Elgar and Arnold premieres

Ben Palmer

Conductor Ben Palmer and the Orchestra of St Paul's have pulled of something of a coup and are giving the London premiere of a work by Elgar at St Paul's Church, Covent Garden on 23 March 2014. Elgar's incidental music for Laurence Binyon's play Arthur was written for performance in 1923 and premiered at the Old Vic. The review of the play in the Spectator was not that enthusiastic: 'it is a very skilful dramatization of the events leading up to the ruin of the Round Table Fellowship. The guilty passion of Launcelot and Guenevere is the acid which dissolves all Arthur's endeavour to consolidate the kingdom. Mr. Binyon does not succeed in removing that taint of priggishness which has hung over Arthur since Victorian times. His verse is always adequate to the occasion, and if it at no time soars to great heights, it keeps a level which is only one step below poetry.'

The music, if heard at all today, is generally performed as a suite of six movements arranged for symphony orchestra. The original is scored for a pit band of 14 players, and the complete incidental music has been edited by Palmer and in this form was premiered in 2012, the 23 March performance will be the work's London premiere. Also in the programme are the London premieres of two of David Matthew's arrangements for string orchestra, of Elgar's String Quartet and Malcolm Arnold's String Quartet No. 2. These will be complemented by music by Robert Simpson. Palmer and the orchestra are recording the entire programme for issue on the SOMM label. Further information from the Orchestra of St Paul's website.

Fortuna Scherzosa - outrageous fortune

Fortuna Scherzosa: Ina Siedlaczek, Hamburger Ratsmusik: audite
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Mar 18 2014
Star rating: 4.0
Survey of baroque cantatas themed around the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

This new disc on the audite label from soprano Ina Siedlaczek and Hamburger Ratsmusik presents a selection of baroque cantatas, with Telemann's Fortuna Scherzosa, Amore heisst mich freudig lachen and Hoffnung placed alongside cantatas by Philipp Heinrich Erlebach, Johan Ulich, and Johann Philipp Krieger, all of which have texts which look at the fickleness of fortune or fate. You probably have not heard of most of the composers on the disc, their output has rather suffered from the depredations of time and war with not much surviving, but there are certainly some little gems to be found on this disc.

Opera seria from the master of comedy: La clemenza di Tito

Gillian Ramm

Mozart La clemenza di Tito: Classical Opera, Ian Page: Cadogan Hall
Reviewed by Hilary Glover on Mar 13 2014
Star rating: 3.5
Stylish outing for Mozart's final opera seria

Classical Opera led by Ian Page presented a concert performance of Mozart’s rarely heard La clemenza di Tito at the Cadogan Hall last night (13 March).

Helen Sherman

Written as a commission for Leopold II’s coronation as King of Bohemia in September 1791 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) wrote La clemenza di Tito while he was in the middle of writing The Magic Flute – and it was his downfall. Mozart was not even first choice to write the opera. Domenico Guardasoni who was arranging the production first approached Antonio Salieri (1750-1825), who was too busy to write an opera in the two months left before the coronation date.

Unlike the Magic Flute this was to be ‘opera seria’ – serious opera for a serious occasion. Mozart called it ‘opera vera’ – true opera, because it was based in historical fact. The original libretto (1743) was one of many heroic stories set by Pietro Metastasio (1698-1782). Metastasio was very popular at the time eventually becoming poet laureate to the imperial court in Vienna. The three act opera was reduced to two, by Caterino Mazzolà (1745-1806), by cutting out one scene completely, and by combining arias to form duets and trios.

Max Richter signs to Deutsche Grammophon

Max Richter signing his contract at this week's
Universal Music Global Conference
 Photo: © Richard Skidmore

The British composer and performer extraordinaire Max Richter has joined up with Deutsche Grammophon. His new agreement not only includes new works but the re-release of Richter's solo albums, Infra, 24 Postcards in Full Colour, Songs from Before and The Blue Notebooks, on the DG label.

In the autumn, Richter's Memoryhouse will receive a new recording. The work was performed in orchestral guise by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Andre de Ridder at the Barbican Centre in January this year. Memoryhouse originally an experimental album of "documentary music" combining ambient sounds, voices, and poetry readings, which Richter never originally envisaged the work being performed live.

(Catch Max Richter's On the Nature of Daylight after the break)

Brunnhilde goes West

Emmy Destinn, Enrico Caruso and Pasquale Amato
in Puccini's La Fanciulla del West

This weekend (21 & 23 March) there's a chance to catch Brunnhilde leaping on her horse and riding into the Golden West. Fresh from her triumphs in Fulham Opera's Ring Cycle, dramatic soprano Zoe South will be taking the role of Minnie, the title role in La Fanciulla del West (The Girl of the Golden West), Puccini's wonderful Wild-West inspired opera. The semi-staged concert performances are being given by Midsummer Opera, conductor David Roblou, at St. John's Waterloo (7pm on 21/3 and 4pm on 23/3). Joining South in the Wild West of Waterloo will be John Upperton as the bandit hero Dick Johnson, Trevor Alexander and Ian Massa-Harris. Further information from the Midsummer Opera website.

