Striking music, terrific performances: the modern day premiere of Handel's pasticcio Caio Fabbricio based on music by Hasse

Handel/Hasse: Caio Fabbricio; Anna Harvey, Ildiko Allen, Kieran Rayner, Anna Gorbachyova-Ogilvie, Thalie Knights, Hannah Poulsom, Phoebe Haines, London Early Opera, Bridget Cunningham; St George's Hanover Square
Reviewed 24 May 2022 (★★★★)

One of Handel's pasticcios revived for the first time since the 18th century, giving us a chance to hear some striking music in terrific performances from a young cast.

The 18th century's fondness for operatic pasticcio seems rather strange to us nowadays. We happily accept musical theatre created out of pre-existing songs, but still have too much of the Wagnerian idea of an opera as a sacrosanct work of art. In the 18th century opera was a far more malleable thing. For a start, an impresario in London wishing to put on Hasse's Cajo Fabricio would need access to the score, which generally meant access to the composer. This was Handel's problem in 1733, and his solution was a typically pragmatic 18th century one. Thanks to the traveller Edward Holdsworth (who knew Handel's friend and librettist Charles Jennens), Handel possessed a songbook from Hasse's opera along with the libretto. From these Handel planned to create a new opera, with Hasse's arias, Handel's new recitatives and orchestration.

Thanks to considerable scholarship, the resulting opera Caio Fabbricio received its first performance in modern times on 24 May 2022 at St George's Hanover Square, when Bridget Cunningham directed London Early Opera with soloists Anna Harvey, Ildiko Allen, Kieran Rayner, Anna Gorbachyova-Ogilvie, Thalie Knights, Hannah Poulsom and Phoebe Haines.

Handel premiered Caio Fabbricio in December 1733, the first season of his opera company following the split with the Opera of the Nobility. This split is why Handel was worrying about pasticcios, he had a complete season to present and, unlike previously, there was only him to write the operas (the original Royal Academy of Music had had a team of composers). The London audience liked novelty, and instead of a raft of revivals, Handel chose to create new works from old music; it was quicker and it enabled him to include the soloists' favourite arias as well.

18th century operas were always adjusted to suit the cast, rather than the present method of selecting the cast to suit the opera. Handel did this with his own operas; with Caio Fabbricio he had rather a different line-up of singers to the original, and the resulting work uses 13 of Hasse's 21 arias along with others. What all the composers have in common is that they were from the younger generation of Italian composers of the Neapolitan school, writing arias that were melodic and often simpler than Handel's large-scale structures. This was music the audience could come out humming.

Three birthday celebrations & more: Anna Tilbrook curates this year's JAM on the Marsh

Paul Patterson whose 75th birthday is celebrated at this year's JAM on the Marsh

JAM on the Marsh is back with a full festival of live events in the historic churches of Romney Marsh from 7 to 17 July 2022. Pianist Anna Tilbrook has curated her second JAM on the Marsh festival and performers include Lucy Crowe, James Gilchrist, leaders from the Oslo Philharmonic, VOCES8, Michael Collins with London Mozart Players and the London Tango Quintet.

The festival is celebrating composer Paul Patterson's 75th birthday by performing his The Fifth Continent, a JAM commission from 2005 that evokes the dramatic 20-mile coastal stretch of Romney Marsh. The work is being performed by the Holst Singers, Rebecca Afonwy-Jones (mezzo), Onyx Brass and Simon Hogan (organ).

Other birthdays celebrated include a double celebration for composer Judith Bingham's 70th and clarinettist Michael Collins' 60th, when Collins performs Bingham's Concerto for Clarinet with the London Mozart Players in a concert including Copland's Clarinet Concerto (written in 1950 for Benny Goodman) and music by Debussy and Grieg.

The Fibonacci Quartet is returning to the festival following a sell-out concert at last year's festival and the quartet will be performing in several concerts, working with an array of distinguished artists. Anna Tilbrook will be joining them for an all-Czech concert including music by Mahler, Janacek, Suk, Martinu and a rare performance of the Piano Quartet by London-based Czech composer Karel Janovický.

Full details from the festival website.

Chantez, dansez jeunes bergères

The Vache Baroque Festival, which takes place this year from 2 to 4 September 2022, has launched a new video series celebrating the work of women composers of the Baroque era. The videos will feature performances of music by the English composer (and wife of a baronet) Lady Mary Dering (1629-1704) who studied with Henry Lawes, the Italian composer Lucia Quinciani (c1566, fl 1611) the earliest known published female composer of monody, the Italian composer Francesca Caccini (1587-1641), daughter of a composer, she worked at the Florentine court and wrote the oldest surviving opera by a woman, French composer Julie Pinel (1710-1737), born into a family of composers and who published a collection of songs, English composere Elisabetta de Gambarini (1730-1765), born in England to Italian aristocratic parents, she may have studied with Geminiani, and Chiara Margarita Cozzolani (1602-1676/78), a cloistered nun who wrote music for her convent.

The first video appeared [on YouTube] on Sunday 22 May 2022, soprano Hilary Cronin (winner of the 2021 International Handel Singing Competition) accompanied by Asako Ogawa on harpsichord and Jenny Bullock on viol in Julie Pinel's Chantez, dansez jeunes bergères, and there will be a new video every fortnight until 31 July.

See the festival's YouTube channel for future videos.

Rewarding collaboration, Daniel Pioro and Erland Cooper perform live together for the first time at the Norfolk & Norwich Festival

Daniel Pioro and Erland Cooper 

Daniel Pioro, Erland Cooper, Clare O'Connell, Studio Collective - students from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Glasgow; St Andrew's Hall, Norfolk & Norwich Festival
Reviewed, 17 May 2022 by Tony Cooper

Virtuosic violinist/composer, Daniel Pioro, collaborated with Scottish-born composer Erland Cooper for the first time achieving great success. With Cooper’s sensitive writing and Pioro’s exceptional and gifted playing, the partnership worked extremely well and delivered a striking contemporary work to mark the N&N Festival’s 250th anniversary

A major attraction for the Norfolk & Norwich Festival, virtuosic violinist, Daniel Pioro (artist-in-residence at London’s Southbank Centre) was joined by composer/pianist Erland Cooper, cellist Clare O'Connell and Studio Collective, a group of students and former students from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Glasgow for an evening of Cooper's music. 

