From the London Eye to the Northern Lights: BBC Radio 3’s 25 for 25: Sounds of the Century

The London Eye (Photo: Diego Delso, Wikimedia CC BY-SA 4.0)

On Saturday 25 January, BBC Radio 3 launched 25 for 25: Sounds of the Century, its sequence of 25 commissions celebrating and commemorating some of the biggest events of the 21st century so far.  Recorded by BBC performing groups and Radio 3 New Generation Artists, the new commissions have their first broadcast on Saturday Morning with Tom Service each week and are then presented across the Radio 3 schedule throughout the week following their premiere, including plays on Breakfast, Essential Classics and In Tune. 

The series launched on Saturday 25 January with the premiere of Anna Clyne’s The Eye, performed by the BBC Philharmonic with conductor Ben Gernon, taking The London Eye as a starting point for a reflection on the new millennium.

The new works include Errollyn Wallen’s Remembering 2012 (London 2012 Olympics) by New Generation Artists, the Chaos Quartet), Stephen Hough's Nocturne for September 10th 2001 (the 9/11 terrorist attacks) with performed by former New Generation Artist Elisabeth Brauß) and Thea Musgrave’s In memoriam 2022 (the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II) performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra led by Nil Venditti, with oboist Nicholas Daniel and violinist Johan Dalene, Nkeiru Okoye’s And The People Celebrated (the 2008 election of the first African-American US President, Barack Obama) with the BBC Concert Orchestra led by George Morton, and narrator Paterson Joseph), Karl Jenkins’ The Signs Still Point the Way (the COVID pandemic) with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and BBC Singers) and Rakhi Singh’s There is nothing in the sky (the Manchester Arena bombing) performed by the BBC Philharmonic.

Some of the milestones seem designed specifically to give the composers' a headache. Erland Cooper’s Birds of Paradise pays tribute to David Attenborough’s eight-decade-long career with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and conductor Jack Sheen, Anselm McDonnell reflects on the Paris Climate Agreement with the BBC Singers, Héloïse Werner is inspired by the first image of a black hole with BBC Singers. Cassie Kinoshi celebrates record sightings of humpback whales in 2021 with New Generation Artists, the Kleio Quartet and Kristina Arakelyan is inspired by Northern Lights for the BBC Philharmonic with the composer at the piano. One wonders what Gerald Barry will make of the first recorded sound on Mars with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Jack Sheen.

Of particular personal interest, Elena Kats-Chernin with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra celebrates the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act. Other notable commissions include Jasdeep Singh Degun commemorating the great Indian sitar player Vilayat Khan, who died in 2004, with BBC Philharmonic, Gavin Higgins reflecting the End of UK deep-pit coal mining in 2015 with BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Northern Lights captured by Rebecca Saxton over Great Chishill Windmill, Royston, UK, 10 October 2024, with a Nikon D750 camera and 24-70mm lens (Photo via BBC Sky at Night magazine)

Anna Clyne's piece can be found by scrolling through Tom Service's 25 January programme on BBC Sounds but I do hope the BBC are going to give us a proper website with a way to hear everything. See the full list below.

Personal night time musings and reflections: Eight Nocturnes from violist and composer Katherine Potter commissioned by ABC Classic

Katherine Potter: Eight Nocturnes; Katherine Potter, Adam Pinto; ABC Classic
Reviewed 27 January 2025

Personal reflection, late night jazz and minimalism along with Potter's own warmly rhapsodic viola playing all contribute to these eight mellow new pieces for viola and piano 

Katherine Potter is an Australian violist and composer, having trained in both jazz and classical performance, she was a 2006 Australian Chamber Orchestra Emerging Artist. As a composer she has written concert, film and dance music which has been performed in Australia, the US and Canada, and has a predilection for writing new soundtracks for 1920s silent films for the ensemble Viola Dana.

Her most recent composition, Eight Nocturnes, was a commission from ABC Classic as part of the ABC Classic and ABC Jazz Composer Commissioning Fund, and she has recorded them with pianist Adam Pinto. 

Potter's use of the word nocturne refers to personal night time musings and reflections, with each of the eight having a title and referencing Potter's life. When you read that the second nocturne, 'My little milk monkey' refers to the birth of her son, you realise quite where and why these nocturnal musings have happened.

Transported by Culture: a new music programme brings young musicians from London conservatoires to the London Transport Museum

If you have visited the London Transport Museum at all, recently, then it is likely to have been for its iconic transport collection. After all, few of us can resist an historic bus or a tube train evoking our youth. But if you heard any music, then it was likely to have been from a busker in Covent Garden Piazza, but a new initiative is planning to change that.

The Museum is planning to bring young classical and jazz musicians from some of London’s leading music schools to perform for visitors at the Museum in Covent Garden as part of the Museum's initiative to bring more art, culture and design into its programming to engage new audiences with its collection, as well as the stories it tells about London. 

This forms part of a wider vision for the Museum, which has so far seen its first theatre performance, The Truth About Harry Beck, presented by Natural Theatre Company, which celebrated the mind behind the world-famous Tube map – and enjoyed critical acclaim and sold out shows in its Cubic Theatre. Another theatre production will be launching at the Museum later in the year.

