Magic and Mystery from The Society of Strange and Ancient Instruments

The Society of Strange and Ancient Instruments
(image courtesy of the ensemble)

Sound House; The Society of Strange and Ancient Instruments; Spitalfields Winter Festival at the Octagon, Queen Mary University of London, Hall;
Reviewed by Ruth Hansford on Dec 8 2016
Star rating: 4.5
Playing tricks with our ears, Sound House explores the sound-world of Francis Bacon

Sound House came out of a residency by the Society of Strange and Ancient Instruments, director Clare Salaman, at Aldeburgh in early 2015 and it had an outing at this year’s Spitalfields Winter Festival when the ensemble (Clare Salaman, Jon Nicholls, Jon Banks, Jean Kelly, Alison McGillivray, with actor Terence Wilton) performed in the Octagon at Queen Mary University of London on Thursday 8 December 2016.

The Octagon, Queen Mary University of London

In the pre-concert talk Clare Salaman and Jon Nicholls discussed the inspiration for the project, an attempt to recreate Francis Bacon’s explorations and experiments with sound, music and acoustics. Bacon, whose empirical writings earned him the title of ‘father of modern science’, was particularly fascinated by sympathetic resonance and echoes and so the octagonal, three-story former library at Queen Mary was an ideal venue for this exploration of sound and space.

We were introduced to the star instrument: strange though not ancient, a modern copy of a tromba marina, a two-metre-long single-stringed bowed instrument with sympathetic stings all tuned to the same note. It was commonly found in convents, as it was considered more appropriate for a nun to create an earthy sound by bowing a stringed instrument than by blowing on a trumpet. All the strings on Salaman’s tromba marina are tuned to a D, which makes it quite limited in its musical possibilities but – as we were to find out – quite versatile in its range of comic effects.

Rising to the challenge: W11 Opera's new opera about the Suffragette movement

The Price - W11 Opera

Russell Hepplewhite, Helen Eastman The Price; W11 Opera, dir: Susan Moore, cond: Philip Sunderland; POSK Theatre
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Dec 10 2016
Star rating: 4.5
The young performers of W11 Opera rise to the challenge of a new opera about the struggle for Women's Suffrage

Josie Cooper as Emmeline Pankhurst & ensemble
The Price - W11 Opera

W11 Opera for children and young people is 45 and to celebrate they gave the premiere of their latest commission, The Price with music by Russell Hepplewhite and libretto by Helen Eastman, at the POSK Theatre, King Street, Hammersmith. I caught the first of four performances, on Saturday 10 December 2016. Directed by Susan Moore, the production featured sets by Neil Irish, costumes by Anett Black, movement by Maggie Rawslinson and Philip Sunderland conducted an instrumental ensemble of five players.

W11 Opera might be an ensemble of children and young people (some 70 in total sang in the performance) but Russell Hepplewhite and Helen Eastman's opera was a big piece dealing with a big subject. It told the story of the Suffragettes and the fight for Women's Suffrage. we were gabbed by voting fever as soon as we entered the foyer as we were presented with a ballot form and encouraged to vote.

Helen Eastman's libretto placed the historical narrative in the context of the modern day and the opening scene was a contemporary polling station in a marginal constituency, with various film crews covering the event. Sierz (Ahana Hundal) as Jess and Nora (Izzy Lewitt, Yaiza Freire-Bernat) what they voted and she is incensed that they didn't, and talk of the luxury of being able to vote brings on the story of the Suffragettes. This framing device (the contemporary polling station returns at the end as Jess and Nora vote), placed the Suffragette struggle in context and enabled Helen Eastman to insert short explanations without becoming two didactic. There was a further historical layer, as punctuation the Suffragette story were scenes of further back story as Richard Pankhurst (Sachin Oberoi), the late husband of Emmeline Pankhurst (Josie Cooper), tries unsuccessfully to get various Women's Suffrage bills through Parliament. The admirable thing about Eastman's libretto was that, despite the complex layering of narrative, it was clear what was going on and, with very little extra information, who was whom.

The main plot did not pull any punches in taking in the violence of the riots, the arrests, hunger strikes, force feeding, Cat & Mouse Act, smashing windows, all culminating in the death of Emily Wilding Davison (Georgie Redhead) as a result of throwing herself under the King's horse at the Derby.

Russell Hepplewhite's score was similarly complex and multi-layered.

Epic Theatre? Heloise Werner in Scenes from the End

Heloise Werner - Scenes from the End
photo Nick Rutter

Jonathan Woolgar Scenes from the End; Heloise Werner, Emily Burns; Tristan Bates Theatre
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Dec 10 2016
Star rating: 3.5
Challenging one-woman music theatre piece addressing universal issues

Scenes from the End is a striking piece of music theatre which has returned to London following a successful run at the Edinburgh Fringe. Written by Jonathan Woolgar (words and music) and performed by Heloise Werner, the work is a one-woman opera in the tradition of pieces such as Judith Weir's King Harald's Saga. We caught the final performance of the London run, on 10 December 2016 at the Tristan Bates Theatre, directed by Emily Burns with lighting by Abigail Waller.

