Estonian Music Days - day two, Polish/Estonian collaboration and a cartoon

Song Festival Grounds in Tallinn - photo Robert Hugill

Maria Korvits, Age Veeroos, Tonu Korvits, Mari Vihmand, Ewa Fabianska-Jelinska, Witold Lutoslawski, Michal Ossowski, Rafal Zapala, Artur Kroschel, and Kazimierz Serocki; Sepia Ensemble; Estonian Music Days at Tallinn Secondary Science School
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Apr 11 2015
Star rating: 4.0
Estonian/Polish interaction in this concert by a Polish ensemble spanning music of two countries

My second day at the Estonian Music Days in Tallinn started with a sightseeing tour, spending two hours walking round the Toompea and the historic Old Town, and then driving out to the Song Festival Grounds. These are used for all sorts of music events, but their main focus is the Song Festival. Established in the 19th century, this festival (originally every 3 year and now every 5 years) gathers thousands of people together to sing national songs. The Song Festival Grounds were the focus for spontaneous singing demonstrations in 1988 which helped lead to the overthrow of the Soviet regime in the Singing Revolution. 

Ensemble Sepia - photo Peeter Larvits

Then at 6pm we assembled in the hall of Tallinn Secondary Science School (Tallinna Reaalkooli Saal), a handsome late 19th or early 20th century building with a hall far grander than we had when I was at school. We were there to listen to the Polish new music ensemble, Ansambel Sepia (Sepia Ensemble) performing their Zooming: Estonia programme. The programme was a collaboration between Estonia and Poland and the ensemble has already presented a similar one in their native Poznan. The first half of the programme contained new Estonian music from Maria Korvits, Age Veeroos, Tonu Korvits and Mari Vihmand, whilst the second half contained new and contemporary Polish music from Ewa Fabianska-Jelinska, Witold Lutoslawski, Michal Ossowski, Rafal Zapala, Artur Kroschel, and Kazimierz Serocki.

The Sepia Ensemble was founded by Artur Kroschel and Rafal Zapala in 2012, and consists of graduates and higher level student of the IJ Paderewski Academy of Music in Pozanan. There is a core of 12 musicians who perform in various combinations; we heard Paulina Gras-Lukasewska (flute), Szymon Jozwiak (clarinet), Wojciech Jelinski (trombone), Tomasz Sosniak (piano), Aleksandra Dzwonkowska (percussion), Olga Winkowska and Anna Podsiadly (violins), Tomasz Citak (viola), Anna Szmatola (cello), Mateusz Loska (double bass), with artistic director Artur Kroschel.

The Day the Music Died - BASCA's Digital Royalties Campaign

One of the topics which came up during the discussions at the ISM's conference Making Music Work recently, was the issue of royalties for composers from digital services, and the way that music is used on platforms such as YouTube leading consumers to presume that music just gets there without any cost or labour by musicians. Now BASCA (British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors) has started a campaign The Day the Music Died which is calling for a better deal for songwriters and composers and those that the digital universe has forgotten.

The campaign calls for a 50/50 split of gross royalty invome for writers from digital services, as with broadcasting synchronisation splits; advertising income paid to creators for all usage including YouTube, the removal of auto-predictive fill in of illegal content with internet search engines, the removal of safe harbour for content platforms such as YouTube and the loosening up of the terms of NDA's (Non disclosure agreements) to allow for comprehensive CMO audit rights.

They have started a three pronged attack, asking music industry for better deals, the Government to change legislation, and the public to change attitudes towards filesharing. None are easy targets, but if nothing is done, then the next generation of composers will effectively cease to be able to earn income from royalties.

60th birthday piano fundraiser at St Paul's Knightsbridge

St Paul's Church, Knightsbridge, has rather an unusual fundraiser on Saturday 25 April 2015 at the church when Thames Chamber Orchestra, conductor Keith Marshall will be performing Wagner's Siegfried Idyll, Mozart's Piano Concerto No 12 and Mozart's Symphony No. 40, with choral music performed by St Paul's Knightsbridge Choir, conducted by Stephen Farr. So far, so traditional. 

The fundraiser is to help raise funds for St Paul's to buy its own piano, as at the moment it does not have a viable one and despite being a regular concert and recording venue pianos are hired in. So a parishioner, John Sunderland is celebrating his 60th birthday by setting himself the challenge of performing Mozart's Piano Concerto No 12 at the concert with the Thames Chamber Orchestra. Sunderland hasn't played the piano in public since university, and hasn't played this concerto before! So do help him celebrate, and support the church in its efforts to raise the money for the piano. Tickets are available on-line,

Estonian Music Days - day one, introducing a vibrant music scene

Tallinn old town from Toompea - photo Robert Hugill

Jakob Juhkam, Tatjana Kozlova-Johannes, Meelis Vind, Kristo Matson, Riho Esko Maimets, Tonu Korvits; Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, Taavi Kull; Estonian Music Days at Solaris, and Estonia Concert Hall, Tallinn
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Apr 10 2015
Star rating: 4.0
Opening concert of the Estonian Music Days is fine showcase

Having been in Istanbul last month, I was in a very different but equally historic place last weekend (10-12 April) when I attended the Estonian Music Days  (Eesti Muusika Paevad) in Tallinn, a festival of Estonian contemporary music organised by the Estonian Composers Union (Eesti Heliloojate Liit). The artistic directors of the festival this year are Helena Tulve and Timo Steiner, and over the course of three days I attended five events, all comprising contemporary music with many world premieres, by predominantly Estonian composers. Tallinn is a very historic city and the festival used a wide variety of venues.

