Brahms Beloved - exploring the relationship between Brahms and Clara Schumann

This new disc from John Axelrod and  the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi on Telarc, tries to explore the relationship between Johannes Brahms and Clara Schumann. Axelrod conducts the orchestra in Brahms's Symphony No. 2  in D major, Op.73 and Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op.98. These are paired with performances of songs by Clara Schumann sung by Nicole Cabell and Indra Thomas accompanied by Axelrod on piano. The results are intriguing but don't quite make for a satisfying programme, though having 10 of Clara Schumann's songs on disc is an attractive prospect.

The relationship between Brahms and Clara Schumann is one that has continued to tantalised commentators. Fourteen years her junior, Brahms was a great emotional support in the period when Schumann attempted suicide, and after Schumann's death. Quite how close their relationship was, we probably will never know as both destroyed letters. Various theories have been put forward, including one that Brahms was attracted the Schumann's daughter. John Axelrod believes that Brahms had a madonna-whore complex.

The Clerks – Tales from Babel (Musical adventures in the science of hearing)

In collaboration with the Wellcome Trust and scientists from the University of Cambridge and the University of Nottingham, tonight’s (Friday 18 October 2013) performance by the Clerks at the Royal Academy of Music peered around the boundaries between science and music. Edward Wickham first became interested in what an audience hears when listening to polyphonic vocal music and together with Christopher Fox developed ‘Tales from Babel’ and ‘Roger go to yellow three...’ a modern investigation of the problem.

In Genesis there is the premise that all the people in the world originally spoke one language, but that after the great flood God saw that people in a new city with its tower were becoming too powerful. Consequently He decided to scatter them all over the earth, confusing language so that the different groups could no longer understand one another. From this point on the city was called ‘Babel’ meaning to jumble.

The European Music Campus - Youth, Music and Renewal at the Heart of Europe

European Union Youth Orchestra in Berlin, 2013

The European Union Youth Orchestra, in partnership with the Grafenegg Festival in Austria, has announced the launch of The European Music Campus. Starting in Summer 2014 this is promised to be an innovatory new centre for Europe's talented young musicians. Each year, the European Music Campus will run throughout the summer season as part of a new residency of the EUYO at Grafenegg, bringing great musicians and thinkers from around the world to Grafenegg to participate in a series of workshops, seminars, open rehearsals and performances, and establishing a landmark campus at the heart of Europe. The first sessions in Summer 2014 will see the European Union Youth Orchestra conducted by Semyon Bychkov.

The first edition of the European Music Campus will focus on Looking East in Europe, towards the former Soviet Union and to the countries which once seemed to be on the opposite side of Europe. Russian conductor Semyon Bychkov will conduct the European Union Youth Orchestra in Shostakovich's Symphony No. 4 as part of the summer festival and lead the Campus debate.

Angel Blue at Rosenblatt Recitals

Having impressed UK audiences in La Boheme (for ENO) and American Lulu (for the Opera Group/Scottish Opera), Californian soprano Angel Blue made her much anticipated recital debut at the Wigmore Hall for Rosenblatt Recitals on Monday  21 October 2013. Accompanied by pianist Catherine Miller, Angel Blue sang a programme which opened with the Alleluia from Mozart's Exsultate Jubilate, continued with songs by Richard Strauss and Sergei Rachmaninov, then moved into the opera arias by Gershwin, Chapi, Puccini, Wagner, Cilea, and Verdi.

Judging by her repertoire and recent roles (Musetta, Lulu, Lucia di Lammermoor, La Traviata ) I had assumed that Angel Blue would have a voice which was in the lyric/soubrette/coloratura range but not a bit. She has a bright, vibrant voice which is admirably even throughout the range including a fine upper extension and she combines easy facility and flexibility with remarkable power. This was a voice which, when she opened up, filled the Wigmore Hall. Her inclusion of Dich teure Halle from Wagner's Tannhäuser made complete sense in the context of her vocal capacity. And I certainly agree with those who have compared her to a young Leontyne Price.