Lasting around 45 minutes Scenes from the End deals with epic topics, the death of the Universe, the end of Humanity and the death of an individual. It was presented as Brechtian epic theatre, just a black box with table and chair, plus a few portable percussion instruments and projected captions providing the only context. The performer was simply Heloise Werner. The Tristan Bates Theatre is not the most ideal space for the show, for the first section (the death of the Universe), Werner's performance was accompanied by the distant (and not so distant) thumping from a disco sound track at a neighbouring bar, and the final sequence (lamenting the death of an individual) had wails and raucous laughter from the street as counterpoint. The space is also rather too resonant, lacking any set or soft furnishings, so that the louder moments verged on the painful and the acoustic very much occluded Werner's diction.

Celebrating 25 year's of Sound Investment at BCMG

BCMG's oboist Melinda Maxwell with Sound Investors - photo BCMG

Today (Saturday 10 December 2016), Thomas Adès will be conducting the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (BCMG) in a very special concert. At the CBSO Centre, Birmingham they will be celebrating 25 years of BCMG's pioneering Sound Investment scheme, classical music's first crowd-funding scheme which was launched in 1991 long before crowd-funding had become the buzz-word which it is today. Sound Investment was launched with the simple aim of putting music lovers at the very heart of commissioning new music and widening support for composers. The scheme enables music enthusiasts to follow the creation of a new piece of music from original concept to first rehearsal and performance, and to meet and get to know composers and musicians.

At the CBSO Centre tonight at 7.30pm, Thomas Adès conducts a concert celebrating Sound Investment's rich past and promising future, with the latest premiere, a tragicomedy for soprano (Elizabeth Atherton) and ensemble by Francisco Coll, two works from 2016, Zoë Martlew’s Broad Street Burlesque, and the world premiere of the complete version of Richard Baker’s Hwyl fawr ffrindiaur/Bant â ni. The concert is completed by two popular successes from the first 25 years of Sound Investment, Simon Holt’s revision of his Capriccio Spettrale from 2009 and Gerald Barry’s 2000 work, Wiener Blut,

Full details from the BCMG website.

Writing in her own style: I chat to clàrsach player, harpist and developing composer Ailie Robertson

Ailie Robertson is an interesting young musician, she has a degree in genetics from Cambridge for a start. As well as having a career as a harpist playing both classical and folk music, she is starting to develop a name as a composer and her piece Haven for harp and string quartet, which was commissioned by the BBC, has recently been released.

So whilst her folk background is reflected in touring and producing albums with her band The Outside Track, she is also studying composition with Michael Finnissy at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance. We met up recently to chat about Haven and the varied strands to her career.

How a musician came to have a degree in genetics

I was curious how a musician came to have a degree in genetics. It turns out that though she played a lot of music at school, at the age of 17 she lacked the confidence to say she wanted to be a musician. But whilst at Cambridge she played a lot of music and having finished her degree she gave herself a gap year to try music and simply never went back to genetics. She has spent the last 10 years as a musician, balancing the twin strands of folk and classical, something which dates back to her period at school and at Cambridge when she played tradition Scots music on the clàrsach (the Gaelic wire-strung harp) and classical music on the concert harp. And a significant proportion of her time has been spent with her band, The Outside Track. On reflection she feels that it is better her career as a composer has developed when she is older, and now feels more secure about her chosen career of music.

Being neither strictly folk nor strictly classical

Catches, rounds & ground bass from Pellingman's Saraband

Thomas Robinson, John Johnson, Thomas Ravenscroft, Robert Smith, Nicholas Lanier; Susanna Pell, Jacob Heringman, Faye Newton, Edd Ingham, Giles Lewin, Christopher O'Gorman, John Potter; Pellingman's Saraband
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Nov 26 2016
Star rating: 4.0
Catches, rounds and music on a ground bass in an engaging programme

The intriguingly named Pellingman's Saraband is the husband and wife duo of Jacob Heringman (lute) and Susanna Pell (viols). On this disc, Twenty waies upon the bels, they are joined by Faye Newton (soprano), Edd Igham (tenor), Giles Lewis (baritone), Chrisopher O'Gorman (tenor) and John Potter (tenor) for a programme of English rounds and grounds from the 16th and 17th centuries.

The programme explores what Jacob Heringman in his booklet note calls 'circular music' so with have divisions on a ground for lute and viol, songs over a ground bass with lute (and viol) and rounds and catches from those collected and composed by Thomas Ravenscroft.

Susanna Pell, Jacob Heringman - photo Gull Wing Photography

There is something profoundly satisfying about the circularity of this music, and something timeless too, whether it be the multiple parts fitting together in the catches and rounds, or the sense of improvisation over a ground bass in the other items. Three types of piece are interspersed together making an appealing mix on the disc.

We get some lovely virtuosity from Jacob Heringman and Susanna Pell in the instrumental items, which complements the finely elegant singing of Faye Newton in the lute songs (some with viol too). Newton has an Emma Kirkby-like elegance of line and a nice sympathy for the worlds, making a fine combination. Then the rounds and catches, sung mainly by the men, are far more robust fare.

Handel's Messiah by Candlelight in Malvern and Cambridge

Eboracum Baroque

Handel's Messiah is ubiquitous at Christmas, with many groups bringing out their own particular vision of the work. It is a work which is robust enough to cope with performance as massed spectacular or intimate conversation. This latter approach is the one we might expect from Eboracum Baroque, director Chris Parson, a period performance group made up of young singers and instrumentalists. They are performing Messiah by candlelight on Saturday 10 December at Malvern Priory, and on Saturday 17 December at St John's College, Cambridge. Both concerts are in aid of Cancer Research, and give us a chance to get back to the relatively small scale approach to Messiah which characterised Handel's early performances of the work.