Mini-EMD - Dancing robots at Solaris
in Timo Steiner's Stuck in a Loop - photo Robert Hugill

In parallel with the main festival there was also Mini-EMD which was curated and organised by a team of young people (secondary school age). The first event (on Friday 10 April 2015) that I attended was in the shopping centre, Solaris, where amidst the shoppers coming and going and the smell of fruit and vegetables, a group of robots performed Timo Steiner's Stuck in a Loop. The humanoid robots, each named after a philosopher, moved as well as making sounds so that it was almost a music theatre piece.

The opening concert of the main festival took place later that evening (10 April 2015) at Estonia Concert Hall, when there were six newly commissioned works performed by the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, conductor Taavi Kull. The hall is a handsome neo-classical building originally built in 1913, and reconstructed 1947 after destruction in 1944; it is part of the complex which holds the opera house. In the foyer as we deposited our coats there were music stands holding a selection of the scores of works to be performed during the festival (a feature of all the concerts I discovered). The opening work was in fac performer-less, it was a striking sound collage by Jakob Juhkam (born 1992), First, assembled from the first symphonies of Estonian composers.

Taavi Kull and Estonian National Symphony Orchestra
photo Peeter Langovits

The second work (the first to be played by the orchestra) was Lighting the Fire by Tatiana Kozlova-Johannes (born 1977) which was written for huge symphony orchestra. All five orchestral works that evening took advantage of the large forces available with lots of percussion, and the whole orchestra barely fitted onto the platform. Tatiana Kozlova-Johannes' work was based on a passage from Clarissa Pinkola Estes' Women Who Run With Wolves (Myths and stories of the wild woman archetype). Starting from the slow moving texture of plucked strings and sustained wind with lots of tuned percussion, there was a sense of movement in the texture even though there was no sense of pulse, just a feeling of seething underneath which gradually built to an ear shattering climax. In the relatively close confines of the hall, it was one of the loudest unamplified sounds I have ever heard.

Bamberg Symphony Orchestra and their Encore project

Bamberg Symphony Orchestra
photo credit Michael Trippel

The Bamberg Symphony Orchestra's ambitious new project to commission around 40 new works, encore pieces to promote new music and show that contemporary composers can be entertaining!

The Bamberg Symphony Orchestra is 70 year old next year, and has a long an interesting history. Recently the orchestra has been making something of a name for itself under their conductor Jonathan Nott. They have established the Gustav Mahler Conducting Prize which had Gustavo Dudamel as its first winner in 2004. Now they have come up with in interesting project to refresh the orchestral repertoire in a manageable and rather lively way. I had an email interview with Marcus Rudolf Axt, the chief-executive of the orchestra to learn more about it.

The orchestra's Encore project is designed to do just that, commission new encores which the orchestra can use on their tours. They want new works are 'which strong enough to end the concert "with a smile"'. But the project is ambitious, they aim to commission around 40 pieces by various composer. Five have been premiered so far, and the intention is to provide an overview of the range of creation in contemporary music at the moment. Marcus is clear that overall, they want to promote new music but doing so by showing that contemporary composers can be entertaining.

Howard Blake at Milton Court

Benedict Kloeckner
photo Marco Borgreve

On Friday 17 April 2015, the Guildhall School's Milton Court concert hall will see the London premieres of no less than four of Howard Blake's works. The German cellist Benedict Kloeckner is joined by violinist Madeleine Mitchell, viola player Rivka Golani and pianist Sasha Grynyuk to perform Blake's Diversions for Cello and Piano, Piano Trio no, 3 'Elegia stravagante', Piano quartet, Prelude for solo viola and The Enchantment of Venus for cello and piano.

Benedict Kloeckner (born 1989) won the European Broadcasting Union's Young Artists Competition in Bratislava in 2010, playing Blake's Diversions and subsequently Blake has arranged a number of works for Kloeckner including the two of them have performed Blake's work together a number of times and recorded the music for cello and piano on the Genuin label. I first heard Blake and Kloeckner playing together in 2013 (see my article) at a concert to celebrate Blake's 75th birthday.

Further information about the concert and tickets from the Barbican Centre website.

European Mavericks: The Smith Quartet explore post-minimalism

The Smith Quartet

Gavin Bryars, Graham Fitkin, Louis Andriessen, Steve Martland, Wayne Siegel; The Smith Quartet; Kings Place
Reviewed by Hilary Glover on Mar 4 2015
Star rating: 4.0
Minimalism and post-Minimalism explored in music by European Mavericks

Last night (4 March 2015) as part of the Kings Place series exploring minimalism the Smith Quartet performed a selection of post-minimalism works from 'European Mavericks'. Composers included Gavin Bryars, Graham Fitkin, Louis Andriessen, and Steve Martland pus a world premiere by Wayne Siegel.

The Smith Quartet, Ian Humphries and Rick Koster on violin, Nic Pendlebury on viola and Deirdre Cooper on cello, have been playing together (with a few changes of personnel) since 1988. In that time they have commissioned more than 200 pieces of music, including works by Michael Nyman, Donnacha Dennehy, Joe Cutler, Tunde Jegede, Gabriel Prokofiev and Jon Lord, and have produced some 24 recordings. They also worked with Steve Reich to record 'Different Trains' for the award-winning film 'Holocaust – A Music Memorial Concert from Auschwitz' which marked the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp.

Ben Johnson and James Baillieu

Ben Johnson

Tosti, Respighi, Stanford, Parry, Coates, Elgar, Sullivan, Head, Hughes, Woodforde-Finden, Lehmann; Ben Johnson, James Baillieu; Rosenblatt Recitals at the Wigmore Hall
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on April 8 2015
Star rating: 4.0
Out of the parlour: Beautifully thoughtful performances of songs spanning high and low culture.