Southbank Organ Festival

The Royal Festival Hall organ is back, and starting this week the South Bank Centre is having a festival to celebrate with a whole variety of events starting with an opening gala on 18 March, with performers including four organists, two brass ensembles and two choirs, playing music from Bach to Marcel Dupre, plus new commissions from Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and Sir John Tavener. The meat of any organ is the organ recital, and the festival has three celebrity recitals from John Scott (director of music at St Thomas's Church, New York), Thomas Trotter (City of Birmingham organist, and organist of St Margaret's Church, Westminster) and Olivier Latry (titulaire of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris). 

I Capuleti e i Montecchi

Vincenzo Bellini

Bellini I Capuleti e i Montecchi: Chelsea Opera Group, Robin Newton, Catherine Carby, Ana-Maria Labin: Queen Elizabeth Hall
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Mar 16 2014
Star rating: 4.5
Poised and passionate concert performance of Bellini's Romeo and Juliet opera

Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi is not as rare a visitor to UK opera houses as some of Chelsea Opera Group's repertoire, but the opera is still relatively unusual and a most welcome visitor. The Chelsea Opera Group was conducted by Robin Newton for a concert performance at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, with Catherine Carby as Romeo, Ana Maria Labin as Giulietta, Christopher Turner as Tebaldo, Graeme Braodbent as Capellio and David Soar as Lorenzo.

Bellini wrote I Capuleti e i Montecchi rather quickly in 1830 to fill a gap in the schedule at Venice's La Fenice Theatre, using a libretto by Felice Romani based on his existing libretto for Niccola Vaccai's Giulietta e Romeo. The work as popular in Bellini's day, and had occasional revivals in the 20th century (in the 1950's Giulietta Simoniato's fondness for the role of Romeo caused a number of revivals). A tendency to replace a mezzo-soprano Romeo with a tenor has thankfully disappeared, as has the 19th century habit of replacing the last scene with that of Vaccai's opera. Covent Garden first produced the opera in the 1980's in a production by Pier-Luigi Pizzi with Agnes Baltsa and Edita Gruberova, which was last revived in 2009 for Elina Garanca and Anna Netrebko. Grange Park Opera have produced the work twice, and Opera North has also performed it in a production in 2008 by Orpha Phelan with Sarah Connolly and Marie Arnet.

The Platinum Consort: The Lonely City

The Lonely City: the Platinum Consort, Scott Inglis-Kidger: Holy Trinity, Sloane Street
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Mar 14 2015
Star rating: 4.0
16th century polyphony in an imaginative programme for Lent

Scott Inglis-Kidger and the Platinum Consort presented their programme The Lonely City at Holy Trinity, Sloane Street on Saturday 15 March 2014, the first of four concerts which the ensemble plans there this year. The theme of Lent and Christ's Passion ran through the items, with Victoria's Lamentations for Holy Saturday, and settings of the Stabat Mater by Josquin des Prez and John Browne alongside music by Manuel Cardoso, John Taverner, Clemens non Papa, Thomas Tallis and Orlande de Lassus.

Holy Trinity is a huge church, a glorious cathedral sized tribute to the Arts and Crafts movement but as such rather a tricky one to use for concerts when you want to create a more intimate atmosphere, particularly with a small ensemble. The Platinum Consort's solution was to re-configure the nave seating so that the audience sat in the round, on three quarters of a circle, with the singers standing inside the circle. They also experimented with different positions for the ensemble, varying from standing facing us (on the fourth quarter of the circle), to standing in a ring inside the audience circle.

Southbank Sinfonia at Rush Hour

The Southbank Sinfonia's series of Rush Hour concerts continues this week, with Charles Hazlewood conducting the ensemble on Thursday 20 March 2014 at 6pm in St John's Church, Waterloo. Hazlewood will be including lighting, projections and movement to create a more immersive performance of music by James MacMillan, Charles Ives and Mendelssohn. Then next week, on 27 March, sees a continuation of the Southbank Sinfonia's baroque project and the players will be working with early music specialists, using gut strings and period bows in CPE Bach, Leclair, Telemann and Locatelli. On April 3 they are conducted by Ben Gernon, a young conductor currently working with Gustavo Dudamel, in a programme of Peter Maxwell Davies and Mozart.

The Southbank Sinfonia is an orchestra of 32 young graduates who gain experience and come together to explore repertoire and work alongside major conductors, and give us some very vital performances. Their Rush Hour concerts are free and last from 6pm to 7.15pm, an ideal way to end the working day and start the evening. Further information from the Southbank Sinfonia website.

