Double vision: two views of Sondheim's Follies at the National Theatre

Dawn Hope, Imelda, Staunton, Emily Goodenough rehearse Follies, National Theatre (photo Johan Persson)

Stephen Sondheim's iconic music Follies has come to rest at the National Theatre in a production, directed by Dominic Cooke, with Imelda Staunton, Janie Dee, Philip Quast and Peter Forbes. 

Geraldine Fitzgerald as Solange &
Sarah Marie Maxwell as young Solange
(Photo Johan Persson)

The new production is strikingly different to the work's first West End outing, directed by Mike Ockrent in 1987. Having two critics see the show within a week of each other seemed too good an opportunity to miss, so here we have both my and Anthony's reactions to the production. Mine from 8 September (third night of the run) and Anthony's from one of the previews (2 September). This enables us to reflect on the way the production might have changed in the run up to opening night, but also to allow for our differing attitudes to the work itself. 

Follies is one of those works which is very much embedded in my consciousness, it was a seminal work for us in the 1980s even before the iconic Carnegie Hall performances (the recording is still well worth searching out) and songs from the show found their way into performances by many of the cabaret groups with whom I worked. It is a work about which I find it difficult to take a properly critical stance, review in danger of turning into reminiscence (how Dame Josephine Barstow as Heidi compared to Licia Albanese or Adele Leigh, for instance). So what follows is first Anthony's review (he gives it four stars) and then my own thoughts (I give it five stars).

Robert

Bruce Graham, Peter Forbes, Billy Boyle, Josephine Barstow, Di Botcher, Norma Atallah rehearsing Follies, National Theatre (Photo Johan Persson)

With the first tranche of tickets largely sold out, you can hear the tills ringing at the National Theatre for this hotly anticipated revival of  Stephen Sondheim’s Follies. Tickets being as rare as hens’ teeth, I managed to bag a couple for a preview.

Di Botcher as Hattie, Follies, National Theatre (Photo Johan Persson)

Inspired by a gathering of the Ziegfeld Follies, here the Weismann Follies come together for a reunion at their soon to be razed Broadway theatre “for a final chance to glamorise the old days”. They sentimentally recreate the performances of the past as the ghosts of their former selves steal around the stage.


Sondheim’s affectionate homage to American Musical Theatre pastiches the composers of the 20s and 30s. But Follies isn’t just a collection of camp old songs. Like much of Sondheim’s work it’s an unsentimental journey; his precise lyrics and keen observations tell a bitters-weet story not just of the Follies but of the foibles and follies of us all. Past and present collide: youth and age, optimism and cynicism and the characters are forced to confront their tarnished dreams – raging against time. The hulking ruin of a set established the emotional tone of the evening. The lighting gave an impression of dust hanging in the air. “Way up there” a ghostly shadow of lost glamour was revealed and the audience hushed. Sally Durant Plummer (Imelda Staunton), a former Weismann girl shiny faced and brittle as glass is the first guest to arrive, her ebullient husband, Buddy (Peter Forbes), is a salesman. Phyllis Rogers Stone (Janie Dee), an elegant sophisticate, she too a showgirl in the Follies arrives with her husband Ben (Philip Quast), a philanthropist and politician – a snake in a suit.

Imelda Staunton, Janie Dee, Follies, National Theatre (Photo Johan Persson)

Sally’s deterioration in the hands of Imelda Staunton is a painful thing to witness. She still carries a torch for the self obsessed Ben and from the outset her agitated excitement is a portent of a much deeper malaise. This is a master class in self delusion. Phyllis is as funny as hell, sharp and tough as old boots. It’s a protective carapace that cracks in spectacular style in the searing “Could I Leave You”. Ben has no interest but himself. The charming Buddy is still desperately in love with his wife but how that love is sustained isn’t that clear.

The last of the romantics: Sholto Kynoch introduces the 2017 Oxford Lieder Festival

Sholto Kynoch (Photo Raphaelle Photography)

This year's Oxford Lieder Festival starts on 13 October 2017, and the festival theme is The Last of the Romantics: Mahler and Fin-de-Siecle Vienna. The festival's founder and director is Sholto Kynoch, who balances festival directing with a busy career as a pianist and accompanist. I recently caught up with Sholto by telephone to find out more about this year's festival.

Although the complete Mahler songs are being performed at the festival, there are only 45 in total which allows the festival planning to take a more broader scope than previous years when the complete Schubert and complete Schumann songs were performed. So this year Mahler is the starting point for a wider exploration, looking both forward and backward.

Sholto explains that though Mahler was an influential figure, he was sometimes accused of being somewhat backward looking, yet his own music can be remarkably forward looking, not to mention his championing of new music. So the festival will be including songs by Mahler's contemporaries, Zemlinsky, Wolf, Brahms and the young Schoenberg, as well as looking ahead to the mature Schoenberg and Richard Strauss. They will also be looking back, and devoting time to Schubert's songs as well. The whole will reflect the melting pot that was Vienna at the end of the 19th century.

This is the fourth festival that Sholto has done on this scale, with every day packed with events, enabling people to really immerse themselves. So the format this year has not been changed significantly as they have realised what a good format it is. The basic structure is to have lunchtime concerts, early evening rush hour concerts, the main evening concerts and some late night concerts, with lectures and study events in the morning. The rush hour concerts are devoted to chamber music and Sholto comments that this year's chamber music line-up is almost a festival in itself.