Daniel Pioro happens to be more than just a soloist. He’s a collaborative artist, too, and engages in finding new ways of performing and creating sound in a multitude of different ways. And to help in this respect and to achieve the right balance and ambience for his concert at the N&N Festival, he abandoned the traditional stage of St Andrew’s Hall for a circular-shaped performance area in the stalls with members of the audience seated tightly round it. This new configuration worked well bringing performers close to the audience and vice versa thereby adding an extra dimension and, indeed, pleasure to the overall performance.

Such an accomplished musician, Daniel Pioro, made his Norwich début in August 2021 at an Assembly House lunchtime concert curated by Roger Rowe accompanied by cellist, Clare O’Connell. Two years previous, he made a stunning début at the BBC Proms premièring Jonny Greenwood violin concerto Horror vacui (a fear or dislike of leaving empty spaces) with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Hugh Brunt. His performance was highly praised by the BBC as ‘the ultimate display of musical virtuosity’ and the composer commented that ‘Daniel Pioro’s playing is the sound in my head when I write for the violin’. Praise, indeed!

Presteigne Festival 2022

This year's Presteigne Festival, artistic director George Vass, celebrates not only RVW's 150th anniversary but the festival's own 40th birthday. Running from 25 to 30 August 2022, the festival  is based in the Welsh Marches in the town of Presteigne / Llanandras. This year it features a selection of RVW's works including the Violin Concerto in D minor performed at the festival closing concert by violinist Benjamin Nabarro and the Festival Orchestra, conducted by George Vass.

This year's composer in residence is Julian Philips and alongside a retrospective of Philips' works there is the Welsh premiere of Looking West, a major new concert-theatre work performed by Rebecca Bottone soprano, Rebecca Afonwy-Jones mezzo, Alexander Knox actor, Nova Music Opera Ensemble, George Vass conductor.

Alongside this there is a fine selection new works by Cheryl Frances-Hoad, David Matthews, Tarik O’Regan, Aileen Sweeney, Huw Watkins and 2022 Royal Philharmonic Society Young Composer, Rylan Gleave, plus commissions from Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade and Sarah Frances Jenkins, artists currently supported by the Presteigne Festival’s ‘Evolve’ and ‘Emerge’ composer mentoring schemes.

Alongside this new music, there are works by Bach, Beethoven, Elgar, Fauré, Hindemith, Ireland, Ravel, Schoenberg, Schubert, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, and Walton, plus cabaret, spoken word, exhibitions and more.

Full details from the festival website.

High Barnet Chamber Music Festival

Mad Song performing at last year’s High Barnet Chamber Music Festival, Anita Monserrat singing (photo Ruari Paterson-Achenbach)

After last year's inaugural festival, High Barnet Chamber Music Festival returns in July 2022 for its second edition under artistic director Joshua Ballance. The concert series was set up to provide a platform for young professional musicians and to stimulate arts and music education in North London and Hertfordshire, while embracing diverse and adventurous programming. The organisation also offers music education opportunities, including masterclasses and a work experience scheme for local students.

The festival opens on 2 July 2022 with the New London Orchestra performing music by Ailsa Dixon and Schoenberg, plus Benjamin Britten's Serenade for tenor, horn and strings with Annemarie Federle (horn) and Brenton Spiteri (tenor). Other concerts include the Echéa Quartet in Elisabeth Lutyens' String Quartet No. 6 plus quartets by Bartok and Mendelssohn, the ensemble Mad Song in music by Mazzoli, Saariaho, Tower, Causton, Monk Feldman, and Reich, and the festival ends on 17 July with cellist Ben Tarlton and pianist Robin Green in sonatas by Beethoven and Rachmaninov, plus Nadia Boulanger's Three Pieces for Cello and Piano.

Full details from the festival website.

The Wreckers returns: Glyndebourne's vividly dramatic new production of Ethel Smyth's opera

Smyth: The Wreckers - Karis Tucker - Glyndebourne (Photo Richard Hubert Smith)

Ethel Smyth: The Wreckers; Karis Tucker, Rodrigo Porras Garrulo, Philip Horst, Lauren Fagan, dir: Melly Still, cond: Robin Ticciati, London Philharmonic Orchestra; Glyndebourne
Reviewed 21 May 2022 (★★★★★)

A wonderfully vivid production of Smyth's rarely performed opera reveals it to be a remarkably taut and powerful drama

First, a little background. Ethel Smyth wrote The Wreckers in 1906 and it premiered in Leipzig in German, the year after Strauss' Salome premiered and two years after Puccini's Madam Butterfly. It would be another 40 years before Britten's first major success, Peter Grimes was premiered. The only other major English opera composer of the time, Stanford, had had his Much Ado About Nothing performed at Covent Garden in 1901 when it received just two performances; Stanford regarded his operas as an important part of his output but despite his standing, he struggled to get English performances.

So, The Wreckers would be an achievement by a long chalk, but unfortunately the work has had a spattered history. Smyth was very much a European, trained in Leipzig her friends were all Europeans and her early career was all in Continental Europe. When the Great War started in 1914, she had three major productions of her operas in progress or planned. At a stroke her European career was over, and she never wrote another large scale opera. The Wreckers, marooned in England with an inferior English libretto rather struggled. Warwick University's performance in 1983, directed by Graham Vick, remains a vivid memory for me but subsequent encounters with the opera have been more mixed. Duchy Opera very sensibly commissioned a revised English libretto from Amanda Holden, yet still the opera languished.

Glyndebourne announced Smyth's The Wreckers for 2020, and thankfully the company has kept faith and Melly Still's production of the opera opened Glyndebourne's 2022 season on Saturday 21 May 2022. The work was performed in a new edition which returned it to Smyth's original manuscript, and used Henry Brewster's original French libretto. Karis Tucker was Thurza (Thirza), Rodrigo Porras Garulo was Marc, Philip Horst was Pasko, Lauren Fagan was Avis with Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts, Marta Fontanals-Simmons, Donovan Singletary, and James Rutherford. Designs were by Ana Ines Jabares-Pita, choreography by Mike Ashcroft, lighting by Malcolm Rippeth, and video by Akhila Krishnan. Robin Ticciati conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Smyth: The Wreckers - Glyndebourne (Photo Richard Hubert Smith)

Rather than performing the work from the published full score which is based on the cuts Smyth made for the first English performance, the edition used returned to Smyth's original score. This was published as a vocal score in Germany in 1906/07, but the sole full score that seems to survive has been marked up with the cuts for the English premiere including some pages removed, so Tom Poster has recreated Smyth's orchestrations for these.