Launching on 14 February and running until October 2025, visitors to London Transport Museum can enjoy live performances from rising classical and jazz musicians against the unique backdrop of its iconic collection. The young musicians are from four London conservatoires: Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Royal Academy of Music, Royal College of Music, and Trinity Laban. The programme has been developed to equip young classical and jazz musicians at the start of their careers with real-world performance experience. It is also an opportunity for young people to engage with London’s transport history and the Museum’s collections through their work.

In late 2024, London Transport Museum put out a call to recruit young musicians, with a mandatory requirement that applicants were either undergraduates or postgraduates.  As part of this competitive process, the Museum then appointed 10 soloists and ensembles to join the programme, representing a wide range of styles and instruments. Each young musician will perform three times over the duration of the programme. 

 Elizabeth McKay, Director and CEO for London Transport Museum, said: "Not only are we the world’s leading museum of urban transport but, as a cultural cornerstone of the Covent Garden Piazza, we have a long history of embracing art, culture and design as part of our work. As we look to the future, we want to do this even more. We are therefore delighted to be offering some of the capital’s leading young classical and jazz musicians the chance to perform in our iconic central London venue, supporting their career development and, in turn, offering a unique musical experience for our visitors as part of their visit."

And, I'm sorry, but I just couldn't resist this:

Full details will be available, in due course, from the Museum's website.

Reynaldo Hahn looks back: real Belle Époque in the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective's programme centred on Hahn's Piano Quintet from the 1920s

Reynaldo Hahn in 1906

Ravel, Fauré, Lili Boulanger, Saint-Saens, Hahn: Piano Quartet; Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 26 January 2025

Reynaldo Hahn's Piano Quartet undoubtedly looks back, so this programme took that as its cue to transport us to Belle Époque Paris in a recital full of engaging elegance, charm and real passion

Personally charming and possessed of an engaging voice, Reynaldo Hahn fitted ideally into the salons of Belle Époque Paris. He wrote music with a fluency and style which makes it easy to not take his talent entirely seriously. He fought bravely in the First World War and was awarded the Croix de Guerre. Afterwards it was as if he continued to carry the perfume of the Belle Époque in his music and the works he wrote in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s remain a world away from the Paris of Les Six, the jazz age and Modernism.

We know the songs and perhaps one or two of the operas, but the rest of his large output remains substantially unexplored. the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective has recorded a disc of Reynaldo Hahn's music for Chandos, bringing together his Piano Quintet (of 1922) and the later Piano Quartet with arrangements of a selection of songs.

In part, as a celebration of the imminent release of the disc, the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective (Tom Poster, piano, Elena Urioste, violin, Savitri Grier, violin, Rosalind Ventris, viola, Laura van der Heijden, cello) placed Reynaldo Hahn's Piano Quintet at the centre of their morning concert at Wigmore Hall on Sunday 26 January 2025. With the deliberate intention of evoking those Belle Époque salons, the rest of the programme consisted of music by Ravel, Fauré, Lili Boulanger and Saint-Saens.

The beautifully conceived programme expanded towards Hahn's quintet. With began with pianist Tom Poster, alone on stage, playing Ravel's Pavane pour une infante défunte and then the number of players gradually increased, a duo, a trio, a quartet and finally the quintet.

Anna Dennis' serious and intent Susanna was rightly the main focus of John Butt & Dunedin Consort's involving account of Handel's neglected oratorio

Anna Dennis

Handel: Susanna; Anna Dennis, Alexander Chance, Jessica Cale, Joshua Ellicott, Matthew Brook, Dunedin Consort, John Butt; Church of St Martin in the Fields
Reviewed 24 January 2025

Given complete, this wonderfully involving account of Handel's woefully neglected Susanna revealed why the work should be considered alongside his other masterpieces

Whilst we talk of Handelian oratorio, the composer's own conception of the genre rarely stood still. From 1739 to 1745, his sequence of oratorios consisted of Saul, Israel in Egypt, L'Allegro, Messiah, Samson, Semele, Joseph and his Brethren, Hercules and Belshazzar. Presenting us with a remarkable breadth when it comes to trying to pin down what exactly 'oratorio' meant to its creator. Of course, in 1745, external events intruded and for the next few years, Handel's works veered towards to martial and bellicose.

By 1749, he clearly felt enough time had passed to look elsewhere. That year, he premiered two new works, Susanna and Solomon, both works take a somewhat oblique approach to the conventions of dramatic oratorio. Rather coincidentally, both works have received recent London performances, giving us a chance to compare and contrast. Earlier this month, Paul McCreesh directed the Gabriel Consort & Players in Handel's Solomon [see my review], then on Friday 24 January 2025, John Butt directed the Dunedin Consort in Handel's Susanna at the Church of St Martin in the Fields.

