Celebrating 10 years - Wimbledon International Music Festival

This year's Wimbledon International Music Festival celebrates the festival's 10th anniversary. Running from 10-25 November 2018, the festival includes visits from Imogen Cooper, the Takacs Quartet, the Brodsky Quartet, Williard White and Peter Donohoe. The festival was founded, and is still directed by Anthony Wilkinson and this year they will be presenting one of the films which Anthony directed, The Music of Exile, on the life and music of Martinu with a narration written by writer and composer Anthony Burgess.

Chamber music is a strong feature of this year's festival. Things open with the Brodsky Quartet in Haydn's Seven Last Words, inerwoven with sitar and tabla meditations from Roppa Panesar (sitar) and Gurdain Rayatt (tabla), and Gesualdo's Responsories sung by Tenebrae Consort. The Chineke! Ensemble will be bringing a programme of chamber music which includes works by two black musicians, the 18th century Guadaloupe-born French composer Chevalier de Saint-George and the English composer (and pupil of Stanford) Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, alongside Beethoven's Septet, whilst the Takacs Quartet brings a programme of Mozart' Bartok and Brahms. The Dante Quartet will be performing four Beethoven late quartetes and the Grosse Fuge across two concerts in one day.

Willard White will be joining the Brodsky Quartete for a programme which includes songs by Gershwin, Copland, Britten, Kern, Johnny Mercer and Frank Sinatra. And Matthew Best conducts the Academy Choir and Baroque Players in Handel's Messiah with Rowan Pierce, David Alsopp, James Gilchrist and James Newby. The festival ends with Robin O'Neill conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra in a programme of Webern, Schumann and Beethoven.

Full details from the Wimbledon International Music Festival website.

Telling tales - Cheryl Frances Hoad's Magic Lantern Tales from Champs Hill

Cheryl Frances Hoad Magic Lantern Tales; Champs Hill Records Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 5 November 2018 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
Engagingly diverse selection of songs from Cheryl Frances Hoad, showcasing some powerful emotions and striking textures

This new disc, on the Champs Hill label, gives us a selection of entrancing songs by Cheryl Frances Hoad performed by tenor Nicky Spence, pianist Sholto Kynoch, soprano Verity Wingate, mezzo-soprano Sinead O'Kelly, counter-tenor Collin Shay, Philip Smith baritone, Beth Higham-Edwards vibraphone, Anna Menzies cello, Anna Huntley mezzo-soprano, Alisdair Hogarth piano, Sophie Daneman soprano, Mark Stone piano, Edward Nieland treble, Natalie Raybould soprano, George Jackson conductor. Between them these performers give us Magic Lantern Tales, Star Falling, Blurry Bagatelle, A song incomplete, Love Bytes, Lament, Invoke now the Angles, The Thought Machine and Scenes from Autistic Bedtimes.

We start with songs based on Ian McMillan's poems which were written in response to interviews and documentary photographs by Ian Beesley, who was Artist-in-Residence at the Moor Psychiatric Hospital in Lancaster. The poems tell the stories of three elderly people interviewed by Beesley, telling the stories from the First World War. We start and finish with a poem about the stories, and then have three narratives, three very different points of view. Nicky Spence gives a terrific performance, really bringing the songs and the people alive, making the words very powerful. Frances Hoad's opening song (repeated in the closing) is rather folk-ish in feel with the spare piano part evoking the pipes. Then the three tales are beautifully told, strong story-telling with a spare piano accompaniment, folk and World War One songs being influences. Such was the enchantment worked by Spence, Kynoch and Frances Hoad, that I did not want the piece to end.

Lincolnshire Remembers: Britten's War Requiem in Lincoln

Britten: War Requiem - Lincoln Cathedral (Photo Phil Crow)

Britten War Requiem; Lincoln Cathedral Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 3 November 2018 Britten's War Requiem in Lincoln Cathedral, given by performers from across the county

On Saturday 3 November 2018 we were in Lincoln Cathedral to hear Benjamin Britten's War Requiem in the cathedral. Under the title Lincolnshire Remembers, it was very much a communal event. Mark Wilde (who lectures in music at Lincoln University and  sings in Lincoln Cathedral Choir) conducted the Lincolnshire Chamber Orchestra (Augmented) with a choir made up of Lincoln Choral Society, Gainsborough Choral Society, Grimsby Philharmonic Society, Louth Choral Society, Philharmonischer Chor Liedertafel Neustadt, and Scunthorpe and District Choral Society, whilst Susan Hollingworth conducted the chamber ensemble made up of members of Lincolnshire Chamber Orchestra, and Aric Prentice conducted trebles from the choir of Lincoln Cathedral, with soloists Rachel Nicholls (soprano), Alessandro Fisher (tenor) and Julien Van Mellaerts (baritone). The result was around 380 choristers and 120 orchestra in the nave of the cathedral.

