Luminatus is a vocal ensemble, directed by David Bray, that puts on concerts in the East Midlands and East of England. For their next concert on 28 October 2023 at Downing Place United Reformed Church, Cambridge, CB2 3EL, the ensemble is mixing Renaissance and contemporary music. The Renaissance selection features music by Byrd and Weelkes, to highlight the 400th anniversary of their death, plus music by Cipriano de Rore, Pedro de Cristo, Ippolito Baccusi, Sebastian de Vivanco and movements from the Missa Ad te levavi oculos meos by Philippe de Monte, who knew Byrd.
De Monte and Byrd probably met when King Philip II of Spain brought the Capilla Flamenca, in which de Monte sang, to England for his marriage to Queen Mary I. Capilla Flamenca and the Chapel Royal sang together at the wedding, and it is assumed Byrd and de Monte met then. That they stayed in contact is indicated by their setting of a pair of interlinking motets, taking text from the same psalm.
The contemporary element of Luminatus' concert features music by three female composers, Melissa Dunphy, Ghislaine Reece-Trapp, and Eleanor Daley.
The debut CD from Luminatus, entitled O Beata Virgo Maria, and featuring music by Renaissance and contemporary composers, is scheduled for release on Convivium Records in the Spring of 2024.
Gilbert & Sullivan: Iolanthe - English National Opera (Photo: Craig Fuller)
Gilbert & Sullivan: Iolanthe; Samantha Price, John Savournin, Catherine Wyn-Rogers, Elli Laugharne, Marcus Farnsworth, Keel Watson, director Cal McCrystal, conductor Chris Hopkins; English National Opera at the London Coliseum Reviewed 5 October 2023
A sparkling revival of Cal McCrystal's first G&S at ENO proves engaging fun with strong musical performances, physical comedy and a sense of the sheer absurdity of the world Gilbert created
The production is as tight as ever and remains a prime example of how to make a modern production of a Gilbert & Sullivan opera work in the London Coliseum. The action is full of extra physical and visual gags, many of them to do with the physicality of theatre itself. The prime conceit for the fairies is the idea of the conventions of the Victorian theatre, as McCrystal leans into the Pirandellian element in the fairies - in their opening chorus Gilbert has them explaining to us what they are and how they have no idea why they do what they do. Rather impressively, Samantha Price as Iolanthe remains true to this throughout the show, with all her dialogue accompanied by expressive mime, and all with a brilliant smile. Even the sets are clearly inspired by Victorian ones, with far too much flying elements in and out for the sake of it, and great fun it is too.
Gilbert & Sullivan: Iolanthe - Ruairi Bowen, Ben McAteer - English National Opera (Photo: Craig Fuller)
Deborah Pritchard, Jocelyn Pook, Adrian Sutton, Georgia Stitt, Amanda McBroom, Stephen Barber; Lucy Schaufer, Trio Klein, Ben Dawson; Up Close and Musical at Fidelio Cafe Reviewed 4 October 2023
Five works for voice and instruments, and one string trio, all contemporary and all completely fascinating in this terrific programme to launch this year's Up Close and Musical
Shiry Rashkovsky's festival, Up Close and Musical has returned to the Fidelio Cafe for another season of exploring music and musicians. The opening concert featured Lucy Schaufer (described on her website as performer, producer and purveyor of fine jam), pianist Ben Dawson and Trio Klein (Kamila Bydlowska - violin, Shiry Rashkovsky - viola, Ella Rundle - cello) in music inspired by storms (meteorological and emotional) by Deborah Pritchard, Jocelyn Pook, Adrian Sutton, Georgia Stitt, Amanda McBroom and Stephen Barber. It was a complex evening, six works, each of which had a slightly different in the line-up, and in the middle a Q&A with the performers and the two composers present, Adrian Sutton and Stephen Barber.
Clare Norburn and her company, The Telling, have become known for their concert plays, presenting drama about Medieval, Reniassance and Baroque figures alongside music of their period including Gesualdo, Hildegard of Bingen, Galileo and Purcell.