The chamber music programme is designed to feed back into the rest of the festival. So on the first Tuesday of the festival (17 October) there is a day devoted to Late Brahms, looking at the period when he came out of retirement to engage with the clarinet. There is a morning lecture, and a rush hour recital which includes the Brahms and the Zemlinsky clarinet trios, whilst at lunchtime there are performances of the Brahms Four Serious Songs and in the evening Benjamin Appl and Graham Johnson will be performing a programme including Brahms' Op.32 songs.

With any large festival, coordinating all the events is something of an art and programming does not always fall into place perfectly, but this year Sholto feels that things have fallen into place well. There are a few days of which he is particularly proud, where a theme runs through the whole day.

1926 silent film of Der Rosenkavalier (Image - credit Filmarchiv Austria)

Bold romanticism: Howard Blake's Piano Concerto and Diversions

Howard Blake and Benedict Kloeckner performing together in 2012

Howard Blake Sleewalking, Piano Concerto, Diversions, Elegia Stravagante; Sophie Witte, Sasha Grynuk, Benedict Kloeckner, Nicolas Dautricourt, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Howard Blake; Cadogan Hall
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Sep 7 2017 Star rating: 4.0
Howard Blake's piano concerto at the centre of an evening of his complex, and dramatic concertante works

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra opened its 2017/18 season with a programme of music by Howard Blake, conducted by the composer. The centrepiece of the programme was Blake's Piano Concerto, originally commissioned by the Philharmonia Orchestra to celebrate the 30th birthday of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1991. Blake himself performed the taxing piano part at the premiere, this time he conducted with Sasha Grynyuk at the piano. Cellist Benedict Kloeckner was the soloist in Blake's Diversions for cello and orchestra (a work originally written for Maurice Gendron), and Kloeckner was joined by violinist Nicolas Dautricourt to give the premiere of Blake's Elegia Stravagante (Duo Concertante) for violin, cello and orchestra. The evening opened with a new version of Blake's Sleepwalking for soprano and string orchestra, with soprano Sophie Witte.

Sasha Grynyuk

Howard Blake remains best known for his music for the animated film The Snowman, with the song Walking in the air remaining inextricably linked with the composer's name. But his career has been far wider and varied than this, encompassing film music including Ridley Scott's The Duellists as well as a substantial body of concert music. But if you only know Blake from The Snowman and the film music, his concert music can be something of a surprise. Tonal and approachable in a tradition that links Blake to his original composition teacher at the Royal Academy of Music, Howard Ferguson, Blake writes large scale pieces of great depth and complexity. (Read my interview with Howard Blake). 

Sleepwalking was originally written as a companion piece to Villa Lobos' Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5, for the same forces soprano and eight cellos. In his programme note Blake talked about finding the idea of eight cellos conjuring up the world of dreams, and his piece posits a scenario of a young woman asleep who then goes sleepwalking through various traumas before returning to sleep. Starting from atmospheric high sustained strings with the soprano vocalise over the top (the whole piece is wordless) the piece moved through seven highly contrasting movements, finally returning to the tranquillo of the opening. We had a series of highly varied moods evoked by instrumental writing very much in the English tradition of string music, from lyrical through to darker dramatic episodes. Witte sang with a lovely even tone, and a beautiful freedom at the top. A well put-together piece which did not quite take me on the journey the composer intended, and I would be interested to hear the original version.

Howard Blake's Piano Concerto is a large-scale dramatic work. It was in some ways the most conventional work in the programme, in three movements (the others were in seven or eight) and the only one to use classical sonata form. Christopher Palmer's 1991 programme note used the term Mozartian, but the composers who came to mind were Rachmaninov and Tippett; Rachmaninov for the big boned romanticism piece, particularly the piano writing, whilst Tippett for the way the piano texture sometimes eschewed showy bravura (but not complexity) and created a continuous texture which flowed over the orchestra..

Deep listening and classics re-interpreted: André de Ridder curates Spitalfields Music Festival

Andre de Ridder Artistic Curator Spitalfields Music Festival 2017
(Photo Brian Sweeney)

Spitalfield Music Festival this December has a new look, announced yesterday, as conductor André de Ridder takes over as guest curator, creating a programme intended to reflect the festival's location at the heart of one of London’s most vibrant areas. Monteverdi features highly with performances of the Eighth Book of Madrigals, alongside a variety of artists giving modern re-interpretations of Monteverdi's music with new works by Josephine Stephenson, featured composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir and Qasim Naqvi. Thorvaldsottir’s work is also featured by London Contemporary Orchestra as they give the London premiere of Light of Air including a light installation. André de Ridder’s own s t a r g a z e collective (recently seen at the David Bowie prom) performs a reimagining of Daniel Brandt’s Eternal Something and premieres by Nik Colk Void and Qasim Naqvi, so expect classical colliding with techno, experimental and electronix. And babies and toddlers are not forgotten as Musical Rumpus brings to life the multi-sensory world of Fogonogo.