Blow's Venus & Adonis and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas from HGO

Purcell: Dido & Aeneas - Katey Rylands, Sonny Fielding - HGO (Photo  Laurent Compagnon)

Blow: Venus & Adonis, Purcell: Dido & Aeneas; Elizabeth Green, Conall O'Neill, Ralph Thomas Williams, Katey Rylands, Sonny Fielding, Julia Surette, Helen Cooke, dir: Jessica Dalton, cond: Seb Gillot; HGO at the Cockpit

An imaginative updating of the two 17th century English classics with a very fine young cast.

Henry Purcell was John Blow's pupil and the two were friends as well as colleagues. It has long been accepted that Purcell's opera Dido and Aeneas was influenced by Blow's Venus and Adonis. The two works being the earliest surviving English language operas, as well as some of the greatest. Recent scholarship has shown other intriguing links between them. Venus and Adonis was written for performance at the court of King Charles II, whilst the only known performance of Dido and Aeneas was at Josiah Priest's school for young ladies in Chelsea. It has long been postulated that there was an earlier grander performance of Dido and Aeneas, and we now know that Venus and Adonis was also performed at Josiah Priest's school, suggesting clear links between court performance and the school. 

These experiments in English opera seem not to have been a great success, we have to wait until the early 18th century for further major English works. Blow wrote no more opera, and Purcell's other large-scale stage work are in the awkward semi-opera vein. Whilst the two works might seem an obvious double bill, they are rarely played together.

Blow: Venus & Adonis - Elizabeth Green, Conall O'Neill - HGO (Photo  Laurent Compagnon)

It was a delight to find HGO performing Blow's Venus and Adonis and Purcell's Dido and Aeneas as a double bill at the Cockpit and we caught the opening night on 20 May 2022. Both operas were directed and designed by Jessica Dalton and directed from the harpsichord by Seb Gillot. Elizabeth Green and Conall O'Neill were Venus and Adonis with Ralph Thomas Williams as Cupid. Katey Rylands and Sonny Fielding were Dido and Aeneas with Julia Surette as Belinda and Helena Cooke as the Sorceress.

Rediscovering the joys of playing together: Noemi Gyori & Gergely Madaras their disc of flute duets

Noemi Gyori and Gergely Madaras (Photo Benjamin Ealovega)

Gergely Madaras is best known as a conductor (he is music director of Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, and was the inaugural Sir Charles Mackerras Fellow at English National Opera), but he originally studied the flute and for many years had a duo partnership with the flautist Noemi Gyori, who happens to be his wife.  Noemi is an international recitalist, the first flautist to hold a PhD from the Royal Academy of Music; she teaches at the Royal Northern College of Music and the University of Manchester, while being principal flute of the Jewish Chamber Orchestra in Munich. 

The two have returned to playing the flute together and with pianist Alexander Ullman have recently issued a disc of music for two flutes by the Doppler brothers (Karl and Franz) and Friedrich Kuhlau on the Rubicon label. I recently met up with Gergely and Noemi by Zoom to discuss the importance of the Dopplers to flautists, rediscovering the joy of playing together again during lockdown, and how they balance their musical life with married life.

Franz Doppler by Ágost Elek Canzi (1853)

Whilst their names were barely known to me, flautists everywhere will know the Dopplers' names. Franz Doppler (1821-1883) and Karl Doppler (1825-1900) were multi-talented Hungarian brothers, flautists, conductors and arrangers. Their importance in the flute repertoire is that as composers they were able to showcase the brilliance of the instrument in the same way that Liszt did for the piano and Paganini did for the violin. The Dopplers showed that the flute could be as scene-stealing as the violin and was capable of being an equal partner to the piano. Gergely and Noemi have enjoyed playing this repertoire together for over 20 years. They find it uplifting and rewarding, and it helps that the Dopplers' use of traditional Hungarian melodies meant that they find a strong connection with the music and wanted to share it, and the sound of two flutes playing brilliantly together can be exciting. 

The idea of two flutes playing together was common during the Baroque era (where they would be joined by continuo instruments), but the prominence of the Dopplers' music for flute comes partly from the way the instrument seemed to drift out of fashion. There is plenty of flute repertoire from Quantz, WF Bach and CPE Bach right through to Mozart and his contemporaries, and there are even arrangements of music from Mozart's operas for two flutes! But then there is a chunk of repertoire missing. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the flute did not develop as quickly as other instruments and seemed to fall out of favour as a Romantic instrument. Theobald Boehm developed his flute in 1847, a design that radically altered the technical capability of the instrument and increased its volume too but which changed the fingerings and a lot of players were initially reluctant to switch. So, though the Baroque flute was a leading instrument of the day, Noemi feels that this lack of classical and early Romantic repertoire means that flautists today are constantly trying to prove that the instrument is as creative, meaningful and profound as solo instruments such as the violin or the clarinet (for her doctoral research, Noemi looked at the idea of redefining her instrument through newly created transcriptions of keyboard masterworks from the classical era).

Afghan music, Stravinsky on the pianola, live-stream collaborations: Spitalfields Music's 2022 festival features over 20 London and world premieres

Spitalfields Music's 2022 festival (30 June to 13 July 2022), curated by chief executive Sarah Gee, celebrates the power of music to transcend culture, communities, languages and borders at a time when global unity is urgently needed, with performances combining different styles, artforms and genres to demonstrate the extensive range and resilience of classical music.

Co-curated with conductor Cayenna Ponchione-Bailey and Afghan pianist and composer Arson Fahim, Spitalfields Music has commissioned Afghan musicians in exile or hiding to write new compositions and create arrangements of Afghan traditional songs which will be performed by a chamber orchestra of instruments from Afghanistan and the Western classical music tradition. The UK's first women and non-binary orchestra Her Ensemble performs music from Barbara Strozzi to Dobrinka Tabakova. 