Modern Times in Manchester

Charlie Chaplin's 1936 film Modern Times marked the last screen appearance of Chaplin's character the Little Tramp. It is also features Chaplin's largest and most sophisticated score; the film was released as a sound film but with no dialogue, even though talking pictures had been established for more than a decade. There is just Chaplin's music and sound effects. The film itself is a biting and darkly funny critique of the dehumanising effects of industrialisation.

In 1999 the composer Timothy Brock restored and reconstructed the score for live performance and on Saturday 26 October 2013 at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester there is a chance to see the film with the score performed live by the RNCM Symphony Orchestra conducted by Clark Rundell, head of conducting at the RNCM. Further information from the RNCM website.

Win tickets to hear Roderick Williams singing Brahms' 'Die schöne Magelone'

Title page from Die schön Magelona
Augsburg 1535

There is just one week left to enter our fabulous competition to win tickets for Roderick Williams and Julius Drake's recital on 14 November, when they will be performing Brahms's only song cycle Die schöne Magelone in the historic Temple Church. The cycle sets 15 poems from a novella by Ludwig Tieck, loosely based on a medieval story of courtly love, the poems inspired Brahms to created some of his most intense love songs. We don't get to hear the work often enough and Williams performance promises to be a notable occasion.

Make sure you enter before the competition closes at midnight on 26 October, see our competition page for full details of how to enter.

The Songmen - Demonstrating Versatility

The Songmen is an ensemble of six young male singers in an a cappella group, one of a number such taking the Kings Singers as models. The Songmen's repertoire mixes modern takes on popular standards with items from the choral canon. Their first two discs showcase both these talents. Midnight is full of a cappella takes on cool jazz and popular classics with a lot of beat-box and doo-wop style accompaniment. Whilst A Sacred Place consists of the sort of repertoire that many of the singers will be familiar with from their training as Cathedral songmen.

Midnight opens with Mr Bojangles (Walker) arranged by Guy Lewis, one of the group's counter-tenors. The singers are quite closely recorded, but they give the song a lovely relaxed feel, albeit with some nicely on-sync rhythms. This is a very polished performance, and the song has a very contemporary feel with beat-box style percussive accompaniment. Something which seems a speciality of the group and crops up on a number of tracks.

Corinne Morris: Macedonian Sessions

British/French cellist Corinne Morris trained at both the Royal College of Music and the Paris Conservatoire, doing a post-graduate degree at the University of Music in Austria. But a promising career was cut short by a debilitating shoulder injury. After a gap of five years, treatment from the field of sports medicine has enable her to pick up her career. This new disc, recorded with Philip Hesketh and the Macedonian Radio Symphony Orchestra shows her picking up the threads of her career. On the disc she performs a mixture of shorter classics from the concertante cello repertoire along with lesser known pieces, including Bruch's Kol Nidrei Op.14, Saint Saen's Allegro Appasionato Op.43, Tchaikovsky's Nocturne Op.19 No.4, Woldemar Bargiel's Adagio Op.38, Tchaikovsky's Andante Cantabile Op.14, John Williams' Theme from Schindler's List, her own Un Ultime Volte, Faure's Elegie Op.24, Massenet's Meditation from Thais, Piazolla's Oblivion and Falla's Ritual Fire Dance.

Morris opens with the longest piece on the disc, Max Bruch's Kol Nidrei, his 1881 work based on Hebrew melodies. Morris displays a lovely singing line and fine grained tone. The bring a rich chestnut sound to the lower register and performs the work with elegant style and gentle melancholy. There is a good dialogue between soloist and orchestra and the recording rather made me wish to hear Morris performing the Dvorak Cello Concerto.

Autumn Music at the Temple: Sacconi Quartet

The Sacconi Quartet
Picture credit David Merewether

The Sacconi String Quartet played last night (Tuesday 15 October) at the Temple church just outside the city of London. The Temple church was built in the 12^th century by the Knights Templar, a medieval military order of monks whose duty was to protect pilgrims during the crusades. They built several churches and castles across Europe and the Middle East, as well as the Temple church, and it is the basic design of a round church (echoing the circular Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem), and its attendant chancel, which gives the building its amazing acoustic today.