Another link between Susanna and Solomon is Handel's casting. The mezzo-soprano Caterina Galli sang both Solomon and Joacim in Susanna, whilst soprano Giulia Frasi sang the three soprano roles in Solomon and the title role in Susanna. Rather intriguingly for modern-day London audiences, soprano Anna Dennis was common to both the recent Handel performances, singing the Queen of Sheba in Solomon for Paul McCreesh, and then singing the title role in Handel's Susanna for John Butt and the Dunedin Consort. She was joined by Alexander Chance as Joacim, Jessica Cale as Daniel (and an attendant), Joshua Ellicott and Matthew Brook as the elders.

Figures outside a Dacha, with Snowfall, and an Abbey in the Background: from Andrei Tarkovsky's Nostalghia to Steven Daverson's new work for orchestra and live electronics

As part of the BBC Symphony Orchestra's Total Immersion: Symphonic Electronics day at the Barbican on Sunday 23 February 2025, Ilan Volkov will be conducting the orchestra in the UK premiere of Steven Daverson's Figures outside a Dacha, with Snowfall, and an Abbey in the Background with Carl Faia on live electronics. A co-commission from the BBC and West German Broadcasting, Figures Outside a Dacha, with Snowfall, and an Abbey in the Background is inspired by director Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1983 film Nostalghia and bridges the gap between classical and electronic soundscapes to explore themes of memory, loss, and metaphysical power in a Tarkovsky film.

Steven Daverson

Steven became the youngest-ever recipient of the Composers’ Prize of the Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung in 2011 and was awarded the RPS Composition Prize in the same year. He studied at the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM), Manchester, with David Horne. He received his doctorate in composition from the Royal College of Music in London, studying under Jonathan Cole and additional postgraduate tuition from Mark-Anthony Turnage. Steven is currently Professor of Composition at the RNCM and Supervisory Tutor in Composition at the University of Cambridge.

On his website, Steven describes the inspiration for his intriguingly titled work, thus, "The final shot of Andrei Tarkovsky’s film Nostalghia (1983), shows a man and a dog sitting on the ground near a pool of water, staring down the lens, with a small Russian farmhouse in the background. The camera zooms out slowly over the course of almost two minutes, revealing that the entire scene is contained within a vast Italian abbey, only glimpsed initially through the reflection of the arched windows in the pool. The camera pauses, and snow begins to fall."

Steven's choice of title for the work was deliberate, he wanted something painterly, something that gave the impression of an image even if it was not cinematic, and that a more gnomic title would be too clinical. 

It is written for orchestra and live electronics, which Steven admits is not unlike writing for two orchestras, and he adds wryly that perhaps he should have added an organ part which would mean writing for three orchestras. Whilst Steven was introduced to electronics whilst studying, he was taught in a way that rather put him off and for a long time he maintained that acoustic instruments could simulate everything electronic. His point of view has now changed, and he feels that there are certain types of grammar that electronics allow such as spatialisation or the speed of gestures. He mentions the Conlan Nancarrow studies which only achieved their effects using a player piano.

Celebrating 20 years, the East Neuk Festival welcomes old friends in a programme with Schubert and Beethoven at its core

The audience at Crail Church at the East Neuk Festival, 2024 (Photo: Neil Hanna)

The 20th East Neuk Festival will fill some of East Fife’s most stunning seaside locations with line-up of classical, jazz, folk, and experimental music from 25 to 29 June 2025.The Scottish Chamber Orchestra, which has played at every festival since it began, returns to open this year's festival, conducted by Andrew Manze in a programme including Schubert's Symphony No 6 in C major and Rodrigo's Concierto d’Aranjuez with guitarist Sean Shibe. 

Sean Shibe will also give three solo concerts in Anstruther, spanning five centuries in the evolution of the guitar from lute to electric guitar. Scottish and French lute music collected in manuscripts from over five centuries ago; music by Bach and Thomas Ades on acoustic guitar; and his own joyous rendition of Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint on electric. Still with chordophones, celebrated Oud player Nizar Rohana gives a rare solo performance on this ancient mesmerising instrument that is the ancestor of all European guitar-like instruments.

All five of Beethoven's late string quartets are spread across the festival, performed by Elias Quartet, The Pavel Haas Quartet, Castalian Quartet and the Belcea Quartet, along with music by Mozart, Schubert, Ades and Beamish. Over 20 years ago, Beethoven's Septet was performed in Elie Church at a taster event that led to the creation of the festival,  and the Septet returns this year with some of the original players plus  principals of the SCO, Berlin Philharmonic and Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, English National Opera, and the Nash Ensemble.

Schubert at the festival this year features his three song cycles performed by tenor Mark Padmore and baritone James Newby, and pianist Joseph Middleton.

To close this 20th festival, all four quartets join forces to form a ‘mega-star’ chamber orchestra and play Sibelius’s Andante Festivo alongside the world premiere of Field of Stars by Sally Beamish commissioned specifically for these 16 players and inspired partly by the many nations from which they come.

Full details from the festival website.

Handel Hendrix House celebrates Handel's Rodelinda with rarely seen portrait of castrato Senesino as Bertarido in the opera

Senesino by John Vandenbank. Private Collection, UK.
© The Handel House Trust/Christopher Ison.