Composer Josephine Stephenson featured at Spitalfields Music Festival 2017
(Photo Brian Sweeney)

Dialogue between old masters and contemporary is a major theme of André de Ridder's programme, with not only the House of Monteverdi project contrasting the Eighth Book of Madrigals from David Bates and La Nuova Music with premieres and re-interpretations of Monteverdi, but re-interpretations of Schumann as well with Schumann Street. This is a staging and reinterpretation of Schumann’s song cycle Dichterliebe, inside the Huguenot Houses of Spitalfields, each of the 16 songs in Schumann’s cycle will be performed by a different artist drawn from a wide range of stylistic backgrounds including Bengali folk, rap, classical, soul and jazz. Visitors will create their own path around Spitalfields through this immersive song-cycle installation and experience intimate performances close-up inside these atmospheric historic homes. And at Rich Mix, with the aid composer John Barber and artists from Schumann Street Year 4 pupils from Osmani and Shapla primary schools will perform their own song-cycle inspired by Dichterliebe.

Singer/songwriter Abimaro, featured at
Spitalfields Music Festival 2017 (Photo Brian Sweeney)

Another old/new project involves an exploration of counterpoint. In Hyperchromatic Counterpoint three solo musicians will explore counterpoint across the centuries with James McVinnie performing movements from JS Bach’s Art of Fugue, Aart Strootman presenting Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint and, referencing both Bach and Reich’s work, Veli Kujala’s Hyperchromatic Counterpoint extends the melodic realm with his custom-built accordion into an expansive and psychedelic sound-world. In a related event, young musicians aged 11 - 16 from the Thames Big Band and Senior String Ensemble, working alongside Spitalfields Festival Artists, have created a new piece inspired by counterpoint and minimalism, combining the sound worlds of classical strings and big band Jazz.

Deep listening guru Pauline Oliveros is the focal point for In the Light of Air as the London Contemporary Orchestra will perform selections of work by Oliveros which explore producing sound naturally for meditative practice, hopefully transforming Shoreditch Church into a home for mindful listening. And following this the orchestra will perform the London premiere of Anna Thorvaldsottir’s In The Light Of Air which calls to mind the sparse landscapes of Thorvaldsottir’s native Iceland, featuring a light installation which dims and glows according to the players’ breath.

Full details from the Spitalfields Music website.

Combining technology and music: Sinfonia Cymru and Tramshed Tech's Curate

Sinfonia Cymru

You probably think of collaborative workspaces, if you think about them at all, as places where IT geeks get together to work and collaborate. But Tramshed Tech, a collaborative workspace in Cardiff is showing a different side and collaborating with Sinfonia Cymru, the lively Welsh chamber orchestra. The two are joining forces to present Curate, an exciting new series of multimedia concerts that begins in October. 

The concert series will have a number of twists to it, the live music is being presented in Tramshed Tech's beautiful former industrial workspace, and music will be combined with film, technology and digital installations, but events will also be broadcast on-line on Facebook. So there is a chance to watch live, or on-line.

The series opens on 7 October 2017 with #BowDown, an event exploring the themes of belief and hope through an eclectic selection of music including Vivaldi’s Sinfonia in B Minor 'Santo Sepulchre', John Adams' Shaker Loops and Gavin Bryars 'Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet'.

The concerts are deliberately intended to be relaxed, with the music in 20 minute sets spaced by intervals, and there will be a bar too! The space will include digital installations and original films which the audience members will be able to explore during intervals.

The second concert, #WineGlass follows in December, with Philip Glass' Suite From Bent and String Quartet No. 5, and Black Angels by George Crumb, and there will be two more concerts in the series next year.

The last conservatoire? Birmingham Conservatoire opens with new state-of-the-art facilities

The entrance to the new Birmingham Conservatoire.

The new concert hall: Birmingham Conservatoire

The new Birmingham Conservatoire was officially opened yesterday, 7 September 2017, the first purpose-built music college to be built in the UK since 1987. At the launch the conservatoire's principal, Julian Lloyd Webber, suggested it may well be the “last-ever” performing arts institution of its kind to be built in the UK. The conservatoire is part of Birmingham City University, with the new building being built on the university's City Centre Campus, giving the students at the conservatoire access to Birmingham City University’s wealth of media and recording facilities, including four TV studios and Europe’s largest static green screen.

The new conservatoire, designed by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, five new public performance spaces, including a 500-seat concert hall, a 150-seat recital hall and a 100-seat organ studio as well as The Lab, a cutting edge, completely flexible black-box studio, and the first permanent jazz space in any UK conservatoire – the 80-seat Eastside Jazz Club.

Birmingham Conservatoire was founded in 1859 as a department of the Birmingham and Midland Institute, becoming the Birmingham School of Music in 1889. In 2008 it became a faculty of the Birmingham City Conservatoire, the only UK conservatoire to be a faculty of a university.

The new concert hall: Birmingham Conservatoire

Students will return to the conservatoire in the next few weeks, and next year the conservatoire's public programme will start with a Royal gala on 11 March 2018 in the new concert hall performed by the Birmingham Conservatoire Symphony Orchestra and conducted by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra’s (CBSO) Music Director, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla.

Palestrina and Poulenc: The Sixteen's Choral Pilgrimage

St James's Spanish Place

Poulenc, Palestrina; The Sixteen, Harry Christophers; St James's Spanish Place
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Sep 6 2017
Star rating: 4.5
The Sixteen brings care and expressivity to two contrasting composers

For its Choral Pilgrimage this year The Sixteen, artistic director Harry Christophers, is performing a programme of Palestrina and Poulenc. We caught up with them at the Roman Catholic church of St James's, Spanish Place, on 6 September 2017. Whilst the church, built 1890, has no direct connection with either Palestrina or Poulenc, it was built for the celebration of exactly the rite for which both Poulenc and Palestrina wrote their music.