Voice trio celebrate the legacy of Hildegard of Bingen, juxtaposing her music with new works by Stevie Wishart, Marcus Davison, Emily Levy, Tim Young and Laura Moody. There is a rare chance to hear Biber’s virtuosic Mystery Sonatas played on baroque violin by Kazakh violinist Aisha Orazbayeva, whilst a talk from Professor James Sparks on Bach's mathematical genius, illustrated by a performance of the Goldberg Variations by City of London Sinfonia, pays homage to The Spitalfields Mathematical Society - a working men’s club founded in 1717. There will also be a chance to hear Stravinsky's Rite of Spring on pianola, performed by Rex Lawson

George Parris and The Carice Singer celebrate RVW's 150th anniversary with a performance of the Mass in G minor alongside the London premieres of works by James Batty, Michele Deiana, Will Harmer, Electra Perivolaris, Claire Victoria Roberts and Aileen Sweeney, as part of Spitalfields Music and Cheltenham Music Festival’s ongoing partnership. Composer and clarinettist Arun Ghosh presents the London premiere of his St Francis of Assisi-inspired Canticle of the Sun, Inner City Brass give the premiere of a new work by composer, trombonist and big band arranger Callum Au, and composer Neil Luck and filmmaker Hydar Dewachi are collaborating on the premiere of The Melting Ceremony. Soprano Juliet Fraser will collaborate with the Talea Ensemble live streamed directly from New York City to premiere Laura Bowler's Distance. George Barton, Siwan Rhys and Mira Benjamin will perform a concert celebrating composer Barbara Monk Feldman’s minimalist masterpieces.

The festival ends with a concert from Voces8 alongside the TUKS Camerata, a student choir from the University of Pretoria.

Full details from the festival website.

Magical places: Sam Cave's Refracted Resonance explores contemporary music for classical guitar

Refracted Resonance: Tristan Murail, George Holloway, Christopher Fox, Horaţiu Rădulescu, Sam Cave; Sam Cave; Metier
(★★★★½) Reviewed 18 May 2022

A rather magical disc in which classical guitarist and composer Sam Cave presents music by five contemporary composers that takes the guitar to some evocative and aetherial places

This disc from guitarist Sam Cave, Refracted Resonance on metier, features six contemporary works for classical guitar, each of which explores, in a different way, the possibilities of sound and texture that the instrument can offer. So we have Tristan Murail's Tellur, George Holloway's Guitar Sonata and Second Guitar Sonata, Christopher Fox's Chile, Horaţiu Rădulescu's Subconscious Wave and Sam Cave's own Refracted Meditations III.

Cave begins his introductory note in the CD booklet with a quotation from Julian Bream, made in a 1976 BBC documentary, "…plucked sound has a remarkable quality because the actual pluck is the apex of the sound, and thereafter it dies, and if you are playing a phrase of six or seven notes you are actually dealing with six or seven births and six or seven deaths….the excitement is also in the space between the notes and therein lies the poetry of plucked sound…". And it is this concept, these concepts that are embodied in much of the music here.

Lewes Chamber Music Festival

Celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, the Lewes Chamber Music Festival brings together a group of musicians to perform chamber music at a variety of venues in Lewes over a weekend, this year from 9 to 11 June 2022. 

For its artists, the festival brings together a mixture of professional musicians, those at the start of their career, and several who may still be studying, and this year's line up is Beatrice Philips - violin and Artistic Director, Bengt Forsberg - piano, Adam Newman - viola, Alasdair Beatson - piano, Bogdan Božović - violin, Amy Norrington - cello, Lilli Maijala - viola, Vashti Hunter - cello, Tim Crawford - violin, Hannah Sloane - cello, Matt Hunt - clarinet, Mary Bevan - soprano, Hannah Shaw - viola, Venetia Jollands - violin, and the Eusebius Quartet. 

And the programme mixes the well-known and the lesser known so that alongside Elgar's Quartet and Piano Quintet there is Enescu's Octet and his Toccata from his Suite, plus Beethoven, Schubert including the Notturno, Quintet in C major, Brahms' Clarinet Quintet, and Fauré alongside music by Chausson, Lili Boulanger, Zemlinsky, Berg, Bliss, Kate Whitley and Jorg Widmann. And lots else besides.

Full details from the festival website.

Shining Shore: The Music of Early America

Shining Shore: The Music of Early America; Three Notch'd Road: The Virginia Baroque Ensemble
Reviewed 17 May 2022 (★★★★)

A delightful disc that explores the music of early America with its mixed and varied influences from songs from Vauxhall to shape-note singing

This lovely disc takes you to a world that is at once strange yet familiar. Three Notch'd Road: The Virginia Baroque Ensemble, performs the music of early America on Shining Shore. The disc features Steuart Pincombe (baroque cello), Michelle Pincombe (soprano), Peter Walker (vocalist, English guitar, cittern, Appalachian dulcimer, harp), Dominic Giardino (historical clarinet) and Fiona Hughes (artistic director, baroque violin, alto, harp) in music by Purcell, Handel, Jeremiah Ingalls, Thomas Baltzar, T. Ravenscroft, A Davisson, Oliver Shaw, Charles Thomas Carter, William Walker, and George Frederic Root. Some will be familiar names, but many will not.

Named for a colonial route through central Virginia, Three Notch’d Road: The Virginia Baroque Ensemble specializes in the performance of historical repertoires from both sides of the Atlantic. Shining Shore explores the group's own Virginia heritage, presenting music from the 17th to the 19th centuries that might have been heard in Virginia. In the booklet note they say that their purpose in making this recording was "to open to the listener beauties of a time and place far from our own, both strange and strangely familiar. " And of course, making the disc in 2020 meant that "these songs’ texts about mortality and hope held a deep significance for us."

Three Notch'd Road: The Virginia Baroque Ensemble

Classical music meets video art

Micro concerts - an initiative of Kent Nagano in cooperation with the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg and Staatsoper Hamburg. Tony Cooper reports

A series of micro concerts by the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg, conducted by Kent Nagano, explored new ways and methods of listening to music at the time of the world pandemic through video technology. Therefore, in cooperation with a team of international video artists, a cycle of five audio-visual concerts responded to the times of the crisis. Originally streamed by Radio France, the videos have now become available for on-line viewing on the channels of the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg and Staatsoper Hamburg.

