at the moment this is combined with an admirable flexibility and delicacy in his chosen repertoire.

Handel's Israel in Egypt at the Royal Hospital

Chapel of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea

As part of the autumn season of concerts in the chapel of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, the choir of the Royal Hospital, conductor William Vann, and the Wren Orchestra performed a programme of Handel's music including Zadok The Priest, and Israel in Egypt in the chapel of the Royal Hospital on 6 November 2013. The chapel, built the 1680's by Christopher Wren, is a highly evocative place to perform Handel's music. The performers were in the centre of the chapel, with the choir in the choir stalls, and the capacity audience surrounding them.

William Vann, already making a name for himself as a pianist and accompanist, wore a different hat and in his role as director of music at the Royal Hospital conducted the chapel's own choir. the 16 strong group of young professional singers were accompanied by the Wren Orchestra leader Oliver Webber, performing on period instrument.

The other centenarian - George Lloyd in Worthing

Composer George Lloyd's centenary (yes he was born in 1913 too) seems to have got rather less coverage than that of this year's other centenarians, despite Lloyd's Requiem being given at the Proms. Lloyd wrote twelve symphonies, but the only professional performance in the UK this year of one of them takes place on Sunday 10 November in Worthing.

The Worthing Symphony Orchestra, conductor John Gibbons is performing Lloyd's Symphony No. 6 as part of a programme which includes Shostkovich's Symphony No. 5 and Richard Strauss's Four Last Songs with soprano Anna Gorbachyova. In his article on MusicWeb International, Paul Conway describes Lloyd's Symphony No. 6 as 'easily the best of Lloyd s small-scale orchestral works' and 'the perfect introduction to George Lloyd s individual sound-world,'

Further information from the Worthington Symphony Orchestra website.

OOTS - Its Anthony and Cleopatra the Musical

The Orchestra of the Swan (OOTS), the Stratford-upon-Avon chamber orchestra, is planning another of its projects for children with learning and physical difficulties. Anthony and Cleopatra - The Musical! is '60 minutes of madcap musical mayhem' written for the pupils at Brays and Welcombe Special Schools. There will be a year of workshops and rehearsals next year, leading to a performance in 2015.

Their previous project Troy Story - An Intergalactic Opera was a great success taking pupils Welcombe Hills School, Thomas Jolyffe and Wilmcote Primary School on an intergalactic adventure to the year 3000 with stop off’s for musical workshops, educational talks and wonderful rehearsals.

All this takes money, and the Orchestra of the Swan is in line for The People's Millions, they will be appearing on Central TV on 26 November to talk about their project. Please do vote for them, voting is from 9am to midnight on 26 November: further information from the People's Millions website.

You can see more of their work on YouTube, or if you'd like to donate go direct to the OOTS website.

Foray into folk: Lily Afshar plays guitar

If you want to hear beautiful Persian folk music played on guitar then last nights’ (Saturday 2 November) performance at St Johns Smith Square was for you. Guitarist Lily Afshar played solos and duets and was then joined by the Collaborative Orchestra under their artistic director Andrew Farid.

Lily Afshar was mesmeric and had the audience literally humming along. Even if you weren’t familiar with the Persian and Azerbaijani ballads they had a restful timelessness which spoke of both melancholy and happiness. Use of complex techniques lent the guitar different voices, adding a subtle layer to the songs. Lily was born in Iran but her grandparents were from Azerbaijan so her transcriptions of these ballads must be close to her heart.

Venezualan string quartet visits Sistema-inspired programmes in the UK

The Libertadores String Quartet from Venezuela, one of El Sistema's most promising and exciting ensembles, will visit three El Sistema inspired programmes in the UK this weekend. The quartet will be visiting In Harmony Liverpool, In Harmony Telford and Stoke on Trent, and Sistema in Norwich. 

The Libertadores String Quartet, Ollantay Velasquez, Eddi Cordero, Otto Rodrigues and Jose David Marquez, is made up of members of the well known Simon Bolivar Orchestra. Whilst in the UK they will be meeting tutors and leaders as well as doing tutoring work with children from the various schemes as part of an exchange organised by Sistema England. On Saturday 9 November they visit In Harmony Liverpool, in Monday 11 November,  In Harmony Telford and then on Tuesday they are in Norwich visiting Sistema Norwich, where they will be giving a concert performing Mozart, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky. On Thursday 14 November they quartet will be giving a public performance at the Bolivar Hall, 54 Grafton Way, London.