For their latest adventure, the company has moved to the 19th century and Norburn's What the Dickens! places Charles Dickens under the microscope.
As Norburn explains:
"In What the Dickens? I’ve reimagined Charles Dickens' classic A Christmas Carol, taking inspiration from the secrets of Dickens' life: his secret mistress, his terrible treatment of his wife and his early life as a boy working in a factory which made shoe blacking, of which he was deeply ashamed. I have also drawn on how unwell and febrile he was in his final years: he put so much energy into his theatrical readings that he would often collapse afterwards in the wings. So I have used all those elements to overlay the familiar story we all know of A Christmas Carol, with Dickens himself being forced to re-evaluate his life and the impact of his actions."
The plot is set on Dickens' final Christmas Eve, 1869. Against his doctor’s orders, he gives one of his acclaimed theatrical readings of A Christmas Carol, but from the moment the lights go down, his life becomes strangely entangled with that of his character Scrooge.
Dickens' carefully managed image as a family man, who created the very quintessence of Christmas, starts to unravel. He is haunted by the women he mistreated: his wife Catherine, his mistress Ellen (Nelly) Ternan and the mysterious ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. They strip aside the jovial public family image Dickens has tried to maintain and force him to face up to his past, present and future. Can Dickens learn from the ghosts, repent and be saved - as Scrooge was saved?
The drama is complemented by live musicians and musician/actors who perform colourful Victorian popular songs and street music, haunting carols and lively folk dances, arranged by acclaimed music theatre composer Steve Edis.
The Telling is performing What the Dickens! on a short tour this month, Hove (11/10/2023), Ulverston (12/10/2023), Stratford-upon-Avon (13/10/2023), Muswell Hill (14/10/2023) and Liverpool (15/10/2023), with a longer run planned for next year.
Zeb Soanes, Classic FM Presenter and creator of Gaspard the Fox, has collaborated with composer James Marangone.to produce a new work for narrator and orchestra. The engagingly named Fred and the Fantastic Tub-Tub will be receiving its London premiere on 22 October 2023 at the Southbank Centre's London Literature Festival with Thomas Carroll conducting the Orpheus Sinfonia with Zeb Soanes narrating. Poulenc’s The Story of Babar is also in the programme. It will be an accessible performance, with Speech-to-Text transcription. Following the performance there will be opportunity to meet the performers & creators.
Fred and the Fantastic Tub-Tub tells the story of Fred and her green-fingered grandfather, who leads her and their cat on a summer holiday adventure that just might save the planet. The story was developed from a desire to produce a piece that is connected to the world children grow up in today; its themes include those of reuse, resilience and acceptance, and the cinematic score features a wide variety of organic sound effects.
James Marangone is a composer who works mainly in TV and film, including work on soundtracks including The Hobbit, Skyfall, The Flash, Bad Guys and Enola Holmes. Fred and the Fantastic Tub-Tub is his first full length orchestral concert piece.
An accompanying storybook is published by Welsh publisher Graffeg with illustrations by Anja Uhren, and an extensive cross-curricular Key Stage 2 educational resource written by Kim Waldock is available from Orpheus Sinfonia.
Offenbach: La princesse de Trébizonde; Anne-Catherine Gillet, Virginie Verrez, Antoinette Dennefeld, Josh Lovell, Christophe Mortagne, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Paul Daniel; Opera Rara
A new edition, a performance that combines wit and charm, character and style, a cast clearly having great fun and making us do so to. This is prime Offenbach, from the centre of his career and full of all your favourite numbers that you didn't know
Offenbach's operetta La princesse de Trébizonde dates from 1869, a period shortly before the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 (when the composer and his family retired to Spain) that includes such works as La Périchole, Vert-Vert, and Les brigands. These are comic operettas where the satire is far less barbed than in his earlier works. Whilst Étienne Tréfeu and Charles-Louis-Étienne Nuitter's text does make occasional points, such as the circus performers puzzlement at the idea of living on one place, or the elements of social comedy involved in a circus proprietor being made a baron, none are really seen through and the work's last act is closer to a mad-cap farce.