Ben Johnson's Rosenblatt Recital at the Wigmore Hall on Wednesday 8 April 2015 explored songs which were written in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, works produced by composers in the intersection between popular and high culture, the well made lyrical song. The composers were all, with one exception, perceived as in some way British. Accompanied by James Baillieu, Ben Johnson sang song cycles by Francesco Paolo Tosti (naturalised British) and Respighi, plus songs by Parry, Stanford, Elgar, Sullivan, Eric Coates, Michael Head, Herbert Hughes, Amy Woodforde-Finden and Liza Lehman. This is repertoire which requires a strong technique to be done well and is often neglected partly through being badly performed or not taken seriously; errors which Ben Johnson certainly never made. He lavished the same care on the songs as any in his repertoire, and most responded beautifully.

Ben Johnson and James Baillieu opened with Tosti's cycle of five songs setting Gabriele d'Annunzio, Malincolia, written in 1887. The melancholy of the title being elegant rather then depressive with a suggestion of stylish posturing from d'Annunzio. Dorme la selva had a long slow line which Ben Johnson caressed and shaped making something highly expressive with clear words. Perfect of its style and of great beauty in the combination of song, performance and voice. Ben Johnson had a lovely low-centred lyric tenor voice with dark hints. He is becoming known for the Italian operatic repertoire and his technique has Italianate elements but without the glare and wide open tones which can sit uneasily on the concert platform. Quando'io ti guardo was more urgent, rising to fine passion. L'ora e tarda combined a lyric piano line with a more conversational vocal line, finely shaped by Ben Johnson. Or dunque addio developed from conversational to real passion in a way which reminded me perhaps of Puccini-lite. Chi sei tu che mi parli was slower and darker, the lovely melody when it finally came was given an Italianate feel, but beautifully controlled without belting.

Classical music in Turkey, a long history and a promising future

In the light of my recent visit to Istanbul, and visit to hear Sascha Goetzel and the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra performing Haydn's The Seasons, I have written an article which takes a quick look at the wider scene of classical music in Turkey, including opera, to put the recent developments with the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra into context.

If you are interested in reading a little about Giuseppe Donizetti (brother of the composer) and his work in Istanbul, the vexed question of venues for performance in Istanbul and a hint of what other performing groups are doing then head over to The Culture Trip website for my article.

Sibelius Nielsen Festival in Stockholm

If you fancy a trip to Stockholm, then the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra (Kungliga Filharmoniska Orkestern) is presenting all of Sibelius and Nielsen's symphonies in a festival from 14 to 26 April 2015. Over the space of 12 concerts the orchestra, conducted by Sakari Oramo (chief conductor of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and BBC Symphony Orchestra) along with an amazing nine orchestras from Denmark, Finland and Sweden, will be performing all seven Sibelius symphonies and all six Nielsen symphonies, alongside symphonies by Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, RVW, Atterberg, Stenhammar, Beethoven, Mahler, Ives, Mendelssohn and Brahms.

Oramo and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra are being joined in the festival by Alexander Verdenikov and the Odensee Symphony Orchestra, John Storgårds and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Michael Francis and the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Leif Segerstam and the Royal Swedish Opera Orchestra, Stefan Solyom and the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra, Hannu Lintu and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Marc Soustrot and the Malmö Symphony Orchestra, Thomas Dausgaard and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, and Alexander Shelley and the Gothenborg Symphony Orchestra.

Each of the festival’s 12 concerts will also be prefaced by introductions presented by Mats Engström, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra’s director of programme and curator of the festival, in company with guests including Ilkka Oramo, John Fellow, Sakari Oramo, Ida-Maria Vorre of the Odense Carl Nielsen Museum as well as several Swedish musicians and composers.

Nielsen conducted the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra in 1918 and again a decade later, in performances of his Symphonies Nos. 4 and 5; Sibelius conducted them in 1923 and 1924, directing the orchestra in the world premiere of his Symphony No. 7 on 24 March 1924 and also conducted his Symphonies Nos. 1, 2, 5 and 6. Sakari Oramo's association with the orchestra began in the mid-1990's and has continued more recently.

The concerts all take place at the Stockholm Concert Hall, built in the 1920's to house the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. If you want to know more then there is a special edition of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra's magazine, or there is a special YouTube introduction from Sakari Oramo.

An intimate evening with a dramatic diva

Nelly Miricioiu

The British/Romanian soprano Nelly Miriciouiu's most recent London performances have generally been to large halls in full scale Italian operas (including Verdi's Stiffelio in 2014 with Chelsea Opera Group, see my review). On Tuesday 21 April 2015 she will be in more intimate mode when, at St John's Smith Square she will be accompanied by pianist David Gowland in a programme of songs and operatic arias.

In the first half she will be performing Ravel's Cinq Mélodies Populaire Grecques and songs by Chausson, Respighi and Chopin plus folksongs from her native Romania. Then in the second half we will be treated to arias from operas by four of the composers most associated with Nelly, Puccini, Bellini, Rossini and Verdi. There will be arias from Puccini's La Rondine, and Suor Angelica, Bellini's Il pirata, Rossini's Semiramide and Verdi's I due Foscari.

Nelly Miricioiu was born and studied in Romania and fled the country in 1981, making her debut at Scottish Opera and in 1982 she made her Covent Garden debut. David Gowland is the Artistic Director for the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme, Royal Opera House Covent Garden.

Further information and tickets from the St John's Smith Square website. You can read my interview with Nelly on this blog (with the second part here).