Further information about the visit from the Sistema England website.

October on Planet Hugill - Cardiff, Hamburg and Brighton

Welcome to what was a busy October on Planet Hugill.

Hamburg and Cardiff

October saw my visit to Hamburg continuing with a concert from theHamburg Philharmonic, a visit to the spectacular new concert hall, the Elbphilharmonie and further visits to the Reeperbahn Festival. Whilst TheCultureTrip.com website carried a further article about theReeperbahn Festival

Then Cardiff beckoned for WNO's striking trilogy of Donizetti operas,Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda and Roberto Devereux.

Royal Greenwich International Early Music Festival

Royal Greenwich International Early Music Festival and Exhibition opens tomorrow (7 November) and runs until Saturday 9 November 2013 at the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich London. The event combines the world's largest early music fair with masterclasses and concerts in Greenwich. The exhibition includes over 100 instrument makers from around the world and there are makers demonstration recitals throughout each day. 

There are masterclasses from counter-tenor Michael Chance and Italian viola da gamba virtuoso Paolo Pandolfo, plus a lecture rectial by viola da gamba player Ibi Aziz. There are recitals from BBC Young Musician 2012 Woodwind finalist Charlotte Barbour-Condini, Paolo Pandolfo and recorder player David Bellugi with Charles Matthews on harpsichord. Concerts include the Trinity Laban Soloists and Baroque Orchestra directed by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Michael Petri and James Johnstone, Joglaresa, and a 40th anniversary concert from the English Concert directed from the harpsichord by their founder Trevor Pinnock.

Further information from the festival website.

Gallay - Horn Trios and Quartet - Sheer delight!

When you think of a horn trio, you would inevitably think of a work which involved a French horn with two other instruments. But on this new recording from Les Chevaliers de Saint Hubert (Anneke Scott, Joseph Walters, Jorge Renteria-Campos, Martin Lawrence) we are treated to a group of works for three and four horns by the 19th century French composer (and horn virtuoso) Jacques-Francois Gallay. His Trois grands trios pour trois cors en Mi, Op.24 and Grand quatuor pour quatre cors en different tons, Op. 26. The recordings is on the Resonus Classics label, for download only.

Horn ensembles probably arose from the hunt servants being called upon to provide entertainment for the hunters. Certainly by the late 17th and 18th centuries such ensembles were being written down. The Bohemian composer Anton Reicha (1770 - 1836) wrote 24 horn trios (op.82) and 12 trios for two horns plus cello or bassoon (Op. 93). In 1811 the distinguished French horn player Louis-Francois Dauprat (1781-1868) decided to improve his composition skills and spent three years studying with Reicha. The two went on to become colleagues at the Paris Conservatoire. Jacques-Francois Gallay was the most distinguished of Dauprat's pupils. He was born in Perpignan in 1795, learning the horn from his amateur horn player father. Something of a prodigy, Gallay eventually decided to study at the Paris Conservatoire where the calibre of its hand-horn players was such that the new valve horn remained unpopular in France. On graduation Gallay become one of the leading performers of the time.

Writing for Music

JAM's Writing for Music project has seen six pairs of young poets and composers each in turn linked to one of six choirs to produce a new choral work. Each pair is mentored with the intention of guiding them in complex task of writing a successful choral work. The project culminates in a concert on 9 November at the University Church of St. Mary in Oxford. The six choirs will each perform the piece written for them as part of the project and a piece from their own repertoire, then all will join for a performance of Britten's Rejoice in the Lamb.

The composers and poets were selected in autumn 2012 and were mentored by poets Ruth Padel and David Harsent, composers Judith Bingham and Giles Swayne and conductor Nicholas Cleobury. The six choirs involved are Woodstock Music Society, Schola Cantorum of Oxford, St. Margaret's Church Choir, Oxfordshire Country Youth Choir, Oxford Pro Musica Singers and the Choir of Somerville College Oxford. BBC Radio 3 has followed the project throughout, recording the writing phases to date and will be recording the concert on 9 November, for broadcast on The Choir later in the year.

The concert is part of a series of concerts, conferences and masterclasses, Britten in Oxford, a year long celebration of the work and life of Britten in his centenary year. Tickets for the event are available from the Tickets Oxford website.