Eboracum Baroque is particularly known for championing the work of Thomas Tudway, whose music written for the Chapel at Wimpole Hall the group recorded in the venue for which it was written (see my review). Further ahead, Eboracum Baroque will be travelling to Estonia, to perform magnifacts by Bach and Vivaldi in Tartu (28 December 2016) and Tallinn (29 December 2016).

Opening up the professional orchestra: LPO Junior Associates

Timothy Walker, Matthew Hancock & LPO Junior Artists
at the Royal Festival Hall  - photo credit Benjamin Ealovega

The London Philharmonic Orchestra, chief executive and artistic director Timothy Walker, has announced that it is creating a programme for talented young musicians from communities and backgrounds currently under-represented in professional UK orchestras. 

The LPO Junior Artists Programme will provide instrumental sessions from LPO mentors, sessions with external mentors and guest artists, and support with extra-musical skills such as communications and networking, as well as mock audition experience. The intention is to demystify the orchestral sector and open up networking routes for the young musicians.

A pilot scheme is being run from January to June 2017, with the intention of expanding the scheme to the full academic year in 2017/18. The first intake of eight young musicians were selected from young musicians of Grade 7 or above, aged 15-19 who are considering studying music. Applications were drawn from backgrounds traditionally under-represented in UK orchestras, including (but not limited to) under-represented racial, ethnic or socio-economic backgrounds, as well as players with disabilities. Applications were asked to self-identify why they felt they fulfilled the criteria.

Further information from the London Philharmonic Orchestra's website.

Linus Roth in Tchaikvosky and Shostakovich

Shostakovich Violin Concerto No. 2, Op.129, Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto Op.35; Linus Roth, London Symphony Orchestra, Thomas Sanderling; Challenge Classics
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Dec 06 2016
Star rating: 4.5
Shostakovich's dark second violin concerto paired with Tchaikovsky's classic in an intimate account of a new edition

Violinist Linus Roth has followed up his discs of concertante works by Mieczysław Weinberg with a concerto by Weinberg's friend Dmitri Shostakovich. On Challenge Records, Linus Roth, the London Symphony Orchestra and conductor Thomas Sanderling pair Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No. 2, Op.129 with Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto Op.35, with the Tchaikovsky being presented in the new critical edition.

Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No. 1 was written in 1947, but there seems to have been something personal about the work because, whilst his symphonies formed his public utterances, the concerto was not premiered until 1955 (two years after Stalin's death). Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No. 2 followed in 1967, ostensibly for violinist David Oistrakh's 60th birthday. But the work is hardly celebratory in mood. Shostakovich was ill, aware of his mortality and the work has references to such works as the Symphony No. 4 and Symphony No. 15. This performance from Roth, the London Symphony Orchestra and Sanderling really brings out the dark intensity of the work, this is music with a story, a dark back story.

It is a big work, with an opening movement lasting fifteen minutes (rather aptly the Tchaikovsky concerto is built on a similar scale).

British Composer Awards 2016

The 2016 British Composer Awards were announced on Tuesday 6 December 2016 at a ceremony at the British Film Institute. The Stage Works category went to Tansy Davies's opera Between Worlds which was premiered by ENO (see Hilary's review on this blog). and the Orchestral category went to Rebecca Saunders for Alba her trumpet concerto, partly inspired by Samuel Beckett, whose UK premiere was given by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

It was nice to see Roderick Williams' Ave Verurm Corpus Re-Imagined winning the Choral category, we caught the work's premiere when Susie Digby conducted her new ensemble Ora (see my review). And Mark Bowden's Five Memos, which won the Solo or Duo category, recently popped up on NMC's disc lovely of Bowden's music, Sudden Light (see my review).

BBC Radio 3 will broadcast a programme dedicated to the ceremony on Hear and Now at 10pm on Saturday 10 December 2016.

Amateur or Young Performers: The Monster in the Maze by Jonathan Dove
Chamber Ensemble: Freezywater by Leo Chadburn
Choral: Ave Verum Corpus Re-Imagined by Roderick Williams
Community or Educational Project: Into the Light by John Webb
Contemporary Jazz Composition: Karembeu's Guide to the Complete Defensive Midfielder by Joe Cutler
Orchestral: Alba by Rebecca Saunders
Small Chamber: A Day at the Spa by Oliver Leith
Solo or Duo: Five Memos by Mark Bowden
Sonic Art: Sonorama by Claudia Molitor
Stage Works: Between Worlds by Tansy Davies
Wind Band or Brass Band: Just a Vibration by Shri Sriram

Christmas celebrations from the Holst Singers

Holst Singers and City of London Sinfonia

The Holst Singers, conductor Jeremy Cole, return to St Paul's Covent Garden on Friday 9 December 2016 for a programme of Christmas choral music in aid of the charity Breathing Matters. 

The programme includes both well-known, traditional carols, and more contemporary Christmas music, plus readings from BBC presenters Nigel Rees and John Sergeant. Breathing Matters (University College London Hospitals charity) supports research at UCL Respiratory. The proceeds from the concert will specifically fund research into Bronchiectasis and to raise awareness of this lung disease.  Further information and tickets from BrownPaperTickets.com.

