Cello music in Dulwich

There is a chance to hear music in the lovely confines of Dulwich Picture Gallery, when the cellist Philip Higham gives a concert there on Wednesday 26 February 2014. The concert takes place in the gallery so you get chance to hear Higham performing Bach's Cello Suites nos. 1 & 2, and Britten's Suite no. 2 surrounded by the Gainsborough portraits of the Linley family and other superb pictures. 

In 2013, young British cellist Philip Higham made his debuts with the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Halle, the Northern Sinfonia and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra as well as giving a recital at the Wigmore Hall. He currently plays on a 1730 Tecchler cello. Further information from the Dulwich Picture Gallery website.

A community centre with concert hall attached

Could someone please explain to me what the Royal Festival Hall foyers are for? If you wander about the foyers at anytime they are usually full of people; but few, if any, are there for a concert or performance. Most seem to be simply hang out, sitting with their coffees, chatting and surfing. The RFH foyers seem to have been turned into a giant version of Starbucks.

I can just about understand the need for the vast array of restaurants sitting underneath the hall. They do bring in some sort of income to the South Bank Centre (at least I hope they do), but the crowds attending them do rather make it unpleasant when actually attending concerts. What, however, does the opening up of the foyers, bars and meeting rooms bring? I'm sure coffee sales doesn't bring in a mint - mind you, woe betide you if you actually do want a quiet cup of coffee. The service in the coffee shop is admirably efficient, but there is rarely anywhere to sit.

Rossini lecture for Divas and Scholars

The tenor Giovanni David who performed
in 6 of Rossini's operas

On 27 February 2014 I will be lecturing on Rossini's sequence of opera serias written for Naples. The lecture is part of the Divas and Scholars study day on Rossini at the Cadogan Hall.

Besides my lecture, Richard Peirson from the English National Opera will talk about The Barber of Seville as well as his long career working behind the scenes as a repetiteur/opera coach. He will work with opera singers Adrian Powter and Jessica Eccleston on Rossini repertoire. The two singers will perform arias such as the favourite Una voce poco fa. Pianist, Christian Dawson will examine Rossini's life with piano illustrations. My own lecture will look at the nine operas Rossini wrote for Naples, including Otello and Ermione, illustrating them with recorded examples. You also get lunch!

If you don't fancy a full day, then Divas and Scholars are also running a series of evening lectures, on the History of Opera. And if you do fancy a full day, then in addition to the Rossini day there is a Donizetti day on 13 March which will include a masterclass from Nelly Miricioiu.

Further information from the Divas and Scholars website

2014 Opera Awards finalists

This year's Opera Awards takes place on 7 April 2014 at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London, following on from last year's debut from the awards. The finalists in the 19 categories have now been announced and one of the delights of such lists is being able to go through the selections and see if your ideas match those of the judges.

There is a special section, Anniversary Production, covering new productions for the 2013 centenarians, Britten, Wagner and Verdi. The Britten productions include Aldeburgh's Peter Grimes on the Beach as well as the Hamburg/ROH Gloriana (filed under Hamburg where the title role was sung by Amanda Roocroft) and A Midsummer Night's Dream from Rio di Janeiro (which sounded as if it was fabulous).  Verdi includes the ROH Les Vepres Siciliennes (notable, but was that really the best Verdi we had to offer?), the Hamburg Verdi trilogy whilst the Melbourne Ring is the only complete Ring in the Wagner section, plus Parsifal from the Met and Flanders. Frankly, whilst there is a lot of interesting and notable work, its a bit depressing; are these really the best centenary opera productions. Perhaps the category ought to have included revivals as well.

Arvo Part - Pilgrim's Song from Voces Musicales

Arvo Part - Pilgrim's Song: Voces Musicales, Tallinn Sinfonietta, Risto Joost: ERP
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Feb 7 2014
Star rating: 5.0
Control & flexibility: This disc of Estonian forces performing music by one of Estonia's greatest composers is certainly work seeking out.

This 2009 disc from ERP features the chamber choir Voces Musicales and the Tallin Sinfonietta (now known as the Glasperlenspiel Sinfonietta), conducted by Risto Joost in a selection of Arvo Part's settings of sacred texts for choir and orchestra starting with Ein Wallfahrtslied setting Psalm 12, Magnificat, Summa, Nunc Dimittis and Te Deum. The disc was the choir's first disc and in it they showcase their superb technique.

Ein Wallfahrtslied (Pilgrim's Song) was originally written in 1984 for tenor, baritone and string orchestra with the version for male choir and string orchestra written in 1984. The piece was composed in memory of the composer's frend, film director Grigori Kromanov. The work has the male chorus singing the text effectively on a monotone, around which the strings place atmospheric accompaniments. I have to admit that it sounds the least like Arvo Part of any of the works of his, it has a certain central European feel to the string writing without the tintinabuli technique for which the composer is famous. The result is atmospheric and highly effective. The performance, particularly from the choir, is beautifully controlled and restrained allowing the strings to move around them.