It is 300 years since Handel first wrote and presented Rodelinda, the second of three masterpieces that he wrote just after moving into his house in Brook Street. Now, Handel Hendrix House, the museum based at Handel's Brook Street home, is holding an exhibition to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the composition and first performance of the opera Rodelinda. The exhibition will open on Thursday, February 13 and run until Sunday, July 6, 2025.

The centrepiece of the exhibition will be a portrait of one of the stars of the first performance, the great castrato Senesino who sang the role of Bertarido in the opera, one of some 18 roles that he created for Handel.

The portrait of Senesino from 1725 by John Vandenbank depicts the singer in character as Bertarido. He is shown in costume, described at the time as ‘Hungarian habit’, at the moment in the opera in which he contemplates an urn believed by the other characters to contain his ashes. James Harris in an inscription on the back of the portrait refers to Bertarido's aria from the scene, 'Dove sei' as ‘a most pathetic and capital song’.

In addition to the portrait of Sensino, the exhibition will include an early libretto of the opera, portraits of other cast members and objects illustrating opera-going culture from the 18th century.

Olwen Foulkes, curator of the exhibition at Handel Hendrix House, said, "We are excited to be marking the 300th anniversary of the composition in Brook Street and its first performance with this exhibition in a room in Handel’s house, featuring this wonderful portrait of Senesino. Paintings and descriptions of singers’ costumes from this time are rare, and we hope that this exhibition will help our visitors to immerse themselves in the world of Rodelinda’s first performance."

Full details from the Handel Hendrix House website.

Beyond Ravel: Mathias Halvorsen comprehensively demonstrates it is well worth exploring Paul Wittgenstein's commissions beyond the familiar Ravel

Concertos for the Left Hand: Ravel, Korngold; Mathias Halvorsen, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Otto Tausk; Backlash Music
Reviewed 22 January 2025

Two Paul Wittgenstein associated works, one known, one lesser-known, both receive towering performances that bring out surprising commonalities between Ravel and Korngold. Who knew?

The works associated with pianist Paul Wittgenstein represent a remarkable range, some he commissioned, others were dedicated to him, some he performed, others he did not understand and did not. But you have to admit that a series of concertante works for piano left hand and orchestra by  Benjamin Britten, Paul Hindemith, Alexandre Tansman, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Sergei Prokofiev, Karl Weigl, Franz Schmidt, Sergei Bortkiewicz, Richard Strauss and of course Maurice Ravel, represent a remarkable cross section of musical history in the 20th century.

There is certainly space in the recording catalogue for a comprehensive Wittgenstein collection, exploring all the works that were associated with him. Granted most, if not all, have been recorded but hearing them side-by-side as different composers grappled with the idea of a work for one-handed pianist and orchestra, would surely be fascinating.

Norwegian pianist Mathias Halvorsen has been exploring this repertoire and in his most recent recording has this to say about the challenge and rewards of these works: 

'Given the nature of Wittgenstein’s injury and the war, these pieces transcend their apparent nature as “absolute music” (music created purely for its own sake). The dialogue between soloist and orchestra takes on new significance. The “one against many” dynamic becomes a metaphor for both personal and collective resilience, illustrating the struggle to assert one’s voice amidst overwhelming circumstances and the strength found in embracing limitations.'

There is, perhaps, one further point to be made. Paul Wittgenstein was called up to serve in the German army in World War One, was captured by the Russians at the Battle of Galicia and ended up a prisoner of war in Siberia. But his choice of composers for the works associated with him transcends this, there are Germans and Austrians, but also French, Polish, British, Russian. Music seems to transcend national boundaries. This is all the more remarkable given that Wittgenstein did not understand everything that came his way.

On this disc from Backlash Music, pianist Mathias Halvorsen is the soloist in Ravel's Piano Concerto for the Left Hand and Korngold's Piano Concerto in C sharp, for Left Hand and Orchestra with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra (Kringkastingsorkesteret), conducted by Otto Tausk. Both recordings were made live, though there were subsequent edits.

Seek Him That Maketh the Seven Stars: Manchester Camerata & Kantos explore space with the James Webb Space Telescope

Manchester Camerata & Kantos explore space with the James Webb Space Telescope

The Manchester Camerata will be giving a pair of concerts in its home, the Monastery in Gorton, Manchester [see my 2023 article about Manchester Camerata at the Monastery] on Sunday 9 February 2025 conducted by Ellie Slorach and they will be joined by the choir, Kantos. The programme encourages listeners to embark on an immersive sonic journey through the cosmos beginning with Jonathan Dove's Seek Him That Maketh the Seven Stars (originally for choir and organ) and moving through music including Uranus from Holst's The Planets, Sarah Rimkus' An Account of a Comet (inspired by Caroline Herschel, one of the first women to be paid for her work as a scientist), Esenvalds's magical Stars (for choir and tuned wine glasses) and Jessie Montgomery's Starburst (for string orchestra), along with music by Ola Gjeilo, Lili Boulanger, Gesualdo, and Dan Forrest.

