Ignatz Waghalter

Giacomo Puccini, Waghalter and Berlin Gala for The Girl of the Golden West - 1913

You've probably never heard of Ignatz Waghalter. He was born to a Polish-German Jewish family in Warsaw in 1881 but his family moved to Berlin. At 21 he won the Mendelssohn Prize. He was assistant to Artur Nikisch at the Komische Oper, and Music Director of the Deutsche Openhaus from 1912 to 1923. He conducted the German premieres of Puccini's La Fanciulla del West, La Boheme and Tosca, as well as Vaughan Williams's Fourth Symphony. He moved temporarily to the USA as music director of the New York State Symphony, then back to Berlin to work for Germany's largest film company before ending up at Riga in charge of the National Opera. He was forced into exile in 1934, ending up in the USA, dying in relative obscurity in 1949. His own music is now forgotten.

In the dark - Platinum Consort

Until we were handed a leaflet before  the Prom on Wednesday, I’d not come across the Platinum Consort before, but their concert at Kings Place on Saturday 1 September sounded intriguing so we went along. They are an 8 person vocal ensemble, founded in 2005 by their director Scott Inglis-Kidger. Their programme, In the Dark, was based on their recent debut CD, which was themed around Tenebrae. The group mix renaissance polyphony with contemporary pieces and have worked with composer Richard Bates since their founding, so that the concert included two of Bates’s pieces and a piece by James MacMillan alongside music by Anerio, Lotti, Victoria, Lassus, Gesualdo and Purcell.

The make quite a vibrant sound, with each of the young singers using quite full voice, but the overall impression was of a supreme attention to line and to blend. The resulting sound is immediately attractive and seductive.

Their approach worked best in pieces with a fine sense of line, so that Purcell’s Hear my prayer came off with haunting beauty. Similarly in Victoria’s Versa est in luctum and Ecce quomodo moritur they responded to the music’s vibrant lines and innate passion.

The selection of items was quite eclectic, with a mix of settings of Tenebrae Responsories with other pieces on a suitably gloomy theme. In the first half the two early pieces were Aneri’s Chrisus factus est and Lotti’s Crucifixus a 8. In both pieces, the chromaticism and suspensions were finely tuned and the performances elegant and beautifully moulded. But the composers more demonstrative passion seemed to elude the singers and I found the performances a little cool.

Lassus’s Tristis est anima mea was nicely contrasted with Gesualdo’s setting of the same Responsory. In the Lassus the group was beautifully in control and conveyed the feelings in Lassus’s setting well. In the Gesualdo they again caught the chromaticism and unnerving shifts of harmony without quite turning it into the heart-wrenching music that lies at the heart of Gesualdo’s art.

Richard Bates has written a number of pieces for the ensemble. His motet, In the Dark, setting words by George Gascoigne, is a luscious piece full of rich harmonies and almost jazz-inspired chords. But a certain piquancy to the harmonic language renders the work interesting and makes it stand out.

Bates’s language is essentially tonal, but with a wide spread of harmonic language, which prevents his melodic flair from conventionality. His Tenebrae was written for the choir in 2009. It sets six Tenebrae Responsories for Good Friday. In his settings, Bates responded to the Responsories structure, using a solo soprano as well as small groups of singers.

The textures Bates used were varied and interesting and the piece is finely constructed. But Tenebrae Responsories are highly charged texts and I did not think that Bates’s response was strong enough. The music seemed to skate over the surface of the words.

Quite what could be achieved with familiar words was shown by the final piece in the group’s programme, James MacMillan’s Miserere which sets the words of Psalm 51 which are best known in Allegri’s setting. The work was first performed in 2009 by the Sixteen. In it MacMillan uses a wide range of textures and techniques to convey the power of the words. Though there are highly complex sections, including extended improvisation and a terrific climax, MacMillan constantly returns to simplicity and clarity to bring out the meaning of the text, managing to imbue individual small gestures with powerful meaning.

Tonight I lie with stars, moon and sky

Next Sunday, 16 September, there is a lovely Sunday morning concert at the Forge in Camden. Songs by Bliss, Dibdin, Clay and Stanford setting poems by Walter de la Mare, Keats and Shakespeare, along with dark Scottish ballads by Judith Weir and Warlock. The singers are soprano Sarah Dacey and tenor Greg Tassell along with pianist Belinda Jones. The performance takes place at 11am.