Conducted by Harry Christophers, we heard the choir performing Palestrina's motets, Surge amica mea, Parce mihi Domine, Surgam et circuibo civitatem, Peccantem me quotidie, Salve Regina and movements from Palestrina's Missa L'Homme Arme, Poulenc's Quatre motets pour un temps de penitence, Salve Regina, Un soir de neige and the 'Agnus Dei' from his Mass in G.

We started with an effortless and carefully shaped account of Poulenc's Salve Regina, as with all the other Poulenc in the programme all the tricky corners simply floated passed with apparent ease.

Delight & imagination: Buxtehude trio sonatas from Arcangelo

Dietrich Buxtehude Trio Sonatas, Opus 1; Arcangelo; Alpha Classics
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Sep 4 2017 Star rating: 5.0
Delightful music, engagingly played; Buxtehude's innovative trio sonatas

We don't know all that much about Dietrich Buxtehude's life and a lot of his music has disappeared, but what survives is certainly well worth paying attention to. On this disc, from Alpha Classics, Arcangelo (Sophie Gent, violin, Jonathan Manson, viola da gamba, Thomas Dunford, lute, Jonathan Cohen, harpsichord & direction) perform Buxtehude's seven trio sonatas Opus 1 (BUXWV 252-258).

The Hanseatic league territories (the Baltic and Northern Germany) loom large in Buxtehude's life, his father was an organist who spent a lot of time in Denmark (and territory then ruled by the Danes) where Dietrich received the early stages of his musical career.  His major musical appointment (which took place in 1668 when he was around 31) was to the Marienkirche in Lubeck, the leading Hanseatic city, and Buxtehude would stay in post for the rest of his life, developing a huge reputation for his organ playing, his innovations of evening concerts (Abendmusiken) during Advent, and for his compositions.

The works on this disc are Buxtehude's Opus 1 (printed in 1694). Whilst they were published in Lubeck, Peter Wollny's article in the booklet highlights a number of links to another important Hanseatic city, Hamburg. This, perhaps, helps explain the trio sonatas unusual line up; a conventional trio sonata would have two melody instruments and a bass (usually harpsichord and cello doubling), but for these sonatas Buxtehude uses a violin and a viola da gamba, thus having two instruments which are markedly different in pitch and timbre, and there are a number of predecessors produced by Hamburg composers.

The importance of the Hanseatic cities is that the culture developed was very much pan-national, spreading round the Baltic by sea and it was the sea-rout trade links with other European countries which helped developed a musical culture which linked to England, the Netherlands and beyond.

Looking ahead: Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra starts the new season with a bang

Marios Papadopoulos and Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra at the Sheldonian, © Chris Gloag

The 2017/18 season is the 15th anniversary of the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra, artistic director Marios Papadopoulos, becoming Orchestra in Residence at the University of Oxford, and the orchestra launches its new season with a bang on Friday 13 October 2017 when Valery Gergiev conducts it in a concert at Oxford Town Hall, performing Rossini, Stravinsky and Mendelssohn.

Other distinguished visitors during the season include Khatia Buniatishvili in Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto,  Vladimir Ashkenazy conducting a programme of Borenstein, Shostakovich and Rachmaninov, Lars Vogt directing a programme of Beethoven and Schumann, including directing Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 from the keyboard, Anne-Sophie von Otter and Pablo Ferrandez performing Brahms' Concerto for Violin and Cello in A minor 'Double Concerto', Yuri Temirkanov conducting a programme of Glinka, Rachmaninov and Rimsky-Korsakov, and Steven Isserlis in Elgar's Cello Concerto,

On a smaller scale, Avi Avital plays Vivaldi concertos with members of the orchestra,
and Maxim Vengerov joins with Marios Papadopoulos and members of the orchestra for a chamber concert including Mendelssohn's Octet.

The 15 years being Orchestra in Residence is celebrated with a concert with the choirs of Merton College and The Queen's College in a programme of Parry, Handel, Faure, Robert Saxton and a new work from Sturdivant Adams. The orchestra will also be joining with the Choir of New College Oxford under conductor Robert Quinney for Bach's Christmas Oratorio, whilst the Schola Cantorum of Oxford will be performing Handel's Messiah on Maundy Thursday with soloists Robyn Allegra Parton, Carris Jones, Nick Pritchard and David Shipley, conductor Steven Grahl.

Art on a Ukulele!

The artist Mick Rooney RA displayed a beautifully painted ukulele in the 2016 Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy. Inspired by this, The Hepatitis C Trust’s Art on a Postcard will be curating an orchestra of ukuleles, all painted by well-known artists. The instruments will be showcased at a charity concert hosted by TV presenter Jon Snow with performances from The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain and special guests, The Massive Violins and Clean Bandit, at The Jazz Café on 12 September, followed by a Private View at Long & Ryle on 19th September and an auction of the ukulele’s on 21st September. The money raised will go to The Hepatitis C Trust.

Pete Howlett, who makes ukuleles for the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, has crafted a suite of ukuleles to be painted; each ukulele has been given to an artist to paint in their own style, including Mick Rooney RA, Ramiro Fernandez Suas, Cathy Pilkingon RA, Norman Ackroyd RA, Bill Jacklin RA, Anne Desmett RA, Allen Jones RA, Charlie Calder-Potts, David Inshaw RA and many more.

Concert Tickets - Tickets for the September 12th are available now from £35 at http://thejazzcafelondon.com/event/ukulele-orchestra-great-britain

You can see a series of videos about the making of the ukuleles on Vimeo.