Making Music Work - ISM Conference

Make Music Work was the title of the Incorporated Society of Musicians (ISM) conference on Tuesday 31 March at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama's Milton Court. The event brought together a huge number of ISM members, and students to listen to and take part in debates about the big questions around creating a sustainable career, with The Jury's Out focussing on competitions, Make Something from Nothing looking at ways of being creative, Getting is Straight looking at legal issues and not getting ripped off, and The Idea's the Thing about turning an idea into a career. Interspersed with these were performances from a wide variety of musicians including Westcombe Brass, Juice vocal ensemble, Benjamin Baker, Gabriella Swallow and her Urban Family and Kesnija Sidorova.

Things kicked off in a lively fashion with Westcombe Brass (Paul Bosworth and Nial Mulvoy, trumpets, Alex Joyce, French horn, Emma Bassett, trombone, and Joe Palmer, tuba) performing Elgar Howarth's Processional Fanfare, and arrangements of Jimmy McHugh's On the Sunny Side of the Street and Irving Berlin's Putting on the Ritz.

The Barry Ife, president of the ISM  and head of Guildhall School, and trumpeter Alison Balsom introduced the day.  Ife described the conference as an 'audit of systems in place to ensure young people progress into the profession', whilst Balsom talked about the steps in her career which took her from student to professional musician, and these were many and varied ranging from BBC Young Musician to studying in Paris for a year where the teaching tradition was radically different. Throughout she emphasised the need to balance repertory with integrity with music which people want to pay to listen to.

Castaway in the east: The wild man of the West Indies

Sally Silver and company
Photo credit Richard Hubert Smith

Donizetti The Wild Man of the West Indes; Sally Silver, Craig Smith, Peter Brathwaite, Njabulo Madlala, Nicholas Sharratt, dir: Iqbal Khan, cond: Jeremy Silver , English Touring Opera at Hackney Empire
Reviewed by Hilary Glover on Mar 12 2015
Star rating: 4.0
A spectacle and performance it would be a shame to mis

The ETO's performance of Donizetti's 'The wild man of the West Indies' at Hackney Empire was a superb exploration of 19th century island life. Directed by Iqbal Khan and conducted by Jeremy Silver the performers found humanity and pathos in Donizetti's less than finest offering.

Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti (1797-1848) was the youngest child of a pawnbroker in Bergamo, Italy but was educated at the Lezioni Caritatevoli School where he learned music and literature until his voice broke. The school was run by the opera composer Simone Mayr who mentored the young Donizetti through the Academia Carrara and helped him find a scholarship to continue his musical training. By 1819 Donizetti was starting to find his feet as an opera composer -writing 'Il falegname di Livonia' which was performed at the Teatro San Samuele in Venice.

Peter Brathwaite, Craig Smith - Photo credit Richard Hubert Smith

'Il furioso all'isola di San Domingo' (1833) - translated by the ETO as 'The wild man of the West Indies' was written in a mature style honed by the years of comic (and some serious) opera. It was written hot on the heels of 'L'elisir d'amore' (1832) and in the middle of a writing frenzy which saw him stage more than ten operas in five years and solidified his position as an opera composer to be reckoned with.

'Il furioso all'isola di San Domingo' is loosely based on one of the stories from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (1605) where Cardenio's one true love, Lucinda, marries his friend Don Fernando and Cardenio find solace in isolation. In this tale love eventually conquers all and Cardenio and Lucinda, as they are in 'Il furioso', reunited.

The libretto was written by Donizetti's several time collaborator Jacopo Ferretti but for me was lacking in movement and character development. The plot is simplistic with none of the twists and turns of 'L'elisir d'amore'. Donizetti was forced to repeat each phrase several times to provide enough space for his performers to make something of the music. The composition itself was lacklustre and half-hearted, with few chances for the performers to show off their skill. Some of this might be explained by the original cast who were all young performers and perhaps Donizetti was writing for their capabilities.

Craig Smith, Sally Silver and company
Photo credit Richard Hubert Smith

That said, what this opera does have is space for the performers to perform. What they could not say with words they had to say with their bodies and emotional tone – and this is where the ETO excelled.

The first act was dominated by the day to day island life and, to their credit, the ETO did not shy away from depicting the slavery which a 19th century audience would have keenly felt. The road to emancipation for Santo Domingo was not smooth with slavery only being widely abolished during the Haitian Haitian occupation (1821–44). Slavery was abolished in 1833 in the British West Indies.

Craig Smith was superb as the half mad Cardenio and had an interesting relationship with Peter Brathwaite (last seen singing Entartete Kunst) as the scared and bullied salve, Kaidamà. Bartolomeo (the plantation manager) – Njabulo Madlala and his daughter Marcella, performed by Donna Bateman, provided the voices of reason. But their characters especially (and their voices) could have withstood further development by the composer. More too could have been made out of Marcella's love for Cardenio and the potential for jealousy when Cardenio's wife, Eleonora performed by Sally Silver, appeared on the scene.

Nicholas Sharrat - Photo credit Richard Hubert Smith

The final player was Nicholas Sharratt who portrayed Fernando. In this interpretation of Cervantes' story Fernando was Cardenio's brother who had had an affair with Eleonora. Again these relationships were very clinical. There was some lingering resentment of Fernando by Cardenio, but this was quickly overcome.

I did wonder at the end of the first act how Donizetti was going to eke out the second half – however it was here that he supplied the more interesting music in some protracted solos for Cardenio where Smith had to chart his way through differing moods. Sally Silver's flexible and passionate voice made the most of her character's desperation and Sharratt's clear and unforced top notes shone out.

The clever ship/quay stage design by Florence de Maré, and the costumes, brought the island to life and provided an evocative setting for the magnificently believable performances. The orchestra were a little heavy handed on all the identical repeated cadences which they had been given by Donizetti – but who can blame them. Even the surtitles gave up leaving swathes untranslated.