The quartets programme reflected two composer centenaries, as they played Verdi's String Quartet paired with Puccini's Crisantemi, and Britten's Second String Quartet paired with Purcell's Chaconne.

New Music North West

The Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) and the University of Manchester are presenting New Music North West, the UK's largest festival of new British music, from 26 October to 2 November. The week-long festival takes place mainly at the RNCM and at the university's Martin Harris Centre. There is the opportunity to hear groups such as the BBC Philharmonic, Psappha, Ensemble 10/10 and the House of Bedlam and the Liverpool-born composer Edwin Roxburgh features heavily. The festival includes over 10 world premieres and 24 of the concerts are free.

For the opening weekend MANTIS (Manchester Theatre in Sound) will be presenting a weekend of electro-acoustic concerts.  Works which received their premiere at the RNCM's Sound Histories event at the British Museum in July this year will be receiving their Manchester premieres on the RNCM concourse.

Viktoria Mullova, Ottavio Dantone and Accademia Bizantina in Bach

Viktoria Mullova recently released a disc of Bach violin concertos with Ottavio Dantone and Accademia Bizantina (see my review), and now she and the group brought a programme of four Bach concertos to the Wigmore Hall. On Friday 18 October Viktoria Mullova was the soloist, accompanied by Accademia Bizantina directed from the harpsichord by Ottavio Dantone, in Bach's Concerto in A minor for vioolin BWV1041 and Concerto in D for violin BWV1042, plus two of Dantone's transcriptions Concerto in C minor for violin and harpsichord (transcription of BWV1060) and Concerto in D for violin (transcription of BWV1053). A packed Wigmore Hall audience were all very eager to hear Mullova's particular clean-limbed Bach in live performance.

These were small scale performances, with a total of seven performers in all, just Mullova plus single violins, viola, cello and double bass with Dantone on harpsichord. But Mullova was very much part of the ensemble, these were performances notable for the collegiality with Mullova primus inter pares. All played standing, with Mullova playing in the tuttis and leading the players by example.

First look: Les Vepres Siciliennes at Covent Garden

Erwin Schrott and dancers in Les Vepres Siciliennes
(c) ROH/Bill Cooper 2013

The Royal Opera House brought its celebrations of the Verdi bicentenary to a close with its first production of Verdi's Les Vepres Siciliennes, thankfully performed in its original French version. The opera was Verdi's first custom build opera for the Paris Opera (it was preceded by Jerusalem which was a re-write of I Lombardi). Les Vepres Siciliennes was based on a rather hoary old libretto, originally written for Donizetti in the 1830's.  It is an uneasy backward glance at Parisian grand opera, in five-acts with a ballet and with an interaction between the historical and the personal, but the plot rather runs out of steam towards the end and Verdi would re-visit the genre far more successfully in Don Carlos.

Director Stefan Herheim, working at Covent Garden for the first time, brought his famously historical approach to bear on the opera. Working with his regular collaborator dramaturg Alexander Meier-Dorzenbach, with set designs by Philipp Fürhofer and costumes by Geine Völlm, Herheim set the piece within a theatre during the period of the opera's composition.  There was a strong cast, including Lianna Haroutounian as Helen, Michael Volle as Guy de Montfort, Bryan Hymel as Henri and Erwin Schrott as Jean Procida with Antonio Pappano conducting.

I will be reviewing a later performance of the opera in detail, but one of Planet Hugill's other contributors attended the first night on 17 October 2013 and this first look is based on his report.

City Music Foundation Showcase Concert 2013

The City Music Foundation Award winners 2013
with Sir Richard Stilgoe and Director of CMF, Lizzie Allen

The City Music Foundation is a new initiative intended to support musicians as they launch their professional careers, providing performance opportunities, mentoring, marketing and technical advice.  The foundation brings together expertise from the City of London's music and arts community, including the Barbican Arts Centre, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the London Symphony Orchestra, the City of London Festival and the Worshipful Company of Musicians, all based within the square mile of the city. During 2013 the foundation is the main beneficiary of the City of London's Lord Mayor's Appeal and through this they have created eight City Music Foundations artists. These are young performers at the start of their career who have been chosen not just for their musical excellence but because they will be able to benefit from the advice and opportunities that the City Music Foundation will be able to give.