Douce France - Anne Sofie von Otter

This new disc from Anne Sofie von Otter is a delightful combination of contrasts, on the first CD she performs melodies from the golden age of French song-writing (1885 - 1914), and then on the second disc she performs French chansons from a slightly later period. The genres are, of course, linked with many composers of melodies such as Satie and Poulenc writing chansons. What the two genres have in common is that both were designed for performance in small spaces, the chanson in the cabarets and cafe-concerts of Monmatres, the melodies in the famous artistic salons.

On the first disc Von Otter and Bengt Forsberg perform a selection of melodies by Reynaldo Hahn. Camille Saint-Saens, Gabriel Faure, Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy and Charles Martin Loeffler. On the second disc we have Von Otter and Forsberg joined by a large group of instrumentalists for chansons by Barbara, Norbert Glanzberg, Leo Ferre, Francis Lemarque, Mano Hadjidakis, Michel Legrand, Joseph Kosma, Leo Chauliac, Charles Trenet, Georges Moustaki, Reynaldo Hahn, Louiguy, Marguerite Monnot and Jean Lenoir. The result sounds quite eclectic, but thanks to the idiomatic and imaginative arrangements the disc works and provides a lovely complement to the melodies.

Future Tense?

The Opera and Music Theatre Forum (OMTF) is presenting a one-day conference at the Royal Opera House on Wednesday 13 November. The conference focuses on the question 'what will the world be like in 2030 and how will we deal with it?' 

There are talks on what the world will be like in 2030 (!), and panel discussions under the heading 'The Future Starts Here'. Participants include Kasper Holten, Director of Opera at the Royal Opera House, Bill Bankes-Jones, Artistic Director of Tete a Tete Opera, playwright Mark Ravenhill, Nicholas Cleobury from Mid-Wales Opera, James Clutton from Opera Holland Park, Frederic Wake-Walker from The Opera Group and Mahagony Opera, Marcus Romer, Artistic Director of Pilot Theatre in York, and Bill Winters, CEO and Chairman of Renshaw Bay.

Further information and event book from the event's EventBrite page.

BREMF: Breaking the Rules

Finbar Lynch and the Marian Consort
photo - Robert Piwko

The church lights dim to blackness, six singers by the altar start singing one of Gesualdo's Tenebrae Responsories lit only by candles. A figure in long black velvet coat strides up the nave, a brilliant light illuminates the huge crucifix above the alter and the figure prostrates himself before it. Clare Norburn's new play Breaking the Rules takes us into the closed world of the ageing composer Gesualdo, obsessive and reclusive he goes back over his life re-living moments and re-creating his music.

Brighton Early Music Festival (BREMF) presented the premiere of Norburn's play on Sunday 3 November 2013 at St. Bartholomew's Church, Brighton. The work was essentially a monologue for Finbar Lynch playing Gesualdo, interspersed with music from The Marian Consort (Emma Walshe, Gwendolen Martin, Rory McCleery, Nick Pritchard, George Pooley and Christopher Borrett) supported by Jadran Duncumb (theorbo). But the result was far more the sum of its parts. Lasting just two hours (including interval), the play was mesmerising and magical. Directed by Karolina Sofulak, this was no rehearsed reading but a fully dramatic event.


Finbar Lynch is currently best known for his appearance as Monty in the ITV series Breathless. He has done a lot of work with both the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre but music lovers may remember him best as Oberon in Jonathan Kent's production of Purcell's The Fairy Queen for Glyndebourne.

The play takes as its subtitle The imagined testimony of Carlo Gesualdo, composer and murderer. Using the convention of an unseen observer (us) to whom Gesualdo talks, we hear him mulling over his life. He professes to remember little of the central event in his life, his murder of his first wife and her lover, caught in flagrante. But by the middle of part two, he gives us a thrilling recital of events, gory in its detail and gripping in its presentation. Finbar Lynch was mesmerising as Gesualdo, creating a character whom we could understand, if not love; recounting his loveless childhood, the early death of his mother, training for the priesthood, removal to the princely palace on the death of this older brother, disastrous wedding night and its terrible consequences, and his appalling treatment of his second wife.

