2025 in Opera Reviews: rare Rameau, rarer Handel, the Barber in Benidorm, Iphigenia in Blackheath, Wagner at Holland Park, Mary Queen of Scots returns, & Maria Stuarda as kinetic music theatre

Handel: Deidamia - Nicolò Balducci - Wexford Festival Opera (Photo: Pádraig Grant)

Opera in 2025 featured a genuine rarity in Thea Musgrave's undeservedly neglecting Mary, Queen of Scots, whilst Mary was also a focus in Salzburg in the guise of Donizetti's Maria Stuarda in a production that was an astonishing piece of kinetic musical theatre.

Further rarities included Handel's last Italian opera, Deidamia, in Wexford and Giustino returning to Covent Garden, whilst Opera North turned the oratorio Susanna into a dance drama. There was rare Rameau too, with Les Indes Galantes receiving its first professional UK staging. Waterperry Opera showed that Handel's Semele could be small-scale but ravishing, whilst at Garsington a more lavish production presented Rodelinda with intelligence and imagination.

Another undeserved rarity is Gluck's Iphigenia in Tauride which was given a compelling performance from community opera in Blackheath. Still tracking rarities, Buxton Festival returned to Ambroise Thomas' Hamlet in a stylishly minimal production from Jack Furness.

Britten's The Rape of Lucretia showed English Touring Opera on strong form, whilst ENO's first ever production of Albert Herring proved to be stripped back yet lost little of the sense of place. There was Peter Grimes in a new production at WNO, with Nicky Spence in a performance of remarkable intensity, and a semi-staged version from BYO with Mark Le Brocq was one of the most memorable performances of the opera that I have come across.

Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro - Huw Montague Rendall, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment - Glyndebourne at the BBC Proms (Photo: Chris Christodoulou/ BBC)

Equally memorable, Glyndebourne's semi-staged performance of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro at the BBC Proms featured a cast mixing youth and experience. A youthful cast provided a witty account of Rossini's Il barbiere di Sivigla in Longborough's stylishly engaging 1970s sitcom take on the opera

2025 in Concert Reviews: women's voices, Barenboim defying age, rare melodrama, Ukraine at war, Big Baroque, and much-delayed Bliss

Bach: Mass in B Minor - Peter Whelan, Irish Baroque Orchestra & Choir, Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin

The unusual, the rare and the undeservedly neglected often feature strongly in my own personal interests. 2025 featured a wide selection of these in our concert reviews.

Antoine Brumel's 12-part Earthquake Mass featured alongside better known Tallis from Peter Phillips and The Tallis Scholars. The English Concert performed terrific rarities by Humfrey and Blow alongside better known Purcell at Wigmore Hall. The Mozartists featured a tantalising scene from Benda's melodrama Medea as part of their 1775 Retrospective.

Peter Whelan drew a remarkably communicative and urgent performance from the Irish Baroque Orchestra (IBO) in a large scale account of the Dublin version of Handel's Alexander's Feast at BBC Proms. Whelan and the IBO were in more regular formation on home turf, with a vivid Bach Mass in B Minor in Dublin. And there was more Handel in near perfect circumstances with Paul McCreesh and Gabrieli in Solomon at Inner Temple. And Solomon's Knot completed their year at Wigmore Hall with a daringly compact account of Israel in Egypt.

Konstantin Krimmel included Carl Loewe alongside Schubert as part of Wigmore Hall's Schubert Birthday Concert. Daniel Barenboim conducted his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra at the Salzburg Festival in a relatively main-stream programme, but the conductor's defying of age and illness was compelling.

Igor Levitt's powerful account of Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No.2 was closely followed by music from his opera Semyon Kotko alongside Ukrainian composer Boris Lyatoshynsky's dramatic war-inspired symphony

Bliss' powerful war-inspired cantata, The Beatitudes finally returned to the BBC Proms after 60 years.. Britten Sinfonia and Sinfonia Smith Square united for a thrilling account of Olivier Messiaen’s Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum. Malcolm Arnold's Symphony No. 5 featured in Gergely Madaras and BBC NOW celebration of Cheltenham Music Festival's 80th birthday

Benda: Medea - Alexandra Lowe, The Mozartists, Ian Page at Cadogan Hall (Photo: Martin Kendrick)

Gweneth Ann Rand and Simon Lepper made Judith Weir's woman.life.song a powerful part of a typically fearless programme at Wigmore Hall. There were more women's voices with four Irish women composers giving voice to women of the Magdalene Laundries from Lotte Betts-Dean and Deirdre Brenner at Oxford International Song Festival.