The work was premiered, in a two-act version, in Baden-Baden by a troupe that was effectively Offenbach's Bouffes-Parisiens company on holiday, then it was given its first Paris performance in a radically revised three-act version later that year. It was a success and revived several times during the 1870s. New Sussex Opera performed the work in 2021 [see my review].
Composer Stuart Hancock presented the animated film, We're Going on a Bear Hunt with his own live music last year, now Stuart is back with another animated film and another live score. On Saturday 18 November at Regent Hall in Oxford Street, Stuart will be conducting the St Paul's Sinfonia in Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf with the 2008 Oscar-winning stop-motion animated film directed by Suzie Templeton. All profits will go to the music education charity, Music Masters. The event is ideal for family audiences (kids aged 5+) and there are three performances during the day.
The event features an extended introduction to the score and the film, with special guest the film director Suzie Templeton, together with the actual puppets from the film. The performance will open with a preview trailer for another animated film: Kensuke’s Kingdom (based on the Michael Morpurgo book of the same name, being released in 2024) with Stuart's original score performed live.
The Manchester Song Festival at Stoller Hall in March 2024 is about much more than just song recitals. There are concerts from major artists including jazz-singer Cleveland Watkiss, tenor Mark Padmore, and Korean opera singer Hera Hyesang Park, but there will also be a day of participatory vocal workshops across many genres from classical to pop, musical to opera - aimed at singers of all abilities, as well as interactive sessions for families. There will also be sessions on performance anxiety, how to look after your vocal health and more, plus for aspiring and early-career musicians, there will also be chances to talk 1-to-1 with the experts.
The festival opens on 1 March 2024 with Cleveland Watkiss and VocalSuite, for concert blending voice and technology for a unique display of a cappella vocal talent with influences ranging from classical to African rhythm, to jazz and choral music. Mark Padmore's recital on 2 March moves from Schumann to Frank Bridge, Michael Tippett and Rebecca Clarke, as well as celebrating the music of contemporary composer Tansy Davies. Finally on 3 March, Hera Hyesang Park will mix Korean art songs with operatic classics.
Nigel Foster's London Song Festival returns to Hinde Street Methodist Church this Autumn with a series of concerts celebrating the countryside, as well as commemorating centenaries of Ned Rorem and Walton & Sitwell's Facade, Rachmaninoff and Walter de la Mare's 150th, the bicentenary of the invention of the Mackintosh raincoat
The series opens on 20 October with Rebecca Leggett (mezzo-soprano) and George Ireland (piano), winners of the 2022 London Song Festival British Art Song Competition, in The South Country – a celebration of Sussex with songs from Butterworth, RVW, Ireland and Bridge.
Jonathan Eyers (baritone) and Nigel Foster will be celebrating Ned Rorem in Paris and New York, marking the centenary of the composer's birth. Foster will be joined by Alexandra Dunaeva (soprano) and Iestyn Morris (countertenor) for Escape to the Country, a celebration of Rachmaninoff at his country estate, Ivanovka, combining the composer's songs with extracts from his letters.
With Childhood in the Countryside and the City, Lotte Betts-Dean (mezzo-soprano) and Hugo Brady (tenor) celebrate the 150th anniversary of Walter de la Mare's birth with settings of his poems by Howells, Gurney and Britten plus what might be the premiere of The White House Song Cycle by John Carol Case, written by the celebrate baritone in the 1940s.
Claire Booth (soprano) and James Atkinson (baritone) will be celebrating the bicentenary of the invention of the Mackintosh raincoat with a programme about rain, including premieres of songs written for this concert by Noah Max and David Ward. Escape to the City: Edith Sitwell in London is a multi-media celebration of the life and work
of the poet Edith Sitwell, and the centenary of Façade, with music by
William Walton, Britten, Michael Head, Noël Coward, Debussy, and the premiere of songs by Hayley Jenkins.