Classical concert music and video art usually have few points of contact as visual broadcasts of orchestral concerts usually opt for a documentary format, the camera following the flow of the music showing performers, instruments and so forth in stark contrast to video technology in pop music which has enjoyed decades of evolution producing its own aesthetic forms. Therefore, in five compact micro concerts, each one lasting about 30 minutes, Kent Nagano, in association with Georges Delnon and the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg, have fused classical music and contemporary video art corresponding to the phases of the world pandemic over the past couple of years.

A formidable team of international video artists, chosen by Georges Delnon (artistic director of the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg and Staatsoper Hamburg) undertook the detailed task of visualising the programmes. The artists comprised Luis August Krawen, Jonas Englert, Zbig Rybczyński & Dorota Zglobicka, Kamila B. Richter & Michael Bielicky and Virgil Widrich. ‘We didn’t want to produce the nth streamed concerts,’ said Kent Nagano, ‘but offer viewers new images, leaving space for associative imagination’ while Georges Delnon, describing the project’s visual concept, had this to say: ‘Elements include avatars such as an animated Kent Nagano, distorted footage of the orchestra, webcam recordings and ‘‘found footage’’ thereby lending some of the music a completely new horizon for listeners and viewers alike.’

For Kent Nagano, the project was (and remains) close to his heart and it offered a chance to emphasise how important, relevant and necessary music can be in times of crisis: ‘The micro concerts are a kind of musical UFO,’ explained Maestro Nagano, ‘not resembling any known project. Each concert transports a message and tells a story showing how deeply music is rooted in society today, a special project, modern in structure and form, that could only have happened during the pandemic. In fact, the visualisation makes each micro concert a real creation.’

Overall, there was a total of 25 works recorded including music by Widmann, Schumann, Beethoven, Bach, Villa-Lobos, Dutilleux and Xenakis. Kent Nagano and the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg were joined by such international performers as Klaus Florian Vogt who sang Mahler’s ‘Von der Jugend’ while Katharina Konradi, Jana Kurucová and Georg Nigl interpreted Ligeti’s avant-garde work ‘Nouvelles aventures’. Members of Staatsoper Hamburg comprised Hellen Kwon, Gabriele Rossmanith, Kristina Stanek, Kady Evanyshyn and Bernhard Hansky sang works by Bartók and Schoenberg while invited ensembles - Harvestehuder Kammerchor Hamburg and Rundfunkchor Berlin - were heard in pieces by Brahms and Schoenberg.

The micro concerts are available on-line (on demand) to 22 October 2022 via the orchestra's website, their YouTube channel, and the France Musique website.

The Ring Returns: Arcola Theatre's Grimeborn Festival celebrates opera from Monteverdi through to contemporary with some zarzuela thrown in

Wagner: Die Walküre - Bethan Langford, Elizabeth Karani, Katie Stevenson - Arcola Theatre's Grimeborn Festival at Hackney Empire in 2021 (Photo Alex Brenner)

Arcola Theatre's Grimeborn Festival returns this Summer for its 15th year, presenting fourteen operas and four new works, with the festival's productions of Wagner's Siegfried and Götterdämmerung completing its traversal of Wanger's Ring Cycle.

The festival opens with Ensemble OrQuesta's modern interpretation of Monteverdi's L’Incoronazione di Poppea. Then following the festival's productions of Das Rheingold in 2019 [see my review] and Die Walküre in 2021 [see my review], they return to the Hackney Empire for the final two episodes of the Ring Cycle in Jonathan Dove and Graham Vick's adaptation.

Thanks to Glyndebourne and the BBC Proms, this is rather turning into Ethel Smyth year (hurrah!) so it is delightful that Spectra Ensemble's 2018 production of Smyth's The Boatswain's Mate is returning to Grimeborn [see my review]. Other unusual repertoire includes The Cervantes Theatre in the UK première of Black, el payaso, Pablo Sorozobal's zarzuela which debuted in Spain in 1942, whilst Opera at Home are pairing Walton's The Bear with Daniel Felsenfeld's I decided...

New opera and work in progress includes John Michael Maloney's Sin the Musical from Dmii Productions, Kristina Arakelyan's Penelope (Work in Progress), What More? Production's mixture of Japanese and British Sign Language of Deaf performers in Sumida River and Red Gray & Sarah Nicholls' The Unravelling Fantasia of Miss H. which explores the Victorian mental health system.

Classic operas in the season include Bizet's Carmen in Leo Geyer's bold re-imagining for Baseless Fabric Theatre, Mozart's The Magic Flute in Lindsay Bramley's version for Opera Alegria, Gilbert & Sullivan's HMS Pinafore in a radical rethink from Emma Jude Harris, Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle from environmentally sustainable opera company Green Opera.

The Grimeborn Festival runs from 26 July to 10 September at the Arcola Theatre and the Hackney Empire. Full details from the Arcola Theatre website.

Launching ALPHA MISSION - ΔELOS & celebrating ARTE: EUYO's concert from Delos

Delos (Photo Tilo Krause)

On 30 May 2022, the European Youth Orchestra (EUYO) will be joined by soloists Diana Tishchenko (violin) and Sokratis Sinopoulos (lyra), plus Ukrainian and Russian musicians for a concert including Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, Carmen Fizzarotti's Floating Autumn from The [uncertain] Four Seasons and Marshall Marcus' 17 Strokes of the Bell for Peace and Sustainability. The venue for the concert is the Greek island of Delos. 

The event is part of  EUYO’s Peace in Europe project 2022 of seven peace concerts across Europe, and represents the inauguration of ALPHA MISSION - ΔELOS, an initiative that aims through the combined strengths of Mythology, Art and Space Technology to raise awareness globally about the urgent need for the regeneration of our planet.

The concert will be live-streamed on ARTE, on the social-media platforms of various cultural and technological institutions, and projected onto big screens in various cities around the world. It will be available on arte.tv from 30th May until end of August. The event also celebrates the 30th anniversary of ARTE, the European cultural channel.