Wigmore Hall 2014-15 season

The Wigmore Hall's 2014/15 season has been announced and there are some very tempting offerings. With the announcement of the hall reaching the first stage of its endowment appeal, it is clear that some impressive investment has gone into the programme Joyce DiDonato and Antonio Pappano launch the season and other highlights include a series devoted to the music of Purcell and to Robert Fayrfax as well as Mozart's chamber music. There is an increase in artist residences and multi-concert focus series, but still some impressive solo recitals. Major names include Maria Joao Pires, Paul Lewis, the Pavel Haas Quartet, Florian Boesch, Wolfgang Rihm, Ensemble Modern and the Cardinall's Musick. (A video of John Gilhooly's speech launching the season follows after the break.)

Joyce DiDonato and Antonio Pappano open the season with a pair of concerts combining Haydn, Bellini and Donizetti with songs from the Great American Songbook. Another highlight must surely be Sir Thomas Allen's 70th birthday celebration.

Henry Purcell: A Retrospective encompasses a series of concerts celebrating the composer with performers such as The Sixteen, the English Concert, the Gabrieli Consort, the Early Opera Company, Carolyn Sampson, and Trevor Pinnock.

Tippett's King Priam from English Touring Opera

Nicholas Sharratt, Grant Doyle, Roderick Earle
© Richard Hubert Smith, www.richardhs.com

Tippett King Priam: English Touring Opera: Linbury Studio Theatre
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Feb 13 2014
Star rating: 3.5
Welcome new production of Tippett's underrated opera

Michael Tippett's opera King Priam was premiered as part of the same arts festival in Coventry for which Britten's War Requiem was written and in fact the two works have something in common, dealing with the issues of war and its consequences. But Tippett's powerfully gritty work has failed to find the place in the repertoire that it deserves, so it was welcome news that English Touring Opera were opening their Spring tour with James Conway's new production of the opera. I attended the opening performance on 13 February 2014 at Covent Garden's Linbury Studio Theatre. Michael Rosewell conducted a new reduced orchestration by Iain Farrington, James Conway directed with designs by Anna Fleischle. Roderick Earle sang King Priam with Laure Meloy as Hecuba, Grant Doyle as Hector, Camilla Roberts as Andromache, Nicholas Sharratt as Paris, Niamh Kelly as Helen, Charne Rochford as Achilles, Adrian Dwyer as Hermes and a cast including Andrew Slater, Clarissa Meek, Stuart Haycock, Johnny Herford, Henry Manning and Piotr Lempa.

The size of the cast, perhaps, gives a hint as to why the opera is not revived more often. Covent Garden last performed it in 1985 (when the original Sam Wanamaker production was revived and taken to the Herod Atticus Theatre in Athens). Opera North's 1991 production was given by ENO in 1991, the last time the opera was staged in London, though we had a concert performance at the Proms in 2003.

Anna Fleischle's set was a single unit concrete bunker-like structure which gave flexibility to the acting area by including a high level walk way at the back. The centre of the stage was taken by a small podium with a large metallic structure which double as a number of things. The playing space was highly effectively organised, but seemed to lack the space which Tippett's opera demands. Partly this was because of the decision to put the orchestra on-stage behind the singers and hidden by a scrim. This decision was taken partly because of worries about balance problems at the Linbury Theatre (I understand for the remainder of the tour the orchestra will be in the pit), but it did give the overall production a claustrophobic feel. James Conway seems to have deliberately played this up, with the chorus often crowding onto the stage.

Mei Yi Foo - lunchtime recital at the Wigmore Hall

Mei Yi Foo - photo John Millar/BBC

Messiaen, Ravel, Bartok Balakirev: Mei Yi Foo: The Wigmore Hall
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Feb 13 2014
Star rating: 5.0
Technical brilliance and fine control in this brilliant lunchtime showcase

Malaysian born, London-based pianist Mei Yi Foo won the BBC Best Newcomer of the Year award at the 2013 BBC Music Magazine Awards. Mei Yi gave a lunch-time recital yesterday, 14 February 2014, as part of Lisa Peacock's series of Lunchtime Showcase Recitals at the Wigmore Hall. She performed a fascinating and challenging of music by Olivier Messiaen, Maurice Ravel and Bela Bartok, finishing with Balakirev's outrageously demanding Islamey.

She started with the tenth of Olivier Messiaen's Vingt Regards sur l'enfant Jesus, the movement entitled Regard de l'Esprit de joie (Contemplation of the Spirit of Joy).  Messiaen described the movement as a 'plainchantesque oriental dance' and embedded in the elaborate and lush textures there is indeed a dance and one of the virtues of Mei Yi's performance was the way she articulated this. Whilst she rendered Messiaen's technical demands with admirable facility, her Spirit of Joy also danced with infectious abandon in a highly rhythmic dance, which Mei Yi surrounded by a delicate wash of colours and chords with a swirl of notes which culminated in the brilliantly glorious final pages.

Chansonnerie from Londinium

Chansonnerie: Londinium, Andrew Griffiths: St Sepulchre without Newgate
Reviewed by Hilary Glover on Feb 7 2014
Star rating: 4.0
A choir to watch in a programme of music to French texts

London amateur chamber choir Londinium with conductor Andrew Griffiths are known for their quality performances and this foray into French music at St. Sepulchre without Newgate did not disappoint. Or rather I should say music in French, as it included German, and American composers as well as French. They also know how to put a show and get the best from their singers by splitting into smaller groups (making sure that everyone got a turn) for some songs.