There is something about the way that Britten articulates his forces, tenor and baritone soloists at the front with the chamber ensemble, large chorus and orchestra with the soprano soloist (here stood in the pulpit) and trebles singing unseen in the distance with the organ (here in the choir stalls behind the screen), that responds to the amplitude of space and acoustic in a large cathedral  in way which does not happen with a concert hall performance. The result had a large element of drama which made the concert work come alive vividly.

Of course there is another element in this structural organisation too, the work was written for a Russian soprano, an English tenor (who had been a pacifist in World War Two) and a German baritone (who had been in the Hitler youth and was reluctantly drafted into the Wehrmacht aged 18). But such is Britten's genius, that the work is far greater than these specifics, and works its magic whoever the performers are.

Childean and Latin American Voices

Voces Festival, the Second Festival of Chilean & Latin American Voices in Great Britain will take place from Friday 9 November to Sunday 11 November 2018 at the Lyric Hammersmith, London, W6 0QL, three days of celebrations of the remarkable impact of Chilean and other Latin American musicians, poets and artists based in the United Kingdom and those with whom they collaborate. 

On Saturday evening the Voces Youth Ensemble, which is made up of young musicians pursuing careers in music as soloists and chamber musicians, will perform music by Mauricio Venegas-Astorga in a programme inspired by the poetry of Gabriela Mistral. This will be followed by Musiko Musika’s ECCO youth orchestra in a programme of world music reflecting the influence of Latin American music and culture on the group's development.

The final festival concert features musicians from the Chilean and Latin American community in the UK and their collaborators, including Mauricio Venegas-Astorga's Anglo-Chilean band Quimantu, soprano Patricia Rozario, Mark Troop, Gambian Griot Musa Mboob, Tony Corden and Alejandro Reyes (former member of the iconic group Cuncumén), and Daniel y Juan Jiménez.

Full details from the Lyric Hamersmith website.

Enjoying the musicianship: Josquin masses from The Tallis Scholars

Josquin Missa Gaudeamus, Missa l'ami Baudichon; The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips; Gimell  
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 1 November 2018 
Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
Two contrasting masses from the great Renaissance composer in beautifully sung accounts

Despite the prestige of his music during and after his lifetime, we know so very little about the composer Josquin. So we must appreciate his masses for themselves, rather than worrying about how they fit into his musical life.

On this new disc from Peter Phillips and The Tallis Scholars on Gimell, there are two wonderfully contrasting masses Missa Gaudeamus and Missa l'ami Baudichon. And in fact, the contrast between the masses illustrates the sheer virtuosity of Josquin's style.

Pimlico Opera goes back to prison

Robin Bailey as Jean Valjean in Pimlico Opera's production of
Les Misérables at HMP Highdown in 2017 (Photo Richard Lewisohn)

Later this month Wasfi Kani's Pimlico Opera will be presenting a run of performances of the musical Sweet Charity (music by Cy Coleman, lyrics by Dorothy Fields, book by Neil Simon) in HMP Bronzefield, Ashfield, Surrey. The performers, apart from leads such as Charity (played by Laura Pitt-Pulford), are mainly women residents. Pimlico Opera has been presenting shows in prisons since 1991, and during that time it has presented 22 shows, more than 50,000 members of the public been taken into prison to see a show, the company has worked with more than 1,000 prisoners and over 10,000 prisoners have seen a show.

The project at HMP Bronzefield is an opportunity for the participants to cultivate a sense of meaning and understanding of their past behaviours and for their families to see them in a positive context and be proud of them, and their families will play a key role in their rehabilitation. Ian Whiteside, HMP Bronzefield director, said: “Staging this event with Pimlico Opera is an excellent way to develop offenders’ interpersonal skills, their discipline, their teamworking skills and build their confidence, ultimately giving them the best chance of finding employment upon release.”

