Gala Concert at Buxton

For the third night of the Buxton Festival, 7 July 2013, the main event was a gala concert at the Buxton Opera House, with the Northern Chamber Orchestra on stage conducted by Stephen Barlow, with soloists soprano Claire Rutter and baritone Stephen Gadd. The repertoire took in music from operas by Mozart, Verdi, Puccini, Bizet, Bellini, Massenet and Lehar, all performed in the presence of HRH the Duke of Gloucester.

Stephen Barlow and the orchestra opened proceedings with a crisply brisk account of the overture to Le Nozze di Figaro, which did however take a bit of time to settle down. This was the first in a group of items from that opera and was followed by Stephen Gadd's brilliantly vivid account of the Count's aria Vedro ment'io sospiro, then Claire Rutter gave a beautifully shaped account of the Countess's aria Dove sono.

La Finta Giardiniera at Buxton

Buxton Festival's second offering this year was Mozart's early comedy La Finta Giardiniera in a production directed by the young English director Harry Fehr, designed by Yannis Thavoris. Nicholas Kramer conducted with a young cast including Ellie Laugharne, Andrew Kennedy, Christopher Lemmings, Stephanie Corley, Catherine Carby, Anna Patalong and Matthew Hargreaves. I caught the first night on Saturday 6 July 2013.

Mozart wrote the opera when he was 18, it was commissioned for the carnival season at Munich and the libretto wasn't Mozart's choice, but was selected for him and had been originally written by Giuseppe Petrosellini for Pasquale Anfossi and performed in the 1774 carnival season in Rome. Mozart's version, premiered in 1775 was highly popular. Mozart re-worked the piece with a German libretto as a singspiel, Die Gartnerin aus Liebe which was performed in 1779/80 and it is in this form it became known to modern audiences as the manuscript score of the first act of the Italian opera buffa had disappeared. It reappeared in the 1980's and has been winning friends ever since.

The Reunion - memories of La Colombe and other diversions

Gounod's La Colombe was first performed at the Buxton Festival 30 years ago and three of the original cast members, Kathryn Harries, Linda Ormiston and Donald Maxwell got together for an hour of reminiscence and music, The Reunion, at the Pavilion Arts Centre in Buxton on Saturday 6 July 2013. Accompanied by Angela Livingstone on the piano, the event opened with Ormiston and Maxwell in a delightful rendition of Ah yes, I remember it well and you might have imagined that we were in for a gentle hour of music and memory, especially as a quite number of the audience had attended that production 30 years ago. Not a bit, there was a strong vein of anarchy delightfully running through the proceedings. The fourth member of the original cast, Adrian Thompson, was unable to be present as he is singing Mime in Wagner's Ring at Longborough Festival, so his presence was substituted with a straw stuffed dummy, with whom Harries sang, and danced, a duet (from Lehar's The Merry Widow).

Harries early experience with the children's TV programme Music Time was the excuse for a piece of community singing with the audience getting to sing Michael Finnigan, and This Old Man simultaneously (which they did with great gusto).

Songs of Love and Death

Saturday morning 6 July at the Buxton Festival saw a talk between artistic director Stephen Barlow and the writer Peter Conrad. It was loosely themed on his book about opera, A song of love and death which Conrad said that he wrote to try to understand why this kind of music moved him, the excitement and terror of being buffeted around on the ocean of unreason that is music. The following is an attempt to capture the essence of a very fascinating and free-ranging. talk.

The subtitle of Conrad's book is 'the meaning of opera' but this is something of a paradox, the meaning of something which is irrational. Opera is very much a hybrid, with most composers needing a librettist. Though Wagner wrote his own librettos, he used sexual images to talk about the relations of the words and music. The male side was the writer, inseminating the female side which wrote the music.

Gounod and Saint-Saens at Buxton Festival

Anne Sophie Duprels and Ryan MacPherson in
La Princesse Jaune (c) Robert Workman

The 2013 Buxton Festival opened with a double bill of French operas comiques, by Saint-Saens and by Gounod. Both composers are very well known and both have operas in the standard canon, but Gounod's La Colombe is rarely performed, and Saint-Saens La Princesse Jaune almost never. Both operas turned out to be full of charm and felicity, and were given in appealing productions directed by Francis Matthews and designed by Lez Brotherston. Strong casts, including Anne Sophie Duprels, Ryan MacPherson, Gillian Keith, Emma Carrington and Jonathan Best were conducted by Buton's Artistic Director Stephen Barlow and the Northern Chamber Orchestra was in the pit.