The concert began at the back of the hall with ‘Les cris de Paris’ by Clément Janequin (c1485-1558). From hot pies and cakes to turnips, brooms and cheese, everything the renaissance customer could want. This kind of imitare le parole was typical of 16^th century French music, and the staging by Londinium was cleverly done. As the audience was concentrating on the music at the back of the hall several singers moved around to the side to add in their ‘cries’ and so on until we were surrounded by the busy market place.

Ciaccona

Ciaccona: Guillermo Brachetta: Resonus Classics RES10126
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Feb 13 2014
Star rating: 3.5
A survey of the development of the Chaconne form in the 17th century from its dance origins

This fascinating new disc from Guillermo Brachetta looks at the way the chaconne developed in 17th century Europe, taking it from a simple dance form to a highly developed musical structure. Using two contrasting harpsichords Brachetta plays music by Storace, Duphly, Champion de Chambonieres, Blow, Bohm, De Bury, Bach, Fux and Louis Couperin.

The Argentinian harpsichord player Guillermo Brachetta based in the Netherlands where he studied with Jacques Ogg and Menno van Delft. He founded the trio Fantasticus as well as the Collegium Wilhelm Friedmann Bach.

Vox Luminis at Choral at Cadogan

Stabat Mater: Vox Luminis: Cadogan Hall
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Feb 12 2014
Star rating: 5.0
Plangently expressive singing from the Belgian ensemble in programme devoted to the Virgin at the foot of the corss

For their concert in the Choral at Cadogan series at London's Cadogan Hall last night (12 February 2014), the Belgian ensemble Vox Luminis brought a programme of music based around the Virgin Mary and the Stabat Mater. Centred on Domenico Scarlatti's Stabat Mater, their sequence of music began with an anonymous 13th century French lais, and continued through Antonio Lotti's Crucifixus, Claudio Monteverdi's Adoramus te Christe, Domenico Scarlatti's Salve Regina and the UK premiered of Alessandro della Ciaia's Lamentatio Virginis in dispositione Filii de cruce a 9.

Lionel Meunier

Vox Luminis was founded by their director Lionel Meunier in 2004 and the first work which the group sang was the Scarlatti Stabat Mater. Consisting of ten singers (four sopranos, two counter-tenors, two tenors and two basses), they sing conductor-less with Meunier singing bass in the ensemble.

The group's singers share a commonality of style and vocal technique, will all producing a very direct, straight sound aiming for expressive flexibility with very little vibrato. The result has a very expressively plangent quality, with something of an edge to the sound and a willingness to, at times, produce very vibrant tone. This gave the ensemble a very distinctive quality whatever era the music they were singing. This was very much an ensemble of vibrant voices, rather than a group singing with pure choral tone. The very straightness of their vocal timbre means that there is little room for manoeuvre when it comes to pitch, and their performance at the Cadogan Hall was notable for the accuracy of the placing of notes and for the flexibility of ensemble which working without a conductor brought. Throughout the performance I was aware of the constant and lively visual interaction between performers.

Walter Widdop the Great Yorkshire Tenor by Michael Letchford

The great English tenor Walter Widdop (1892 - 1949) is perhaps not as well known nowadays as his contemporaries, such as Heddle Nash (1894 - 1961) and Isobel Baillie (1895 - 1983). This is probably because Widdop made few recordings after 1930. But Widdop was one of the few English singers to have an international career before the Second World War and made a remarkable leap into being a Wagnerian tenor with very little experience. I have long been aware of Widdop and his recordings, but had little other information. This little book, compiled and edited by Michael Letchford, helps to remedy that situation. There is a short biography by Val Parker as well as a short memoir by Widdop's daughter Veronica Bott, plus Tully Potter's article about Widdop's recordings, a memoir of Widdop's teacher by one of his other pupils, a complete list of recording sessions and a wide selection of original press reviews of Widdop's performances.

Walter Widdop as Siegfried

Widdop was born near Halifax and left school at 14. He seems to have been a strong personality and is one of those people around whom stories accumulate. But his biography is relatively short and you have to read Val Parker's short but informative biographical essay in conjunction with Tully Potter's excellent survey of Widdop's recordings to get the fuller picture. Widdop's recording career effectively came to an end in the 1930's, just at a time when he was developing as an artist. He was singing right up to his death in 1949 (in fact he sang Lohengrin's Farewell the night before he died), but we have little in the way of aural documentation for the last 19 years.

Potter attributes this to the fact that Widdop was quite a direct and outspoken man, who may easily have offended someone in the record company. This may be true, but Widdop's contemporary Isobel Baillie, in her autobiography, talks of how many English singers were dropped by the record companies in the leaner times of the 1930's; her own 'period in the wilderness' only ended in the late 1940's.

Philharmonia Orchestra: Britten, Adès and Vaughan Williams

Nicholas Collon, credit Bejamin Ealovega

Philharmonia Orchestra, Nicholas Collon: Britten, Ades and Vaughan Willams
Reviewed by Hilary Glover on Feb 6 2014
Star rating: 4.0
Three different generations of British composers

Having just seen ‘Peter Grimes’ at the ENO (you can read my review here) I was interested to see what the Philharmonia Orchestra resident at the Southbank Centre would do with it. Conducted by Nicholas Collon, who I saw conducting the Aurora Orchestra last month and winner of the 2012 UK Critics’ Circle Award for Exceptional Young Talent, this concert also included music by two other English composers - Thomas Adès and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

The orchestra suite of Peter Grimes by Benjamin Britten (1913-1976), first performed in 1945, uses the four interludes from the opera, ‘Dawn’, ‘Sunday morning’, ‘Moonlight’, and ‘Storm’. Their order is rearranged from that of the opera. ‘Dawn’ opens Act I with its representation of sunrise in the strings, over burbling woodwind in runs of major and minor thirds, cymbal waves, and determined crashing horns with timpani rolls. With such large numbers in the orchestra the power and range of dynamic available to Collon was dramatic.