Then on 20 December 2016 at St John's Smith Square, the Holst Singers will be join the City of London Sinfonia, with conductors Jeremy Cole and Michael Collins, for An English Folk Christmas by candlelight, with RVW's Fantasia on Christmas Carols, and other festive music from RVW, and Peter Warlock, plus readings from Dickens and others. Full information from St John's Smith Square website.

Open submission winner launches Britten Sinfonia's lunchtime concerts series

The Britten Sinfonia - photo Harry Rankin

The Britten Sinfonia At Lunch series opens on 9 December 2016, the first of the Britten Sinfonia's lunchtime concerts this season. The first concert in the series features music by Sohrab Uduman (selected from the orchestra's OPUS2016 open submission scheme), Webern and Schoenberg performed at St Andrew's Hall, Norwich (9 December 2016), West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge (13 December 2016), and the Wigmore Hall (14 December 2016). Future concerts in the series will include music by Oliver Knussen, Mark-Anthony Turnage (including a world premiere), Brian Elias (the premiere of a new oboe quartet), Mark Overton and premiere of a new work by Elena Langer written for the Britten Sinfonia Academy, the ensemble's orchestra for outstanding teenage musical talent from the East of England.

Dann klingt es auf a new piano trio by Sri Lankan-born composer Sohrab Uduman, which features in the first concerts of the series, was selected from the Britten Sinfonia's OPUS2016 open submission scheme which aims to highlight music by unpublished composers. This year there was a short-list of ten composers, selected from 280 submissions Uduman was selected as the competition winner following a weekend of intensive public workshops, which included performances, recording and discussion of all ten shortlisted works, and a one-to-one ‘instrument surgery’ with Britten Sinfonia musicians.

Verbal acuity: Ben Johnson in sonnets set by Liszt, Britten and more

Sonnets Britten, Brahms, Liszt, Parry, Schubert; Ben Johnson, Graham Johnson; Champs Hill Records
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Nov 30 2016
Star rating: 4.5
From Schubert to Liszt to Britten, Ben Johnson's absorbing survey of the sonnet in music

For this new disc on the Champs Hill Records label, tenor Ben Johnson has had the intriguing idea of gather together different settings of sonnets. So, accompanied by pianist Graham Johnson, Ben Johnson performs Liszt's Tre Sonnetti di Petrarca, Benjamin Britten's Seven Sonnets of Michaelangelo, plus Schubert settings of Petrarch (in Schlegel's German translations), Parry's settings of Shakespeare and Keats, and songs by Brahms, William Aikin, RVW, David Bowerman, Andre Caplet and Henri Sauget.

It is a wide and challenging programme, and we have the Cardiff Singer of the World Competition to thank for it. The germ of the programme, linking the Schubert and Liszt settings of Petrarch was part of Ben Johnson's planning for a recital programme when he competed in the competition in 2013 (he won the Audience Prize).

It seems strange that such a wordy form as the sonnet should hold the attention of composers, but it certainly has. And to a certain extent the fascination for this programme is hearing the way different composers wrestle with such a structured form and produce a melding of music and text. The programme plays to Ben Johnson's twin strengths, his ability to conjure wonderfully firm, vibrant Italianate tone, and his considerable abilities as a recitalist.

Sounds of the ancient world: Celtic horns brought to life

Dragon Voices: The giant Celtic horns of Ancient Europe; John Kenny; Delphian
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Nov 22 2016
Star rating: 4.0
Reconstructed ancient Celtic instruments brought to life

This disc is part of the European Music Archaeology Project on Delphian, and this disc turns its attention to the music made on Celtic horns. John Kenny plays the Tintignac carnyx, the Deskford carnyx and the Loughnashade horn.

The carnyx is a long Celtic trumpet, made from beaten bronze and surmounted by the tylised head of a boar. We find the work in various classical texts, including the accounts of the Julius Caesar's campaign in Gaul, and the instrument was widely depicted in Celtic images, notably the Gundestrup cauldron (the most important surviving example of Celtic Iron Age silver work). The Deskford carnyx was discovered in 1816 in Deskford, Banffshire, though only the head survives and the remainder has had to be re-constructed based on visual images. In 2004, archaeologists found a first-century BC deposit of seven carnyxs at Tintignac in the Correze region of southern France. Quite a number of instruments have survived in Ireland, and the one on this disc is a copy of one found in a peat bog in Loughnashade, Co. Armagh in 1794. All three instruments, including the speculative reconstruction of the Deskford carnyx, have a very similar fundamental which suggests that there was some sort of commonality to the instruments across the Celtic culture.

Stolen Kisses: An homage to Alberto Ginastera

Songs by Alberto Ginastera; Lorena Paz Nieto, Horacio Lopez Redondo; Song in the City, and Spanish Song and Zarzuela Festival at St Botolph without Bishopsgate
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Dec 5 2016
Star rating: 4.0
A selection of songs by the Argentinian composer ranging from the folkloric to the more modernist

This year is the centenary of the Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera and on Monday 5 December 2016, Song in the City joined forces with the Third Spanish Song and Zarzuela Festival to present Solen Kisses: An homage to Alberto Ginastera at the Hall, St Botolph without Bishopsgate, London EC2M 3TL. Soprano Lorena Paz Nieto (whom we recently saw as Morgana in Royal Academy Opera's production of Handel's Alcina, see my review), and pianist Horacio Lopez Redondo performed a programme of Ginastera's songs including Cancion a la luna lunanca, Cancion al arbol del olvido, Cancion del beso robado, the song cycle Las horas de un estancia and Cinco canciones populares argentinas.