Saint-Saens' La Princesse Jaune was premiered in 1872 at the Opera Comique in the same bill as Bizet's Djamilleh. Neither was successful and Saint-Saens' was accused of Wagnerism. A surprising accusation today. His opera comique, with a libretto by Louis Gallet, lasts just 45 minutes and has simply two characters Lena, Anne Sophie Duprels, and Ryan MacPherson, Kornelis. Kornelis is an artist, obsessed with Japan and in love with image of a Japanese girl painted in his room. His cousin Lena, tidies up after him but is in love with him, despairing at competing with his obsession with a non-existent woman. She considers giving up on her love for him, but he takes opium and hallucinates. Seeing Lena as the Japanese woman and declares his love for her. When he awakes, they manage to clear the air and Kornelis admits how much he loves the real Lena.

Wigmore Hall new season - September/October 2013

The Wigmore Hall's new season opens in rather spectacular fashion, with some very fine song recitals indeed. In the first week there are recitals from Simon Keenlyside, Bryn Terfel and Malcolm Martineau performing Schumann and Schubert (7/9), Anne Schwanewilms and Robert Vignoles in Debussy and Schumann's Liederkreis (9/9), Roman Trekel and Malcolm Martineau in Schumann's Dichterliebe plus music by Schoenberg, Zemlinsky and Richard Strauss (10/9), Ian Bostridge and Julius Drake in Schubert (13/9) and Thomas Hampson and Wolfram Rieger performing Mahler, Zemlinsky, Webern, Strauss and Schoenberg (14/9). Also included in the opening week is a visit from Europa Galante and Fabio Biondi in an all Vivaldi programme (12/9). And Menhaem Pressler celebrates his 80th birthday in concert with friends Alexander Kerr, Lawrence Power and Paul Watkins (9/9)

Monsieur Gounod and Mrs Weldon

A few years ago, whilst doing research for a programme note on Gounod relating to his stay in England in the 1870's, I discovered the composer's curiously close relationship to the singer Georgina Weldon. Gounod ended up moving in with Georgina Weldon (and her husband) and having a very close, passionate relationship. Despite the fact that not only was Gounod married, but his wife had come over to England with him. Now Henrietta Bredin has created a show based around the event using a selection of Gounod's songs and a spoken narration. Monsiuer Gounod and Mrs Weldon is being performed at the Buxton Festival on Tuesday 9 July 2013 at 12pm at the Pavilion Arts Centre with Keri Fuge, soprano, Adam Kowalcyzk, tenor, accompanied on the piano by Stephen Barlow, with Michael Pennington as narrator.

It is a fascinating episode and sheds an interesting light on Gounod. It all started because of the Franco-Prussian war when, like a number of other artists, Gounod felt life in France would be impossible and travelled with his family to England where he was well known for his sacred music. Henrietta Bredin explains:-

Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra new season

Kirill Karabits (credit Sasha Gustov)

The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra seems to be on something of a roll at the moment, under their chief conductor Kirill Karabits. Whilst the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra's 2013/14 season includes Kirill Karabits complete Brahms symphony cycle with them, further explorations of the Russian repertoire as well as Karabits' first Bruckner symphony with the orchestra (and his first in the UK), it also includes a performance of C.P.E. Bach's St. John Passion.

Karabits will not only be conducting the C.P.E. Bach's 1784 work (presented to celebrate the composer's 300th anniversary), but Karabits also discovered it. The manuscript was long thought lost, but it was part of an archive taken from Berlin by Russian soldiers; Karabits discovered the work in an archive in Kiev and has transcribed the piece. It will be performed on 16 April 2014 at Cadogan Hall with the BBC Singers. Other baroque music in the year includes Handel's Messiah conducted by Christian Curnyn.

Curlew River

Mahogany Opera is touring their new productions of Britten's Church Parables and brought them to Southwark Cathedral as part of the City of London Festival. I caught Frederic Wake-Walker's production of Curlew River on Wednesday 3 July 2013, with Lukas Jakobski, Rodney Earl Clarke, Samuel Evans and James Gilchrist, with the Aurora Orchestra and Roger Vignoles as musical director. 

Britten's church parable, Curlew River, was premiered by the English Opera Group in 1964 at Orford Church. The plot is based on a Japanese Noh play which Britten saw in Japan in 1956, though William Plomer's libretto re-casts the work into an English fenland setting. There is no conductor for the work, just five instrumentalists who follow each other. Britten used this to introduce an element of heterophony into the piece and in fact the sense of multiple tempi and multiple things happening at once permeates the work. The piece is unlike anything that Britten had written so far, and we can no longer recreate the sense of wonder that the work must have generated when first performed. But Frederic Wake-Walker and his cast made the piece seem somehow newly minted.