Images from the James Webb Space Telescope will be projected onto the Great Nave of the Monastery, creating a stunning audio-visual atmosphere. The largest telescope in space, the James Webb Space Telescope is equipped with high-resolution and high-sensitivity instruments, allowing it to view objects too old, distant, or faint for the Hubble Space Telescope.

Full details from the Manchester Camerata's website.

Schubert Song Prize winners for 2024

Eyra Norman, Abhisri Chaudhuri, Nicky Spence

The London Song Festival and Schubert Society have announced the winners of the 2024 London Song Festival Masterclass & Schubert Song Prize Competition. The 2024 Masterclass and Schubert Song Prize event, featuring internationally acclaimed tenor Nicky Spence, took place on Wednesday, 27 November 2024 and was sponsored by the German YMCA in London. This was the 10th anniversary of the first Schubert Song Prize.

The winners were soprano Eyra Norman and pianist Abhisri Chaudhuri, and they will perform on Thursday 6 February 2025 at St James’s Church Sussex Gardens W2, as part of the Schubert Society of Britain's concert series, with a programme of Schubert, Strauss, Schumann, Wolf, Poulenc, Debussy, Satie and Hammerstein [full details].

Eyra Norman is a Malaysian-born British soprano who studied at the Royal College of Music. She was a Drake Calleja Trust Scholar for 2023-2024, a Shipston rising Star in 2024, and will join Opera Prelude as a young artist in 2025. Her national debut came in 2019 as Belinda in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas with the English National Opera and Unicorn Theatre.

Scottish-Indian pianist, Abhisri Chaudhuri studied at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and she is currently in her second year of master’s studies in Collaborative Piano at the Royal College of Music, studying with Roger Vignoles and Simon Lepper.

Painterly inspirations: Aglica Trio give the UK premiere of John Casken's Toiles de Staël

Nicolas de Staël (1914-1955) was a Russian-born French painter whose turbulent life often overshadowed his short career. 

Composer John Casken describes de Staël's canvases as being as vibrant and vivid of any artist working at the time, and Casken was very struck by the painter's bold use of blocks of colour, the textured layers of paint, and the sheer confidence and energy of his works. Casken visited the retrospective exhibition of de Staël’s work at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris [see the exhibition review in The Guardian] and the result was his Toiles de Staël (De Staël Canvases) for flute, viola and harp.

The work was written for Aglica Trio ( Carys Gittins, flute Agnieszka Żyniewicz, viola Lise Vandersmissen, harp) who premiered it in Paris last year, and they will be giving the work's UK premiere at St Paul's Church, Rectory Grove, Clapham on Friday 31 January 2025 as part of Clapham Chamber Concerts current series. The concert also includes music by Debussy, Ravel and Ibert, along with Hilary Tann's From the Song of Amergin and William Mathias' Zodiac Trio.

In three movements, Casken's trio is based directly on de Staël's paintings, the first movement on the 1948 Hommage à Piranèse, the second Paysage on a selection of landscapes and the third on the 1946-1947 De la danse.

John Casken won the inaugural Michael Tippett Award for The Shackled King, a drama based on King Lear written for Sir John Tomlinson and mezzo soprano Rozanna Madylus and Counterpoise Ensemble. Rozanna Madylus and pianist Anna Tilbrook premiered Four Ghost Songs for the City Music Foundation in July 2024. The Joyful Company of Singers will release a CD of choral music in autumn 2025 and the Nash Ensemble will premiere Mantle for piano and wind quintet at Wigmore Hall on 18 March 2025. 

Full details of the Aglica Trio's concerto from Clapham Chamber Concerts website.

We are the lucky ones: Philip Venables new opera at Dutch National Opera, his first large-scale orchestral opera

Philip Venables (Photo: ® Charl Marais)

Philip Venables' opera We are the lucky ones is being premiered by Dutch National Opera on 14 March 2025 in Amsterdam.

The opera features a libretto by Nina Segal and Ted Huffmann, and Huffmann also directs and designs. This will be Venables and Huffmann's fourth music theatre collaboration and their previous work included 4.48 Psychosis [see my review of the 2018 revival], Denis & Katya [which debuted in Philadelphia in 2019 then travelled to Wales in 2020, see my article] and The Faggots and their Friends between Revolutions, an adaptation of Larry Mitchell’s queer fairy tale which debuted at the Manchester International Festival in 2023. We are the lucky ones is their first collaboration with playwright Nina Segal, and also their first full-scale orchestral opera.

We Are The Lucky Ones tells the story of a generation. It is based on interviews with more than seventy people in Western Europe who were born between 1940 and 1949. The musical director is Bassem Akiki and the cast includes Claron McFadden and Jacquelyn Stucker. Full details from Dutch National Opera's website.

Philip Venables also recently announced the launch of his own publishing imprint, Opera Edition Ltd. Venables, previously published by G. Ricordi & Co. (Berlin) for the past seven years, will now publish all future works and many older pieces exclusively through Opera Edition Ltd, while Ricordi will continue to manage their catalogue of his works. Additionally, he will now be represented by OWL Artist Management.