Summer of delights at Opera Holland Park

 Anne Sophie Duprels as Iris and Noah Stewart as Osaka in Iris
at Opera Holland Park 2016. Photo Robert Workman 

The full casting for Opera Holland Park's 2017 has been announced and is full of delights, with a nice mix of established artists and young talent. Elizabeth Llewellyn will be returning to Opera Holland Park to sing the title role in Puccini's La Rondine. (I interviewed Elizabeth earlier this year in advance of her role debut as Puccini's Tosca in Magdeburg). Anne Sophie Duprels follows up her stunning performance this year in Mascagni's Iris with another role by a verismo composer.  She will take the title role in Leonocavallo's Zaza, his delightful opera set around a Parisian cafe-concert, which was recently revived by Opera Rara.

Opera Holland Park has always given strong support to young artists, and this year is no different. Ashley Riches, recently announced as a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist, will be make his Opera Holland Park debut in the title role of Mozart's Don Giovanni with Lauren Fagan, former Jette Parker Young Artist, as Donna Anna.

Opera Holland Park, of course, has its own young artists programme and quite a number of former Opera Holland Park young artists return regularly becoming part of the family, this year including Alice Privett and Stephen Aviss (both appearing in La Rondine), conductor Dane Lam and director Oliver Platt (Don Giovanni), Matthew Waldren (now Mackerras Fellow at English National Opera, who conducts La Rondine). This year's young artists will be on show on 22 June 2016 which is the young artists performance of Don Giovanni.

Another much anticipated returnee is Olivia Fuchs' 2009 production of Janacek's Katya Kabanova. Fuchs returns to direct with a cast including Julia Sporsen, Peter Hoare, Anne Mason and Nicky Spence.

The remaining casts for the operas are full of other delights.

Rough for Opera

Tonight (5 December 2016) is the 14th edition of Second Movement's Rough for Opera at the Cockpit Theatre, London NW8 8EH, the scratch night were producers of new opera can try things out and get audience feed back. At tonight's event there will be new opera from Anna Clock, Freya Ireland and Martin Ward. Constellations, by London-based cellist and sound designer Anna Clock, is a piece for electronics and two performers exploring our relationship with the night sky through myth, memory and the Hubble telescope!

Martin Ward is presenting scenes from The Sinken Sun, his new opera for soprano and baritone, which draws on the life and work of poet John Clare. Martin Ward's works for the stage include the opera Clocks: 1888 the greener (see Ruth's review on this blog), and The Canterville Ghost for English National Ballet.

Freya Ireland, the winner of the 2016 Royal Philharmonic Society award for young composers, will be introducing new material for work in progress The Two Sided Boy an interactive web opera which looks at the volatile dynamic between the real and online world of virtual reality gaming through the relationship of a mother and her computer obsessed son.

Winning charm: Raphaela Papadakis & Sholto Kynoch in cabaret mode in Clapham

Sholto Kynoch and Raphaela Papadakis
photo courtesy of Helen Abbott

Poulenc, Satie, Marx, Schoenberg, Lehar; Raphaela Papadakis, Sholto Kynoch; Omnibus Clapham
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Dec 4 2016
Star rating: 4.0
Delightful evening of cabaret-inspired songs

Omnibus in Clapham is our local arts centre so it was delightful to be able to walk there on Sunday (4 December 2016) to catch a recital by soprano Raphaela Papadakis accompanied by pianist Sholto Kynoch. They gave us a programme cabaret-inspired songs with music by Francis Poulenc, Eric Satie, Joseph Marx, Arnold Schoenberg and Franz Lehar. And as it was a more casual programme, the concert took place in the bar which created a nicely relaxed environment with a surprisingly sympathetic acoustic.

Raphaela Papadakis is a young British soprano whom we heard in Independent Opera's production of Simon Vosecek's Biedermann and the Arsonists (see my review), but whom we had not heard in recital. She sang the recital from memory, and was delightfully communicative, she also introduced the items in a charmingly natural way despite the audience being close at hand. The pianist Sholto Kynoch is the artistic director of the Oxford Lieder Festival (see my interview with Sholto).

Papadakis and Kynoch started with a group of Poulenc songs. The first two Voyage a Paris and Hotel, from Banalites, were Poulenc in lighter lyrical vein rather than cabaret, whilst the final one Les chemins d'amour was written for the actress Yvonne Printemps. Papadakis sang them with a great sense of character, and charm, combining the richness of her voice with a nice lyricism. She sang them on the voice rather more than some singers, emphasising the lyric line rather than the text. In Hotel there was a lovely smoky timbre, whilst Les chemins d'amour had an enchanting edge to the tone.