The series ends on 1 December 2023 with A Rural Ramble, a programme English Song and German Lieder about the countryside from the winners of the 2022 John Kerr Award for English Song, Peter Edge (baritone), Frasier Hickland (piano).
Spotlight Chamber Concerts, artistic director Anthony Friend, is back this Autumn for its fifth edition with five concerts in the beautifully restored St John's Waterloo, each concert offering an intense, immersive experience of live music, with dramatic lighting centred only on the performers, and the audience in the dark and in the round.
Running from 3 November to 10 December 2023, the season features pianist Benjamin Grosvenor and violinist Hyeyoon Park, pianist Steven Osborne, clarinettist Anthony Friend and the Maxwell Quartet, pianist Emmanuel Despax, and the Solem Quartet.
The series opens with Benjamin Grosvenor and his duo partner Hyeyoon Park in RVW's The Lark Ascending (in its original version for violin and piano), Grieg's Violin Sonata No 3 and Takemitsu’s Distance de fée. Then Steven Osborne gives and all Schubert programme, whilst series artistic director joins the Maxwell Quartet for Brahms' Clarinet Quintet alongside the quartet's own 'musical foraging project' of Scots folk music.
Emmanuel Despax pairs Chopin's Preludes with Busoni's monumental reinvention of Bach's Chaconne, finally the Solem Quartet returns to the series with late Beethoven and the London premiere of a work by Edmund Finnis based on the Beethoven.
The Kensington Symphony Orchestra & Russell Keable at Cadogan Hall
Kensington Symphony Orchestra returns to St John's Smith Square on Monday 16 October 2023 to open their 2023/24 season with a concert marking music director Russell Keable's 40 years with the orchestra. The main work in the programme is RVW's A London Symphony, but the orchestra is pairing that with a couple of terrific more recent works by Elena Kats-Chernin and John McCabe.
Soviet-born Australian composer, Elena Kats-Chernin describes Big Rhap as musical sketch of her memories of hearing her mother play Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No.2 when the family lived in Russia. The work was commissioned by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in 2017. John McCabe's song-cycle Notturni ed Alba dates from 1970 and features settings of four Medieval Latin poems dealing with various aspects of night. Premiered at the 1970 Three Choirs Festival by soprano Sheila Armstrong, to whom it is dedicated, and the City of Birmingham Orchestra, conducted by Louis Frémaux, it has been described as most exotically and seductively beautiful music McCabe has written. Kensington Symphony Orchestra will be joined by soprano Donna Lennard for the performance.
Looking ahead, the orchestra's season is full of the exciting, interesting and unusual, with Martinů's Symphony No.3 and Janáček's Taras Bulba (27 November, Cadogan Hall), Ruth Gipps' Horn Concerto (6 February 2024, Cadogan Hall), Dohnányi's Symphonic Minutes plus Mahler, Lili Boulanger and Stravinsky (18 March 2024, St John's Smith Square),
Monteverdi: Vespers of 1610 - I Fagiolini, English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble, Robert Hollingworth - Kings Place (Photo: Monika S Jakubowska)
Monteverdi: Vespers of 1610; I Fagiolini, English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble, Robert Hollingworth; Kings Place Reviewed by Florence Anna Maunders, 29 September 2023
Clarity and virtuosity in spectacular polychoral combination
Monteverdi: Vespers of 1610 - I Fagiolini, Robert Hollingworth Kings Place (Photo: Monika S Jakubowska)
There is a long and varied performance tradition behind the 1610 Vespers of Monteverdi. Consisting of a collection of psalm settings, sacred songs, a sonata, a hymn and a complete Magnificat, each item calls for a different number and type of singer and instrumentalist.
The specialist baroque ensemble I Fagiolini are no strangers to the music of Monteverdi, and this wealth of experience and talent was fully evident in this luxurious production. In this performance at Kings Place on 29 September 2023, Director Robert Hollingworth marshalled an extensive and varied cohort of performers, including a large and colourful continuo section, the brilliant sounds of the English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble, I Fagiolini's own 6-part string ensemble and an ensemble of solo voices, performing the choral movements one-to-a-part almost throughout. Utilising the full space of Kings Place, including the stage, galleries, off-stage rooms and even the back of the hall directly behind the audience, this was a 3D, surround sound, high definition Vespers for the 21st Century, representing not only exceptional musicianship but also the latest academic research into the performance practices of the early 1600's.