June on Planet Hugill - Nuns, Knights and Queens

June on Planet Hugill started with a bang, with Covent Garden's stunningly sung new production of Rossini's La Donna del Lago followed by the utterly absorbing new production of Wagner's Lohengrin from WNO in Cardiff.

I caught up with Opera Holland Park's James Clutton prior to the start of their new season, and I went along to see them open with 'Cav and Pag'. The Christine Collins Young Artists performance this year was Madama Butterfly. We met up with baritone Stephen Gadd, who sang both baritone roles in 'Cav and Pag'. We also caught the new production of Bizet's Les Pecheurs de Perles.

App introduces Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra to a new generation

Britten's The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra was written for the film The Instruments of the Orchestra in 1946, using cutting edge technology of the day. Now the work has been re-packaged for an app-happy generation, with a new App aimed at introducing the work to a new audience. Developed by the Britten-Pears Foundation in partnership with the Royal Northern College of Music, the app features a new recording of the work from Sir Mark Elder and the Royal Northern College of Music Symphony Orchestra, new illustrations from artist Sara Fanelli, creative games, information about Britten's life, an interactive score and much else besides. The app is available free for download from iTunes, and a fully interactive version will be on the Britten100 website from 1 September 2013. The App also features in the British Library exhibition, Poetry in Sound: The music of Benjamin Britten which runs until 15 September 2013.

Poulenc choral music from RIAS Kammerchor

With this two disc set, Harmonia Mundi have re-issued both of the RIAS Kammerchor's recordings of Poulenc's unaccompanied choral music and created a highly desirable box which covers Poulenc's choral music both sacred and profane. The music on the disc covers a 30 year period, from the Chanson a boire of 1922 to the Quatre motets pour le temps de Noel of 1952 and encompasses both sets of Poulenc's motets, the mass plus his major secular pieces, Sept chansons, Un soir de neige and Figure humaine. Though the majority of the music on the disc comes from the period 1938-1944, leaving one to wonder how the situation in Europe might have made Poulenc's imagination turn to unaccompanied choral music. The two discs were recorded at different times, with conductors Daniel Reuss and Marcus Creed, but the result is finely performed and with a nicely consistent tone.

Paul Mealor premiere

For their concert at this year's City of London Festival, JAM presented a fascinating trio of choral works at St Bride's Church, Fleet Street on 2 July 2012. JAM (the John Armitage Memorial) supports the development of new music and the concert included the English premiere Paul Mealor's new dramatic cantata, commissioned jointly by JAM, the St. David's Festival and the Edinburgh Royal Choral Union. Written for choir, children's choir, soloists, brass and organ, the work was performed by the BBC Singers, Cumnor House School Choristers, St David's Cathedral Choir, soprano Claire Seaton, bass Giles Underwood, Onyx Brass and organist Daniel Cook conducted by Nicholas Cleobury, substantially the same forces which premiered the work at the St. David's Festival. The other works in the programme were Benjamin Britten's Rejoice in the Lamb, his cantata setting texts by the 18th century poet Christopher Smart, and James MacMillan's Cantos Sagrados, his fusion of sacred and secular texts dealing with political repression in Latin America.

In aid of the Street Child World Cup

On Wednesday 10 July 2013 an impressive variety of young classical musical talent is performing at St. James's Piccadilly in aid of the Street Child World Cup, a UK-based charity supporting the rights of street children. The concert will feature the 2010 BBC Young Musician, pianist Lara Melda, and the keyboard finalist of the 2012 BBC Young Musician, Martin Bartlett. Also playing will be Martin Musical Fund Prizewinner, cellist Harry Gilfillan and former Yehudi Menuhin school student violinist Tatiana Gilfillan. The evening is to raise awareness and generate funds for the second Street Child World Cup in Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil in March 2014.

Voting opens for Gramophone Artist of the Year Award

Public voting opened yesterday for the Artist of the Year Award in the 2013 Gramophone Classical Music Awards. The short list includes Alison Balsom, Kristian Bezuidenhout, Michael Collins, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Janine Jansen, the Jerusalem Quartet, Jonas Kaufmann, Marc-Andre Hamelin, Andris Nelsons and Esa-Pekka Salonen. Voting is open to everyone and can be done via the Gramophone Awards page on their website, and voting closes on 15 August 2013. The results will be announced at the Gramophone Classical Music Awards. This year the ceremony takes place on 17 September at LSO St Lukes and has something of a new look, with live performances as well as awards for Young Artist of the Year, Lifetime Achievement, Label of the Year, the Piano Award and Recording of the Year, in addition to the usual categories. Further information from the Gramophone website

London Youth Choir

The London Youth Choir is a new venture, founded in September 2012 by Suzi Digby OBE and Rachel Staunton. The idea is to provide London’s young singers with a world class choral education and there are currently 160 young singers rehearsing weekly in a pyramid of five choirs, London Youth Choir, London Youth Girls’ Choir, London Youth Boys’ Choir, London Youth Training Choir, and London Youth Chamber Choir. The London Youth Choir performed alongside the Rolling Stones at Glastonbury on 29 June and will be again appearing with them in Hyde Park on 6 and 13 July 2013.