Wigmore Hall Endowment Fund reaches target 1 year early

The Wigmore Hall has reached its £1 million target for its Endowment Fund a year early. The hall announced yesterday that, thanks to supporters, the target had been achieved and so they have secured a matching Catalyst Award from the Arts Council. The fund was launched in 2013 with the intention of raising £1 million by May 2015. 

The Endowment Fund will provide the hall with extra income thus allowing it to invest in its artist residencies, special projects and programmes, hopefully giving a bit of leeway to be more daring and creative. The £1 million is only the first target and they hope to raise £7 million by 2020!

Helena Tulve - Arboles lloran por lluvia

Helene Tulva Arboles lloran por lluvia: ECM new series
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Feb7 2014
Star rating: 3.0
Fascinating timbres and fluid writing in this showcase of works by contemporary Estonian composer Helena Tulva

This disc showcases the music of the Estonian composer Helena Tulve. In a diverse group of five works, her fondness for exotic Eastern texts along with an fine ear for unusual instruments are showcased in performances of Reyah hadas 'ala, silences/larmes, L'Equinoxe de l'ame, Arboles lloran por lluvia and Extinction des choses with performers including soprano Arianna Savall, counter-tenors Charles Barbier and Taniel Krirkal, with Ensemble Vox Clamantis, Ensemble Hortus Musicus and the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jaan-Eik Tulve and Olari Elts.

I have to admit that the name Helena Tulve was new to me. Tulve is an Estonia composer, she studied in at the Estonian Academy of Music with Erkki-Sven Tüür, being the latter’s sole student of composition thus far.

Reya hadas 'ala (The perfume of the myrtle rises) is a setting of a poem by Shalom Shabazi for voices and early music consort, performed by counter-tenors Charles Barbier and Taniel Kirika, the six-person vocal ensemble Vox Clamantis and Ensemble Hortus Musicus conducted by Jaan-Eik Tulve (who also happens to be Helena Tulve's husband). Tulve's instrumental writing here is full of slides and atmospherics, she is influenced by the French school of spectral music. Embedded in this is the vocal ensemble's singing of a chant-like melody, thus embodying another of Tulve's interests that of Gregorian chant. The text is by a 17th century Yemenite poet, rabbi and mystic.  The programme note in the CD booklet describes how the voices float like 'the aroma of the myrtle' in the 'foliage' of the instruments. The two counter-tenors sing a wonderfully melismatic and hypnotic melody, full of rather Eastern inflections. There are some wonderfully atmospheric instrumental moments, and Tulve uses the early instruments of the ensemble (violin, viola da gamba, violone, recorders, dulcian, bombard, trombone and organ) with skill.

Aubade - film preview

A new film from Henry Astor, Aubade looks at the work of Chipping Norton based luthier Paul Fischer as seeks to make a classical guitar suitable for modern virtuosos. The film takes in both Fischer, the guitarist Xuefei Yang who agreed to try out the new guitar and composer William Lovelady who was commissioned to write a piece for Xuefei Yangto play on Fischer's new guitar. Aubade will be premiered at Chipping Norton Theatre on 12 February 2014. There is a preview video for Aubade after the break.

Xuefei Yang was the first person ever to study classcal guitar at the Beijing Conservatoire. If you want to hear Xuefei Yang live then she has a solo recital at the University of Keele on February 19, with appearances in Stoke on Trent (21/3), Guildford (29/3) and a solo recital at Binham Priory in Norfolk (23/8). Further details from Xuefei Xang's website.

Joined up planning or simple point-scoring?

The South Bank Centre's expansion was always going to be controversial, after all we've had plenty of other attempts to do something with the centre. Fundamentally the trio of buildings is rather intractable, with the Purcell Room, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Hayward Gallery positioned on the assumption that all pedestrians were going to be at podium level. As soon as the podiums started to come down, then things made less sense. There has always been the feeling of wasted space. 

Frankly, I did rather find the new proposals rather ugly with the big glass box and the long structure sticking out towards the Thames, effectively bisecting the site. I have always had a lot of sympathy with Nicholas Hytner's objections to the plan. But fundamentally there is nothing that can't be fixed, and most large scale projects like this go through endless variations. Just think of the long-running Covent Garden saga and the way the architects there kept their heads, re-drafted things and came up eventually with a plan which was reasonably satisfying.

The big problem with the South Bank isn't the architecture, it is that it has become a political football. It seems alarmingly point-scoring for a public sector project as big as this to get as far as it has done before the Mayor of London announces that he does not support the whole basis for the project - moving the skateboard-park so the centre can use the ground floor for commercial properties whose rents will help fund its expanded form.