CD review - Conversazioni, Cantatas from a Cardinal's Court

The fascination or the rich elite of the late 17^th and 18^th centuries with the idea of academies, particularly Arcadian Academies, is curiously fascinating. That these aristocrats (including aristocrats of the church) could all take the names of shepherds and discourse on pastoral poetry seems rather far from our experience. Music was also mixed up in there too. The rules of one of Queen Christina of Sweden’s intellectual academies specified that every meeting end with performances of vocal and instrumental music. In Rome, the Arcadian Academy was hosted by Cardinal Ottoboni (1689 – 1740), a rich prince of the church whose household was a magnet for musicians. So that many of the cantatas written under Ottoboni’s auspices were probably for performance at the Arcadian Academy. Ottoboni also held a weekly academy of music and amongst the musicians involved were Caldara, Albinoni, Alessandro Scarlatti, Domenico Scarlatti and Handel. This disc from Sounds Baroque explores this milieu with a selection of cantatas and instrumental works written for Ottoboni.

Kings Place Festival

This year's Kings Place Festival runs from 14 to 16 September and takes the familiar format, 100 concerts spread over three days, all concerts 45 minutes long and costing £4.50. With lots of free foyer events too. And there are some amazing things.

Prom 61 - Howells and Elgar

When Herbert Howells son died from polio at the age of 9, the composer found he could write little. He did complete a Requiem for unaccompanied choir, which set a distinctive and eclectic group of texts very much in the manner of Brahms's German Requiem. This very personal work even had marks on the manuscript made by his son. Out of this also came the idea for a larger scale work on a similar theme, but for voices and orchestra. The death of his close friend Ivor Gurney probably acted as a final stimulus and he sketched out Hymnus Paradisi. Neither work was performed or published. It was only in 1950 that he finally allowed Hymnus Paradisi to be performed; it was premiered at the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester Cathedral with Isobel Baillie and William Herbert as soloists. The unaccompanied Requiem would have to wait until the 1980's before it was finally allowed to be performed.

Edmund de Waal at Waddesdon

On Monday we went to Waddesdon Manor (owned by the National Trust) to see the exhibition of Edmund de Waal's work which had been installed in the house's state room. De Waal had created a series of specially created installations in response to the house and its contents. The house, which was built in the 1870's by Ferdinand Rothschild, contains an extremely fine porcelain collection, being particularly strong in Sevres. We have seen de Waal's installations at the V&A and at Chatsworth, but our main experience of de Waal's work has been seeing it in his studio. The interiors of Waddesdon are particularly rich and busy, so we were curious as to how work and location would respond to each other.

CD review - Exultent superi - motets choisis

Couperin’s petits motets have a rather interesting history. They were written in the 1690’s though we don’t know for whom. Couperin had links with the Church of St. Andre des Arts and also with the exiled Jacobite Court at St Germain en Laye, both of whom promoted music in the Italian style. Couperin’s petits motets are very Italian, in fact Edward Higginbottom in his booklet note describes Couperin as transferring the Italian trio sonata idiom to the motet genre.  Of course, Couperin had Royal links as well so his motets may well have been performed by the chapelle  royale.  At this establishment, the service opened with a grand motet, a petit motet was performed at the elevation with a final Domine salvum fac Regem at the end; though it should be understood that the service itself went on largely silently whilst the music progressed. It is not clear whether all of Couperin’s would have been suitable for the Elevation.

Theatre des Champs-Elysees centenary

Next year the the centenary of the Theatre des Champs-Elysees, a theatre whose first season (in 1913) included the premieres by Diaghilev's company of  Debussy's Jeux and Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, both to choreography by Nijinsky. The building itself represented and early use of reinforced concrete. For its 2012-13 season, the theatre is presenting a fine and tempting array of operatic goodies, both staged and in concert.

Co-Opera Co - Don Giovanni

Co-Opera Co Don Giovanni

A perfectionist might argue that there is a case for some operas only being cast from singers who are fully formed artists with a goodly array of technique and life experiences. But we live in the real world, Mozart's Don Giovanni is popular with audiences and forms a staple for many a young artists and small opera companies. And, after all, how to learn but by doing? So, I caught up with the second of Co-Opera Co's performances of Mozart's Don Giovanni at the John McIntosh Theatre at the London Oratory School on Friday 24 August, eagerly awaiting how the young singers would deal with one of the masterpieces of western music.

Tridentine Today

At 12.00pm today I will be singing in a Tridentine Mass at St Mary's Roman Catholic Church, Cadogan Street, Chelsea, London SW3. St. Mary's Latin Mass Choir will be singing Lassus's Missa quand'io pens'al martire, Palestrina's Pater Noster a 5 and Charles Wood's Oculi Omnium and three priests will be celebrating mass for the Feast of St. Louis in the Extraordinary Form.