'Il furioso all'isola di San Domingo' is rarely performed and even that alone would be a good enough reason to see it. However, despite the uninspiring writing, the ETO have managed to produce a spectacle and performance that it would be a shame to miss.

Reviewed by Hilary Glover

Elsewhere on this blog:

• Comic delight: The Dragon of Wantley - opera review
• Remarkable recapturing of the original: Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto from irill Gerstein - CD review
• Refreshing the parts others rarely reach: Celebrating 50 years of Orchestras Live - interview
• Charm & enterprise: Rebecca Clarke, Holst, Hovhaness, Bliss from Stankov Ensemble - Cd review
• Fascinating yet flawed: Brecht and Weill's Mahagonny - opera review
• Visual epic: Dara - theatre review
• Eastern inspiration: Felicien David's Le Desert - CD review
• Is this a crossover disc? My encounter with tenor Matthew Long - interview
• A Musical Dedication: Homages from Christoph Denoth - CD review
• Palate cleanser: The Indian Queen from The Sixteen - CD review
• 18 century Viennese court style: Raffaella Milanesi - CD review
• Exploring Beethoven: Jonathan Biss - CD review
• New light on old forms: Iestyn Davies in lute songs old and new - CD review
• Home

National Youth Choir of Great Britain - by Special Arrangement

In what is turning out to be a real youth music weekend (see my previous posts on the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, and on the National Children's Orchestras), the National Youth Choir is performing at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on Sunday 12 April 2015. The choir's director Ben Parry (a former Swingle Singer) shares conducting honours with another former Swingle Singer, Tom Bullard. The choir will be joined by the Swedish vocal ensemble, The Real Group for the programme By Special Arrangement. The two groups will be giving the premier of Water which has been written specifically for the National Youth Choir by Anders Edenroth, The Real Group's founder.  Also in the programme will be arrangements of music by Chopin, Mahler, Ravel, Schubert, Bach and Mozart, all of it virtuoso a cappella music.

By Special Arrangement is also the closing event of two South Bank Centre festivals: Chorus (30 March–12 April), their annual festival celebrating the power of singing together bringing together over 100 choirs and thousands of singers to perform, share, learn and experiment; and a brand new festival Strive (10–12 April) a celebration of youth, programmed by and for young people.

The Dragon of Wantley

The Dragon of Wantley

Lampe The Dragon of Wantley; Susanna Fairburn, Rhiannon Llewellyn, David de Winter, James Harrison, Ars Eloquentiae, dir: Anne Allen, cond: Chad Kelly; London Handel Festival at St George's Hanover Square
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Apr 07 2015
Star rating: 4.0
Lively revival of a neglected 18th century English comic gem

The Dragon of Wantley by John Frederick Lampe is one of those work which tends to crop up in history books rather more than on the operatic stage. A comic English language work which, when mentioned usually gets linked to works like The Beggars Opera, the group Ars Eloquentiae gave us the opportunity for finding out for ourself when their performance of it was staged on Tuesday 7 April 2015 at the London Handel Festival, at St George's Church, Hanover Square. Ars Eloquentiae, artistic directors Chad Kelly and Leo Duarte, was directed from the harpsichord by Chad Kelly, with Susanna Fairbairn as Margery, David de Winter as Moore of Moore Hall, Rhiannon Llewellyn as Mauxalinda, James Harrison as Gubbins and the dancer Francesca Bridge-Cicic as the dragon. The stage director was Ann Allen.

John Frederick Lampe (c1689-1743) was a bassoonist from Saxony who settled in London and ended up in Handel's orchestra. He also became friendly with a crowd which included composer Thomas Arne and the poet, composer and singer Henry Carey (c1689-1743). Between 1732 and 1734 Lampe and Carey collaborate on for operas in English, but they were flops; the audience was not interested in serious opera in English, it was Italian opera which was popular. What was popular in English was the ballad opera, the prime exemplar of which is The Beggars Opera premiered in 1728, and in her article programme book Katie Hawks makes the valid point that whilst the popularity of ballad opera had little material effect on that of Italian opera in London, it probably did inhibit the development of English opera.

Carey had written the words for a number of ballad operas (which tended to be satirical, and take pot shots at key issues of the day), and in 1737 he and Lampe had another go. Carey wrote a comic libretto based on an old English ballad, and Lampe set it to music. Not as a ballad opera, but as a through composed neo-Italian opera, thus sending up the genre of opera seria good and proper. Lampe's music has all of the rhetorical devices that would have been familiar from the Italian opera, but allied to ludicrous words and a very anti-heroic story. For instance Margery's lovely tragic aria which opens act two has the words 'Sure my stays will burst with sobbing'.

National Children's Orchestras

The National Children's Orchestras have a pair of concerts coming up which will showcase the organisation's main orchestras. The Main Orchestra is performing at Colston Hall, Bristol on Saturday 11 April 2015. Conducted by guest conductor Howard Williams, they will be joined by Bristol Choral Society and soprano Rhiannon Llewellyn for Poulenc's Gloria along with Elgar's Cockaigne and Ravel's Bolero. Whilst the Main Orchestra is the most senior group with children up to the age of 14, the Under 13 Orchestra has children under 13 and this group will be conducted by Roger Clarkson at The Anvil in Basingstoke on Sunday 12 April 2015, in a programme including Berlioz Roman Carnival Overture, Liszt's Les Preludes, the Berceuse and Finale from Stravinsky's Firebird as well as other colourful items. Both groups have to be seen and heard to be believed (see my review of the two orchestras join concert at the Royal Festival in 2013)

Good Friday Passion at St George's Hanover Square

Bach St Matthew Passion; Nathan Vale, George Humphreys, Anna Dennis, Alexandra Gibson, London Handel Orchestra, Choir of St George's, Lawrence Cummings; London Handel Festival at St George's Church, Hanover Square
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on April 03 2015
Star rating: 5.0
Richly dramatic, involving and moving - the Good Friday passion at St George's