Letter from Florida: Manfred Honeck conducts Mahler’s 4th with New World Symphony in Miami

Mahler: Symphony No. 4 - Manfred Honeck, New World Symphony - New World Center, Miami

Johann Strauss: Overture to Die Fledermaus, Haydn: Symphony No. 93 in D major; Mahler: Symphony No. 4; Lauren Snouffer, New World Symphony, Manfred Honeck; New World Center, Miami, Florida
Reviewed by Robert J Carreras (14 December 2025)

The unexaminable nature of how music touches the human experience. In his last Letter from Florida of 2025, Robert J Carreras experiences Maher's Fourth Symphony

Pythagoras is thought to have been the first to formally study a relationship between math and music. The Greek philosopher of antiquity and “father of math” is now rooted to music as much as to math. In his concept, “the music of the spheres,” Pythagoras theorizes that celestial bodies are in some kind of harmony and synchronicity through and with an otherworldly something. According to Pythagoras, there is a cosmically ordered source that systematizes sounds as humans experience them.  

From this, Pythagoras set forth on creating a rules-based system for understanding music, especially consonance, that became foundational to counterpoint in the Dark Ages and the Renaissance period. In effect, Pythagoras stumbled upon objective and observable patterns that make music pleasing to the ear.

Manfred Honeck is a seeming disciple of Pythagoras, an inheritor of desiring to make math audibly pleasing. Honeck is that rare breed of musical mathematician – in his right hand is a counting baton, in his left, a veritable abacus of artistic expression. 

With New World Symphony (NWS), Honeck delivers on the key parts of Johann Baptiste Strauss II, Franz Joseph Haydn, and Gustav Mahler and seeks to draw bridges across the changeovers of each of the composer’s works played this afternoon. The conductor’s idiosyncrasies betray Viennese partialities; he likes to hang his upbeats, crashing them down onto downbeats; his baton flicks take getting used to, in the manner of, but overall his counting is easy enough to follow. 

Honeck does not mind crouching down to eye-level of the violins as first line of contact, to elicit the start of a shift in orchestral balance. Honeck displays very fine and exacting directions from his abacus – it as active as his counting; this piques interests about Honeck’s hand dominance and dexterity.

Not since the summer years of Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT) has NWS combined this level of volume and dynamic diversity. There is also an attempt to integrate the tonal switches gestalt to a composer’s ideas, especially those of Gustav Mahler. Under Honeck’s leadership, these players create bigger sounds that stretch the NWS canvas over an extra large frame in a way reminiscent of MTT. 

Season's Greetings from all at Planet Hugill

Dublin and the River Liffey, taken during Robert's recent trip to Dublin and Wexford.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 

from 

Robert 

and all at Planet Hugill

Carrying the narrative strongly & directly: Solomon's Knot in Handel's Israel in Egypt at Wigmore Hall

Solomon's Knot

Handel: Israel in Egypt; Solomon's Knot; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 22 December 2025

Daringly performing Handel's great choral oratorio with just eight singers, Solomon's Knot bring out the work's narrative quality in a performance the was something of a tour de force

Handelian oratorio was a lot less settled in form than we like to think with the advantage of hindsight. Handel followed Saul, a large-scale dramatic work, with a work that minimised solo contributions and concentrated on the chorus. We now see Israel in Egypt as a Handelian oratorio par excellence, beloved of choirs and choral societies, but Handel's contemporaries were not so sure. The reactions to the premiere of Israel in Egypt in 1739 may well have had as much to do with anti-Handel feeling as the work itself, but certainly Handel's initial conception involving an adaptation of the Funeral Anthem for Queen Caroline never survived beyond the first couple of performances. Handel himself tried various solutions, but the version of the work that has come down to us is in two parts (confusingly usually called Parts Two and Three).

In later works such as Belshazzar, Handel would go to great pains to characterise the chorus but in Israel in Egypt we find him using the chorus of Israelites as almost the only character, narrating the story directly to us. It was this aspect of the oratorio that came over most strongly in Solomon's Knot's daring presentation of Handel's Israel in Egypt at Wigmore Hall on Monday 22 December 2025.

Well-upholstered & rather different: On Christmas Night from London Choral Sinfonia & Michael Waldron on Orchid Classics

On Christmas Night:  Percy Fletcher, Jim Clements, Howard Blake, Harold Darke, Alec Rowley, Holst, Adolph Adam, Iain Farrington, Owain Park; London Choral Sinfonia, Michael Waldron, Emma Bell, Malakai Baytoh; Orchid Classics
Reviewed 22 December 2025

If you are looking for a Christmas disc then this provides rather a different look at some classics along with more unusual repertoire, all beautifully performed

For their second Christmas album, Michael Waldron and London Choral Sinfonia explore new and unusual version of the more traditional Christmas tunes. On Christmas Night on Orchid Classics features music by Percy Fletcher, Jim Clements, Howard Blake, Harold Darke, Alec Rowley, Holst, Adolphe Adam and Iain Farrington along with some traditional tunes with soloists Emma Bell (soprano), Malakai Bayoh (treble), Martha McLorinan (mezzo-soprano) and Jimmy Holliday (bass), with four new orchestrations by Owain Park.