Passion and the Princess - music and murder in Renaissance Ferrara

The Castello in Ferrara

Passion and the Princess was Musica Secreta's programme at the Brighton Early Music Festival on Saturday 2 November 2013. Whilst I had heard of the famous singing ladies of Renaissance Ferrara, I was unfamiliar with much of their story and Musica Secreta's programme presented us with an amazing tale of murder, music and politics in Renaissance Italy. Musica Secreta (Deborah Roberts, Liz Dobbin, Sophia Brumfitt sopranos, Rosie Midgley mezzo-soprano, Lynda Sayce lute and chitarrone and Claire Williams harpsichord) were joined by the BREMF Consort of Voices (director Deborah Roberts) to present a wide range of music, both sacred and secular, from Willaert, Rore, Wert, Luzzaschi and Monteverdi associated with the singing ladies of Ferrara and their patroness Lucrezia d'Este. We were told Lucrezia's story in narration by Laurie Stras, interwoven with madrigals, motets and instrumental pieces.

For over 20 years Musica Secreta has specialised in revealing the hidden world of women's music in the Renaissance. Here they were joined by the eight voices of the BREMF Consort, founded in 2010 as a top quality amateur/student ensemble which takes a full role in the festival. Here they enabled Musica Secreta to explore not only the music for solo voices and for women's voices, members of the two groups combining for thel arger scale madrigals and motets from the court of Ferrara,

Taverner - Missa Gloria tibi Trinitas - The Tallis Scholars at 40

The Tallis Scholars are 40 today (3 November 2013) and to celebrate the fact the group, conducted by Peter Phillips, have released a new recording of one of the trickiest pieces in the English sacred repertoire, John Taverner's Missa Gloria Tibi Trinitas along with three of Taverner's Magnificats. The recording is, of course, released on the choir's own Gimell label.

Taverner's mass incorporates the plainchant Gloria tibi Trinitas which suggests that mass was originally composed to be sung on Trinity Sunday, or possibly at a foundation dedicated to the Trinity. Unfortunately both of Taverner's places of employment fit this category, Tattershall Collegiate Church and Cardinal College Oxford. But it survives in a set of part books (the Forrest-Heyther part-books) associated with Cardinal College, so would seem to have been written for performance there and Taverner may have supervised the copying himself. In his note in the CD booklet Peter Phillips comments that the copy of the mass is unusually accurate.

Win a copy of 'Music: The Definitive Visual History'

Dorling Kindersley have just issued a very handsome new book Music: The Definitive Visual History, 400 pages packed with images about music in all its forms from the very early beginnings to the very contemporary. A fine editorial team includes Keith Howard, Tess Knighton and Robert Ziegler.

We have a copy of the book to be won, read on: 

Verdi - Les Vepres Siciliennes

Photo Bill Cooper

We have already taken a first look at the new production of Verdi's Les Vepres Siciliennes at the Royal Opera House and I went along on 1 November 2013 to catch up with Stefan Herheim's striking new production. Marina Poplavskaya being still ill, Armenian soprano Lianna Haroutounian continued her performances in the role of Helene, with Bryan Hymel as Henri, Michael Volle as Guy de Montfort and Erwin Schrott as Procida. Antonio Pappano conducted. For the production Herheim was joined by his regular collaborator dramaturge Alexander Meier-Dorzenbach with sets by Philipp Furhofer and costumes by Gesine Vollm.

Verdi's opera was written in 1852 for the Paris Opera following up on the success of Jerusalem (a rewrite of I Lombardi) in 1847; the gap caused by the revolution of 1848. The timing is important, Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots was premiered in 1836 and Le Prophete in 1849. In writing for the Paris Opera, Verdi would be aiming to emulate  Meyerbeer, the most influential opera composer of the age. And in doing so Verdi would work with Meyerbeer's librettist, Eugene Scribe (1791 - 1861). His struggles with the libretto are well, known but Verdi was keen to write his take on the Parisian grand opera form.

The most important factor in the Parisian grand opera was the impact of the historical on the personal; the finest in the genre took a real historical event and made it impact on a personal relationship. The result gave scope for large-scale historical scenes, and pathetic personal ones with the almost inevitable tragic outcome in a patchwork of scenes brilliantly organised by Meyerbeer. Verdi achieved the impossible and created his own take on the genre in Don Carlos, but here he was working with a far better libretto. The problem with Les Vepres Siciliennes is two-fold, first the historical event didn't happen (the libretto is based on one set in the Netherlands written for Halevy and partly set by Donizetti before being abandoned) and secondly the historical event (the massacre) does not have a strong enough impact on Henri and Helene's relationship (just think about Don Carlos and the way Verdi uses the historical impediment there).