I last attended the annual Good Friday performance of Bach's St Matthew Passion presented by the London Handel Festival at St. George's Church, Hanover Square some 20 years ago when, I think, Denys Darlow was still in charge and the interval was long enough for us to go to D.H. Evans on Regent Street for afternoon tea. We returned this Good Friday (3 April 2015) to hear Laurence Cummings conduct the London Handel Orchestra (leader Adrian Butterfield) and choir of St George's Church with Nathan Vale as the Evangelist, George Humphreys as Christus and soloists Anna Dennis and Alexandra Gibson. The passion is performed in the context of Vespers, as it was in Bach's day, so that we started with a hymn, had a hymn and a short sermon from Father Nicolas Stebbing from the Community of the Resurrection in Mirfield and concluded with Jakob Handel's motet Ecce quomodo moritur and a final hymn.

Schumanesque transformation - Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto, new light from a new edition

Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 1879 version, Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 2; Gerstein, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Gaffigan; Myrios
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Mar 28 2015
Star rating: 4.0
A first outing for the new edition of Tchaikovsky's own edition of the famous concerto

It wasn't unusual in the 19th century for the solo part in a concerto to be edited to a certain extent by the virtuoso for whom it was written (Brahms's friend Joachim provided advice for the violin concerto Brahms was writing). But Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto was premiered in 1875 by Hans von Bulow, who was enthusiastic about the piece and it had its first Russian performance that year with Nikolai Rubinstein (who had been initially dismissive of the work) conducting Sergey Taneev. Shortly after this, Tchaikovsky made some revisions and this version was printed by his publisher P.Jurgenson in 1879. This was the version that Tchaikovsky performed for most of his life. But in 1894, after Tchaikovsky's death a third edition was produced and printed, and it is this version which is has traditionally become known as Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto.

It is not certain who edited the concerto for the 1894 edition, but it seems to have been Tchaikovsky's pupil Alexander Siloti, who claimed in a 1929 interview to have spoken to the composer about the revisions, notably the changes to the famous chords in the opening piano sequence. As I have said, changes to concertos by virtuoso was relatively commonplace, and the early printings of the score from 1879 were rare, so it is the 1894 edition which became accepted. There is no documentary evidence for the changes, they just appear in 1894 out of nowhere, and by contrast in 1912 Sergey Taneev (who not only played it but helped in the preparation and copying of the score) expressed disbelief.

Perhaps the reason for the popularly of the 1894 edition is the character change which Siloti's edition has wrought on the work, because in the famous opening Tchaikovsky did not write chords but arpeggiated passages, and this has a general effect on dynamics and general feel. What Tchaikovsky wrote is subtler, and far less combative, and much more Schumanesque. Siloti's changes have moved the concerto a little closer to the combative model of concerto rather beloved of the 19th century composers (piano v. orchestra) whilst Tchaikovsky has written something richer and more poetic.

The Wreckers in New York state

Ethel Smyth's opera The Wreckers will receive its American stage premiere on 24 July 2015 as part of the 26th Bard Music Festival. Founded by co-artistic director Leon Botstein, the festival in Annandale-on-Hudson in upstate New York has a reputation for exploring lesser known works. For The Wreckers, Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra will be joined by director Thaddeus Strassberger whose previous work at the festival has included Chabrier's Le roi malgré lui,and 2013’s first full American staging of Sergei Taneyev’s Oresteia. 

Smyth's librettist was by the American poet Henry Brewster, who in fact wrote in French so that the work should rightly be called Les Naufrageurs. Brewster wrote all of his poetical works, including the libretto for Smyth, in French though his other writings were in English. The two had hoped that the piece might be premiered by Messager and the singers from the Paris Opera when they appeared at a grand season at Covent Garden, but this did not happen and Smyth ended up commissioning hack translations into English and German, which was used for its premiere in Germany.

Even in the UK performances of the opera are rare (and I am not sure it has ever been done in the original French and it is now commonly done in English translation). The work was performed in 2006 for the first time in Cornwall by Duchy Opera (when they used revised English translation), and was given at the Proms in 1994. I was lucky enough to see it staged, in a terrific production at Warwick University in the 1980's (directed by Graham Vick with Anne Mason as Thirza) which was terrific and no performance has subsequently re-captured for me the power of that one.

Whilst this will be the work's US stage premiere of The Wreckers, Smyth's one-act opera Der Wald has the distinction of being the only work by a female composer to be performed at New York's Metropolitan Opera.

The Bard Music Festival runs from 25 June to 16 August 2015 and has as its main theme Chavez and His World with an exploration of the life and times of Carlos Chavez, the central figure in 20th century Mexican music. Further information about the festival from their website.

Orchestras Live - celebrating 50 years of taking professional music making to the places others never reach

Orchestras Live - First Time Live Youth in Harlow - 2015

Orchestras Live's Henry Little chats to me about new Steinway grands in Cockermouth, the first professional orchestra in Barrow in Furness in 30 years, orchestral work with older people in Colchester, going beyond the premiere, playing to an audience of under fives and much else besides.

Orchestras Live is 50 this year, but despite this long track record of sterling work the organisation remains somewhat unknown. Existing to help generate orchestral provision in areas where professional orchestras rarely go, either through distance or for economic reasons, the organisation's work can have a transformative effect as it acts as a catalyst in facilitating the bringing in of professional orchestral resources, with the concomitant involvement of local school and young people. In fact, I first experienced their work live when I attended one of the First Time Live - Youth events in Grimsby (see my article). These are concerts, by a professional orchestra, which are organised, planned and presented by a group of young people from the host area and they are a truly remarkable series of events. But First Time Live - Youth is just one of Orchestras Live's many activities and I met up with the organisation's director Henry Little, to talk about the first 50 years.