Neglected Stanford: Sam Haywood's recital for Rhinegold Live

Sam Haywood

Stanford, Schumann, Chopin, Mendelssohn; Sam Haywood; Rhinegold Live at Conway Hall
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Sep 5 2017 Star rating: 4.0
Stanford's rarely performed preludes form the opening of a mixed Romantic recital

Charles Villiers Stanford's preludes remain a relatively undiscovered part of his output. A new recording from pianist Sam Haywood on Hyperion should hopefully help make them better known. On Tuesday 5 September 2017, Sam Haywood brought a group of five of Stanford's preludes to Rhinegold Live at Conway Hall as part of a programme which also included Robert Schumann's Papillons, Op.2, Chopin's Polonaise in F sharp minor, Op.44 and Mendelssohn's Andante and Rondo Capriccioso. The recital was followed by a short Q&A with Owen Mortimer, the editor of International Piano.

Stanford's preludes are relatively late works (written 1918 and 1921). Though inspired by the preludes of Bach, in style they reflect the composers who inspired Stanford. Like much of his late output, the music can seem relatively old fashioned for the period, but is beautifully wrought and we are now learning how it transcends our notions.

Holy chants and apocalyptic mayhem (and more besides)

Alexandra Harwood

Shostakovich, Alexandra Harwood, Schnittke, Glinka; I Musicanti; St John's Smith Square
Reviewed by Ruth Hansford on Sep 3 2017 Star rating: 4.5
Leon Bosch and his ensemble mixing Russian classics with a new piece by Alexandra Harwood

The new season at St John’s Smith Square marked the beginning of autumn, weather-wise and light-wise and a impulse to be inside on a Sunday afternoon. Leon Bosch and I Musicanti returned on Sunday 3 September with a programme which combined music by Shostakovich, Schnittke, and Glinka with a new work by Alexandra Harwood. Leon Bosch and I Musicanti seem to have nailed the challenge of making that space feel cosy, not just by drawing the curtains and ensuring we all sat in the front part of the hall, but also with their choice of repertoire and their collegiate style of playing for each other as much as for us. They also seem to have solved the perennial problem of how to sound intimate with all that marble – by positioning themselves of the stage right rather than slap-bang in the middle of the stage.

Their 2017/18 offering is a series called Alexandra and the Russians, combining works by Alexandra Harwood, two of them world premières, with works from the earliest Russian composers (or the earliest ones who wrote chamber music anyway). We have six players (Sofia Lisovskaya – piano, Tamás András – violin, Fenella Humphreys – violin, Robert Smissen – viola, Richard Harwood – cello, Leon Bosch – double bass) , all big hitters in their own right, whose delight in making music together rubs off on us.

Scottish International Piano Competition

Competitors for the 2017 Scottish International Piano Competition welcomed to Glasgow by Lord Provost
(Photo Richard Campbell)

The Scottish International Piano Competition is taking place at the moment in Glasgow. The preliminary rounds have just finished, with competitors from 15 countries. The semi-finals take place at Royal Conservatoire of Scotland on 6 & 7 September, with the concerto finals at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on 10 September with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra under Thomas Søndergård.

The competition, which takes place every three years, has announced a new media partnership with Classic FM; Listeners will have the exclusive chance to hear the final shortly after the competition. The programme will feature three concertos performed by the finalists. Classic FM will also share social media videos featuring some of the pianists via their Facebook page and on ClassicFM.com.

For the semi-finals (6 & 7 September), the players' recital programmes will include a newly commissioned piece by the Scottish composer Gordon McPherson, for the final (10 September) the competitors will choose from Bartok's First and Third Piano Concertos, the concertos of Beethoven, Brahms, Liszt, Chopin, Ravel, Schumann, and Tchaikovsky, Saint-Saens' Second Concerto, Rachmaninov's concertos and Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini, Prokofiev's Second and Third Piano Concertos, and six Mozart piano concertos.

The jury includes the Scottish pianist Stephen Osborne, Peter Tuite (head of keyboard at Trinity Laban Conservatoire), and the pianist Olga Kern, the chair is Aaron Shorr (head of keyboard and collaborative piano at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland). Previous finalists in the competition have included Pavel Kolesnikov (3rd prize in 2010), Tom Poster (winner in 2007), Katya Apekisheva (2nd prize in 1998) and Charles Owen (2nd prize in 1995)

Quickening approaches

Rosalind Ventris, William Vann and Anna Huntley recording Quickening at Potton Hall, November 2016

Our CD, Quickening: songs by Robert Hugill to texts by English and Welsh poets is released on the Navona Records label on Friday (8 September 2017). The record labels New Releases page provides a nice preview of the recording along with a chance to hear Johnny Herford and William Vann in one of the songs.

The complete recording features baritone Johnny Herford, mezzo-soprano Anna Huntley, viola player Rosalind Ventris and pianist William Vann in four of my song cycles, setting poems by Rowan Williams (former Archbishop of Canterbury), A.E. Housman, Ivor Gurney and Christina Rosetti.

Further information, programme notes and much more from the Navona Records website.

Young arts professionals are doing it for themselves: YPIA turns 10

Young People in Arts event at the Foundling Museum

With all the talk of budget cuts and other crises in the arts it is perhaps all to easy to get disheartened, particularly if you are a young professional just starting out in the industry. But young arts professionals are showing that they are unfazed by all this, in Young People in Arts (YPIA) they have taken things into their own hands. 