This isn't about the rights and wrongs of skateboarders and the historic nature of the skateboard park. This is about proper project planning, joined up thinking and decent long term planning. Surely someone at the Mayor's office could have forseen the problems and mentioned them earlier. The way the Mayor of London has suddenly announced his objection to the skateboard park moving smacks a little too much of point-scoring and jumping onto band-wagons.

The idea of having a Mayor of London is to make such London-wide planning easier and more feasible. At this rate, the South Bank Centre will have to go back to the drawing board again. And London will have a crummy South Bank for another 10 years, again. If the South Bank redevelopment stalls then for many Londoners Boris Johnson won't be the man who saved the skateboard park, but the man who torpedoed a very necessary development to one of London's most important arts centres.

Opus - the circus meet Shostakovich!

An intriguing show starts at the Barbican Theatre on 18 February, when Circa and the Debussy String Quartet present Opus. Circa is a leading Australian circus company and the Debussy String Quartet is a French string quartet formed in 1990 and based in Lyon. At the Barbican the quartet will be playing Shostakovich string quartets, but they will be on-stage whilst whilst fourteen artists from Circa perform dazzling acrobatic artistry around them. But the musicians are more than just the accompaniment, they will be playing blind-fold, interacting directly with the artists from Circa. We are promised something thrilling and exciting.

The quartet will be playing Shostakovich quartets nos. 11, 8 and 5. On the face of it Shostakovich's intense quartets would seem a strange choice for a work based on the circus, but the company has a history of challenging and fascinating work. They collaborated with Robert Hollingworth's I Fagiolini for How like and Angel at last year's City of London Festival

Choreography and staging are by Yaron Lifschitz, Circa's artistic director. The event runs from 18 to 22 February 2014, further information from the Barbican website. There is a preview video after the break.

Aurora Orchestra serenades us at the Wigmore Hall

Mahler, Shostakovich, Britten: Jane Irwin, Andrew Staples, Aurora Orchestra, Andrew Gourlay: The Wigmore Hall
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Feb 9 2014
Star rating: 4.0
A fascinating and satisfying programme, showcasing some virtuosic playing 

Last night's (9 February 2014) concert at the Wigmore Hall by the Aurora Orchestra was one of those which seemed fated. The centre piece of the concert was supposed to be a new work by Judith Weir to be sung by Alice Coote. This had to be postponed and was replaced by Mahler's Lieder einer fahrender Gesellen. Then Coote herself cancelled through illness, replaced by Jane Irwin. Also in the programme was Britten's Serenade for tenor horn and strings with tenor Allan Clayton; illness forced Clayton to cancel, as it did his replacement. So it was certainly smiles all round that Andrew Staples was able to step in at the last minute (Staples was a memorable Albert in the recent Albert Herring at the Barbican). The remainder of the programme was less fraught, Mozart's Eine kleine Nachtmusik and Dmitri Shostakovich's Chamber Symphony in C minor Op 110a (Rudolph Barshai's arrangement of Shostakovich's 8th string quartet). All conducted by Andrew Gourlay.

Theodora at the Barbican

Rosemary Joshua, Harry Bicket, Sarah Connolly
photo the English Concert

Handel - Theodora: Rosemary Joshua, Sarah Connolly, English Concert, Harry Bicket: Barbican Centre
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Feb 8 2014
Star rating: 5.0
Fine inner life: superb performance of Handel's late masterpiece

Harry Bicket and the English Concert brought Handel's wonderful late oratorio Theodora to the Barbican on Saturday 8 February 2014 after a tour in America and now taking in Birmingham, London and Paris. Rosemary Joshua sang the title role with Tim Mead as Didymus, Sarah Connolly as Irene, Kurt Streit (replacing Andrew Kennedy) as Septimius and Neal Davies as Valens. The choir was the Choir of Trinity Wall Street on a visit to Europe.

Theodora was in many ways Handel's most unsuccessful oratorio; a small group of admirers liked it but the general public did not. His only sacred oratorio set in Christian times, it used a non-biblical story and is essentially an exploration of inner faith with a heroine who goes off willingly to martyrdom. Handel's concerns in the piece transcend Revd Thomas Morrell's libretto. Time and again he subverts Morrell's underlying meaning, using his music to give Theodora an intensity of faith which overcomes the libretto's combination of piety and masochism, and to make the chorus of Romans into jolly hedonists rather than Morrell's rather vicious crew. This was something that Handel did also in Jephtha, another oratorio with words written by Morrell. Morrell seems to have been a swift and adaptable writer, able to a certain extent to shape himself to Handel's requirements. But also, Handel in his late period seems to have discovered how to work the text to his own inner concerns.

Ethel Smyth in Switzerland

No, not a recounting of a little known episode in English composer's life (though no doubt she did visit Switzerland), but a mini-festival of Smyth's work happening later this month in Switzerland. In connection with the research project music and gender at the University of Basel and the Lucerne Academy, organised by Cornelia Bartsch and Blanka Siska, several Ethel Smyth events will be taking place. There is a symposium entitled Life is a composite affair: Ethel Smyth - Musik, Kritik, Politik on 16 and 17 February in Lucerne with an exhibition and a chamber concert; at the Lucerne Theatre.  

Smyth’s opera The Boatswain's Mate is being mounted, first being performed on 15 February at Lucerne Theatre with further performances on 16, 20, 21, 22 and 26 February. The opera was Smyth's fourth opera, and her first to be premiered in the UK. Her own comic libretto is based on short story by W. W. Jacobs. The Lucerne performances will be sung in German, with musical direction by Andrew Dunscombe and directed by Hersilie Ewald, an assistant director at the Lucerne Theatre.