Monteverdi: The Coronation of Poppea - Keith Pun (Love), Jessica Cale(Poppea), Amy J Payne (Arnalta) - English Touring Opera (Photo: Richard Hubert Smith)
Monteverdi: The Coronation of Poppea, arranged Yshani Perinpanayagam; Jessica Cale, Martha Jones, Kezia Bienek, Trevor Eliot Bowes, Feargal Mostyn-Williams, Elizabeth Karani, Amy J Payne, director Robin Norton-Hale, conductor Yshani Perinpanayagam; English Touring Opera at the Hackney Empire Reviewed 30 September 2023
Robin Norton-Hale opens her tenure at ETO with an ambitious and stylish production of Monteverdi's masterpiece in a radical new version that showcases some fine individual performances.
No score of Monteverdi's original 1643 version of L'Incoronazione di Poppea survives, and what we do have is the libretto from 1643, plus scores from Venice and Naples in the 1650s. All three differ from each other, and the scores are little more than bass line and vocal lines. The performances would have taken place in small theatres with tiny ensembles of instruments and there would not have been a conductor as we know it, the music was mainly arioso/recitative accompanied by continuo instruments with the orchestra, such as it was, employed for ritornelli.
This provides a challenge in modern performances, how to expand the work to fit modern theatres and modern theatrical needs. This is especially true of ETO's Autumn tour, when the company has paired Monteverdi's opera with Rossini's La Cenerentola, thus they either need to tour two entirely different instrumental ensembles or modernise Monteverdi.
Monteverdi: The Coronation of Poppea - Zahid Siddiqui (Lucano), Martha Jones (Nero) - English Touring Opera (Photo: Richard Hubert Smith)
Orsino Winds (Nicholas Daniel, Alec Frank-Gemmill, Amy Harman, Adam Walker, Matthew Hunt)
Tailleferre, Milhaud, Poulenc, Walker, Dohnanyi; Ornsino Winds (Adam Walker, Nicholas Daniel, Matthew Hunt, Alec Frank-Gemmill, Amy Harman), Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective (Tom Poster, Elena Urioste, Braimah Kanneh-Mason, Tony Rymer); Hatfield House Chamber Music Festival
Two contrasting sextets, both from the 1930s, at the heart of this richly engaging programme bringing strings, piano and wind together in unusual combinations
The concert on the evening of Friday 29 September 2023 at the Hatfield House Chamber Music Festival in the house's Marble Hall brought together players from Orsino Winds and Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective for music by Germaine Tailleferre, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, George Walker and Ernst von Dohnanyi. It was an evening that delighted in playing together in somewhat unusual combinations, Poulenc's sextet for piano, flute, oboe, clarinet, horn and piano being balanced by Dohnanyi's sextet for clarinet, horn, strings and piano.
It was very much a concert of two halves. In the first, pianist Tom Poster (co-founder of the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective) performed with Adam Walker, flute, Nicholas Daniel, oboe, Matthew Hunt, clarinet, Alec Frank-Gemmill, horn and Amy Harman, bassoon, in music by members of Les Six. For the second half, four string players from Kaleidoscope including Elena Urioste and Braimah Kanneh-Mason, violins and Tony Rymer, cello, were joined by Poster, Frank-Gemmill and Hunt for Walker and Dohnanyi.