YPIA event - Diversity in the Arts Workforce at Soho Works, 2016

YPIA provides a community for young arts professionals, giving them the networking and development opportunities to help develop the skills necessary to succeed in today's arts sector. YPIA is ten in 2018, and is launching a celebratory tenth anniversary season with a Launch Party at the Koppel Project on 20 September.

YPIA was founded in 2008 and since then membership has grown significantly so that there are now over 4,500 members. The organisation is run by a committee of young arts professionals (who volunteer their time). YPIA events have already featured more than 200 speakers from the arts sector (including Sir Nicholas Serota, Jude Kelly, Darren Henley and Tony Hall, among many others) and talks cover all the arts, including music, theatre, visual arts, film, literature, dance, opera, and digital arts, and members can participate in a variety of ways including contributing to the YPIA blog.


Stella Toonen, 25, one of YPIA’s volunteer directors, commented: "The organisation gives young professionals a way in and up through the arts sector, helping young voices to become more prominent in discussions about the future of the sector that they will be leading in just a few years’ time."

Further information from the YPIA website.

Schubert in operatic mode: Daniel Behle and L'Orfeo Barockorchester

Schubert overtures and arias from Die Zauberharfe, Claudine von Villa Bella, Die Freunde von Salamanka, Adrast, Lazarus, Alfonso und Esterlla, Fierrabras and Das Zauberglockchen; Daniel Behle (tenor), L'Orfeo Barockorchester, Michi Gaigg; Deutsche Harmonia Mundi
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Sep 1 2017
Star rating: 4.0
A survey of arias and overtures from Schubert's operas, stylish performances shedding light on neglected works

Schubert's operas are still not that well known and, though failures, are a fascinating part of his output nonetheless. On this disc from Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, the German tenor Daniel Behle joins L'Orfeo Barockorchester and conductor Michi Gaigg in a programme of overtures and arias from Schubert's dramatic works, Die Zauberharfe, Claudine von Villa Bella, Die Freunde von Salamanka, Adrast, Lazarus, Alfonso und Esterlla, Fierrabras and Das Zauberglockchen. Three of the tracks are world premiere recordings, and ten of them are premiere recordings on period instruments.

Early 19th century German opera arose out of the development of the singspiel during the 18th century. Notably the way that the singspiel was taken up by German dramatists meant that the philosophical basis for the genre which relied more on drama and less on virtuosity. Carl Maria von Weber's opera Die Freischutz is an important milestone, premiered in Berlin in 1821, but Weber's music was far less highly regarded in Dresden where he was employed at the court, there it was the Italians who had the upper hand. This was also true in Vienna, and the most popular composer there in the 1820s was Rossini. However, the Italian impresario in Vienna, Domenico Barbaia (who was also responsible for Rossini's Neapolitan career) also commissioned a follow up to Die Freischutz from Weber. Unfortunately, Weber had fallen out with Firedrich Kind, librettist of Die Freischutz (over the degree of credit each should get), and so the most important German Romantic opera before Wagner, Weber's Euryanthe was saddled with such a poor libretto that it failed. (However, it would be the groundwork done by Weber and Heinrich Marschner provided the fertile ground for Richard Wagner's operas a generation later).

Such is the background to Schubert's opera career. He had some success, but the lack of a fully developed German opera theatre meant that good librettos were hard to get and many of Schubert's opera fail because of the libretto. Having had some success in 1820 with Die Zillingsbruder and Die Zauberharfe, his follow up Alfonso und Estrella was refused because of the libretto. And then in 1823 Fierrabras, which has the promise to be a creditable start to an operatic career, was refused because 1823 was the year of Rossini's peak popularity in Vienna, added to which Weber's Euryanthe had just failed.

Music@Malling

Music@Malling returns to West Malling in Kent for the seventh festival when for ten days, from 21 to 30 September 2017, the town will be filled with music with over 24 events. Music@Malling was founded by artistic director Thomas Kemp (who is a violinist and a conductor). Kemp hails from West Malling and part of the festival's ethos is local engagement and a sense of local identity. This year there will be performances from Thomas Kemp's group Chamber Domaine including Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time  and Kodaly duos, with solo recitals from cellist Richard Harwood in Reger's Cello Suites, violinist Thomas Bowes in Bach's partitas and sonatas, guitarist Craig Ogden and flautist Sami Junnonen.

The festival is also celebrating Alexander Goehr's 85th birthday, and other contemporary composers featured include Sciarrino, and Paul Patterson. Another theme running through the festival is the music of Bach with a series of Bach Pilgrimage concerts combining Bach's music with that of others.

Outreach work will involve 1400 local primary school children in a project focusing on Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes as well as 480 children performing in Paul Patterson's Little Red Riding Hood with Chamber Domaine and narrator Matthew Sharp. In conjunction with Sound and Music, Go compose!, gives 10 young composers from Kent the opportunity to compose a piece of music that is performed and recorded in one day.

Thomas Kemp will also be opening the Oxford Lieder Festival with the Orchestra Age of Enlightenment (OAE) in October with Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier Suite on period instruments. Kemp and the OAE will be on tour to Asia and Vienna, and to Bristol, Darlington, and Brighton as part of Orchestras Live.