Though Smyth's previous two operas, The Wreckers and Der Wald were highly dramatic, her response to the First World War was partly to write lighter pieces for the stage. The work is unashamedly feminist but it is also a comedy, with a feisty, resourceful heroine. Though The Wreckers is perhaps a stronger work, it is one of Smyth's most performed operas because the forces required are relatively compact. Though it has not been around much recently, I was luckily enough to see it in the 1980's in a touring production in East Anglia.

Further information from the University of Basel website.

Opera in the British Isles, 1875 - 1918

Opera in the British Isles might seem a rather sparse subject in the period 1875 to 1918. Britain was notoriously described as the land without music, even the revival of the native tradition of composers did not include a strong vein of opera. Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, who himself composed a substantial body of operas, did not include the subject at the Royal Academy of Music. In this new book from Paul Rodmell (lecturer in music at the University of Birmingham), Opera in the British Isles, 1875-1918, the author aims to find what was happening operatically. The results are somewhat surprising both in the number of performances, the access people outside London had to opera and the number of new works performed. Rodmell demonstrates that there was s significant amount of opera going on, albeit of a rather variable quality.

The book is part of a series from Ashgate Publishing, Music in 19th Century Britain, which seeks to explore the wealth of music and musical culture of Britain in the 19th century. To explode the myth of the Land Without Music.

Rodmell's book is thematic rather than strictly historical. He starts with a survey of opera in 1875. The year was chosen as start date because it was the year of the first London appearance of the major touring company Carl Rosa Opera, the inauguration of the project for a new National Opera House on the Victoria Embankment and the definitive establishment of the operas of Wagner in the repertory. Carl Rosa Opera was important as a significant company playing London in parallel with Covent Garden. The opera house project was an unfeasibly idealistic scheme, but one which helps to articulate the Victorian's concern with a national style in new operas. And Wagner, of course, represents an important step in the modernisation of the operatic repertoire.

The Veil of the Temple

John Tavener - The Veil of the Temple: The Choir of the Temple Church, The Holst Singers, English Chamber Orchestra, Patricia Rozario, Stephen Layton
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Jan 7 2014
Star rating: 5.0
A wonderful memorial to an astonishing composer

John Tavener wrote The Veil of the Temple in 2003 as a commission from The Temple Church for an all night vigil. The resulting work, on a huge scale, is for choir, orchestra and soprano soloist. In 2004 Tavener then produced a reduced version of the work designed to be suitable for concert use. The full Veil of the Temple was premiered by the Choir of the Temple Church, the Holst Singers, the English Chamber Orchestra and soprano Patricia Rozario, conducted by Stephen Layton. And it is these same forces which perform the concert version of the work on the recording which has been re-issued on Signum Classics.

Before we start examining the work it is probably worth quoting from Sir John Tavener's article in the CD booklet. 'The Veil of the Temple is an attempt to restore the sacred imagination... It takes place at night, as we wait for the withdrawal of night and the coming of dawn; and, by its gradual Cosmic Rising, it attemps to bring about a transformation from the Old Temple to the New. The Veil is a 'Vigil', not quite a liturgical ceremony. Through its eight cycles, gradually rising an octave in pitch, it attempts to reveal the mystery of the death and burial of Christ through his Rising. In creating man, God entrusted him with the task of completing the Temple, and himself becoming the Temple of God. This, anyway, is the aspiration.'

In case you missed it - January on Planet Hugill

Welcome to January on Planet Hugill

January started with the Planet Hugill list, Hilary and my list of our memorable events from 2013.

Sondheim, Handel and new opera

Our post Christmas treat was Stephen Sondheim's Candide at the Menier Chocolate Factory. Second Movement's Rough for Opera gave us three very different, very new operas. The Sixteen performed Handel's late masterpiece Jephtha at the Barbican with James Gilchrist in the title role.

Roald Dahl's Dirty Beasts turn musical

DIRTY BEASTS illustration © 1983 Quentin Blake

The London Philharmonic Orchestra has commissioned composer Benjamin Wallfisch to create three new orchestral works based on Roald Dahl's Dirty Beasts. Dahl's darkly sinister poems with be narrated in full whilst being vividly illustrated by Wallfisch's music. Dahl's poems were first published in 1983, with illustrations by Quentin Blake. This is the first time that the Roald Dahl estate has granted permission for the poems to be set to music.

Wallfisch's three new works will be based on The Porcupine, The Anteater and The Toad and the Snail. The Porcupine will be premiered on 16 February at on of the London Philharmonic Orchestra's FUNharmonics family concerts at the South Bank Centre, with The Anteater performed on 11 May and The Toad and the Snail on 26 October. Each year the orchestra runs three concerts designed to appeal to children of all ages, but especially those aged 3-11. Children also have the chance to play instruments of the orchestra in ‘have-a-go’ sessions before each concert.

Born in 1979, Wallfisch's composing career spans both the concert hall (his Chopin's Waterloo was nominated in the 2013 British Composer Awards) and the film studio (he has worked on over 40 films). It will be interesting to see if his new pieces achieve the composer's state aim of introducing children to music in the way that Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf does.