All the items are beautifully performed by choir and string orchestra, with the addition of harp, percussion, keyboards and trumpets at various times. The result is a well-upholstered and rather different look at a number of familiar classics along with some lesser-known gems, with Owain Park's orchestrations meaning that Waldron has been able to cast his net quite widely.

Christmas Megamix: Brixton Chamber Orchestra's final gig in its Christmas Estates Tour 2025

Brixton Chamber Orchestra & Matthew O'Keeffe at Stockwell Park Estate Community Trust

Last night (Sunday 21 December 2025), Brixton Chamber Orchestra's Christmas Estates Tour 2025 came to an end at Stockwell Park Estate Community Trust, the last of eleven free gigs to venues that included community halls across the borough as well as the historic Streatham Place Theatre. Under its director Matthew O'Keeffe, the orchestra performed an eclectic 70-minute set to a packed house, which was standing room only.

We began in fairly sedate style with O'Keeffe's arrangement of O Tannenbaum, before the orchestra launched into a very creditable account of Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture, sounding remarkably vivid in the relative confines of the Community Trust's hall.

Then, just to turn up the heat, they moved into the Lover's Rock Megamix, a lively medley created by orchestra member Lewis Daniel that featured Marcia Aitken's I’m Still In Love, Ken Boothe's Everything I Own, Carroll Thompson's I’m So Sorry, and Chronixx's Skankin Sweet. Tunes that definitely had the audience humming along. Something of the Christmas theme continued with music from the film Home Alone, John Williams's song Somewhere in my Memory, which even had the orchestra members singing along at one point.

One of the orchestra's regular members is jazz-bass player and composer Misha Mullov-Abbado, he couldn't make the gig, but the orchestra played his new piece Donna Margerella. Inspired by two local characters, it brought the musical style vividly into the present. And just to show that the orchestra's taste is truly eclectic, the evening also included a delightful short piece by Elgar, The Valentine from music he wrote for dances at his local lunatic asylum.

We had two very contrasting vocalists. First off, a female vocalist gave us slow-jazz-infused version of Adolphe Adam's O Holy Night, plus Massive Attack's Paradise Circus. Then rapper Martian B2A joined them for some of the orchestra's speciality, Grime Orchestrated, in this case his new track Goldeneye. And hearing the music performed like this, with full orchestral backing is quite something. At the end of the set, there was an open mic session when Martian B2A was joined by a group of other rappers who brought the hall alive.

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The final songs all had everyone dancing, literally or metaphorically, with O'Keeffe's arrangements of Celia Cruz's La Vida es un Carnaval and Daryl McKenzie's Merry Christmas Everyone. Mullov-Abbado's arrangement of Jocelyn Brown's Somebody Else's Guy brought the set to a close, though I got the impression that everyone really wanted the party to continue.

Letter from Florida: Opera Up-Close - Unveiling the Dramatic Process with Paul Curran at Palm Beach Opera

Opera Up-Close - Mozart: Don Giovanni - Evan Lazdowski as Leporello and Erik Tofte as Giovanni - Palm Beach Opera (Photo: Kelly O'Brien of Coastal Click Photography)

Opera Up-Close: Unveiling the Dramatic Process with Paul Curran; Palm Beach Opera, The Cornelia T. Bailey Opera Center, Palm Beach, Florida
Reviewed by Robert J Carreras, 13 December 2025

In our latest Letter from Florida, Robert J Carreras enjoys Palm Beach Opera's latest Opera Up-Close with features scenes from four operas where stage director Paul Curran provides expert commentary about each scene.

Palm Beach Opera (PBO) General Director James Barbato and internationally renown Stage Director Paul Curran are creating monsters. Both these types of monsters are of operatic proportions of course, only one serves a higher purpose. PBO demonstrates a resoluteness in this area, sorely lacking representation in classical music today. PBO is looking at itself first.

Look at the calm before the storm in Palm Beach. Something is brewing sub rosa at Wall Street South. It is there in the form of a figure...unclear, unnamed, a monster. It gives rise to and shifts the axis of the facade of the Cornelia T. Bailey Opera Center, a monster. At the meet and greet in the reception hall, it lurks behind the walls. Arcus, nimbi, and tubas are forming and gathering there. A monstrous storm front is overflowing in Paradise now.

The second installment of PBO’s Opera Up-Close: Unveiling the Dramatic Process celebrates its first anniversary of artistic anxiety, never failing to disappoint and disillusion. PBO, Curran and Young Artists peel back another layer of where opera stands at present. The farthest seat tonight is standing room about twenty feet away; the closest, too close. In an age of High Definition captured birthmarks and rashes there is little margin for error; these are very intense training grounds.

There is so much talent out there that the lines between opera-special and opera-Olympian are evermore blurring. The talent has probably always been there, but the recruitment process is now a full-scale competitive exercise all its own. Spaceship earth seems smaller, and there are so many talented talent scouts searching it would take the seclusion of the remotest parts of Papa New Guinea for the next Farinelli to evade discovery. Unless she were never to know about opera, a proposition much less plausible today.