Magnus Johnston, Tom Poster & Ben Goldscheider at Hatfield House Chamber Music Festival
Robert Schumann, Joseph Phibbs, Johannes Brahms; Ben Goldscheider, Tom Poster, Magnus Johnston, Guy Johnston; Hatfield House Chamber Music Festival Reviewed 29 September 2023
The premiere of Joseph Phibbs horn sonata, commissioned by Ben Goldscheider, was the centrepiece of a concert that showcased the performers sheer delight at playing together
The Hatfield House Chamber Music Festival is in full flow and the early evening recital in the Marble Hall at Hatfield House on Friday 29 September 2023 showcased horn player Ben Goldscheider with pianist Tom Poster. The centrepiece of the recital was the premiere of Joseph Phibbs' Horn Sonata, commissioned by Goldscheider, and this was followed by Brahms' Horn Trio in E flat with violinist Magnus Johnston. The concert opened with Schumann's Fantasiestücke for piano trio when Magnus Johnston and Tom Poster were joined by cellist and festival artistic director Guy Johnston.
Verdi: La Forza del Destino - Étienne Dupuis - Royal Opera 2023 (Photo: Camilla Greenwell)
Canadian baritone Étienne Dupuis is currently appearing as Don Carlo in the Royal Opera's production of Verdi's La Forza del Destino, directed by Christof Loy, with Sondra Radvanosky and Brian Jagde conducted by Sir Mark Elder (in repertory until 9 October) and I was lucky enough to be able to catch up with Étienne after the first night. This season, Verdi is something of a theme, Étienne is also singing Germont in La Traviata in Vienna and makes his role-debut in the title role of Verdi's Rigoletto at the Teatro Real in Madrid. Last year, he had huge success as Rodrigue in the Metropolitan Opera's first production of Verdi's Don Carlos in the original French. Étienne appeared in the Ravel double bill of L’Heure Espagnole and L’Enfant et les Sortilèges at the Glyndebourne Festival in 2015. We caught him in 2019, in the title role of Mozart's Don Giovanni in Ivo van Hove's new production for the Paris Opera at the Palais Garnier with Nicole Car as Donna Elvira [see my review].
Étienne's Covent Garden performances as Don Carlo in La Forza del Destino were his role-debut and he stood in at comparatively short notice. It was a role he had studied, having been supposed to sing it during the pandemic but it meant that he had to memorise Acts Two and Three in around a month. However you look at it, a huge effort, and for Étienne, memory is to a certain extent kinetic, and he thinks it is easier to remember if you have more to learn than just the music.
Kings Place has announced the next instalment of its Unwrapped series. 2024 is to be devoted to Scotland Unwrapped, a celebration of music and spoken-word from Scotland encompassing traditional and regional arts as well as the vibrant contemporary scene, with a wide range of musical genres from contemporary composers, folk musicians and Scottish classical ensembles.
Things kick of on 13 January 2024 when sitarist and composer Jasdeep Singh Degun joins the Scottish Ensemble to present work from his Anomaly album as well as the London premiere of a new work [see my recent interview with Jasdeep]. Other premieres during the year include Anna Meredith, LVRA, Donald Grant, Aileen Sweeney, Ninfea Crutwell Reade and Helen Grime. The Colin Currie Quartet present the world premiere of a Kings Place commission, Anna Meredith’s Dodgem Studies arranged for percussion quartet, as well as the world premiere of a new work from Ben Nobuto and the London premiere of Aileen Sweeney’s new work for percussion quartet [7 Dec].
Jasdeep Singh Degun (Photo: Robert Leslie)
Scottish classical music includes the earliest-known liturgical music from the 16th century Dunkeld Partbooks from the Marian Consort [18 Oct], the polyphony of 17th century composer Robert Carver from the Sixteen [26 Jan], triumphant anthems of the 1603 union between Scotland and England from ORA Singers [15 Mar], whilst Ensemble Hesperi conjure up a musical evening in Enlightenment Edinburgh, when James Oswald’s music brushed shoulders with Handel and Geminiani [20 Oct].
The Maxwell Quartet will be exploring Scottish folk-music including a a thousand year old Celtic lament [22 Feb], whilst tenor Nicky Spence surveys the astonishing inspiration of Robert Burns on songwriters from Amy Beach to Shostakovich, Schumann, Britten and Coleridge-Taylor in a recital with fellow Scot Eleanor Dennis, featuring a premiere by Helen Grime [24 Apr].