The island of Delos, near Mykonos, near the centre of the Cyclades archipelago, was a holy sanctuary for a millennium before Olympian Greek mythology made it the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis, thus giving the island supreme importance. Changes of trade routes during the Roman era meant that that the island declined, however, and it was abandoned in the 8th Century AD. Currently it has around two dozen inhabitants, and the concert would seem to be the first such event on the island since ancient times.

Full details from the EUYO website.

The lakeside theatre returns: I chat to Kirsty Hopkins, artistic director of West Green House Opera, about the company's plans

The lake stage at West Green House Opera in 2021

In 2020, in response to the pandemic and the season of cancelled operas West Green House Opera decided to make the most of their assets and organise a season of concerts at an outdoor stage with the audience able to picnic in the gardens. Last year the company continued in this vein with an enchanting lakeside theatre, which is due to return this year for a season that includes productions of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro and Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore. I recently met up with the festival's artistic director, Kirsty Hopkins to chat about the season and longer term plans.

Kirsty is perhaps best known as a long time member of The Sixteen and she remains firmly with the ensemble but her links to West Green House Opera go a long way back as she has sung in various events there, whilst her parents are staunch supporters of the company. A couple of years back, finding the combination of family life (Kirsty has a teenage daughter) and touring rather taxing, she decided to look for a second string to her bow.

West Green House Opera was created by Marylyn Abbott, whose resurrection of West Green's house and garden following the IRA bombing has been near miraculous. Marylyn remains firmly in harness but back in 2019/20 she was looking for someone to assist with marketing and administration. Marylyn and Kirsty's paths crossed at a dinner party and Kirsty started to assist with planning the 2020 season. Faced with pandemic cancellations, the company was able to use advance ticket sales to pay the artists something, but it did rather leave coffers dry.

Marylyn asked Kirsty to fix the 2020 concert series and these proved so popular that they continue. Come Autumn 2020, the question was what to do next year?

Voices from the East: Kirill Karabits and Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra turn their focus onto composers from Ukraine

Feodor Akimenko [Fedir Yakymenko]

With his Voices from the East series at Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (BSO), conductor Kirill Karabits has been exploring works by composers from former Soviet Union countries. For the orchestra's recently announced 2022/23 season, the focus turns to Ukraine. Karabits and BSO will be performing the cello concerto by Ukrainian composer Feodor Akimenko (1876-1945) [Fedir Yakymenko]. Akimenko was a student of Rimsky-Korsakov and was Stravinsky's first composition teacher, but Akimento's own music is still largely unknown. A second Ukrainian composer featured in the season is contemporary composer and sound-artist Anna Korsun, the orchestra will be premiering a new work and Korsun becomes the BSO's composer in residence in 2023.

Still focusing on Voices from the East, the season also includes several works by Reinhold Glière (1875-1956). Born in Kyiv, Ukraine of Polish and German parents, Glière [originally Glier] studied in Kyiv and in Moscow with Taneyev, Ippolitov Ivanov and Arensky. As a young man, Glière's private pupils included Myaskovsky and Prokofiev, and later his students included Vladimir Dukelsky (better known as the song-writer Vernon Duke). After 1917, Glière never visited Western Europe and also seemed to have been able to keep on the right side of the Soviet authorities. His style remained very tradition, and as the last genuine representative of the pre-revolutionary national Russian school, i.e. a 'living classic', Glière seemed immune to the standard reproach of "formalism" (mostly equivalent to "modernity" or "bourgeois decadence"). Thus the infamous events of 1936 and 1948 passed Glière by. 

Other highlights of the season include horn player Felix Klieser returning as artist in residence, whilst two inclusive ensembles BSO Resound and RNS Moves join forces with composer Kate Whitley for a new work. RS Moves brings together disabled and non-disabled musicians including members of Royal Northern Sinfonia, and BSO Resound is a professional disabled-led ensemble made up of musicians led by James Rose.

Kirill Karabits conducts 16 performances during the orchestra's season, whilst Mark Wigglesworth returns as principal guest conductor and the orchestra is currently looking for a new assistant conductor.

Full details from the BSO website.

A South American Journey

The newly rejuvenated Bath Festival Orchestra is returning to London on 16 June 2022 with a programme that will transport the audience at Kings Place to South America. Conducted by Peter Manning, the orchestra will be performing Villa Lobos' Guitar Concerto with soloist Ahmed Dickinson, Canciones Remotas by the Cuban composer Leo Brouwer, Serenade for Strings by the Venezulan pianist and composer Maria Teresa Carreno (1853-1917) and Ginastera's Concerto for Strings.

Villa Lobos' concerto was written in 1951, commissioned by the Spanish guitarist Andrés Segovia, who gave the world premiere in 1956. The work went through a few changes, originally written as a Fantasia concertante, with no cadenza, Villa Lobos later added a cadenza and changed the name to concerto. Maria Teresa Carreno was a Venezuelan born pianist and composer who trained in the USA and Paris. Edward MacDowell was one of her pupils for a time and both he and Amy Beach dedicated works to Carreno. 

Before the concert proper, there is a chance for young performers to shine. Members of Bath Festival Orchestra have been working with students from East London's Bobby Moore Academy for outreach activities, working to create the first orchestra in the school's history as well as giving a joint monthly lunchtime concert series at St Mary Le Strand Church. On 16 June, the school students will perform Villa Lobos' Bachianas Brasilias No. 2 ‘The Little Train of the Caipira’ arranged by Bobby Moore Academy’s Musician-in-Residence, Harry Baker.

Full details from the orchestra's website.

The TRUMPETS shall sound! FANFARE 250 for the Fine City of Norwich

National Youth Jazz Orchestra

Norfolk & Norwich Festival opening weekend - FANFARE 250; James Batty, Cameron Biles-Liddell, Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade, Nneka Cummins, Misha Mullov-Abbado, Laurence Osborn, Alexander Paxton, Shruthi Rajasekar, Ayanna Witter-Johnson, Hermeto Pascoal; National Youth Jazz Orchestra, Jovino Santos Neto; Norwich
Reviewed: 13 May 2022 by Tony Cooper

The Norfolk & Norwich Festival opens with nine new Fanfares, a giant game of Dominoes and an evening collaboration between the National Youth Jazz Orchestra and Hermeto Pascoal

Over the course of the opening weekend of the Norfolk & Norwich Festival, 13 members of the National Youth Jazz Orchestra (NYJO) popped up in strategic locations round the fine city of Norwich to mark the festival’s 250th anniversary with a flourish of Fanfares written by a group of nine young and enterprising UK-based composers. Then in the evening the NYJO, directed by Jovino Santos Neto, were joined by Brazilian-born composer, arranger, multi-instrumentalist, Hermeto Pascoal at St Andrew's Hall. 