Wimbledon Music Festival

This year's Wimbledon Music Festival opens on 9 November 2013 and runs until Sunday 24 November. A theme running through the festival is chamber music with performers such as the Brodsky Quartet, clarinettist Michael Collins, violist Rivka Golani, pianist Angela Hewitt, Shaham-Erez-Wallfisch Piano Trio, Quatuor Mosaiques (the Austrian quartet playing on period instrument), Calefax Reed Quintet (the Dutch wind quintet), organist Jennifer Bate and trumpeter Crispian Steele-Perkins. The Gesualdo Consort will be celebrating Gesualdo's influence in the 20th century, and Sir John Tomlinson brings his programme based on the Michelangelo sonnets.

The festival opens on 9 November with Academy Choir and Baroque Players in an all Bach concert including the Actus Tragicus, Komm Jesu Komm and the Magnificat. And there is more Bach at the end of festival when Florilegium perform all the Brandenburg Concertos in two concerts on 23 November.

November at the Barbican - Britten, Berlioz and more

Britten is the main theme of November at the Barbican with a chance to hear a remarkable range of his music including two of his operas, Curlew River and Albert Herring plus new dance works to his music from Richard Alston. Valery Gerghiev and the London Symphony Orchestra embark on an odyssey through Berlioz's music, whilst the BBC Symphony Orchestra gives their first concert under their new director Sakari Oramo. The Guildhall School of Music and Drama presents an operatic double bill of Debussy and Donizetti, whilst their new Milton Court plays host to visits from Thomas Ades, Graham Johnson, Anne Sofie von Otter and their friends.

Illuminating Britten is the title of the Barbican's weekend of talks, films, discussions and performances celebrating Britten's centenary (8-10 Nov). Ian Bostridge is singing Britten's Our Hunting Fathers in a programme of Britten, Tippett and Purcell with Paul Daniel conducting the Britten Sinfonia (8/11). Bostridge is also performing in the staged version of Britten's Curlew River being performed at St Giles Cripplegate in a multi-media production directed by Netia Jones and conducted by William Lacey with Britten Sinfonia (14-16/11). Britten's War Requiem is performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Semyon Bychkov with soloists Sabina Cvilak, Andrew Kennedy and Roderick Williams (10/11, at the Royal Albert Hall).

Francesco Meli in Britten and Liszt

This new recital from Italian tenor Francesco Meli and pianist Matteo Pais for Rosenblatt Recitals on Ops Arte has been some time in the making, the original recordings were made in 2009. The disc combines live recordings from Meli's 2009 and 2007 Rosenblatt Recitals at St. Johns Smith Square, with studio recordings made in 2009. Meli's programme is quite adventurously appealing as alongside the requisite arias by Massenet, Gounod, Verdi and Donizetti, and songs by Paolo Tosti and Rossini, Meli performs Britten's Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, Op. 22 and Liszt's Tre sonetti di Petrarca (Three Sonnets of Petrarch).

Meli and Pais open with Britten's Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, Op. 22. Written in 1940 the cycle was the first set of songs which Britten composed specifically for Peter Pears and they were performed at the Wigmore Hall, their first public appearance in 1942 after their return from the USA. Britten sets seven of Michelangelo's sonnets all dealing with aspects of love. The songs were written whilst Britten was in the USA and they demonstrate the way he was freeing himself from the constraints of the English tradition, they are some of the most European of Britten's writings. Very focussed on the vocal line, the songs are in some way akin to  Liszt's Petrarch Sonnets with both composers reinterpreting the Italian bel canto tradition for their own purposes.

The Heart of King David

The Heart of King David was a lunch-time recital given at the Royal Academy of Music by tenor William Bouvel, mezzo-soprano Sofia Troncoso, pianist Richard Leach and harpist Mary Reid, all students at the Royal Academy of Music. We were treated to a sequence of English songs, by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Benjamin Britten, Roger Quiter, Herbert Howells, Ivor Gurney and Henry Purcell which were woven together with improvisations and spoken text to create a continuous narrative about King David. The result was an intriguing re-imagining of the song recital idea.

The key to the programme was the linking narrations, these were written by tenor William Bouvel, who had designed the whole programme, but spoken beautifully by Sofia Troncoso. Generally short, and aphoristic, but highly poetic they formed an important and surprisingly successful link between the items.