A musical Christmas open: our visit to Pullens Yards

Luthiers Stephen Barber and Sandi Harris in the studio at Pullens Yards

Pullens Yards is an area of Victorian tenements near Elephant and Castle, where the associated workshops survive as artists studios. Picturesque and atmospheric, twice a year the yards have a weekend when studios are thrown open, last weekend (2-4 December 2016) was the Christmas Open weekend and in amongst the expected pottery, photographs, jewellery, and visual art, there were quirkier artists too with a number of guest artists showing alongside the residents. And we found a surprisingly musical thread running through our visit, with opera set designs, lute and guitar making, and musical pottery.

Our first call was the studio of theatre designer Leslie Travers, a large lively space which Travers' in-progress set designs were sitting alongside 3-D printing, aromas and book-illustrations (an example of the diversity of art and crafts to be found). I interviewed Leslie earlier this year (see my interview) and it was good to catch up. He had just returned from the USA where the production of Le Nozze de Figaro, which he designed, is being shared amongst a number of American opera companies, and he has also been busy at Opera North were he designed the production of Britten's Billy Budd which opened this Autumn. He had photographs of past productions on show, notably the stunning Peter Grimes on the Beach performed at Aldeburgh in 2013, plus his work in progress for Fiddler on the Roof at Malmo Opera in September 2017.

In the next yard was another musical stop, the atelier of luthiers Stephen Barber and Sandi Harris. There amidst the tidied up chaos of a practical workshop we were able to see some of the stunning lutes and guitars which they had made recently, including some pretty spectacular fine-work. Also on display were the studio's two cats, who seemed to take as their due the amount of attention they received from their visitors. In one corner a young musician played lute, showing that these instruments were not just for show. As I had D. with me (and he is a picture framer), our conversation turned to wood and glues, particularly the difficulty of getting correctly authentic ones nowadays when many traditional recipes have become unavailable.

Finally, in the largest of the yards, ceramic artists Barbara Wakefield was exhibiting in her studio, and she always has a fascinating musical theme to some of her work, with small scale ceramics with samples of scores on. Lovely items, which have a tactile quality, but also which you can read and enjoy as music (I spotted one which was the opening of the cadenza in RVW's The Lark Ascending).

There was much else besides, including some spectacular wood carving (including historic frames which really caught our attention), and some very, very tempting pottery, and fine leather-work.

Pullens Yards was the subject of a huge direct action campaign in the 1980s as Southwark Council planned to demolish the yards and the tenements and replace them. Thankfully this did not happen and of the four yards, three survive.

In case you missed it: November on Planet Hugill - Mavra, Iolanta and Simplicius Simplicissimus

Joyce DiDonato, Manuel Palazzo & Il Pomo Doro in In War & Peace at the Barbican. Photo credit is Mark Allan/Barbican

Welcome to November on Planet Hugill, a month when rare opera seemed to be particularly to the fore. At the Guildhall School of Music & Drama there was a double bill of Stravinsky's Mavra and Tchaikovsky's Iolanta, whilst the first UK staging of Karl Amadeus Hartmann's Simplicius Simplicissimus from Independent Opera at Sadler's Wells made for thrilling yet disturbing theatre. Less rare but no less welcome was the elegance and anxiety of Der Rosenkavalier at Opera North, conducted by the company's new musical director Aleksandar Markovic.

Brighton Early Music Festival

This year in Brighton we saw the spectacular, Gaia: Three intermedi for a living planet and heard Trio Goya in Springtime for the pian' e forte.

Wigmore Hall

Simone Piazzola gave us a climax really worth waiting for at Rosenblatt Recitals, and we celebrated 20 years with Samling Artists new and old celebrate with The Seven Ages of Man. There was a highly theatrical & musical performance of Cavalli's La Calisto from La Nuova Musica.

Various Venues

In All Blood Runs Red, London Song Festival explored composers and poets from World War One, and the City Bach Collective celebrated 40 years of Bach cantatas in the City at the church of St Mary at Hill. There was beautifully musical account of Handel's Serse from the Early Opera Company at St John's Smith Square and a radical re-invention of the concert format in Joyce DiDonato's In War and Peace at the Barbican.

Appealing charm: Oliver Davis's Dance

Oliver Davis Dance, Frontiers, Dance Odyssey, Musical Boxi, Arco, Dancing Folk, Fiddlesticks and Dance Epilogue; Kerenza Peacock, Huw Watkins, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Paul Bateman; Signum Clasics
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Dec 2 2016
Star rating: 3.5
The third in Oliver Davis's popular series on Signum

Dance is the third of Oliver Davis' albums on Signum Classics. The previous two, Flight and Seasons (see my review) have done very well and this one seems set to do so as well. Performed by Kerenza Peacock (violin), Huw Watkins (piano), the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Paul Bateman, the disc has Oliver Davis's Dance, Frontiers, Dance Odyssey, Musical Boxi, Arco, Dancing Folk, Fiddlesticks and Dance Epilogue.

Oliver Davis graduated from the Royal Academy of Music in 1994 and has since become best known as a composer for advertising campaigns, feature films, TV dramas and animated series, as well as writing concert works. Having had works used by choreographers as the basis for dance pieces seems to have spurred him on to create an entire CD on the dance.