For each project, Pimlico Opera goes into the prison for five weeks, rehearsing with the prisoners full time. Most have never acted before, or been inside a theatre. The Pimlico Opera team (with a professional director, a few professional singers, a core professional backstage team) support them as they learn their roles, improve vocal technique and develop their stagecraft in time for opening night. The company gives several performances for members of the public, along with performances for prison staff and for fellow prisoners.

You might be wondering whether we can afford what might be perceived as luxuries in our hard-pressed prison service, but Wasfi Kani comments "The debate about the purpose of prison and whether it can reduce re-offending is rarely out of the news. A New Philanthropy Capital survey shows re-offending costs the taxpayer approximately £13.5 billion a year and that engaging prisoners in arts projects could halve this. Pimlico Opera aims to unlock talent, instil confidence and show the participants that they can think differently about themselves and their future. Moreover, the paying public who see these shows is astonished by the talent on display."

Pimlico Opera's first ever performance in 1991, in Wormwood Scrubs, included The Observer's music critic Fiona Maddocks in the cast, and she wrote an illuminating article in The Guardian in 2009, well worth a read.

Sweet Charity is at HMP Bronzefield from 9 November 2018, further information from the Pimlico Opera website, ticket booking view the Grange Park Opera website.

Meet me at the maze

Polly Apfelbaum at Ikon Gallery

New York-based artist Polly Apfelbaum's exhibition, Waiting for the UFOs (a space set between a landscape and a bunch of flowers) is on at Ikon Gallery in Birmingham and on Friday 9 November 2018, the vocal ensemble echo is giving a performance at the gallery in response to Apfelbaum's work. Meet you in the Maze is inspired by Apfelbaum's artistic practice; her work features large-scale colourful installations of textiles, ceramics and drawings and the concert's theme stems from Apfelbaum’s statement that, when creating her work, she often follows where her materials lead her.

The ensemble has selected pieces of music from across nine centuries which resonate with Apfelbaum’s artistic practice, including Meredith Monk's The Games, Steve Reich's famous Clapping Music, an arrangement of James Blake's Meet you in the maze, and music by Arvo Part, Dufay, Hildegard of Bingen, and many more.

The concert will be a promenade, taking performers and audience through the exhibition combining music with Apfelbaum's work to create a unique experience.

Full details from the Ikon Gallery website.

Brushing away cynicism: Philippe Jordan & the Vienna Symphony Orchestra in Beethoven

Beethoven Symphonies Nos. 2 & 7; Wiener Symphoniker, Philippe Jordan; Wiener Symphoniker Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 30 October 2018 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
Full of life and energy, two symphonies which brush away any cynicism with sheer joie de vivre

I have come rather late to this series, Philippe Jordan and the Wiener Symphoniker have already issued discs of Beethoven's symphonies nos. 1 & 3, and nos. 4 & 5 on the orchestra's own label. This disc couples together performances of Symphony No. 2 in D minor Op. 36 and Symphony No. 7 in A major Op. 92.

Founded in 1900, and with its first concert taking place in the Vienna Musikverein (where this disc was recorded), from the outset the orchestra was at the centre of Viennese symphonic musical life. But with a Swiss music director, Philippe Jordan, who is also music director of the Paris Opera, clearly Jordan and the orchestra might take an interesting contemporary view of this tradition and what it means.

In this series of Beethoven symphonies, Jordan is pairing the lesser known and well known, and here we start with Symphony No.2, which premiered in 1803 (when Beethoven was 33). One might be forgiven a bit of cynicism when presented with yet another Beethoven cycle. But Jordan and the orchestra brush that away with the wonderful engagement and joie de vivre of their playing.

Night Under The Stars: Northern Lights

On Tuesday 6 November 2018, Night Under The Stars returns to the Royal Festival Hall presenting a concert called Northern Lights, in aid of The Passage, which runs the largest Resource Centre for homeless people in the UK used by up to 150 clients each day, offering hot food, showers and clothing, housing advice, heath care, training and employment services, as well as street outreach, homelessness prevention schemes and accommodation projects.