The BBC Singers honour Dame Judith Weir in her 70th birthday year [9 Feb] and the Dunedin Consort and Hebrides Ensemble join forces for James Macmillan’s Since it was the day of Preparation – a Kings Place commission from 2012 - presented in partnership with Macmillan's Cumnock Tryst festival [25 Oct].
The Aurora Orchestra will be presenting a range of concerts through the season from Mendelssohn and Maxwell Davies [3 Feb], to folk-ballads [27 Apr] and Gaelic songs with traditional and contemporary works including premier by Donald Grant [28 Sep].
As well as the Cumnock Tryst, there are festival spotlights from St Magnus Festival, Orkney Folk Festival and HebCelt Festival, whilst songwriter, folk singer and storyteller Karine Polwart is Artist in Residence and guest curators include poet Jackie Kay and folk musician Aidan O’Rourke. There is a strong Scottish folk element to the year's programme and not surprisingly highlights include a Burns Night supper & ceilidh.
The Piatti Quartet - Miguel Sobrinho, Jessie Ann Richardson, Emily Holland, Michael Trainor
The Piatti Quartet (Michael Trainor, Emily Holland, Miguel Sobrinho, Jessie Ann Richardson) starts as Resident Quartet at Kings Place in October with a season of concerts exploring Dvořák's late string quartets alongside more contemporary repertoire. Here Michael Trainor, the quartet's first violin, introduces the new season.
"The sun is just coming over the horizon and there’s a tangible excitement in the air. All of a sudden a figure on horseback throwing up plumes of dust comes into view, riding with speed and flair.."
That's a segment of how we like to introduce Dvořák's 'American' Quartet from the stage just before our performance. It's a fantastic work which conjures up images and narratives like these all the time, the music completely encapsulating something distinctly American. Indeed so much so that it has remained one of the most popular chamber works to this day and has lost none of its sheen nearly 130 years later.
And so we will begin our journey as the new Resident Quartet on 25 October at Kings Place this season. We're taking over the baton from the Brodsky Quartet who have been resident there for 10 years and we'll certainly look to carry on their sense of adventure they bring to programming.
In these Rush Hour Lates concerts at Kings Place we will present Dvořák's late string quartets and end with the brilliant Piano Quintet No.2 in A major with pianist Emmanuel Despax. With the quartets, No.12 'The American' and No.13 in G major we know very well- in fact No.13 we performed at the final of the Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition back in 2015- however the A flat major, No.14. will be a real discovery for us. Whenever we discover a 'lesser' known work like this by a famous composer, it truly reminds us of the extraordinary riches and depth of string quartet repertoire.
What excites us about this residency? The chance to build a really strong rapport with the audience that comes along. We'll be out chatting and meeting with the audience post-concert. It's always something we've loved doing, but since those strange empty Covid broadcasts from vacant halls, they've taken on an even stronger significance. The chance to deep dive into Dvořák's quartets is another plus. Dvořák is endlessly fascinating with texture, techniques he really perfected with these works. Like any great composer for quartet, it adds up to something much greater than the sum of its parts. From an audience perspective you can either choose to let those catchy, searing and passionate melodies wash over you or zone in on all that detail, either way Dvořák's spirit will bring you on a wonderful journey.
Finally the opportunity to get to intimately know one of London's best concert halls is a big attraction, Hall One at Kings Place. It has a brilliant acoustic, with a natural resonance that makes string instruments sing and radiate warmth.
A new commission from young composer Anna Appleby and one of our most popular commissions with audiences, a 2022 work by Charlotte Harding, will add a compelling dimension to the concerts along with works by Ina Boyle, Anton Webern and Franz Schubert. All will start at 6:45pm and last no more than an hour.
The Piatti Quartet is named after Alfredo Piatti, a 19th Century virtuoso cellist who was a professor at the Royal Academy of Music (the alma mater of the founders of the quartet) and also a major exponent of chamber music and contemporary music of his time [Piatti's own operatic fantasies for cello and piano were recorded in 2020, see my article]. The quartet won joint second prize and the Sydney Griller Award at the 2015 Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition.