Fifty mad minutes: Gerald Barry's Alice's Adventures Under Ground

Hilary Summers, Allison Cook, Barbara Hannigan, Britten Sinfonia
Gerald Barry: Alice's Adventures Under Ground - photo Mark Allan/Barbican

Gerald Barry Alice's Adventures Under Ground; Barbara Hannigan, Allison Cook, Hilary Summers, Allan Clayton, Peter Tantsits, Mark Stone, Joshua Bloom, Britten Sinfonia, Thomas Adès; Barbican Hall
Reviewed by Ruth Hansford on Nov 28 2016
Star rating: 4.0
Cycling downhill with faulty brakes: Barry's hyperactive new opera in concert performance

Gerald Barry’s crazy opera the Importance of Being Earnest was revived in the Barbican Theatre earlier this year. I was there and described it as “breathless” [see Ruth's review on this blog]. His latest offering was a whistle-stop tour of Lewis Carroll’s two Alice books. Alice’s Adventures Under Ground received its European premiere in a concert performance in the Barbican Hall on 28 November 2016, with Thomas Adès conducting the Britten Sinfonia and Barbara Hannigan in the title role, plus Allison Cook, Hilary Summers, Allan Clayton, Peter Tantsits, Mark Stone and Joshua Bloom.

Barry and Lewis Carroll seem natural allies in the absurd, but any revisionist view of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson and his rather creepy current reputation didn’t get a look-in in this show.

Crossing boundaries: I chat to conductor & viola player Robert Ames about the London Contemporary Orchestra, and about working in India & Kazakhstan

Robert Ames and the London Contemporary Orchestra performing Terry Riley's In C at the Barbican Centre

Robert Ames

Robert Ames does not think in terms of labels. But when asked to describe the London Contemporary Orchestra, the group which he co-founded and of which he is co-artistic director, Robert says he does not see them as belonging to the classical world. Robert and the London Contemporary Orchestra don't so much defy genres as ignore them, and their work is indicative of the very porous nature of contemporary music in the UK. Robert's recent work has seen him touring with Jonny Greenwood (the guitarist from Radiohead whose work also includes a residency with the BBC Concert Orchestra), working with Frank Ocean, performing Steve Reich and Terry Riley, recording film scores and taking part in the South Bank Centre's Deep Minimalism festival. And for Robert all this is part of a single continuum of work. Robert is both a conductor and a viola player, and I recently met up with him to find out more about his work with the London Contemporary Orchestra, but we also talked about his musical contacts with India and Kazakhstan, were he explores another repertoire entirely.

In 2015 the London Contemporary Orchestra won the Ensemble category of the Royal Philharmonic Society Music Awards and the judges' citation aptly convey's the orchestra's distinctive ethic, "London Contemporary Orchestra has become one of Britain’s brightest beacons for new music. Its repertoire is adventurous yet it attracts sell-out crowds to extraordinary venues and has a remarkable online following. It nurtures new audiences, forges fruitful alliances across the stylistic spectrum, and champions challenging scores with virtuosic flair.". The orchestra deliberately has no specific residency, instead it tailors concerts to the audience but they have developed strong relationships with the South Bank Centre, the Barbican and the Round House. And their work this year will take them from collaborations with pop groups to big film scores.

Rather than thinking in terms of labels, Robert and the orchestra put on music they believe in, which the audience can enjoy in its own way. And it is quite an audience, with annual on-line figures of 2.5 million and having recently toured with Jonny Greenwood the orchestra's live audience was 20,000 this last year.

Gravely moving: Philippe Jaroussky in Bach and Telemann

Philippe Jaroussky - photo Simon Fowler / Warner Classics

Cantatas by Bach and Telemann; Philippe Jaroussky, Le Concert de la Loge, Julien Chauvin; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Dec 1 2016
Star rating: 4.5
Lesser known cantatas by Telemann complement Bach's Ich habe genug in this rare foray into German baroque by star French counter-tenor

French counter-tenor Philippe Jaroussky was at the Wigmore Hall last night (1 December 2016) with a new French ensemble Le Concert de la Loge, director Julien Chauvin, for a programme of cantatas by Telemann and Bach. We heard Telemann's cantatas Die stille Nacht TWV1:364 and Jesus liegt in letzten Zügen TWV1:983, and Bach's Orchestral suite No. 2 in B minor BWV1067 and cantata Ich habe genug BWV82. Le Concert de la Loge is a new ensemble, founded in 2015 by Julien Chavin and at the Wigmore Hall they fielded a chamber ensemble with single strings (including a double bass), plus flute and oboes as necessary.

Telemann wrote a stupendous number of cantatas, with a number of annual cycles and some cycles themed such as in the French style. The cantatas were written for the same purpose as Bach's were, for inclusion in a Lutheran service as a reflection on the sermon. What is fascinating is that given these similar parameters the two composers could come up with such a different feel, with Telemann's writing often feeling more lyrical and mellifluous, whereas Bach mined the intensity of the words.

All change at the Salzburg Festival: Markus Hinterhäuser announces 2017 programme

Markus Hinterhaeuser - photo SF Neumayr

The Salzburg Festival has a new artistic director, Markus Hinterhäuser who took over in October 2016 (following the departure of Alexander Pereira in 2015). Hinterhäuser and festival president Dr. Helga Rabl-Stadler held a press conference at the Austrian Residence in London on 30 November 2016 to introduce the new artistic director's programme for the 2017 festival (21 July to 30 August) which includes new productions of Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito, Aribert Reimann's Lear, Verdi's Aida, Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, and Berg's Wozzeck.