Night Under The Stars was launched in 2001 and since then has raised over £1.6 million for The Passage. This year's concert features music from Nordic countries performed by Toby Purser and the Orion Orchestra, with Grieg's Piano Concerto (performed by Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson), music from Peer Gynt, and music by Sibelius. Other performers include soprano Isa Katharina Gericke and mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnston, and they will be joined by Streetwise Opera. Composer Raymond Yiu has arranged the traditional Swedish folk song Värmlandsvisan for Streetwise Opera and Jennifer Johnston to perform.

Full details from the Southbank Centre website.

The Unknown Traveller

The Unknown Traveller, madrigals from Musica Transalpina, Ben Rowath A Short Walk of a Madman; The Fieri Consort; Fieri Records Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 29 October 2018 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
The Fieri Consort returns to Italian madrigals, but this time through an English lens, combined with Ben Rowarth's new e.e.cummings-inspired piece

The Fieri Consort's first disc, released in 2017 [see my review] was a daring combination of Monteverdi's Lamento d'Arianna interleaved with a new sequence of pieces by Ben Rowarth, written specifically for the ensemble. For their new disc, The Unknown Traveller (release on the ensemble's own label), they continue combining Rowarth with 16th century Italian madrigals but this new disc puts an interesting slant on the whole genre.

The first part of the disc consists of madrigals by Conversi, Ferretti, Monte, Palestrina, Faignient, Lasso, Ferrabosco and Byrd, followed by Ben Rowarth's four-movement Short Walk of a Madman. But the Italian madrigals are all sung in English, and are taken from Musica Transalpina. This was a collection published in England in 1588, a highly influential selection of Italian madrigals made available for Englishmen and put into English, with the translator using word for word English versions so English musicians could easily appreciate the way Italian composers married text to music. The fascinating thing is that this translator is unknown, and this gave rise to the disc's name The Unknown Traveller.

Musica Transalpina

Hearing this music in English is remarkable, as it gives a whole new slant to the sound.

100th anniversary of Polish independence

Paweł Szymański, photo: Marek Suchecki / Ruch Muzyczny / Forum

1918 marks a number of other significant anniversaries, and on 2 November 2018 the BBC Symphony Orchestra will be marking the 100th anniversary of Polish independence with a concert at the Barbican.

Conducted by Michał Nesterowicz, the orchestra will give the premiere of Fourteen Points, a new work by Paweł Szymański inspired by Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, the President’s famous statement of principles for peace following World War Im which contributed to the foundation of the modern state of Poland. 

In the piece, Szymański reflects not just on Polish Independence, but also on President Wilson’s vision of peace and stability for Europe, almost unimaginable after the war in 1918. Szymański will not be drawn on whether there is direct reference to Wilson’s Fourteen Points in the music, but invites people to be free in how they interpret his music.

The programme is completed by Paderewski’s Piano Concerto, with Polish-Canadian pianist Janina Fialkowska as soloist, Elgar’s symphonic prelude Polonia (dedicated to composer and statesman Paderewski) and Lutosławski’s First Symphony.

Fourteen Points was co-commissioned for this special event by BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Adam Mickiewicz Institute as a part of the Polska Music programme and POLSKA 100, the international cultural programme celebrating the centenary of Poland regaining independence. Financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland as part of the multi-annual programme NIEPODLEGŁA 2017–2021.

Full details from the BBC Symphony Orchestra website.

Massed Ensembles, new music and 1000 young musicians: Music for Youth Proms

Music for Youth Massed Ensemble at the Royal Albert Hall

Rather appropriately the fireworks start on Monday 5 November, as that is the day that the Music for Youth Proms begin at the Royal Albert Hall. These are three nights of performances involve a thousand young musicians from across the country performing full-scale orchestral pieces, jazz arrangements, chamber works, rock and choral music. Things kick off on Monday 5/11 with a massed ensemble made up of members of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (BSO) working in partnership with three local music education hubs, performing a special arrangement of a new commission celebrating the BSO's 125th anniversary.