Opera Up-Close - Mozart: Don Giovanni - Sara Stevens as Donna Anna - Palm Beach Opera (Photo: Kelly O'Brien of Coastal Click Photography)

The extreme psychological approach weakened the dramaturgy: Handel's Ariodante returns to Covent Garden in new production by Jetske Mijnssen

Handel: Ariodante - Royal Opera House (Photo: Bill Knight/RBO)

Handel's Ariodante; Jacquelyn Stucker, Emily D'Angelo, Christophe Dumaux, Elen Villalon, Ed Lyon, Peter Kellner, director: Jetske Mijnssen, conductor: Stefano Montanari; Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Reviewed 19 December 2025

Handel's later masterpiece returns to Covent Garden for the first time since its premiere in a modern psychological production that is full of musical riches but ultimately fails to move

Handel's Ariodante was the first new opera he composed for the theatre at Covent Garden, Handel's long reign at the King's Theatre having come to an end. For modern audiences it is a surprisingly accessible piece with no satirical comedy and no lofty heroics. There is also no subplot, all the characters are involved in the action, and the story is told in a remarkably direct way. It is thus rather surprising that the opera is a relative rarity on UK stages. The Royal Academy of Music staged it in 2023 [see my review] and the Royal College of Music in 2016 [see my review], and there have been concert performances from Joyce DiDonato and Il complesso barocco in 2011 [see my review], Alice Coote and the English Concert in 2017 [see our review] and at Covent Garden in 2020 with Paula Murrihy [see my review].

Harry Fehr staged it for Scottish Opera in 2016 (with Caitlin Hulcup) and David Alden famously staged it at English National Opera in 1993 with occasional revivals, the production also shared with Welsh National Opera, and English Touring Opera did stage it. But Covent Garden's recent new production of Ariodante represented a rare chance to experience the work staged by a professional company.

Jetske Mijnssen's production is a co-production with Opera National du Rhin (where it has already appeared in 2024, see review) and Opera de Lausanne. We caught the performance on Friday 19 December 2025 at the Royal Opera House conducted by Stefano Montanari with Emily D'Angelo as Ariodante [last seen as Ruggiero in Alcina here in 2022, see my review], Jacquelyn Stucker as Ginevra [last seen performing Handel with David Bates and La Nuova Musica at Wigmore Hall this year, see my review], Christophe Dumaux as Polinesso [last seen as Handel's Giulio Cesare in Salzburg this year, see my review], Elena Villalon as Dalinda, Ed Lyon as Lurcanio, Peter Kellner as the King of Scotland and Emyr Lloyd Jones as Odoardo. Set design was by Etienne Pluss with costumes by Uta Meenen.

Handel: Ariodante - Ed Lyon, Christophe Dumaux, Peter Kellner, Emyr Lloyd Jones - Royal Opera House (Photo: Bill Knight/RBO)

Enjoying it for its own sake: there is much we don't know about 17th-century Exeter organist John Lugge but on this new disc William Whitehead leaves us engaged & intrigued

The Forbidden Fruit: organ music by John Lugge; William Whitehead; Editions Hortus
Reviewed 15 December 2025

Using a French organ that provides a sound world as close as we can get to early 17th century Exeter, William Whitehead explores the organ music of John Lugge, by turns fascinating, dazzling and imaginative. We don't know much about the composer, but his music is well worth investigating.

17th-century composer and organist John Lugge is not a well known name, and his organ music was written for a type of instrument that no longer exists in England. For this new disc from Editions Hortus, Forbidden Fruit, organist William Whitehead travelled to Bolbec in Normandy, France to record a selection of John Lugge's surviving works, ten of his plainchant-based pieces and three of his free voluntaries, early examples of the so-called 'double voluntary'.

We don't actually know that much about John Lugge. Born in Barnstaple in 1580, the son of a shoe-maker, he first shows up in the historical record in 1602 as Organist at Exeter Cathedral where he remains until 1647 after which it is presumed he must have died. There is no record of his early musical training or experience, though stylistically his music can be linked to that of composers from the Chapel Royal including John Bull and Whitehead's article in the CD booklet points out that Arthur Cocke, Exeter Cathedral's Organist from 1689 was appointed to the Chapel Royal in 1601.

Lugge was highly regarded, being described as a 'rare organist' by one Lieutenant Harrison in 1635. As to the instrument Lugge was playing, well Whitehead has needed to look abroad to find something suitable. When it comes to two (or more) manual instruments in the UK, very little remains intact on any scale from before the 18th century, and we know that in the 1630s Exeter had a particularly splendid organ. The organ at Saint-Michel de Bolbec was originally built in 1630 by the organ builder William Lesley (Guillaume Leslie) for a church in Rouen. Lesley was Scots but based in Rouen. The organ was enlarged in 1728-30 and moved to Bolbec in 1792. There were 19th-century interventions, but the 1999 restoration took it back to its 1792 state. It has pipework contemporary with Lugge, retains its four keyboards and a 30-note "à la Française" pedalboard, and is tuned to an uneven temperament (Savior, 1701).