Henry had recently just come back from Barrow in Furness, which still takes 4 1/2 hours by train from London. Orchestras Live's project there brought the Manchester Camerata to Barrow-in-Furness, probably the first professional orchestra to play there for 30 years. There was an evening concert in full hall, attended by over 200 people, as well as two schools events with over 1000 school children at each as well as the live streaming of the concerts to the schools which could not attend. In many ways, this was a typical Orchestras Live event and one of its benefits is the interest and confidence which it leaves behind. Not just in the school children. The evening concert was a risk taken on by the venue (despite support from Orchestras Live, the event is still a financial risk) but the success has given them confidence to think about doing more.

Musical Evenings with the Stankov Ensemble

Spohr, Gounod, Clarke, Holst, Rachmaninov, Bliss, Hovhaness, Arnaudov, Donchev, Chabrier; Stankov Ensemble; Gega New
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Mar 25 2015
Star rating: 4.0
Unusual and enterprising programming from this Bulgarian trio

The Stankov Ensemble consists of the slightly unusual combination of soprano, violin and piano and the performers are the Bulgarian brothers Ivo (violin) and Lachezar (piano) Stankov, along with Ivo's wife, soprano Vania Valtralova-Stankov. The ensemble has performed together since 2008, and on this disc Musical Evenings with Stankov Ensemble presents a rather enterprising and surprising programme for soprano, violin and piano. They start with songs by Louis Spohr and Charles Gounod, and follow these with songs by Rebecca Clarke, Gustav Holst, Sergei Rachmaninov, Arthur Bliss, Alan Hovhaness, Georghi Arnaudov, Antoni Donchev and Emmanuel Chabrier.

Louis Spohr (1784-1859) was one of the most successful German composers of his generation though he was to a certain extent overshadowed in the early part of his career by Weber and then later by Mendelssohn. His set of six songs, Sechs Deutsche Lieder Op.154 setting German poems by his cousin Friedrich Ernst Spohr, were originally written baritone in 1856. The Stankov Ensemble perform four of them. Abend - Feuer, Jagdlied, Tone and Der Spielmann und seine Geige. They are well made lieder with a certain period charm but what lifts them is the expressive violin part. This is more than just an accompaniment and heightens the mood a great deal, providing nightingale-like echoes in the night reflections of Abend - Feuer, and creating some almost virtuoso moments as the protagonist of Der Spielmann und seine Geige ( The Minstrel and his fiddle). Vania Valtralova-Stankov has an attractive lyric voice with quite a bit of underlying heft to it, which she uses expressively in the songs and Ivo Stankov partners her effortlessly on the violin with Lachezar Stankov providing the discreet piano accompaniment.

Next the three perform a song by Charles Gounod (1818-1893), Serenade which is perhaps his best known song and published in 1817 in versions not only for voice and piano, but also with obbligato cello or violin and it is this latter which they perform. The addition of the violin does set the song off nicely.

Performance news - Tempus per Annum, Faith Hope and Charity and Learning to Make an Oud

St John's Church, Fulham

My setting of Resurrexi, the Latin Introit for Easter Sunday will be performed by Ben Woodward on Saturday 4 April 2015, and the choir of St John's Church Fulham, as part of their 8.30pm Easter Vigil and First Mass of Easter. The motet is from my collection of introits for the church's year, Tempus per Annum which I am releasing for free-download on CPDL. Recent premieres of motets from the collection have included performances by the Amaryllis Consort, Tim Byram-Wigfield and the choir of All Saints, Margaret Street, and Harmonia Sacra and Peter Leech included the Advent Introit Populos Sion in their Advent Concert and the group plans to include it on their forthcoming CD.

Another new version of Faith, Hope and Charity will be premiered by violinist Rupert Marshall-Luck and organist Duncan Honeybourne at All Saints’ Church, 1 Portland Road, Wyke Regis, Weymouth, DT4 9ES on Wednesday 6 May 2015, in a programme which also includes Richard Pantcheff's Sonata for Violin and Organ and music by Howells, Vaughan Williams, Darke, Bach and Tovey. (Further information from Rupert Marshall-Luck's website). This is the second instrumental version of the work to be premiered recently, my new arrangement of Faith, Hope and Charity for solo cello and choir was performed by cellist Corinne Morris, for whom the arrangement was made, with London Concord Singers, conductor Matthew Collins, at a concert on Thursday 18 December 2014 at St Botolph's without Bishopsgate, London.  

And further ahead, my new setting of Ruth Padel's poem Learning to Make an Oud in Nazareth is being premiered on Friday 3 July 2015 at a concert at the church of St Vedast alias Foster, 4 Foster Lane, London EC2V 6HH. Set for unaccompanied choir, the piece will be performed by Alistair Dixon and Chapelle du Roi as part of a programme including Mundy's Vox Patris Coelestis and music by Byrd, de Monte and Tallis. There will also be music from the Middle East (incuding a real Oud) with voice, Arabic reed flute and lute, with Kalia (nay, voice) and Nikos Ziarkas (oud). Alistair Dixon and the Chapelle du Roi recently premiered my setting of The Advent Prose as part of their New Lamps for Old concert at St John's Smith Square, London on Saturday 6 December 2014, a programme which explores the links between 16th century composers and present day English composers.  

Grainger, Chin and Bartok on tour with 163 young people and one brave conductor

Members of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain

The National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain has come up with a terrific programme for its next concert tour, at the Sage Gateshead (9 April), Victoria Hall, Stoke on Trent (10 April) and finishing on Saturday 11 April 2015 at the Royal Festival Hall. Conducted by the Israeli conductor Ilan Volkov, the orchestra will be performing a new commission from the Korean composer Unsuk Chin, Mannequin, Bela Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra and Percy Grainger's The Warriors.