There is another anniversary being marked on Tuesday 6/11, as 2018 is Leicestershire Schools Music Service’s (LSMS) 70th anniversary, and the Leicestershire Schools Music Service Massed Ensemble will be performing a new piece by Fraser Trainer who has been working creatively with musicians and schools this year, incorporating their own ideas into the performance. The piece has an emphasis on bringing together young musicians from diverse genres and cultures, incorporating Indian instruments, western classical instruments, steel pans and voice. Players and singers are working in partnership leading up to the event with the Philharmonia, lyricist Hazel Gould, sitar player Roopa Panesar and professional Indian classical musicians from Darbar Arts Culture Heritage Trust.

This year, the Music For Yout Proms programmes champion young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) so the BSO is hosting two SEND schools as part of the Massed Ensemble, which include members of the National Open Youth Orchestra project, the world’s first disabled-led national youth orchestra. And Fifty percent (around 300 young people) of Oxfordshire County Music Service (OCMS) Massed Ensemble on Wednesday 5/11 will be SEND instrumentalists and singers, working with special schools and youth arts organisations in the local area as part of a buddying project in which there will be workshops (led by OCMS) to bring both mainstream and SEND musicians together. Part of the OCMS performance will be a new composition with melodic and rhythmic themes written by the students themselves and conducted by John Lubbock, founder and conductor of Orchestra of St. John’s.

Full details from the Music for Youth website.

Disturbing intensity: Lucia di Lammermoor at ENO

Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor - Lester Lynch - English National Opera (Photo John Snelling)

Donizetti Lucia di Lammermoor; Sarah Tynan, Eleazar Rodriguez, Lester Lynch, Clive Bayley, dir: David Alden, cond: Stuart Stratford; English National Opera at London Coliseum Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 30 October 2018 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
Madness is at the heart of David Alden's production, the only way out for a Lucia controlled equally by brother and lover

Eleazar Rodriguez, Sarah Tynan
English National Opera (Photo John Snelling)

Is it really ten year's since David Alden's production of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor debuted at English National Opera? The production has made a welcome return to the London Coliseum (seen Tuesday 30 October 2018) where we do not see nearly enough of Italian bel canto in its serious vein. Whatever the production's drawbacks, the big advantage is that Alden treats Donizetti's work as serious drama, and manages to mine some striking and disturbing veins in the piece.

This time around, Lucia was sung by Sarah Tynan with Eleazar Rodriguez as Edgardo and Lester Lynch as Enrico, plus Michael Colvin as Arturo, Clive Bayley as Raimondo, Sarah Pring as Alisa and Elgan Llyr Thomas as Normanno, Stuart Stratford conducted.

From the outset, Alden created a strikingly disturbing atmosphere with the help of Charles Edwards 'abandoned mental institution' style sets. It is not just that all is not well at Ravenswood, but Alden makes Lucia a commoditised and infantilised figure, supposedly kept under control by her family until passed on to a chosen husband. I am not sure that the suggestions of incestual interest on Enrico's part in Act Two are necessarily a good thing, but this points up one of the weaknesses of Alden's approach. He is never able to hint or suggest, instead, he presents us with a clear narrative and every scene tells us what to think. I feel that the production would be stronger if there was less detail, less fussy, stylised stage business and that the audience was given room to make up their minds for themselves.

Within these limitations, Alden and Stratford drew a strong and absorbing performance from their cast. This is a long opera, and ENO did a full version, two and a quarter hours of music, including the opening scene of Act Three which always used to be traditionally cut. And we weren't just along for the singing, though that was superb, but for the drama too.

Ethel Smyth's Mass in D at Southwark Cathedral

There are some works which hover on the edge of the repertoire without ever appearing, and it is often ironic that when such works appear it is often in clusters. Such is the case with Dame Ethel Smyth's Mass in D, not only is it being performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus at the Barbican, but Dominic Ellis-Peckham will be conducting at at Southwark Cathedral on 3 November 2018. The concert is part of the choir's five15 initiative championing the work of women composers.

At Southwark Cathedral, Dominic Ellis-Peckham will conduct the London Oriana Choir and Meridian Sinfonia in Smyth's Mass in D and the Magnificat by J S Bach, and the concert is preceded by a pre-concert talk given by the renowned expert Dr Christopher Wiley from the University of Surrey.