Co-Opera Co - Hansel and Gretel

Co-Opera co, Hansel & Gretel, August 2012

Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel might have an apparently simple story based on a fairytale, but the opera itself is a deceptively complex beast. For a start, Humperdinck was one of Wagner's followers, he was an assistant to Wagner and music-tutor to Siegfried Wagner. This means that the score is very fully and richly orchestrated; it might be about children but it requires more than children's voices. Also, scenically it calls for quite a bit of skill, with the various magical transformations that are required. For performers, it has one fatal, yawning trap. Hansel and Gretel might be on stage for most of the three acts, but unless they are strong and sympathetic performers, there is a strong danger of the witch snatching the opera from them. The witch is in fact quite a small role, but it is such a gift that, in the right hands, it can run away with the opera. So all in all, quite a few challenges, and a very apt work for a group such as Co-Opera Co which aims to help coach young opera singers and give them experience. We saw the first night of their new production of Hansel and Gretel at the John McIntosh Theatre in the London Oratory School on 23 August 2012.

Buxton Festival 2013

Buxton Opera House

Next year's Buxton Festival takes place from 5 July to 21 July 2013. The festival will be presenting three operas in their own productions. Mozart's La finta giardiniera and a double bill of Saint Saens's La princesse jaune and Gounod's La colombe. The visiting operas will include Grange Park Opera's Rising Stars in Messager's Fortunio.

Intriguing incidents in the landscape at Kedleston Hall

Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire

The National Trust has increasingly started commissioning and displaying contemporary art in its houses and gardens, on the admirable basis that the contents of them shouldn't stay entirely static and self-regarding. The latest installation, at Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire, mixes outdoor sculpture with listening and attending to the landscape.

Recent CD reviews

My review of The Mikado from Australian opera is here.
Dynamic and quite vivid. Annoying or characterful, it depends on your point of view.

And my review of Monteverdi's Missa in Illo Tempore recorded in Mantua, is here. Both reviews are on MusicWeb-International.com.
Strong, well shaped performances, naturally placed and performed by an interesting ensemble.  

Pink Floyd à la Liszt

The sound of Pink Floyd is the sound of my student days. In Manchester in the late 1970's it was one of the things that you listened to. I can't say that I have really thought about them a lot since. But now they cross my path in entirely a different way. The young pianist AyseDeniz Gokcin is planning to record three Pink Floyd songs, arranged à la Liszt into a fantasy-like sonata. Sounds intriguing, we look forward to hearing more.

Prom 53 - Italian Vespers 1612

Last night's Prom (Prom 53, 23 August) had Robert Hollingworth and I Fagiolini making their Proms debut with a concert based on the music from their recent CD of music for vespers based on Venice in 1612 (see my review). The concert included the world premiere of Hugh Keyte's reconstruction of Gabrieli's In eccelsiis, which Keyte has put back to a putative original version for four five-part choirs, along with the London premiere of Keyte's amazing reconstruction of the 17th century arrangement of a Gabrieli Magnificat. Gabrieli's lost original was for three choirs, but in the 17th century it was arrange for seven, of which only two part books survive, the rest have been reconstructed by Keyte. All in all, we were given a wonderful treat.

In Harmony - Sistema England news

The In Harmony - Sistema England newsletter popped into my inbox the other day. In addition to reporting on the welcome news about the expansion of the project into Leeds, Newcastle and Gateshead, Nottingham and Telford & Wrekin, there is a report on Julian Lloyd Webber performing with the National Youth Orchestra of Iraq, an inspiring interview with a young player from In Harmony Lambeth and a report on how  the children of In Harmony Lambeth played with the Beijing Symphony Orchestra, under Tan Lihua, whilst the orchestra was in London.

More details (and sign up for the newsletter) at the In Harmony - Sistema England website.

Ridiculous? Memories of Rita Hunter

I switched on the radio half an hour ago to listen to something whilst doing work. I listened to Radio 3 cold, didn't bother to check what it was. It was a programme on Ivor Novello with Simon Callow. I listened, at a distance, to the singers (soprano and tenor) doing a duet from Glamorous Night and was very struck. Now, the eagle eyed amongst you will have guessed that it was a repeat of Sir Mark Elder's Ivor Novello Prom. And lovely it is too. But, even now that I know the soprano is Sophie Bevan, I keep hearing echoes of the great Wagnerian soprano, Rita Hunter. It was also good to hear Toby Spence in such good voice.

BREMF appeal

Even in the days of relative plenty the Arts Council had a tendency to occasionally swat down companies pour encourages les autres. Those, like me, with long memories will still remember Kent Opera, the London Handel Society and the D'Oyley Carte Opera. Now, those wonderful people at Brighton Early Music Festival have learned that their ambitious programme for this year's festival, celebrating their 10th anniversary, will not receive a grant. This leaves them some £38,000.00 down.