The disc begins with ten of Lugge's plainchant-based voluntaries, six Gloria tibi trinitas, Christe qui lux, Miserere, In nomine and Ut re mi fa sol la. This was a genre that developed during the 16th century when the organist would play chant-based voluntaries alternating with the sung chant. This would hardly be happening in Exeter in the 17th century when the Reformation was in full swing, so it is not clear why Lugge wrote these works which hark back to the work of organists like Tallis, Byrd and Bull. 

Aldeburgh Festival 2026: our East Anglia-based correspondent Tony Cooper takes a deep dive into the delights on offer at next year's festival

The 77th edition of the Aldeburgh Festival comes round in flaming June while marking the 50th anniversary of Benjamin Britten’s death and, therefore, the festival will not only celebrate his music but also the legacy he and Peter Pears established by their commitment in helping to develop the careers of young outstanding artists.

The opening event - a semi-stage performance of Debussy’s delicate, dreamlike and mysterious five-act opera, Pelléas et Mélisande, directed by Rory Kinnear - promises a hot ticket coming as it does with a stellar cast featuring Jacques Imbrailo as Pelléas and Sophie Bevan as Mélisande while Gordon Bintner, Sarah Connolly and John Tomlinson take on the roles of Golaud, Geneviève and Arkel with Ryan Wigglesworth in the pit with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.  

The French libretto was adapted from Belgian/Flemish-born playwright Maurice Maeterlinck’s symbolist and enigmatic play of the same name, a work full of symbolic and ambiguous meanings peppered with shadowy characters and perfect for the likes of the composer in his innovative approach to opera and for his startlingly new musical language.  

His only completed opera, he finished it in 1902. The critics were rather perplexed by its content but over the course of time Pelléas has become one of the most admired works in the repertoire beguiling audiences time and time again with its elusive shimmering beauty.  

Beyond St Cecilia: Purcell's large-scale ode alongside superb anthems by his contemporaries Humfrey & Blow from The English Concert & Harry Bicket at Wigmore Hall

The Stationers' Hall where Purcell's Hail, Bright Cecilia was premiered in 1692

Humfrey: O Lord my God, Blow: I was glad, Purcell: Three Parts upon a Ground, Hail bright Cecilia; Amy Carson, Alexander Chance, Anthony Gregory, Nicolas Brooymans, The English Concert, Harry Bicket; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 16 December 2025 

Purcell's largest ode for St Cecilia alongside music by two of his contemporaries brings a striking element of compare and contrast in fantastically vivid performances. 

There is a grim element of 'last man standing' about English music in the late 17th century. Pelham Humfrey, John Blow (two years younger than Humfrey) and Henry Purcell (ten years younger than Blow) all learned their trade as trebles in the Chapel Royal, reconstituted by King Charles II after the Restoration. The Interregnum meant that there were few senior composers in their way and for a few years, life must have seemed exciting and full of promise. Humfrey was sent to France and Italy by the King. But his time was short-lived, he died aged only 27 in 1674. Three years later, Matthew Locke died, one of the few pre-Civil War composers to return at the Restoration. This left Blow and Purcell, but Purcell's precocious talent meant that Blow stood aside for his talented pupil and friend. Only, Purcell died at the age of 36. 

Playing 'what if' we can wonder what English music would have been like if Purcell had lived. But take that further and consider an England where Humfrey lived too, making English music the province of a trio of friends and colleagues.

The latest concert at Wigmore Hall from The English Concert and Harry Bicket on 16 December 2025 brought these thoughts to the fore as they performed Purcell's large-scale ode Hail, bright Cecilia alongside substantial anthems by Humfrey and Blow. The ensemble was joined by soprano Amy Carson, countertenor Alexander Chance, tenor Anthony Gregory and bass Nicolas Brooymans for Humfrey's O Lord my God, Purcell's Three Parts upon a Ground, Blow's I was glad and Purcell's Hail, bright Cecilia.

The English Concert was directed from the harpsichord by Harry Bicket with an ensemble led by Charlotte Spruit (single strings plus oboes/recorders, trumpets and timpani) with a continuo group including Sergio Bucheli (theorbo), Jonathan Byers (cello), Alexander Jones (bass) and Tom Foster (harpsichord/organ). The four soloists were joined by four ripieno singers, Ailsing Kenny, Nathan Mercieca, Edward Woodhouse and Christopher Webb to make a vocal ensemble of eight.