Ethel Smyth composer her Mass in D following a reading of Thomas a Kempis' The Imitation of Christ whilst ill in Munich; The book belonged to her Catholic friend Pauline Trevelyan, to whom Smyth dedicated the Mass. She composed much of it while a guest of Empress Eugénie at Cape Martin, near Monaco, in the summer of 1891. It was thanks to Empress Eugénie's support (and her connections with the British Royal family) that Smyth was able to have the mass premiered at the Royal Albert Hall in 1893. The mass received a number of performances in the 1920s and 1930s, following Adrian Boult's performance of the work in Birmingham, and Sir Thomas Beecham conducted it in 1934 as part of the celebrations for Smyth's 75th birthday.

The mass is a large-scale concert work (though Smyth wrote it following a renewal of her belief, it was never intended as a liturgical piece), for chorus, soloists and orchestra. Though the published score places the Gloria second, Smyth's preference was for this movement to come at the end so that the piece could end triumphantly! Though Smyth devoted the majority of her musical career to opera, she returned to large-scale choral music at the end when she produced her large-scale symphonic cantata The Prison which was based on the writings of Henry Brewster (HB) who had been the great love of her life, and who had written the libretto (originally in French) of The Wreckers. The Prison would be one of Smyth's last works, as she went deaf and by the time of the 75th birthday celebrations in 1934 she was entirely unable to hear the music or the adulation of the crowds.

Full details from the London Oriana Choir website.

Voices of Aotearoa - Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir at Cadogan Hall

Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir, Karen Grylls, Horomona Horo

Hildegard of Bingen, Princess Te Rangi Pai, David Childs, Mark Sirett, Jean Absil, David Griffiths, Helen Fisher, Jaakko Mantyjarvi, Samuel Barber, David Hamilton; Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir, Karen Grylls, Cadogan Hall Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 30 October 2018 Star rating: 3.5 (★★★½)
The New Zealand based chamber choir in an eclectic programme which combined composers and sounds from New Zealand with those of other traditions

Choral at Cadogan on Monday 29 October 2018 brought visitors from New Zealand to the Cadogan Hall in the form of Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir, conductor Dr Karen Grylls whose programme brought a mixture of New Zealand, European and American composers, combined with the artistic talents of Horomona Horo who interpolated his own compositions and improvisations on Maori instruments throughought the programme. Besides Horo, the New Zealand composers we heard were David Childs, David Griffiths, Helen Fisher and David Hamilton, along with music by Hildegard von Bingen, Princess Te Rangi Pai (Fannie Rosie Howie), Mark Sirett, Jean Absil, Jaakko Mantyjarvi, and Samuel Barber.

Die Walküre - Royal Opera House Live

Wagner: Die Walküre, The Royal Opera ©2018 ROH. Photograph by Bill Cooper

Wagner Die Walküre; Nina Stemme, John Lundgren, Emily Magee, Stuart Skelton, Sarah Connolly, dir: Keith Warner, cond: Antonio Pappano; Royal Opera House live broadcast at Barbican Cinema  
Reviewed by Anthony Evans on 28 October 2018 Star rating: 3.5 (★★★½)
A poetic Walküre with a towering performance from Stuart Skelton.

Stuart Skelton - The Royal Opera
©2018 ROH. Photograph by Bill Cooper

On Sunday 28 October 2018, Barbican’s Cinema 2 saw the broadcast of Keith Warner’s Royal Opera production of the first day of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, Die Walküre. In this revival the ill-fated twins Siegmund and Sieglinde were sung by Stuart Skelton and Emily Magee. Sieglinde’s Neiding husband, Hunding, was Ain Anger. Mr. and Mrs. God, Wotan and Fricka, were John Lundgren and Sarah Connolly. Brünnhilde, Wotan’s favourite daughter, was Nina Stemme. Her sister Valkyries were Alwyn Mellor, Lise Davidsen, Kai Rüütel, Claudia Huckle, Maida Hundeling, Catherine Carby, Monika-Evelin Liiv and Emma Carrington; and I haven’t heard them better sung. Antonio Pappano conducted.