Philip Venables said: "I’m thrilled to start a new adventure by setting up Opera Edition and collaborating with Oliver Clarke at OWL Artist Management. As I transition from chamber work to large-scale opera, and having decided to move away from a traditional publishing arrangement, I am hugely excited by the possibility of a new publishing and promotion model to facilitate the bespoke music theatre projects that I want to make. I know that Oliver shares that vision and is eager to help make it a reality; I’m absolutely delighted to be working with him."

Further details from Philip Venables' website.

BREMF celebrates late artistic director Deborah Roberts & creates fund as a way of continuing her inspirational legacy

Deborah Roberts

BREMF (Brighton Early Music Festival) is celebrating the life of its late artistic director (and co-founder) Deborah Roberts with a concert at St Martin's Church, Brighton on 9 February 2025. 

Performers taking part including BREMF Live alumni and BREMF performing groups including Apollo's Cabinet, Voice, Ensemble Tempus, Rune, Musica Secreta and Celestial Sirens, plus BREMF Consort of Voices, BREMF 415 Workshop Orchestra, and BREMF Community Choir.

The music has been selected to feature repertoire that Deborah loved and performed, including music by Josquin, Monteverdi, Byrd, and William Boyce plus scenes from Francesca Caccini's Ruggiero and Blow's Venus & Adonis, Cozzolani's Magnificat a 8 and Striggio's Mass in 40 parts.

The event is almost full, though there will be a limited number of places available on the door, see website for details, but do consider donating to BREMF in Deborah's memory (details on the website).All donations will be added to the Deborah Roberts Memorial Fund, which will be used to support the projects that Deborah championed and loved as a way of continuing her inspirational legacy.

Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach is somewhat undeservedly squashed between his brothers, but this disc shows his music well worth exploring

Johann Christoph Friedrich: Six Sonatas "für das Clavier mit Begleitung einer Flöte oder Violine"; Ashley Solomon, Jochewed Schwarz; Meridian Records
Reviewed 20 January 2025

With a poised fluidity and an imagination hovering between Baroque and Classical, JCF Bach's music proves well worth exploring on this disc of his sonatas for keyboard and flute, add to this the seductive timbre of the period square piano

Born in Leipzig in 1732, Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach was JS Bach's fifth son (coming between CPE Bach and JC Bach). He was described by Wilhelm Friedemann Bach as the strongest harpsichordist amongst the brothers and at the age of 17 became harpsichordist to Count Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst zu Schaumberg Lippe and for the next 45 years, until his death, JCF Bach was resident in Bückeburg in Lower Saxony, the capital of the tiny principality of Schaumburg-Lippe. Count Friedrich Wilhelm was eight years older than his new employee and the grandson of King George I of England (via one of the king's illegitimate daughters).

Schaumburg-Lippe was the smallest state in the Holy Roman Empire, and the Count was educated and musically literate, playing the clavier and probably the flute. Whilst his father's court had employed just one musician (!), Count Friedrich Wilhelm employed fifteen (including JCF Bach), including recruiting Italian musicians. JCF Bach took over as concertmaster in 1756 when the Italian musicians returned home. 

The majority of JCF Bach's music remained in manuscript, and was the property of the Count, probably written for the Count's musical circle. Unfortunately the majority of this was lost in the Second World War. Thankfully, JCF Bach did publish a small selection of his music, and flute is a regular feature of his published music, and in 1777 he published Six Sonatas intended for keyboard with flute or violin. There are six of these and they have been recorded by flautist Ashley Solomon and keyboard player Jochewed Schwarz for Meridian.

This new recording does not just give us a chance to hear JCF Bach's six sonatas, but to do so on instruments that he might have recognised. Ashley Solomon plays a flute made in 2005 and modelled on on by Carlo Palanca from around 1750. Jochewed Schwarz plays not on a harpsichord but on a square piano by Johannes Zumpe and Gabriel Buntebart made in London in 1769 and currently in the Cobbe Collection at Hatchlands Park where the recording was made.

Song, the Secret of Eternity: Leeds Lieder Festival returns with its boldest & most colourful programme yet, celebrating its 20th anniversary

With the theme of Song, the Secret of Eternity, Leeds Lieder Festival returns from 5 to 12 April 2025 with a celebration of its 20th anniversary. Festival director Joseph Middleton describes it as "Our boldest and most colourful programme to date reflects the enduring appeal of song and its power to connect us across time and culture. With a line-up of  performers who really have something to say, and innovative programmes, this Festival celebrates life, song, and its ability to explain some of the most profound aspects of the human condition."

Two Schubert song cycles open and close the Festival, performed by two of the greatest exponents of the art form accompanied by festival director Joseph Middleton. Baritone Florian Boesch opens the week with Winterreise, while tenor Christoph Prégardien concludes with Die schöne Müllerin. Throughout the Festival, audiences will be treated to recitals by the finest British vocalists such as Alice Coote who is joined by pianist Julius Drake for their 'Rebellious Recital' which aims to challenge the very notion of the traditional song recital programme, Kitty Whately who is joined by pianist Natalie Burch for a relaxed lunchtime recital, Louise Alder who performs Mahler, and Strauss alongside Helen Grime including her Bright Travellers and the premiere of a festival commission, and Roderick Williams who with Andrew West brings 'A touch of the exotic'.