'The Lord gave the word': communicability to the fore in Handel's Messiah from Academy of Ancient Music & Laurence Cummings

The chapel of the Foundling Hospital where Handel performed Messiah annually

Handel: Messiah; Nardus Williams, Reginald Mobley, Thomas Walker, Ashley Riches, Academy of Ancient Music, Laurence Cummings; Barbican Hall
15 December 2025

A traditional version of the score and fleet speeds, but communicability was to the fore here with soloists and choir projecting both word and meaning, supported by instrumental virtuosity that was understated but definitive

Handel's Messiah is one of those perennials that in one sense always remains the same yet is always different. During Handel's lifetime this was literally the case as the composer adjusted the work for each new batch of soloists, which means that conductors have a whole host of choices. Few people go for some of the more obscure versions, except for those occasional performances that aim to recreate a particular version. The Academy of Ancient Music's performance of Messiah at the Barbican has become something of a regular (if not annual) event, with Laurence Cummings opting for a fairly traditional version of the score.

On Monday 15 December 2025, Laurence Cummings conducted the chorus and orchestra of the Academy of Ancient Music at the Barbican Hall with soloists soprano Nardus Williams, countertenor Reginald Mobley, tenor Thomas Walker, and bass Ashley Riches. We saw their performance of the work last year [see my review] but a new set of soloists bring a different feel to the work.

With a choir of 18 and an orchestra based on 14 strings, Cummings opted for speeds that were often on the fleet side, but nothing ever felt rushed. The faster choruses were simply that, and there was plenty of space for expressivity. One bonus was that the gaps between movements were kept to a minimum so that this was a performance that really flowed. 

One feature of previous performances from Cummings at the AAM has been the emphasis on words and communication. The same was true at this performance. Granted, many of us could probably quote Messiah almost word for word, but soloists and choir were all highly attuned to projecting word and meaning.

Pianist Alessio Bax leads the inaugural London Festival of Chamber Music at Smith Square Hall as its Doors Open project gathers momentum

Smith Square Hall (Image: Burrell Foley Fischer)

The inaugural London Festival of Chamber Music takes place 25-29 March 2026 at Smith Square Hall, welcoming international artists and audiences to a series of concerts curated by 2026 Festival Artistic Director, pianist Alessio Bax. The musicians invited by Alessio Bax include Sarah Aristidou (soprano), Alena Baeva (violin), Lucille Chung (piano), François Leleux (oboe and conductor), Eugene Lee (violin), Lawrence Power (viola), Natalia Lomeiko (violin), Nabil Shehata (double bass and conductor), Paul Watkins (cello and conductor) and Radovan Vlatković (French horn).

The festival opens with a mix of orchestral and chamber music with Sinfonia Smith Square in Strauss's Horn Concerto No. 2 and Beethoven's Symphony No. 2, followed by an immersive late-evening performance with music by Schubert, Messiaen, and Berio, ending with Elgar's Piano Quintet. Thursday features Schubert's Trout Quintet with soprano Sarah Aristidou opening the evening with culture-spanning songs drawing on European, Middle Eastern and Indian traditions.

Schumann's Fantasiestücke and Clara Schumann's late Three Romances are combined with their friend Brahms's Horn Trio, whilst Beethoven's Second Cello Sonata is a prelude to his Triple Concerto performed with Sinfonia Smith Square. 

During the day on 28 March, Festival Artists join musicians from Sinfonia Smith Square for a day of public workshops focusing on chamber repertoire and ensemble craft, giving audiences insight into the collaborative process. The Festival closes with 19th century oboist, Antonio Pasculli’s Donizetti-inspired Oboe Concerto, alongside Respighi, Ligeti and Schubert’s Symphony No. 5, performed by Sinfonia Smith Square.

This is also an exciting time for Smith Square Hall. Over the next few years, an ambitious restoration project, Doors Open, will breathe new life into Smith Square Hall, revitalising its spaces to be fully accessible and welcoming for audiences, performers, guest artists. Recently it was announced that it has been awarded £500,000 from The Julia Rausing Trust in support of the ‘Doors Open’ project, marking a significant milestone in the campaign,

Full details of the London Festival of Chamber Music from the Smith Square website.

David et Jonathas: New Sussex Opera to present Charpentier's tragédie en musique in 2026

Having given us rarities by Offenbach and Saint-Saëns, New Sussex Opera is turning its attention to 17th century France for its offering in Autumn 2026. They will be staging Charpentier's David et Jonathas with performances in Lewes (11/10/26), Cadogan Hall, London (20/10/26), Eastbourne (23/10/26) and Winchester (25/10/26). The opera will be conducted by Toby Purser and directed by Paul Higgins the team responsible for their performances of Lampe's The Dragon of Wantley n 2024 [see my review]. 

 The orchestra will be the Bellot Ensemble, who played in The Dragon of Wantley. The Bellot Ensemble has just released their debut CD, Cupid's Ground Bass [see my review].

Lully's monopoly on writing music for the Paris Opera during the 17th century meant that Marc-Antoine Charpentier's access to the operatic establishment was limited. Most of his works in the genre tend to be smaller pieces; though he did write Médée for the Paris Opera, many more pieces were written for aristocratic patrons. His opera David et Jonathas was in fact written for the Jesuits, for the Collège Louis-le-Grand, Paris. It had a libretto by by Father François Bretonneau, is based on the Old Testament story of the friendship between David and Jonathan. At its first performance the opera was performed with a spoken drama Saul. The intended effect was to be edifying and instructive. It must have succeeded because other Jesuit colleges also performed the work.