I am not so down on Keith Warner’s production as some have been. OK, its imagery is at times frustratingly opaque and its symbolic complexity cluttered, naff even; but, the conflicts of love and power are played out with utter conviction. It is, dare I say, Ibsenesque in approach, the dissection of the characters’ relationships line by line was as precise as its visuals were symbolic detritus. It felt as if every musical effect was rendered in the emotional landscape. The action was swept along by rivers of sound from the pit. The music breathlessly ebbed and flowed in Pappano’s fluid and elegant reading. This was immersive stuff.

There were a few hiccups – it is a long evening after all. Emily Magee’s Sieglinde seemed to lapse into histrionics like some femme fatale and at times didn’t sound vocally comfortable. Ain Anger as her husband was more a brooding introvert than a menace.

From The Uncertain Hour to Van Diemen's Land

Peter Wiegold's wonderful Club Inégales opens its Autumn season, The Uncertain Hour, on Thursday, 1 November 2018 when singer/actor Sarah Gabriel joins Peter Wiegold and Notes Inégales for a programme of Brecht and Weill. There will be some of their music theatre pieces as well as Peter Wiegold's settings of Brecht's poetry and political manifestos. And if you can't get along to the club, then there is their forthcoming disc with folk-singer Sam Lee to look forward to, Van Diemen's Land.

Further ahead, they join with the EFG London Jazz Festival for The Edge of the Abyss at the Royal Academy of Arts in Piccadilly. Back at Club Inégales's home in Euston, the second collaboration with the jazz festival includes composer/saxophonist Helen Papaioannou, saxophonist James Mainwaring and bass Shri Sriram (a key member of Asian Underground scene with Badmarsh&Shri, who recently won a British Composer Award for “Just a Vibration”, a collaboration between Indian musicians and brass band!).

Peter Knight, director of the Australian Art Orchestra, is guest in December and Peter Knight will be adding his trumpet/electronics to the mix with Alice Zawadzki (violin, voice), and they will be performing The Plains, 'an extraordinary series of musical mirages that form on an endless sonic horizon reflecting and reimagining the wide-open spaces of the Australian landscape’.

Finally on 13 December 2018, folk-singer extraordinaire, Sam Lee joins Peter Wiegold and Notes Inégales for the launch of their album Van Diemen's Land. This disc is a wonderful re-imagining, taking Sam Lee's folk-inspired vocals into new lands and territories with some magical instrumental textures from Peter Wigold (director and keyboard), Fraser Fifield (pipes and saxophone), Max Baillie (violin), Joel Bell (guitar), Ben Markland (bass),Simon Limbrick (percussion), and Martin Butler (piano).

There are nine tracks on the disc and they arise out of live performances with Lee in 2014. Thanks to the varied experience of the members of the band, classical, jazz, folk, Scottish music and more, the results are intriguing and flexible. And on disc, Wiegold and his musicians have successfully re-captured the live, freely improvised feel which is Notes Inégales trade-mark.

If you think you know what folk music sounds like and don't like it, then think again. This really is a journey to the unknown, and wonderful it is too.

Full details of the latest season from the Club Inégales website.

Van Diemen's Land is released on 16 November 2018, available from Amazon.

Opera North's Howard Assembly Room gears up for its 10th anniversary

Pumeza Matshikiza © Simon Fowler, Decca

Next year, Opera North's Howard Assembly Room at the Grand Theatre in Leeds celebrates its 10th anniversary (doesn't time fly). And for the 2018/19 season they have assembled a fine array of chamber music, song and more in anticipatory celebration. The programme runs until March 2019 when the venue will close (temporarily) as part of Opera North's ambitious renovation programme at the Grand Theatre.

Things kick off on 31 October 2018 with South African soprano Pumetza Matshikiza and pianist Simon Lepper in Schumann (Frauenliebe und -leben and songs from Myrthen), Richard Strauss's Four Last Songs and songs from South Africa.

In November, baritone Chrisopher Maltman is accompanied by Joseph Middleton, director of Leeds Lieder, in the first of two recitals produced in collaboration with Leeds Lieder. Maltman and Middleton will be performing music on the subject of war by composers from both sides of the divide in World War One, including music by Butterworth, Gurney, Mahler, Fauré, Ives, Mussorgsky, Schumann, Wolf and Poulenc. The in January, Joseph Middleton returns with soprano Catriona Morison for a programme of Brahms, Schumann and Mahler.