The Erda Ensemble, Marta Fontanals-Simmons (mezzo-soprano), Chloe Vincent (flute), Olivia Jageurs (harp), present an homage to women in music and brewing at North Brewing with music from Chaminade, Ina Boyle, Harriet Adie, Amy Beach, Rosy Wertheim, Grace Williams, Anne Boyd, and Roxana Panufnik. In Our People, tenor Freddie Ballantyne and pianist Kunal Lahiry present a recital which is a passion produce born out of the strife of the Black Lives Matter movement, which moves from Schubert and Purcell, through Copland, Bolcom, and Margaret Bonds to John Musto, Ricky Ian Gordon and Nina Simone.

The much-acclaimed Leeds Songbook Project offering a living portrait of the city’s artistic landscape. The project marries stories about the people of Leeds, told in poems by the people of Leeds, set to music by composers invited to Leeds, and finally, performed by Leeds Lieder Young Artists. The showcase event connects Leeds communities and creates a lasting snapshot of song writing for future generations to enjoy. 

There are masterclasses led by artists, including Festival President Elly Ameling, Sir Thomas Allen, Dame Felicity Lott, Amanda Roocroft, Julius Drake and Anna Tilbrook. A series of specially curated concerts will also highlight the next generation of musicians, including a Young Artist Showcase, Study Event based on Goethe, and a Late Night Lieder event, presenting the future of song in a relaxed and intimate setting.   

The festival's title this year comes from final song Egyptian soprano Fatma Said will sing in her eclectic programme - words by Khalil Gibran and music by Lebanese polymath Najib Hankash. The opening stanza reads: 

“Give me a flute and sing,
For song is the secret of eternity,
And the sound of the flute remains
Beyond the end of existence.” 

Full details from the festival website.

A channel to facilitate communication between the professional music world and the society more in general: Fidelio Orchestra's 2025 season

Fidelio Orchestra

Founded in 2019 with the aim of creating opportunities for young musicians to get high standard orchestral experience and to collaborate with outstanding soloists, the the Fidelio Orchestra aims to bring together people with a commitment to making good music in a fun and unsophisticated environment. 

Their 2025 season begins on 20 February at St Andrew's Holborn, with Raffaello Morales conducting and the orchestra performing in the round with a programme, Meditations that features Marcello's Oboe Concerto from 1717, and two works from the 1940s, Bacewicz's Concerto for String Orchestra and Strauss' Oboe Concerto with soloist Laura Wallace. A practicing solicitor with a top law firm, Laura is a vivid example of how the passion and the interest for music can go along a profession strictly outside of the music industry.

In April, Raffaello Morales conducts a far larger ensemble at Milton Court Concert Hall for Strauss' Ein Heldenleben and Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No.2 with violinist Kristine Balanas. Then in June the orchestra is joined by pianist (and barrister) Paul Wee at St John's Waterloo for Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 3 and Shostakovich's Symphony No. 10. 

Finally the season concludes in July at St John's Waterloo with Mozart's Serenade for Winds in C minor K. 388 and Alban Berg's Kammerkonzert für Klavier und Geige mit 13 Bläser. The conductor is Leonard Elschenbroich with soloists, pianist Julia Hamoś and Fidelio Orchestra's concertmaster Jaga Klimaszewska. 

The orchestra is effectively a springboard for young musicians to launch into a career as professional players. The involvement of non-professional musicians in the orchestra is a testimony to the idea that orchestral music is not only a discipline to be celebrated as a professional practice, but it can be a channel to facilitate communication between the professional music world and the society more in general.

Full details from the orchestra's website.

'They are all gone now, and there isn't anything more the sea can do to me.' - Riders to the Sea

J.M.Synge's Riders to the Sea at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin

Ralph Vaughan Williams' operatic masterpiece, Riders to the Sea, his 1927 one-act opera remains something of a neglected gem, to a certain extent because no-one has quite worked out what to programme with the opera. 

On 30 January 2025, OperaUpClose (OUC) launch a UK tour of Riders to the Sea in a new chamber orchestration by Michael Betteridge and the opera is paired with a new prologue by Betteridge, The Last Bit of the Moon, with a text by ArtfulScribe's Community Sirens Collective led by Antosh Wojcik. The director is Flora McIntosh and performances feature Lauren Young as Maurya. The tour opens in 30 January at MAST Mayflower Studios, Southampton and continues to Exeter, Plymouth, Chichester, the artsdepot (London), Hull, Oxford, and Blackpool. 

 

'I'll have no call now to be crying and praying when the wind breaks from the south and you can hear the surf is in the east and the surf is in the west making a great stir with the two noises and they hitting one another.' - Maurya (Riders to the Sea)

The show will bring together music, projections and theatre as there will be choral recordings layered over the live music and the musicians will be on stage with the singers, building on this element of OUC’s approach to their shows which was a big part of their version of The Flying Dutchman from last year.