Surprisingly, Charpentier wrote in the form of a typical French tragédie en musique though the dance episodes are, inevitably, limited. The work is being performed in a new English translation by Christopher Cowell.

Full details from New Sussex Opera's website. 

Powerful & intense: the music of Elena Firsova & Dmitri Smirnov reflects their friendship with Rudersdal Chamber Players but also links back to Schnittke, Gubaidulina & Denisov

Love and Loss: Elena Firsova, Dmitri Smirnov; Rudersdal Chamber Players; OUR Recordings
Reviewed 15 December 2025

The Danish contemporary music ensemble pays tribute to its friendship with Elena Firsova and Dmitri Smirnov with a programme of powerful and uncompromising yet surprisingly lyrical music

There is a fascinating transnational quality to Love and Loss on OUR Recordings. Performed by Rudersdal Chamber Players, one of the Nordic region’s leading ensembles for contemporary music. The disc represents a special tribute to their friendship with the composers, Elena Firsova and Dmitri Smirnov, which dates back to 2019. Both born in Russia, Firsova and Smirnov met and fell in love while studying at the Moscow Conservatoire, but despite some success they ran afoul of officialdom and were denounced as members of The Seven, a group of non-conforming composers that included Denisov, Firsova, Smirnov, and Gubaidulina, at the 6th Congress of the Union of Soviet Composers. They moved to England in 1991, and their daughter is Russian-British composer Alissa Firsova.

Founded in 2017 by violinist Christine Pryn at the suggestion of Russian-American composer Lera Auerbach, Rudersdal Chamber Players has become the ensemble-in-residence at Rudersdal Sommerkoncerter based in the Danish municipality of Rudersdal some 20 kim north of Copenhagen. The core of the ensemble is a piano quartet, but the instrumentation is flexible and can be adapted to suit different venues and programmes and on this disc we hear Jonas Frølund, clarinet, Christine Pryn, violin, Marie Stockmarr Becker, viola, John Ehde, cello, and Manuel Esperilla, piano.

A piece close to his heart: pianist Julian Chan on recording Leopold Godowsky's Java Suite for the Royal Academy of Music’s Bicentenary Series on Linn Records

Julian Chan

The Royal Academy of Music’s Bicentenary Series on Linn Records offers industry-level recording experience and the chance to release their music to students and since 2020, over 20 digital recordings have been released as part of this series. This month for the latest in the series, pianist Julian Chan marks the centenary of the completion and publication of Leopold Godowsky’s Java Suite with the release of his recording of the complete work.

Born in Malaysia, Julian studied at Wells Cathedral School before taking his place at the Royal Academy of Music (RAM). In 2024–25, Julian was recipient of the Aud Jebsen Fellowship at the RAM, where he previously studied with Ian Fountain and Michael Dussek. Julian has been awarded prizes at competitions in Nanyang and Singapore, as well as receiving the Royal Over-Seas League Collaborative Piano Award. He made his solo debut at Wigmore Hall in June 2024 performing Godowsky's Java Suite.

Born in what was then Russia but is now Lithuania to Jewish parents, Leopold Godowsky (1870-1938) was a virtuoso pianist, composer and teacher, who became an American citizen in 1891. An important pedagogue, his pupils included the pianist Heinrich Neuhaus. Godowsky devoted his time to teaching and giving concert tours. Much of the 1920s was spent touring around the world; apart from concert appearances in Europe and the United States, Godowsky also gave extensive tours of South America and East Asia.

It was as a result of spending time in Java and experiencing gamelan music that Godowsky came to write his Java Suite. The suite consists of twelve movements, divided into four parts, and is not commonly performed complete. The first full recording of the work only dates from 2020.

The piece is very close to Julian's heart; he discovered it when he was beginning his studies at the RAM and during the holidays he explored a lot of music on YouTube. The work's blend of East and West was close to Julian's life experience, growing up in Malaysia and the UK. He sees the piece as being shaped by Godowsky's travels and different experiences. Julian points out that everyone experiences life differently; you cannot separate Godowsky from his travels and experiences abroad.

Challenges & rewards: Tredegar Town Band celebrates the brass music of Robin Stevens with Brass Odyssey

Robin Stevens: Brass Band Odyssey, Mancunian Fanfare and other works; Tredegar Town Band, Ian Porthouse; World of Sound
Reviewed 9 December 2025

Not a brass player himself, Robin Stevens' music revels in the challenges of writing for brass band and Tredegar Town Band do him proud on this new disc

Composer Robin Stevens studied at the Royal Northern College of Music and at Birmingham University with John Joubert. A cellist and teacher by trade, debilitating illness took him out of circulation for 17 years. Thankfully fully recovered, he has devoted himself to composition since 2017.