Interestingly, Fanfares enjoy a nice history as part of the old Norfolk & Norwich (Triennial) Festival, an initiative inaugurated in the early part of the 20th century by Sir Henry Wood, who held the position of artistic director of the ‘Triennial’ from 1908 to 1930. A good innings, for sure! Now the current artistic director of the festival, Daniel Brine, is reinstating the Fanfare event as part of the Festival 250. Good for him!

But I do recollect a Fanfare ‘revival’ to launch the 2014 festival when artists from the festival joined staff of corporate sponsor Abellio Greater Anglia (now National Express East Anglia) to perform a birthday cake candle-extinguishing Fanfare at Norwich Thorpe Station with William Galinsky (festival director) and Jonathan Denby (corporate affairs director of the railway company) in the thick of it blowing crazily to a short off-the-cuff piece of music appropriately entitled Blow! What else! Happily, Jonathan’s still in the thick of it today. Long may it continue!

But back to the present and this year a group of nine young and enterprising UK-based composers (the Chosen Nine) were commissioned by the festival to create a series of Fanfares to herald in this year’s event marking the festival’s glorious 250th anniversary while, at the same time, recapture some of the glory of yesteryear and past musical treats such as ‘Old Timber’ so dearly loved.

The festival’s young, bright and alert music programmer, James Hardie, set the Chosen Nine - James Batty, Cameron Biles-Liddell, Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade, Nneka Cummins, Misha Mullov-Abbado, Laurence Osborn, Alexander Paxton, Shruthi Rajasekar, Ayanna Witter-Johnson - a time limit of 60 seconds for their respective pieces. And their inspiration for writing them ranged from Indian-influenced music to music inspired by prehistoric Norfolk not forgetting, of course, the jazz idiom and other such musical forms.

Young Talent showcased in Welsh National Opera's Summer & Autumn productions

WNO Youth Opera in Brundibár in 2019 (Photo Johan Persson)

Welsh National Opera has a busy Summer planned for members of the company's Youth Opera, with two new productions, and participation in one of WNO's main stage productions.

WNO Youth Opera (10-18 years) will perform the creepy, comic opera, The Black Spider, written by composer Judith Weir, at the Weston Studio, Wales Millennium Centre. The production will be performed by a company of 50 singers aged 10 to 18, reuniting for their first live production since Brundibár in 2019. Based on Jeremias Gotthelf’s dark medieval tale Die Schwarze Spinn. Judith Weir created The Black Spider specifically for young people, combining, history, horror and comedy and the production will be directed by Rhian Hutchings and conducted by Dan Perkin.

WNO Youth Opera (18-25 years) will be presenting a new production of Shostakovich’s Cheryomushki, on the main stage of the Donald Gordon Theatre as part of WNO's Autumn Season. The work is a satirical, light-hearted operetta focuses on the housing shortage and the challenge of securing habitable conditions in 1950s Soviet Russia. It will be presented as Cherry Town, Moscow,  directed by Daisy Evans and conducted by Alice Farnham.

Will Todd's Migrations receives its premiere as part of WNO's Summer Season and returns as part of the Autumn Season. Directed by Sir David Pountney, the opera will feature the forces of WNO’s orchestra and Chorus combined with The Renewal Gospel Choir, Bollywood dancers and traditional Indian musicians, plus a children's chorus featuring members of WNO Youth Opera (10-14).

The young people of WNO’s Youth Opera gain a fully professional and unique training experience working with WNO’s orchestra, designers, stage managers and technicians, helping develop and support their professional skills. The aspiring singers also receive mentoring and guidance from top industry professionals.

More about WNO Youth Opera at the WNO website, plus details of performances.

Essex Summer Opera Festival launched by Wild Arts with new production of Mozart's Cosi fan tutte at Layer Marney Tower

Layer Marney Tower (photo Layer Marney Tower)

A new charity, Wild Arts, founded by conductor, composer and cellist Orlando Jopling, is presenting new opera festival in Essex. The Essex Summer Opera Festival is presenting its inaugural production of Mozart's Cosi fan tutte at the lovely Tudor mansion of Layer Marney Tower from 7 to 10 July 2022. The festival will present opera at close quarters, sung in English by an outstanding cast, and re-imagined for more intimate, accessible performances.

Cosi fan tutte will be presented by six singers and seven musicians, conducted by Orlando Jopling with a cast including Ella Taylor (who won second prize at the 2020 Kathleen Ferrier Awards), Martha Jones, Joanna Songi, Richard Dowling, Gareth Brynmor John, and Eddie Wade, directed by Poppy Burton-Morgan, founder of the theatre company Metta. The production will update the action to 1970s Cambridge University.

Performances will take place in Quintin’s Barn, an atmospheric 16th-century structure with excellent acoustics, fresh from extensive refurbishment enabled by the Government’s Culture Recovery Fund

Prior to the festival, Wild Arts is presenting a Summer tour of smaller venues in Essex, including a preview of the production.

The Festival is presented by Wild Arts, a new charity which seeks to bring world-class cultural experiences to under-served rural parts of the UK, working in harmony with the natural environment and involving local communities. Wild Arts was founded in 2022 by Jopling as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and the worrying impact of increasing social division and climate change.

Full details from the Wild Arts website.

Art and Music at the Sheffield Chamber Music Festival

Helen Grime & members of Ensemble 360 - Music in the Round's Sheffield Chamber Music Festival at the Crucible Studio Theatre

Art and Music: Huw Watkins, Helen Grime, John Cage, Debussy, Bach, Chopin; Ensemble 360; Music in the Round's Sheffield Chamber Music Festival at the Crucible Studio Theatre
Reviewed 14 May 2022 (★★★★)

A fascinating evening that combined music and image, mixing some fine music making with an exercise in thinking about creativity and inspiration.