Mikhail Nemtsov, cello - award winner 2013

On Thursday 17 October the initiative was launched with a showcase concert in the Guildhall School of Music and Drama's new Milton Court concert hall with all eight of the artists (six solo artists and two groups) performing, with Sir Richard Stilgoe as master of ceremonies. The City of Music Foundation artists for 2013 are Miriam Nerval (recorder), Claire Iselin (harp), Mari Poll (violin), Bridie Jackson and the Arbour (folk group), Alastair Penman (saxophone), Cordelia Williams (piano), Mikhail Nemtsov (cello) and Tir Eolas (folk group).

ETO's Laika the Spacedog wins two Best Production awards at international opera festival

English Touring Opera's opera for young people Laika the Spacedog (which I reviewed in January 2013) has won two awards at the Armel Opera Competition, part of the Armel Opera Festival in Szeged, Hungary. In a remarkable feat for an opera made for Primary Schools, the opera won the International Jury Prize for Best Production and the University of Szeged prize for Best Production. In winning the International Jury Prize for Best Production the production saw off competition from productions of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex, Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra and Britten’s The Turn of the Screw; the first ever British opera and the first opera for children to win the Armel Opera Competition’s prize for Best Production. (Follow the Read more link to see a video of the performance).

London International A Cappella Choir Competition

Choirs have until the 31 October 2013 to enter the first round of the inaugural London International A Cappella Choir Competition. The competition will bring together 16 choirs from around the world in a series of public concerts at St John's Smith Square. The competition, from 21 to 26 April 2014 celebrates Sir John Taverner's 70th birthday and is organised in association with Peter Phillips and the Tallis Scholars. Peter Phillips will be chairing the jury.

The competition is open to any a cappella choir of at least 16 voices. Initially the choir must fill in an application form (available from the St Johns Smith Square website) and provide two recent recordings. The full application must be completed by 31 October 2013. Those selected will then perform in one of the preliminary rounds (22-25 April 2014) in a programme lasting 25 minutes. Those selected for the final perform a 30 minute programme each on 26 April 2014.

Further information from the St Johns Smith Square website.

Ludwig Thuille: Songs

Rarely do I find myself discovering music that is entirely new to me. But Ludwig Thuille (1861 - 1907), the composer of these lovely songs, was a name that was unfamiliar. An older contemporary of Richard Strauss's, his music seems to have dropped out of circulation; so much so, that his Lieder are not in print at the moment. On this disc Sophie Bevan, Mary Bevan and Jennifer Johnston sing a selection of Thuille's lieder accompanied by Joseph Middleton.

Thuille was born in Bozen, part of the Tyrol when Thuille was born but now part of Italy. He studied first in Innsbruck, where he met Richard Strauss who became a life-long friend and then with Josef Rheinberger in Munich. It was in Munich that he made his second home, forming what became known as the Munich school with Strauss and with Max Schillings. It is puzzling why Thuille's songs have not remained in currency, Joseph Middleton's excellent article in the CD booklet offers no illumination here, but perhaps Thuille's early death in 1907 at the age of 46 rather contributed to it.

Whilst the voice of Richard Strauss can inevitably be heard in the songs, there are also other influences notable amongst them being Robert Schumann for whose work Thuille had a great love. He remained a fairly conservative composer and the songs on this disc never achieve the daring that some of Strauss's do. But Thuille remains and interesting voice, and a neglected strand in the history of the German lied.