In December there is a chance to hear the current intake of young artists at the National Opera Studio, performing Last Days devised by Tim Albery, a programme marking the centenary of the end of World War One, with music by Berg, Satie, E.E Cummings, Elgar, Butterworth and Gurney, among others, accompanied by members of the orchestra of Opera North.

Other visitors include pianists Piers Lane and Joanna MacGregor, Early Music vocal ensembles The Tallis Scholars, Tenebrae, The Cardinall's Musick, and string quartets Fitzwilliam String Quartet and the Opera North String Quartet. These latter two are performing a special programme on 7 February 2019 to mark the Howard Assembly Room's 10th anniversary.

A new co-production by Opera North and Leeds Playhouse, Not Such Quiet Girls, tells the stories of three women on the front line during World War I. Bringing together an all-female chorus and three female actors, this new musical drama, written by Jessica Walker with musical arrangement by Joseph Atkins. The piece forms a complement to Opera North's performances of Kevin Puts' Silent Night at Leeds Town Hall.

Full details from the Opera North website.

Confidence: Julien Behr in 19th century Romantic French opera arias

Gounod, Delibes, Messager, Joncieres, Holmes, Bizet, Godard, Lehar, Chabrier, Thomas, Duparc, Trenet; Julien Behr, Orchestre de l'Opera de Lyon, Pierre Bleuse; Alpha Classics Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 24 October 2018 Star rating: 5.0 (★★★★★)
A delightful exploration of the tenor voice, as evinced by works written for the Opera Comique in the later 19th century

This disc from Alpha Classics has the name Palazzetto Bru Zane attached, so we know that it will be an exploration of some aspect of 19th century Romantic French opera, almost certainly something we might not have heard before and ought to have. The name of the disc Confidence does not really shed any light, and the range of operas is wide with works by Gounod, Delibes, Messager, Victorin Joncieres, Augusta Holmes, Bizet, Benjamin Godard, Franz Lehar, Chabrier, Ambroise Thomas, Duparc and Charles Trenet! The performer is the tenor Julien Behr, with the Orchestre de l'Opera de Lyon conducted by Pierre Bleuse.

In fact the three orchestral works apart (Duparc's Aux etoiles, Augusta Holmes La Nuit e l'Amour and Chabrier's Habanera), all the operas on the disc were presented at the Opera Comique, some are familiar such as Delibes' Lakme, and Thomas' Mignon, others are familiar names though the works themselves are less so, Messager's Fortunio Bizet's La Jolie Fille de Perth, Godard's Jocelyn (the latter two very much one-hit wonders), whilst others are barely even names, Gounod's Cinq Mars, Delibes' Jean de Nivelle, Joncieres' Le Chevalier Jean. And then there is the Viennese operetta given in French, Lehar's Le Pays du Sourire and La Veuve Joyeuse.

What the disc, in fact, explores is a particular voice type which developed at the Opera Comique in the latter half of the 19th century, the grand tenor d'opera comique or tenor de demi-caractere.

Out of Conflict…the Peace

London Bach Society's 28th Bachfest, artistic director Margaret Steinitz, takes places 31 October - 6 November 2018 at St George's Church, Hanover Square, the Gresham Centre, and St John's Smith Square. The resident ensemble at the festival is the Steinitz Bach Players, an ensemble celebrating its 50th anniversary having been founded in 1968 by Paul Steinitz. 

The Steinitz Bach Players will be performing Bach's Musikalisches Opfer/Musical Offering directed by violinist Rodolfo Richter, and a programme which includes cantatas BWV 60 and BWV 151, Double Violin Concerto and Brandenburg Concerto No 1, with soloists Rowan Pierce, Anna Harvey, Nick Pritchard, Benjamin Bevan, Rachel Beckett (flute), Anthony Robson (oboe d’amore), Ursula Paludan Monberg (horn), Jane Gordon (violin).

Viola da gamba/cello player Peter Wispelwey and harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani will make their debut as a duo at the festival performing Bach's sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord. The festival emerging artists series includes concerts from Nicholas Morris (organ) - Assistant Director of Music at St George’s Hanover Square, Samuel Ali (organ) - Assistant Director of Music at Christ Church, Chelsea, classical guitarist Laura Snowden, and the Magnard Ensemble wind quartet.

Full details from the festival website.