Percy Grainger started writing The Warriors in 1913 after discussions with Sir Thomas Beecham who was, at the time, co-ordinating a visit by Diaghilev's Ballet Russes. The surviving orchestral work The Warriors seems not to have been a ballet, but a compositional experiment by Grainger to see if he could write 'danceable music' and it was intended that it would later be drawn on for the ballet itself (which remained unwritten). It is a big work, written for a huge orchestra (including 13 percussion players and 3 pianos) and has always rather divided critics, so you now get a welcome chance to see and hear for yourself.

Volkov is the former chief conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and is currently their principal guest conductor and has recently finished his contract as chief conductor of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra (after leading them in their BBC Proms debut).

Volkov and the orchestra perform the programme at the Sage Gateshead (9 April), Victoria Hall, Stoke on Trent (10 April) and Royal Festival Hall (11 April).

A fascinating, yet flawed work - Brecht and Weill's Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny

Christine Rice and Willard W. White in
Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny © ROH.Clive Barda 2015

Brecht and Weill, Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny); Von Otter, Hoare, White, Rice, Streit, dir: Fulljames, cond: Wigglesworth; Royal Opera House
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Apr 1 2015
Star rating: 4.0
Strong performance of Weill and Brecht's flawed yet fascinating full-length opera

Last night (1 April 2015) we caught up with the Covent Garden's new (and first) production of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's only three-act opera Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny) in the production directed by John Fulljames, conducted by Mark Wigglesworth with Anne Sofie von Otter as Begbick, Peter Hoare as Fatty, Willard W. White as Trinity Moses, Christine Rice as Jenny, Kurt Streit as Jimmy McIntyre, Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts as Jack O'Brien, Darren Jeffery as Bank Account Bill, Neal Davies as Alaska Wolf Joe, with Anna Burford, Lauren Fagan, Anush Hovhannisyan, Stephanie Marshall, Meeta Raval, Harriet Williams, Robert Clark, Hubert Francis and Paterson Joseph. Set designs were by Es Devlin, with costumes by Christina Cunningham, lighting by Bruno Poet, video by Finn Ross and choreography by Arthur Pita.

Peter Hoare, Anne Sofie Von Otter and Willard W. White
© ROH.Clive Barda 2015

Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny comes at an interesting and important juncture in the development of Weill and Brecht's collaboration. In 1927 they produced the Mahagonny Songspiel, a sequence of songs with linking instrumental (intended for performance by opera singers) which after one performance they decided to work into a full scale opera. During the planning of Mahagonny they were approached about a version of The Beggars Opera and the success of the result, Der Dreigroschenoper, came in the middle of the work for Mahagonny meaning that its development was somewhat waylaid by the music theatre piece.

Mahagonny is understood to be a transition piece in the work of Bertolt Brecht as he came to more of an understanding of Communism during the development of the work. In fact he produced a third version of the libretto which he published, which was far more aligned to his Marxist principals and helped to create the breach with Weill. But it is also a transition work for Weill as it comes at the time when he is experimenting with forms of musical theatre, ranging from full blown opera, through one-act opera to musical theatre and plays with music. It would be followed by the lehrstuck with Brecht and the collaboration with playwright Georg Kaiser, Der Silbersee which is neither play nor quite music theatre and needs both real actors and real singers.  It was the music-theatre works which came to prominence, partly because Weill's fleeing from Germany in 1933 put paid to any more large scale operatic works and any more experimenting but listening to the full version of Mahagonny certainly leaves you full of what ifs.

Speech Acts - Benajmin and Stravinsky in Hoxton

Shadwell Opera has come up with an intriguing double bill of politically charged operas. They will be performing George Benjamin’s Into the Little Hill and Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale, under the title Speech Acts. The double bill is practical yet challenging, as both operas use highly portable forces. Stravinsky's opera is scored for three actors, a dancer and instrumental septet, Benjamin's opera for soprano, contralto and 15-part instrumental ensemble. Yet both are highly concentrated and both challenge what it is to live in the world and be corrupted. The Soldier's Tale is Stravinsky's modern take on an eternal Russian folk-tale, whilst Benjamin's piece offers his and Martin Crimp's re-working of the tale of the Pied Piper of Hamelin full of disturbing contemporary resonances.

The immersive performances will be in an intimate 80-seat space at the Courtyard Theatre in Hoxton on 8-11 April 2015, and then Into the Little Hill will be toured to community centres around Tower Hamlets, to bring this relevant, political opera to new audiences, and show them that opera is relevant to today’s modern society. 

Josef Spacek - talking to the Czech Philharmonic's concert master about their latest tour

Czech Philharmonic © Martin Kabát

The Czech Philharmonic Orchestra is coming on tour to the UK in April 2015, conducted by its chief conductor Jiří Bělohlávek. The orchestra will be performing in Leeds, Edinburgh, Nottingham, Bristol, Basingstoke, Birmingham and Saffron Walden. The focus of the concerts will be the music of Janáček, Smetana and Dvořák, with concertos by Mendelssohn and Bruch played by Josef Špaček. Josef Špaček is also the orchestra's concert master, though for this tour he is playing solos, as he combines being the orchestra's concert master with a solo career, and his first solo disc with the orchestra (of concertante works by Janáček, Dvořák and Suk) will be out in April. I spoke to Josef on the telephone to Prague, in advance of the tour to get some background.  Still under 30, Josef trained in the USA (at the Curtis and Julliard) before becoming the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra's youngest ever concert master.