'Ultimate' RVW concert

Anton Dolin as Satan
in RVW's Job

Tonight (5 February 2014) at Symphony Hall, Birmingham, Andrew Manze conducts the CBSO in what is billed as Ultimate Vaughan Williams. The concert is indeed very enticing, with three popular short works in the first half (Overture to The Wasps, Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis and The Lark Ascending), then in the second half a complete performance of Job: A Masque for Dancing. Andrew Manze conducts the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with Laurence Jackson, violin.

RVW's Job was written at the suggestion of the Blake scholar Geoffrey Keynes who drafted out an initial scenario. The artist Gwen Raverat (who was also RVW's cousin) contacted RVW and the idea appealed to him. The ballet was to be written for Diaghilev's troupe, but Diaghilev rejected it. This meant that the work's premiere in 1930 was in concert form, with RVW conducting. Because he didn't have the constraints of a pit band to deal with, RVW uses a very large orchestra. Musically the work represents an important development in RVW's style, with the music for Satan prefiguring the more dissonant style of the Fourth Symphony

Job was finally produced on stage with choreography by Ninette de Valois and designs by Gwen Raverat in 1931. The work was taken into the Vic Wells and Salders Wells Ballet repertoire, eventually being performed at Covent Garden by the Royal Ballet. By this time the designs were by John Piper (which RVW did not really like). The work has had a mixed reception, partly because de Valois's choreography responds to RVW's music (he called the work a masque) so that there is only one virtuoso role, that of Satan. The Royal Ballet have only revived it rarely, famously they would not mount a revival at Nureyev's request as he wished to dance Satan, but Peter Wright mounted an important revival with the Birmingham Royal Ballet which was performed at Covent Garden in the 1980's.

Melos Sinfonia plays Panufnik and Myaskovsky

Andrzej Panufnik
Photo Camilla Jessel

Melos Sinfonia, Oliver Zeffman, Bartholemew LaFollette: LSO St Luke's
Reviewed by Hilary Glover on Jan 31 2014
Star rating: 5.0
A force to be reckoned with: Melos Sinfonia plays Tchaikovsky, Panufnik and Myaskovsky

2014 is the centenary of Andrzej Panufnik’s birth and the Melos Sinfonia joined a year of celebration at LSO St Luke’s in London. The Melos Sinfonia, an orchestra made up of recent graduates and current students of music collages and conservatoires was conducted by Oliver Zeffman, himself a student, currently at St Petersburg Conservatory. But make no mistake – this is a formidable orchestra with a broad, warm sound that only comes from talented people playing as one.

Easing the audience in gently, the concert began with Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s (1840 – 1893) ‘Romeo and Juliet’ overture. ‘Romeo and Juliet’ was written in 1869 and reworked, in collaboration with Mily Balakirev (1837-1910), several times through to 1880.

Balakirev was one of the ‘Mighty Five’ who sought to modernise Russian music. The Mighty Five also included César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, Aleksander Borodin and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Highly influenced by composers such as Berlioz, Chopin and Liszt they nevertheless were interested in retaining Russian identity in art music by use of folk tunes, Russian modes and scales, and folk polyphony. From these beginnings Russian music became a force to be reckoned with and in turn influenced European music.

Composer of the Week

I am composer of the week over at Tutti.co.uk's Facebook page, do go and visit. Each day they are featuring one of my compositions, so far we've had Harvest Ramble for solo guitar and Passion, my setting of the St John Passion for unaccompanied vocal ensemble which was recorded by the Burgundian Cadence (their CD also available from Tutti.co.uk).

Out this month - Women as Men in opera

Helen Shermann in Donizetti's
L'Assedio di Calais for ETO
Photo: Richard Hubert Smith

My article on operatic roles en travestie, women playing men, is out in this month's Classical Music Magazine. The article combines a brief historical overview with interviews with Australian mezzo-soprano Helen Shermann (who played Aurelio in Donizetti's L'Assedio di Calais and Nerone in Monteverdi's Coronation of Poppea, both for English Touring Opera) and Sarah Connolly (whose travesty roles have included Octavian, Bellini's Romeo and Handel's Julius Cesar amongst many others). It also looks at the erotic aspect, the tempting site of a pair of women's legs in an age when convention kept them covered up.

Further information from Classical Music Magazine's website

Harmonia Sacra - Russian Orthodox choral works

Cherubim and Seraphim: Harmonia Sacra/Peter Leech: Nimbus Alliance
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Jan 7 2014
Star rating: 3.0
Freshness and vitality in interesting repertoire

This disc from Peter Leech and his Bristol-based choir Harmonia Sacra looks at 150 years of music for the St Petersburg Chapel Choir, with music ranging from Bortnyansky to Rachmaninov. One of the interesting features of the disc is the inclusion of works by two of the Italian visitors, Giuseppe Sarti and Baldassare Galuppi.

Galuppi took his position as Director of the Russian court theatre and maestro di cappella of the Imerial Cappella in 1765. He wasn't the first Italian to take the position, but he is credited with founding a new Italian style in Russia though the groundwork had been laid by his predecessors Francesco Manfredini and Francesco Araja. The Russian court's preference for Italian music grew in the reign of Empresses Anna (1730) and Elizabeth (1741 - 62) and would reach its zenith under Catherine the Great (1762 - 1796).