They have premiered a mesmerising number of new works over the years beginning with Anna Meredith back in 2009 and including works by Mark-Anthony Turnage, Emily Howard, Charlotte Harding, and Joseph Phibbs, as well as making the premiere recording of Ina Boyle’s String Quartet in E minor, and performing lesser known quartet gems by Ralph Vaughan Williams, E.J. Moeran, Rachmaninov, Ireland, Haas, Ulmann, and Durosoir.
British Piano Concertos: Gordon Jacob, John Addison, Edmund Rubbra; Simon Callaghan, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Stephen Bell and George Vass; LYRITA Reviewed 27 September 2023
Returning to the treasure-trove of mid-Century British piano concertos, Simon Callaghan comes up with three gems, all receiving first recordings
Pianist Simon Callaghan has followed up his disc of British piano concertos from the 1950s [see my review], by returning to the the era for British Piano Concertos on the Lyrita label with a trio of concertante works by Gordon Jacob, John Addison and Edmund Rubbra, accompanied by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, conductors Stephen Bell and George Vass. All three are first recordings.
Gordon Jacob is perhaps best known not for his own music but for his arrangements, the orchestral versions of RVW's Folksong Suite and Holst's Moorside Suite are his. But he studied with Charles Villiers Stanford at the Royal College of Music as well as with Howells and RVW, and taught at the RCM from the mid-1920s until his retirement in 1966.
Dorset Garden Theatre, London in 1673 Later the Queen's Theatre where Purcell's King Arthur premiered in 1691
Purcell, Dryden, Thomas Guthrie: King Arthur; Lindsay Duncan, Rowan Pierce, Mhairi Lawson, Samuel Boden, James Way, Edward Grint, Early Opera Company, Christian Curnyn; Temple Music at Temple Church Reviewed 27 September 2023
Stylish musical performances allied to an imaginative dramatic context create a very satisfying evocation of Purcell and Dryden's dramatick opera
17th century semi-opera (or dramatick opera as contemporaries called it) remains a tantalising genre, more akin to a modern West End musical theatre spectacular than anything. It is a curious hybrid that owes its existence to the particularity of late 17th century London where with a court whose tastes overran budget, a highly developed spoken theatre tradition, independent theatres where actors needed to be paid so economics forced the necessity of theatrical performances having a commercial element, and local taste. After all the fondness for mixing spoken and sung in a spectacular setting was still alive and well in 1826 when Weber was commissioned to write an opera for Covent Garden; Oberon in its original form is effectively a semi-opera.
There have been modern revivals of semi-opera in its full form, notably Glyndebourne's production of Purcell's The Fairy Queen (2009) and the Royal Opera's production of Purcell's King Arthur (1995), with a brave attempt at King Arthur by the Buxton Festival in 1986. But the style, dramatic inconsequentiality and sheer length mitigate against regular revival. So what to do? Too many of the best musical scenes in Purcell's semi-operas have little to do with the overall plot and often modern performances simply present the music on its own [Paul McCreesh and Gabrieli did that at their 2019 performance of King Arthur, see my review].
%20Richard%20Hubert%20Smith.jpg "Monteverdi: The Coronation of Poppea - Keith Pun (Love), Jessica Cale(Poppea), Amy J Payne (Arnalta) - English Touring Opera (Photo: Richard Hubert Smith)")
%20Richard%20Hubert%20Smith.jpg "Monteverdi: The Coronation of Poppea - Zahid Siddiqui (Lucano), Martha Jones (Nero) - English Touring Opera (Photo: Richard Hubert Smith)")
%20Etienne%20Dupuis%20ROH%20Forza%202023%20%C2%A9%20Camilla%20Greenwell%203703.jpg "Verdi: La Forza del Destino - Étienne Dupuis - Royal Opera 2023 (Photo: Camilla Greenwell)")