The composer Edmund Rubbra characterised Riders to the Sea as less an opera than a "spoken drama raised in emotional power and expressiveness to the nth degree" The story concerns Maurya, an elderly Irishwoman, who has lost her husband, father-in-law, and four of her six sons at sea. In the opera her fifth son, Michael, is feared lost and the sixth and last son, Bartley, is planning to go to Galway fair to sell horses. Maurya sees a vision of the ghost of Michael riding behind Bartley, and Bartley's corpse is brought on. The opera ends with a long lament from Maurya where she comes to terms with her loss.

Full details from the OperaUpClose website.

Here, director Flora McIntosh and composer Michael Betteridge discuss the opera.

In my end is my beginning: Dmitri Tcherniakov directs Handel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto & Ulrich Rasch directs Donizetti's Maria Stuarda at the 2025 Salzburg Festival

Salzburg - Hofstallgasse at Night (Photo: TSG Breitegger)

For Markus Hinterhäuser, artistic director of the Salzburg Festival, the main theme of the 2025 Festival (18 July to 31 August 2025) can be summed up in Mary, Queen of Scot's motto 'in my end is my beginning'. But for all Hinterhäuser's admirably coherent programming, 2025 is likely to be the year that Dmitri Tcherniakov directed Handel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto and Ulrich Rasch directed Donizetti's Maria Stuarda. The opera selection is admirably catholic, there are also a new productions of Péter Eötvös' Three Sisters and Schoenberg's Erwartung along with a revival of Verdi's Macbeth in Krzysztof Warlikowski's production.

This will be Dmitri Tcherniakov's debut at the Salzburg Festival but he will be teaming up again with conductor Emmanuelle Haim (conducting her own period-instrument ensemble), the two of them having worked on Tcherniakov's Gluck Iphigenia project at Aix-en-Provence this Summer. In Giulio Cesare, the title role will be sung by Christophe Dumaux with Olga Kulchynska as Cleopatra, Lucile Richardot as Cornelia, countertenor Federico Fiori as Sesto and countertenor Yuriy Mynenko as Tolomeo. It will be interesting to see what version of the opera Tcherniakov and Haim come up with (ie what cuts they implement) as well as finding out how Tcherniakov deals with the dramaturgy of opera seria. One thing, however, is certain, it won't be boring and Dumaux has long experience in the role of Cesare, we saw him way back in 2011 at Royal Theatre at Versailles [see my review].

A glorious, yet sophisticated noise: Handel's Solomon from Paul McCreesh & Gabrieli with Tim Mead as Solomon in Inner Temple Hall

Inner Temple Hall in its modern incarnation built in the 1950s

Handel: Solomon; Tim Mead, Rowan Pierce, Hilary Cronin, Frances Gregory, Anna Dennis, James Way, Morgan Pearse, Gabrieli Consort & Players, Paul McCreesh; Temple Music Foundation at Inner Temple Hall
Reviewed 16 January 2025

One of Handel's finest oratorios in almost perfect circumstances, glorious choral singing, fine orchestral playing, superb dramatic pacing and seven soloists who drew you into the drama. Pure magic.

Written in 1749, Handel's Solomon is a lavish work, large in scale, using a double chorus and with the one of the largest orchestras Handel would write for (strings, flutes, oboes, bassoons, horns, trumpets, timpani), yet Susanna which premiered the same season uses relatively compact forces. Clearly, in Solomon Handel wished the conception to match his eulogy of Georgian England.

After having written a whole sequence of martial oratorios in the years after the 1745 rebellion, Handel turned to a greater variety of sources for his oratorios, Susanna and Solomon are both Biblical, but the one has elements of a lighter operatic style, whilst the other has that large scale grandeur. Then in 1750 he would turn to a sentimental novel for Theodora, which though religious in nature is not Biblical at all, before the final towering masterpiece of Jephtha with its story combining the Bible with Euripides and the daring use of a dramatic tenor as the hero.

For Solomon, Handel seemed to be looking back. There is the use of Da Capo arias, but also the casting of the title role. This was written for a female alto, Caterina Galli, as if Handel was looking back towards the castratos of his Italian opera. Countertenors in Handel's day rarely had the dramatic range needed for the role, though nowadays Solomon is rarely played by a woman. Having also sung Joachim in Susanna, Caterina Galli would create a sequence of remarkable roles for Handel including Irene in Theodora and Storgé in Jephtha. In Handel's performances of Solomon the three soprano roles, Solomon's Queen, First Harlot and Queen of Sheba, were sung by the same singer though modern practice tends to have them sung by different singers.

On Thursday 16 January 2025, Temple Music opened their 2025 season with one of their largest events yet, Handel's Solomon performed in Inner Temple Hall by Gabrieli Consort & Players, conductor Paul McCreesh, with Tim Mead as Solomon, Rowan Pierce as Solomon's Queen, Hilary Cronin and Frances Gregory as the Harlots and Anna Dennis as the Queen of Sheba, plus James Way as Zadok and Morgan Pearse as a Levite.

The concert took place in Inner Temple Hall, this is a traditional classical style building dating from the 1950s, and the third incarnation of the hall. The original 17th century hall was replace in the later 19th century by a Gothic one, this in turn was destroyed during the war and replaced by the present one.