Harmonia Sacra are a Bristol based choir formed by Peter Leech in 2009, though their core repertoire is late-Renaissance and early-Baroque they perform a repertoire which ranges up to contemporary music. The 30 strong choir is close in size and so eminently suitable for much of the music on this disc. Their chamber approach also brings an interesting clarity to the larger scale later pieces.

Peter Grimes: all is lost

Stuart Skelton in Peter Grimes at ENO
Picture credit Robert Workman

Benjamin Britten - Peter Grimes: ENO at London Coliseum
Reviewed by Hilary Glover on Jan 28 2014
Star rating: 4.0
Compelling and disturbing, with strong performances and music

Peter Grimes by Benjamin Britten, at the ENO was a compelling and disturbing opera, with strong performances and music. This was the first repeat (seen 28 January 2014) of David Alden's 2009 production and brought back Stuart Skelton, as the title character, and Edward Gardner, to conduct the orchestra. While I felt that some of the characterisations were too far fetched, the question is would the production have been as powerful without these excesses?

The story of Peter Grimes is a disturbing look at a micro society. Based on George Crabbe's poem The Borough, the anti-hero Grimes is a bully, wife-beater and a child abuser. Yet Lear-like it is his mistaken pride which is his downfall, the death of two apprentices, and leads eventually to his suicide - as being the only way out.

The Duchess of Malfi

The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at the Globe Theatre is something of an experiment. It is based on our sketchy knowledge of the Jacobean indoor playhouse at Blackfriars and the so called Inigo Jones drawings. These latter are now known not to be by Jones, do not seem to have been for a real playhouse and are of rather a later date than the Blackfriars building. I went to see the opening production,  Dominic Dromgoole's production of John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi on Thursday 30 January.

Richard Burbage's acting company, which included Shakespeare, used the refectory of the old Blackfriars priory in which to construct a theatre for playing during the winter. This knowledge, combined with elements of the 'Inigo Jones' drawings (now credited to John Webb), has informed the design of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. The resulting structure is something of a handsome experiment which will enable us to learn how Jacobean plays worked when indoors. The striking wood auditorium with two galleries and a small pit, has a permanent stage with a gallery for musicians above. It seats around 300 audience, in very close proximity on wooden benches. On this basis, Jacobean theatre going was not comfortable.

February on the South Bank

February on the South Bank includes major choral works from Elgar, Verdi, Poulenc and Brahms along with Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe, there is also rare repertoire from Balakirev, Khachaturian and Kalinnikov plus a portrait of Karin Rehnqvist. As well as a rare appearance from Maurizio Pollini and some South Asian Dance from Akademi.

Nicholas Collon conducts the Philharmonia Orchestra in RVW's Symphony No. 6, plus Thomas Ades's Concerto for Violin and chamber orchestra (Concentric Paths) with Pakka Kuuisto, Britten's Sea Interludes complete a very enticing programme (6/2)

Around Mahler's First Symphony

The London Arts Orchestra, the resident orchestra at Christ Church, Spitalfields, is putting a new slant on Mahler's First Symphony. When they perform the work under conductor Edward Farmer at Christ Church on Thursday 6 February they will be preceding it with a performance of Mahler's song cycle, Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (which provides on of the main themes in Mahler's symphony) sung by Luke D. Williams along with a new play which will be written and performed by Zubin Varla.

Varla's play uses Mahler's letters, music and other things which inspired the composer to help provide background and context for the symphony.

The London Arts Orchestra was founded by Edward Farmer in 2009, and comprises student and new graduate musicians. The orchestra aims to make orchestral music more accessible to a wider audience. Farmer studied at the Royal College of Music before studying conducting with Leonid Grin in Philadelphia. His recent engagements have included assisting Ivan Fischer with the Budapest Festival Orchestra.

Further information from the London Arts Orchestra website.

Alessandro Scarlatti - Carlo Re dAlemagna

Alessandro Scarlatti - Carlo Re d'Alemagna: Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, Fabio Biondi: agOgiqe
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Jan 7 2014
Star rating: 4.5
A vivid and highly dramatic account of a lesser known, but important early 18th century opera

Alessandro Scarlatti is an important figure in the history of 18th century opera, with over 65 works surviving, but rather under-represented in the recording catalogue. Now we have his last opera written for Naples, Carlo Re d'Alemagna performed by Fabio Biondi and the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra. They are joined by a strong cast including Romina Basso, Roberta Invernizzi, Marina de Liso, Marianne Beate Kielland, Carlo Allemano, Jose Maria Lo Monaco, Damiana Pinti and Roberto Abbondonza in a piece which mixes comedy and tragedy in typical Neapolitan fashion. Here it receives a vivid and brilliant performance on discs on the agOgique label.

South Bank 2014-15 season

The 2014/15 programming for the South Bank has been announced, with artistic director Jude Kelly seeking to build on the success of the centre's The Rest is Noise Festival with a series of commissions. So for the 2014-15 season there are 20 commissions happening during the season. There are also some interesting operatic offerings ranging from Donizetti's Les Martyrs to scenes from Boris Godounov on period instruments, plus Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande and a contemporary video opera. And the Philharmonia are performing Berlioz's Grande Messe des Morts, should be earthshattering! There are celebrations for birthdays of Harrison Birtwistle, Christoph von Dohnany and Michael Nyman.