Stunning versatility - the BBC Singers at Milton Court

David Hill conducts the BBC Singers and Endymion
in Steve Reich’s The Desert Music at Milton Court Concert Hall
Copyright: BBC/ Sarah Jeynes

The BBC Singers opened their 2013/14 season with a concert in the new concert hall at the Guildhall School of Music's Milton Court. David Hill conducted the choir in a programme of 20th century American works. They were joined by mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnston for Copland's In The Beginning, then the choir sang Eric Whitacre's Three Songs of Faith, Water Night and Sleep, finally the choir was joined by the instrumental ensemble Endymion for Steve Reich's The Desert Music.

The hall is a classic shoebox style venue, clad mainly in warm wood but with some striking 1950's style plasterwork decoration on the side walls. In fact, there is something rather 1950's about the whole of the styling of the hall. The ceiling of the hall is strikingly high and there are wooden reflectors suspended from it, adjustable to provide for differences in acoustic. The main body of the hall is not very steeply raked and I was sure about sight lines.

Eaton Square Concerts

The Eaton Square Concerts series continues on 17 October 2013, with a recital by pianist Tom Poster who plays music by Schubert, Beethoven and Chopin plus a selection of Gershwin songs and the Shrovetide Fair from Stravinsky's Petrushka. 

Then on 24 October, the Vasari Singers and conductor Jeremy Backhouse perform Allegri's Miserer, James MacMillan's Miserere, Parry's Songs of Farewell plus Gabriel Jackson's Requiem which was commissioned by the choir. On 7 November, the Trusler Carroll Wass Trio -  violinists Matthew Trusler, cellist Thomas Carroll and pianist Ashley Wass - perform Copland's VItebsk, Mendelssohn's Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor and Ravel's Piano Trio. There is more chamber music on 14 November when students from the Royal Academy of Music's wind and string departments performing chamber music. The programme includes Nielsen's Wind Quintet, Rossini's rather virtuosic Duetto for Cello and Double Bass and Brahms's Clarinet Quintet.  

Further information from the Eaton Square Concerts website.

Spitalfields Winter Festival

The Spitalfields Winter Festival runs from 6 to 17 December 2013 and presents a delectable series of offerings ranging from Britten and Handel to early plainchant and Perotin, with celebrations of Britten's centenary, and the Hilliard Ensemble's 40th anniversary. William Whitehouse's Orgelbuchlein project appears in the initmate surrounds of St. Peter's Ad Vincula in the Tower and there is even a musical feast!

Adrian Chandler and La Serenissima are bringing the Tale of Two Seasons programme which looks at two different years in Vivaldi's life and the way that his operatic and concerto work intermingled. (6/12). There is a chance to hear Bach's Orgelbuchlein in the intimate surroundings of the Chapel Royal in the Tower, with Bach's music played alongside contemporary works by  Guy-Oliver Ferla, Vincent Paulet, Roxanna Panufnik, David Coonan, Francis Pott, plus music for voice and lute from Tim Travers-Brown and David Miller. (7/12)

Opera on to film - an encounter with Ian Russell

Lise Lindstrom as Turandot, Royal Opera House

Ian Russell is the film director who turned the Royal Opera House's recent performance of Puccini's Turandot into live cinema. Having seen performances both in the theatre and in the cinema, I was interested to learn more about what goes into creating a live film of an operatic performance, so I met up with Ian to talk about creating films of opera and what it takes to make a good one. Ian is the founder of the company Sparkly Light and has been responsible for the most memorable television broadcasts of the last two decades.

Ian Russell

For Ian the most important feature of a film of a live opera performance is to deliver what the audience wants to see. Subconsciously we don't want anything between us and the essential theatre of the story, we don't want to notice the extraordinary camera work, this would only add to the tension. One of the impressive things about Ian's film of Turandot was how he got this right, allowing the cameras to dwell just where we wanted them to be.

Opera is a multi-layered art: with the music you can enjoy it without understanding a word. When you add a layer of pictures, the language is still universal but there are more dialects. And when filming opera there is a world of a difference between making a film, where the film director is in complete control of all creative aspects and filming a theatrical performance. Here you are covering someone else's creative work and Ian feels you need to understand it and reflect this creative work on the screen.