The Salzburg Festival is old, this year will be the 97th festival. It was founded by Hugo von Hofmansthal and Max Reinhardt with the intention of creating a symbol, using the arts to bring people together following the First World War. Markus Hinterhäuser, who trained as a pianist at the Salzburg Mozarteum and was previously the artistic director of the Wiener Festwochen, picked up on this aspect of the festival when he described his thinking behind the programme for this year. For Hinterhäuser music and the arts help us to read what the world is, to analyse the human condition, and so many of the opera are linked by considerations of the politics of power.

The festival opens with a new production of Mozart's final opera La Clemenza di Tito (directed by Peter Sellars, conducted by Teodor Currentzis), the first time the opera has opened the festival and rather than using the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra or Vienna State Opera forces, the production will be accompanied by Teodor Currentzis and MusicAeterna. Hinterhäuser see the opera as a reflection on the mechanisms of power, on truth and forgiveness and for him the opera's presence forms a major artistic and European political statement. The 2017 festival's final production will be Aribert Reimann's Lear (directed by Simon Stone, conducted by Franz Welser-Most with Gerald Finley), one of the most powerful scores of the 20th century, a reflection on the loneliness and madness of power, which Hinterhäuser comments is the same the world over.

Music at the centre: Schaffer's Amadeus at the National Theatre

Lucian Msamati and Southbank Sinfonia - Peter Schaffer's Amadeus - National Theatre - photo Marc Brenner

Peter Schaffer Amadeus; Lucian Msamati, Adam Gillen, Karla Crome, Fleur de Bray, Robyn Allegra Parton, Wendy Dawn Thompson, Eamonn Mullhall, Peter Willcock, Matthew Hargreaves, Southbank Sinfonia; National Theatre
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Nov 30 2016
Star rating: 4.0
A revival which places Mozart's music at the core of the production with impressive use of live performance

Angus Macbean and Southbank Sinfonia - photo Marc Brenner

Peter Schaffer's iconic play Amadeus has returned to the National Theatre in a spectacular new production directed by Michael Longhurst, with Lucian Msamati as Salieri, Adam Gillen as Mozart, Karla Crome as Constanze Weber, Tom Edden as Joseph II, plus Alexandra Mathie, Hugh Sachs and Geoffrey Beevers. Part of the production's ethos was the extensive use of live music performed by sopranos Fleur de Bray and Robyn Allegra Parton, mezzo-soprano Wendy Dawn Thompson, tenor Eamonn Mulhall, and bass baritones Peter Willcock and Matthew Hargreaves, with the Southbank Sinfonia. We caught the performance in the Olivier Theatre on Wednesday 30 November 2016.

The production did not just use live music, but the musicians of the Southbank Sinfonia were an integral part of the production. Opening on a bare stage, the musicians assembled and in front of them Lucian Msamati's elderly Salieri in a wheel-chair addressed the audience, but interacted with the musicians too. For much of the play they were on stage, contributing and interacting, sometimes playing Mozart's music and sometimes other work (the extra music was by musical director Simon Slater), and sometimes just making noises.

Aiden Gillen  & ensemble - photo Marc Brenner

The settings were assembled before our eyes, with fragments of columns, drapes etc, and the musicians and supers pushing things on and moving things about. This was a production which celebrated the very theatricality of Mozart's art.

The singers were all characters in the play, so that Fleur de Bray was Salieri's mistress Katharine Cavallieri, for whom Konstanze in Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail was written (so we heard her in an extract of the opera). Wendy Dawn Thompson was Salieri's (largely silent) wife, and the remaining singers (Matthew Hargreaves, Peter Willcock, Eamonn Mulhall and Robyn Allegra Parton) all played smaller roles, but they came to the fore in the extracts from Mozart's operas having to turn their hand to Fiordiligi, Dorabella, Figaro, the Commendatore, the Queen of the Night and many more. Perhaps the oddest operatic sequence was the nightmare version of The Magic Flute which re-wrote everything and was, presumably, meant to be disturbing.

Solo viola: Rosalind Ventris in Blake, Bach, and Roxburgh

Rosalind Ventris

Blake, Bach, Roxburgh; Rosalind Ventris; Park Lane Group at St James's Church, Piccadilly
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Dec 1 2016
Star rating: 4.0
Music for solo viola spanning 500 years in this engaging recital

As part of the Park Lane Group Young Artists series of recitals at St James's Church, Piccadilly, the viola player Rosalind Ventris (who is a Park Lane Group Young Artist) gave a solo recital on Wednesday 30 November 2016. She performed the Prelude from Howard Blake's Benedictus Op.402 (1980), Johann Sebastian Bach's Suite No. 3 BWV 1009 for solo cello (c1720/21), transcribed for viola, and Edwin Roxburgh's Monologue for Solo Viola (2010).

The viola is not always thought of as a solitary instrument, if we hear it in recital it is usually with other instrumentalists, but here Rosalind Ventris showed that the instrument's rich elegiac lower tones and singing higher register can make a really expressive protagonist, with both Blake and Roxburgh taking full advantage of the instrument's capabilities. In the Bach, transcription simply requires playing the music an octave higher as the viola's strings are tuned exactly an octave above those of the cello, yet the particularity of the viola's tone made a very different effect.