Last night, 1 July 2013, we heard a private recital by the London Youth Choir Choral Scholars, 7 young singers aged 18 to 21 who were directed by Suzi Digby and Rachel Staunton in a highly challenging and impressively performed programme.

Sistema internet stream first

Sistema Norwich, inspiring children to learn music in Norwich based on the Venezualan El Sistema, has a concert on Friday 5 July 2013 at Epic, in Magdalen Street. The concert is part of the Young Norfolk Arts Festival, a lively array of events running from 28 June to 7 July at venues including Epic, Norwich Puppet Theatre,  Norwich School and the Cathedral. But Sistema Norwich's concert is something of a first as they will be playing alongside children from Lambeth and from Liverpool over a live internet stream. Sistema Norwich's Martineau Children’s Orchestra will play together at the same time in Norwich and Liverpool, and it is thought it will be a world first. The programme includes pieces to commemorate Benjamin Britten’s centenary year. The Sistema Norwich Orchestra will be joined by a Quartet from the Royal Philarmonic Orchestra. The concert is at 7.30pm, tickets are free but you have to book via the Eventbrite website.

Cheltenham Music Festival

The Cheltenham Music Festival starts this week with a positive riot of contemporary music and premieres. There is new work from Roxanna Panufnik, David Sawer, Michael Zev Gordon, Colin Matthews and David Matthews. Premieres include David Sawer’s The Lighthouse Keepers, a double bill of ‘radio plays’ with Samuel Beckett and Morton Feldman’s Words and Music played by the BCMG under Martyn Brabbins, David Matthews’ Double Concerto is inspired by the sense of 'coming together in friendship' of the soloists in Mozart’s similar work. The work is premiered Anthony Marwood and Lawrence Power with the Welsh Sinfonia conducted by Michael Eager in a programme which not only includes Mozart's double concerto for the same forces but the English premiere of Rozanna Panufnik's Orchestrapaedia.

Michael Zev Gordon's The Gleam of Hidden Skies is a companion piece to Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings to be performed by Toby Spence, Richard Watkins and the City of London Sinfonia conducted by Stephen Layton.. Colin Matthews’ new work for piano trio was commissioned by the Schubert Ensemble to celebrate its 30th anniversary. There are also premieres by Dai Fujikura, Kenneth Hesketh, David Onac, Simon Holt, Marton Illes, Antony Pitts, Gabriel Jackson, and Hywel Davies.

Further information from the Cheltenham Festivals website.

Hansel and Gretel in Skegness

On Sunday 7 July 2013, the beach at Skegness plays host to a live relay of Engelbert Humperdinck's opera Hansel und Gretel (see my review of the opera) from Garsington Opera as the grand finale to the SO Festival which takes place in East Lindswy. Last year the festival achieved a first when they broadcast Garsington's production of La Perichole live, on a screen on the beach, and this is being repeated this year. SO Festival 2013, funded by East Lindsey District Council and Arts Council England, will follow last year’s successful format, with 10 days of amazing shows, events and culture taking place across East Lindsey between 28 June and 7 July 2013. Further information from the SO Festival website.

Reels to Ragas 2013

We are pleased to present a preview of the forhcoming Reels to Ragas 2013 tour by Red Note, written specially for us by John Harris, the chief executive of Red Note.

Red Note, a contemporary music ensemble founded in Scotland by 'cellist Robert Irvine in 2008 and now artistically directed and managed by Robert and me John Harris, recently found ourselves described as 'the most adventurous and versatile new musical outfit in Scotland' in the Glasgow Herald. It's probably a good description: 2013 sees us performing James Dillon's 40 minute New York Triptych at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, collaborating with the equally adventurous Flemish Music Theatre company LOD on a part-theatre part-film all-musical extravaganza by French composer-artist François Sarhan on a show called Enough Already, commissioning young Irish composer David Fennessy for the same Huddersfield 3-concert residency (his recent sort-of-opera with artist and cartoonist David Shrigley Pass The Spoon premiered in Glasgow and then transferred to the QEH), creating flashmob-style performances in rural Aberdeenshire with Northern Irish composer-improviser-conductor Brian Irvine, running our established Noisy Nights series of cabaret-style contemporary music shows in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen and ... touring the far-flung Western Isles of Scotland with Indian tabla player Kuljit Bhamra.