An evening of theatrical magic: Judith Weir's The Vanishing Bridegroom

British Youth Opera - David Horton (The Friend), Eleanor Sanderson-Nash, Harriet Birchall, Siân Griffiths (Three Women),
Ida Ränzlöv (The Daughter puppeteer), Ian Beadle (The Husband) and Alexandra Lowe (The Wife) - Judith Weir: The Vanishing Bridegroom
(Photo Robert Workman)

British Youth Opera - Timothy Edlin (The Stranger)
Judith Weir: The Vanishing Bridegroom (Photo Robert Workman)

Judith Weir The Vanishing Bridegroom; Alexandra Lowe, David Horton, Ian Beadle, Timothy Edlin, Ida Ränzlöv, dir: Stuart Barker, Southbank Sinfonia, cond: James Holmes; British Youth Opera at the Peacock Theatre
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Sep 2 2017 Star rating: 4.5
Judith Weir's entrancing opera in a performance which brought out the sense of magical story-telling

Having performed Judith Weir's A Night at the Chinese Opera in 2012, British Youth Opera returned to Weir's operas and gave us the valuable opportunity to see The Vanishing Bridegroom in a new production at the Peacock Theatre on 2 September 2017, directed by Stuart Barker, designed by Andrew Riley, movement by Mandy Demetriou, lighting by David Howe and Darren East as puppetry consultant. James Holmes conducted the Southbank Sinfonia, and the cast included Alexandra Lowe, David Horton, Ian Beadle, Timothy Edlin and Ida Ränzlöv.

Weir's opera was commissioned for Glasgow European City of Culture in 1990 and premiered by Scottish Opera. The music and subject matter both have a distinctly Scottish tint; Weir's own libretto imaginatively weaves together three Scots Gaelic folk-tales, and includes poetry from Carmina Gadelica and other sources, whilst the music references a number of styles of performance from the West Highlands whilst always remaining true to Weir's own voice.

In rehearsal: Kristjan Jarvi & the Baltic Sea Philharmonic at the Elbphilharmonie

In rehearsal: Kristjan Järvi & Baltic Sea Philharmonic at the Elbphilharmonic (Photo (c) BMEF / Peter Adamik)

Kristjan Järvi and the Baltic Sea Philharmonic concluded their recent Summer tour with a presentation of their Waterworks programme at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg on 29 August 2017, with soloist Mikhail Simonyan (see my review). Having arranged to cover the concert and hear the Elbphilharmonie in action, I was invited to attend the orchestra's rehearsal on the afternoon of the concert.

Lightdesigner Bertil Mark setting up lights for the final Waterworks concert –
combining music, light, projections, sounds and fashion
(Photo (c) BMEF / Peter Adamik)

#From the outside, the Elbphilharmonie is somewhat forbidding,  huge brick warehouse topped by an equally huge glass structure. The public pays to go up to piazza level (the top of the brick structure) to see the view. I have to negotiate the stage door; this involves a lift to the 10th floor (which I shared with a dozen or so of the performers), a welter of waiting for lifts, clean white modern back-stage areas, and an unplanned encounter with Maestro Kristjan Järvi (we first met in 2016 when I interview him).  Then suddenly we are in the main concert hall, an astonishing space with off-white textured walls  and balconies snaking round all sides. A very striking space, it has real presence.

The Baltic Sea Philharmonic is a young ensemble, with young people from all ten Baltic states, and this is their first encounter with the hall. But this is not just a music call and sound check, the concert involves elaborate presentation and light show, so lights are flashing all around as well. I am amazed at how focussed the performers are, with technicians wandering round and a photographer, not to mention assembling the light show, with the video projections forming distinctive patterns on the acoustic texturing of the walls.

Full concentration: Baltic Sea Philharmonic
in rehearsal at Elbphilharmonic
(Photo (c) BMEF / Peter Adamik)

The programme is challenging enough, arrangements of Handel, alongside music by Charles Coleman, Gene Pritsker and Philip Glass, including the Violin Concerto No. 2 (with Mikhail Simonyan) and the large-scale suite Aguas da Amazonia. The orchestra has been on tour for ten days, taking their Baltic Folk programme (which includes Stravinsky's Firebird played from memory) to Germany, Sweden and Italy, and then doing this Waterworks programme in Germany and at the Usedom Music Festival, finishing here at the Elbphilharmonie.

When the orchestra finally starts, the sound in the hall is strikingly clear. There are a lot of musicians on stage, including much percussion and a drum kit, but you can hear with clarity and some warmth. The orchestra's familiar vibrant tone really does come over. But the hall gives nowhere to hide either, it is not an acoustic which bathes the performers in an all encompassing glow, which certainly puts the young players on their mettle.

Coming from so many different countries, and with a chief conductor who was born in Estonia but raised in the USA, the orchestra's rehearsal language is English. Kristjan is a very physical conductor, his style involves not just indicating but graphically demonstrating, and the players clearly respond, which makes for pretty vivid listening and looking. But is is also clear that he has a precise idea of what he seeks to achieve. And this rehearsal involves putting the most challenging passages through the crucible of the hall's acoustic.

I leave, impressed with what is being achieved and curious about the final concert.

Test patterns prior to the ‚Waterworks‘ concert show that will transform the building into an aquarium of the senses
(Photo (c) BMEF / Peter Adamik)

From naughty and disreputable to suspiciously establishment

Jonathan Dove talks about writing operas, and his new version of Mansfield Park.