For the second evening (Saturday 14 May 2022) of Music in the Round's Sheffield Chamber Music Festival at the Crucible Studio Theatre, Ensemble 360 (Tim Horton, piano, Lucy Gould, violin, Claudia Ajmone-Marsan, violin, Sara Wolstenholme, violin, Rachel Roberts viola, Gemma Rosefield, cello) explored Art and Music, performing pieces directly inspired by works of art. We heard music by Huw Watkins, Helen Grime (the guest curator of this year's festival), John Cage, Debussy, Chopin and JS Bach. Images were projected onto a screen, so that not only did we see the works of art that had inspired the music, but there was some exploration of the reverse with art inspired by music.

We began with Huw Watkins' piano solo Resurrection of the Soldiers from Four Spencer Pieces. The solo was directly inspired by the Stanley Spencer mural that fills the East (liturgical) wall of Sandham Memorial Chapel. Throughout the piece there was the tolling of a bell in the piano which seemed to link directly to Ravel's Le gibet, and for all the complexity of Watkins' harmony, there was a beautiful clarity of structure. His use of fugue highlighted many layers of inference; the structure echoed that of the painting, but there was the link to Bach and to the sacred too.

Vividly present playing & discreet virtuosity from Ensemble 360 at the launch of Music in the Round's 2022 Sheffield Chamber Music Festival

Dvorak: Piano Quintet - Ensemble 360 - Music in the Round's Sheffield Chamber Music Festival at Crucible Studio Theatre

Festival Launch - Janacek, Martinu, Anna Meredith, Dvorak; Ensemble 360; Music in the Round's Sheffield Chamber Music Festival at Crucible Studio Theatre
Reviewed 13 May 2022 (★★★★½)

Sheffield Chamber Music Festival launches with a largely Czech programme, showcasing the brilliant playing of Ensemble 360 in a series of unusual combinations with some vivid and very present playing

Music in the Round's Sheffield Chamber Music Festival (curated this year by composer Helen Grime) which takes place in the Crucible Studio Theatre, launched last night, Friday 13 May 2022, with a programme of largely Czech chamber music performed by members of Ensemble 360, the festival resident ensemble. So, we heard Janacek's Concertino, Martinu's Three Madrigals and Dvorak's Piano Quintet in A, Op.81, alongside Anna Meredith's Tripotage Miniatures, performed by Claire Wickes (flute), Rachael Clegg (oboe), Peter Sparks (clarinet), Sarah Burnett (bassoon), Naomi Atherton (horn), Tim Horton (piano), Kathy Gowers (violin), Claudia Ajmone-Marsan (violin), Rachel Roberts (viola), Gemma Rosefield (cello) and Daniel Storer (double bass).

Central to the festival's ethos is the space, the Crucible Studio Theatre, this is theatre in the round with the audience close to the performers on all four sides (sometimes alarmingly close). There is no front, the music is all around you and many audience members are close enough to touch the performers. This has the potential for being distracting, but last nights near capacity audience was more than attentive, no-one seemed to barely breathe such was the engagement with the music.

Unique in the Canadian cultural landscape: conductor Mark Vuorinen on the Elora Singers

Mark Vuorinen & the Elora Singers performing in the Barn at the Elora Festival

The Elora Singers might be described as one of Canada's best kept secrets. A professional choir with a long history, dating back over 40 years, they are known in the UK for the quality of their performances without ever quite getting the sort of name recognition they deserve. They first came to my attention in 2017, when composer Patrick Hawes talked about their performances and recording of his music [see my interview] They have a fine catalogue of recordings, the most recent of which was their Christmas disc, Radiant Dawn. I recently chatted to their conductor, Mark Vuorinen (via Zoom) to learn more about the choir.

The choir is based in Elora, a town in South-West Ontario some 120 km from Toronto. This makes them unique in the Canadian cultural landscape as most professional choirs are based in the cities. Elora is a picturesque riverside town with an historic gorge. 43 years ago, The Elora Singers were formed as the choir in residence at the Elora Festival, devoted mainly to choral music and church music, with performances from the Elora Singers and visiting choirs in and around Elora. The Elora Singers is at the centre of the festival with eight to twelve concerts in three weeks, both on their own and with collaborators.

Mark Vuorinen

The Earth Moves: The Tallis Scholars in Antoine Brumel and David Lang

The Tallis Scholars (Photo Nick Rutter)

The Earth Moves - Antoine Brumel, Nicolas Gombert, David Lang; The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips; Church of St Martin in the Fields
Reviewed 12 May 2022 (★★★★)

Pairing Brumel's astonishing Earthquake Mass with the UK premiere of David Lang's specially commissioned contemporary companion, to create a concert like no other

Missa Et ecce terræ motus by the Franco-Flemish composer Antoine Brumel (c.1460-c.1520), the so-called Earthquake Mass is one of those works that tends to be more talked about than performed, a work better known to singers than to audience members. It is somewhat sui generis, a 12-voice mass in which Brumel creates atmospheres and textures that are a long way from the densely worked polyphony of many of his contemporaries, in fact the work it most strongly resembles in terms of sound is Thomas Tallis' 40-part motet Spem in alium.

Peter Phillips and The Tallis Scholars performed Antoine Brumel's Missa Et ecce terræ motus at the church of St Martin in the Fields on Thursday 12 May 2022, pairing the work with the UK premiere of sun-centred by American composer David Lang (born 1957) which was commissioned by Phillips to go with the Brumel. The five movements of each work were interleaved, creating a single and striking whole.

A pupil of Josquin des Pres, Brumel is one of the few members of the Franco-Flemish school of composers who was actually French. He was fond of using canon in his masses, but apart from Missa Et ecce terræ motus all Brumel's other surviving masses are four-part. For Missa Et ecce terræ motus he took as his cantus firmus a fragment of plainchant from the Antiphon from the Lauds of Easter, 'And behold, there was a great earthquake: for the Angel of the Lord descended from heaven, alleluia'. This gave Brumel a motif that was hardly a melody at all. Creating a canon in three voices from it, stark and rather uninteresting harmonically, Brumel then surrounds this structure with extreme decoration. Philip Phillips describes it as being akin to Islamic art, 'static, non-representational, tirelessly inventive', but underneath there are those long notes of the basic canon, and this Brumel uses to give the work shape and structure.