This new disc from Tredegar Town Band and Ian Porthouse on World of Sound showcases Robin Stevens' writing for brass band and for brass instruments. In his introduction in the CD booklet, Stevens is candid about the challenges of writing for brass instruments and brass band: "a composer writing for an instrumental family outside his or her comfort zone can, potentially at least, bring an unorthodox freshness of approach which is conducive to creative energy and vitality. As a music-college-trained cellist myself it is a common experience for me to present a wind or brass player with a challenging and unconventional passage and be received with an initial frown or two: then, with goodwill and give and take on both sides, adjustments are made to the passage which preserve its expressive essence, make it playable and bring into being music which, because it is not obviously idiomatic, probably would not have been conceived by a composer writing for their own instrument."

The disc opens with Brass Odyssey (from 2012-2013) for brass band and eight percussionists. The longest piece on the album, it is well over 20 minutes in duration, with Stevens structuring it in two parts, Elegy and Towards Rejoicing. It begins in a serious, bleak vein, with Stevens' use of note clusters giving density to the sound and providing an uncompromising air. There are percussion interjections, but often his use of the instruments is relatively discreet. Change comes gradually, with moments of colour and movement leading, eventually, to fanfares, yet at one point things collapse into a bleak solo. Finally, the music takes off unashamedly, with vivid, busy textures and eventually something of a swing to the rhythms, leading ultimately to a terrific clamour.

The human voice as a powerful vehicle for storytelling: Music in the Round's Sheffield Chamber Music Festival 2026 guest curated by soprano Claire Booth

Claire Booth (centre) and Music in the Round

Stories and story-telling are at the heart of the 2026 Sheffield Chamber Music Festival, which runs from 15 to 23 May. Presented by Music in the Round, this year's festival is guest curated by soprano Claire Booth, bringing a focus on celebrating the human voice as a powerful vehicle for storytelling. 

The festival opens with Booth in Judith Weir's remarkable one-woman grand opera, King Harald's Saga, in an evening that also includes Birtwistle's theatrical Cortège and a chamber adaptation of Brahms' Serenade No. 1.  Festival favourites, the dawn and sunset recitals return with Baroque evocations of nightingales by Couperin to Messiaen’s transcriptions of wild birds at Dawn in Sheffield's General Cemetery and Weber’s Clarinet Quintet, Mozart’s Oboe Quartet and Korngold’s Piano Quintet at Sunset. The friendship of Morton Feldman and Samuel Beckett is celebrated when Vicky Featherstone directs an evening featuring Feldman’s Samuel Beckett, Words and Music which was originally a radio play

Opera continues with Booth and pianist Christopher Glynn in Poulenc's one-act opera based on Jean Cocteau, La Voix Humaine, paired with settings of Cocteau's poetry. Booth and Glynn also decamp to the Chatsworth Estate and are joined by violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen for an all-day event that combines Grieg's Violin Sonata and his song-cycle Haugtussa in the morning with songs by Percy Grainger and Gavin Higgins' recent song-cycle Speak of the North in the afternoon, interspersed with guided walks! And Booth will be joined by Waley-Cohen, back in Sheffield, for Kurtág's Kafka Fragments.

The closing day of the festival world features the premiere of Julian Phillips’ children’s opera Henny Penny performed by a choir of Sheffield primary school children, followed by an evening recital of Strauss’s Four Last Songs alongside a new work by Ellen Sargen, Strauss’s Sextet from Capriccio, Sibelius’s En Saga in a reconstruction of the original chamber version and Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll.   

 Other events at the festival include a visit from Gwilym Simcock and friends, Beethoven's Septet as well as an evening devoted to music by his contemporaries, a folk evening focused on birds and bird song

There is a relaxed concert featuring Claire Booth in Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, as well as a family concert featuring Izzy Gizmo. And the Prokofiev along with Ravel and Debussy feature in an evening concert too, and there are songs without words from Mendelssohn, Rachmaninov, Brahms, Knussen and Dohnanyi.

 Full details from the festival website.

Robert Gromotka & Jonas Hain - The Unspoken

In the middle of the night. Somewhere in Berlin. 

In one of the last great halls of the old AEG turbine factory, a moment of rare musical meditation emerges. The vast industrial architecture lies in darkness, with only a single light falling on a piano.

In this silence, composer/pianist duo Jonas Hain and Robert Gromotka perform The Unspoken from their upcoming album Between Us - two pianists, two voices, a dialogue carried entirely through the piano, revealing a sense of intimacy that words could hardly match.

"Sometimes silence speaks louder than any words. That’s exactly the silence we wanted to make audible", says Jonas Hain.

The album is released on 23 January 2026 on the Neue Meister label. 

Pre-order: https://nm.lnk.to/betweenusID 

From 30 January to 7 February 2026, Hain and Gromotka will be touring Germany, further details.