Set design by Dick Bird for Martin Lloyd Evans production of Jonathan Dove's Mansfield Park at The Grange Festival

The Grange Festival is giving the premiere of Jonathan Dove's new orchestral version of his opera Mansfield Park on 16 September 2017. The opera was originally written for soloists and piano duet, and premiered by Heritage Opera in 2011, and in this form has had performances by companies such as the Royal Academy of Music (in 2012), and Indianapolis Opera (in 2016). Dove's new orchestration, commissioned by The Grange Festival, will give the opera a new look, and the premiere coincides with the 200th anniversary Jane Austen's death and is being performed in a venue a short distance away from Jane Austen's house in Chawton, Hampshire. I met up with Jonathan to find out more about how he came to write an opera on a Jane Austen novel.

Mansfield Park provoked music in a way that no other Jane Austen novels did

Acoustic and more, Inclusive Creativity at Rich Mix

Frank Lyons with Acoustronic and members of the
Inclusive Creativity project

Inclusive Creativity is a concept developed by composer Frank Lyons of Ulster University which aims to make performance and composition more inclusive by developing innovative instrumental technology and methodologies that allow for side-by-side performance with disabled musicians alongside professional musicians. At Rich Mix on 5 September 2017, Acoustronic a group of disabled musicians using tablets and other new music technology will join the Benyounes Quartet for an immersive evening of music including a performance of Frank Lyons Non Zero Sum and George Crumb's Black Angel.

Lyons' new piece derives from game theory concepts in which the amplified string quartet and five digital instruments come together and compete with no winner or loser, including improvisations whereby the players respond to graphic symbols drawn in real time using colour and shape coding. Acoustronic will perform two of their own piece, Music for 5 and Voices for which combine samples, loops and some free improvisation, and the Benyounes Quartet will perform George Crumb's iconic Black Angels for amplified string quartet.

In 2015, three partner organisations (Walled City Music, Drake Music and St. Magnus International Festival) received funding from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation to develop a pilot participatory project using ‘inclusive creativity’ as its driving principle. Under the direction of professor Lyons, an ensemble of disabled and non-disabled artists met regularly to improvise and compose music together in Derry/Lononderry, using assistive music technology (AMT) and more conventional musical instruments. This ensemble became Acoustronic.

Full details from the Rich Mix website.

Glass & more: Baltic Sea Philharmonic's Waterworks at the Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg

 Kristjan Järvi & Baltic Sea Philharmonic at the Elbphilharmonic (Photo (c) BMEF / Peter Adamik)

Waterworks, Philip Glass, Charles Coleman, Gene Pritsker, Handel; Mikhail Simonyan, Baltic Sea Philharmonic, Kristjan Järvi; Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Aug 29 2017
Star rating: 5.0
Kristjan Järvi and his young players fill the Elbphilharmonie with vibrant music-making

Mikhail Simonyan, Kristjan Järvi & Baltic Sea Philharmonic
(Photo (c) BMEF / Peter Adamik)

The final stop of the Baltic Sea Philharmonic's Summer tour saw the orchestra, under its founder and artistic director Kristjan Järvi, making its debut at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg. (See my interview with Kristjan Järvi where we talk about the programme) The programme, Waterworks, combined music with an immersive visual setting produced by Bertil Mark, Lars Falkner and Philipp Geist of Kristjan Järvi's Sunbeam Productions, and with costumes for the orchestra courtesy of the label house Monton. The music combined Charles Coleman's orchestration of Philip Glass's suite Aguas da Amazonia and Glass's Violin Concerto No. 2 'The American Four Seasons', with the young Russian violinist Mikhail Simonyan, and the evening started with a pot-pourri of water-themed works, excerpts from Handel's Water Music alongside Charles Coleman's Drenched and Gene Pritsker's Water Possessed Afresh, The orchestra, made up of young musicians from the ten Baltic states, was joined by three members of the New York-based Absolute Ensemble, Mat Fieldes (electric bass), Charlie Porter (trumpet) and David Rozenblatt (percussion).

We entered the hall with the striking visuals playing on ceiling and walls, and sounds of water around us. The visual side, whilst very striking, was not perhaps sufficiently immersive and I understand at other venues on the tour the designers had been able to create a more total environment. But then, the Grosser Saal of the Elphilharmonie is a striking experience in its own right.

Baltic Sea Philharmonic at the Elbphilharmonic
(Photo (c) BMEF / Peter Adamik)

Water percussion effects led us into the orchestral music, starting with a rock/baroque mash-up in which fragments of the storm from Vivaldi's The Four Seasons wandered in and out of focus. This first suite moved from rock/baroque, through Handel played reasonably straight with creditable style, to orchestral baroque through Grieg (I think) to conclude with a another highly rhythmic orchestral rock number. It worked, thanks to the orchestra's sheer enthusiasm and vitality, and the attention to detail. Kristjan Järvi might be a natural showman, but he ensured that his young players gave impressively on the pulse performances.

Philip Glass's Violin Concerto No. 2 'The American Four Seasons' was written in 2009 as a response to Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, but Glass's reaction to the Vivaldi is guarded and he does not reveal which movement is which. Add to this, that each of the four movements is preceded by a solo violin movement (prologue and three songs) and the result is striking in its own right. Written for strings and keyboard, this was the most intimate music of the evening. The Philip Glass on display was a long way form the Glass of Einstein on the Beach, and the music was notable for the way Glass kept control of the textures with great fluidity, rather than laying down a rhythmic pattern and letting it flow. There was little peaceful noodling here.