The PRS is 100

In March 1914 a group of music publishers, including William Boosey and Oliver Hawkes got together to form a group to protect the value of copyright and help provide an income for composers, songwriters and music publishers. The Performing Rights Society was born and this year, renamed as the PRS for Music, it is celebrating its 100th anniversary. There is a website celebrating the 100 years as well as giving details of key moments in their history. There are centenary events planned, including a centenary concert at the Royal Albert Hall in November.

Its difficult to over-estimate the importance of the work of the Performing Rights Society in ensuring that composers are paid for their efforts. You can watch their celebratory video after the break.

Temple Music 2014 season starts

Richard and Pauline Strauss

On Tuesday 18 March, the Temple Music Season starts with the tempestuous marriage of Richard and Pauline Strauss and ends with the more harmonious marriage of Robert and Clara Schumann. The season features artists, Gillian Keith and Stephen Barlow, Benjamin Grosvenor and the Escher String Quartet, the Holst Singers, Greg Morris, John Tomlinson and Julius Drake, the Aurora Orchestra, and Ian Bostridge, Sophie Daneman and Julius Drake.

Gillian Keith (soprano) and Stephen Barlow (piano) are joined by actors Oliver Cotton and Marty Cruickshank for My Dearest Hedgehog - The tempestuous marriage of Richard and Pauline Strauss in which Strauss's songs (many written for Pauline or inspired by her) are interleaved with the narrative of their marriage in a dramatic concert devised and written by Henrietta Bredin. (18/3 Middle Temple Hall). A very different musical marriage is depicted by Ian Bostridge, Sophie Daneman and Julius Drake, that of Robert and Clara Schumann. They will be giving a complete performance of Schumann's Myrten, Schumann's wedding present to his wife, along with some of Schumann's duets Op.34 and Op.78 (9/7 Middle Temple Hall)

John Rutter and the Cambridge Singers

30th anniversary concert: John Rutter and Cambridge Singers: Choral at Cadogan at the Cadogan Hall
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Mar 14 2014
Star rating: 4.0
Welcome opportunity to hear the choir live, and at the peak of their form

To celebrate the choir's 30th anniversary, John Rutter and the Cambridge Singers gave a concert at the Cadogan Hall last night (14 March 2014) as part of the Choral at Cadogan series. In a well filled programme we were treated to music by Giles Swayne, Richard Rodney Bennett, RVW, Elgar, Rossini, Orlando Gibbons, Charles Villiers Stanford, Benjamin Britten, Gustav Holst, Billy Joel, Percy Grainger and of course Rutter himself. The choir were joined by pianist Iain Farington, cellist Louisa Tuck, flute player Helen Keen and double bass player Malcolm Creese.

Using a line up of 26 singers (8 sopranos, 6 altos, 6 tenors and 6 basses) the group had a mixture of younger with more mature singers and the sound, though superbly focussed and flexible, also had a maturity to it. They opened with Giles Swayne's Magnificat, a dazzling piece from 1982 which Swayne based on a Senegalese ploughing song. The resulting mosaic of sound was tremendous both for its accuracy and rhythmic vividness.

Donizetti study day

Nelly Miricioiu as Elisabetta
in Roberto Devereux
in Pordenone, 2008

Yesterday was the second of Masterclass & Co's Divas and Scholars bel canto study days, this one devoted to the operas of Donizetti (all seventy-odd of them!). The morning was devoted to lectures from the writer and broadcaster Mel Cooper and conductor and coach Philip Headlam, followed in the afternoon by a lecture recital by the distinguished soprano Nelly Miricioiu. She not only talked about Donizetti's operas and how she performed them, but sang extracts from them.

Borka the Goose with no Feathers

As a complement to their adventurous Spring tour which includes Mozart's Magic Flute, Tippett's King Priam and Britten's Paul Bunyan, English Touring Opera is also offering an euqally adventurous programme for young people. Hot from their success with Laika the Spacedog, composer Russell Hepplewhite, designer Jude Munden and librettist/director Tim Yealland have created Borka, the Goose with No Feathers. Based on the book by John Burningham, the opera is aimed at 3 to 7 year olds and is being toured to 35 schools and libraries. There are also public performances for children and their families at Snape Maltings (Saturday 29 March), Riverside Library in Rotherham (Saturday 12 April) and G Live in Guildford (Tuesday 29 April).

In addition ETO is presenting Rumbled, a new opera by John Barber and Hazel Gould for children with severe learning difficulties, based on the story of Rumplestiltskin. An interactive and multisensory piece, Rumbled is the fourth piece for children with learning difficulties that the company has created in the last four years.

Finally ETO is joining forces with Wolverhampton Grand Theatre, Wolverhampton Music Education Hub, the LightHouse Media Centre and the University of Wolverhampton’s Performing Arts Department, as well as local historians and staff from Tipton Library, to present a brand new opera created especially for Wolverhampton. Zeppelin Dreams explores tragic events in the city during World War I airship raids, in three performances at the Wolverhampton Grand Theatre from Thursday 20 –Friday 21 March.

The miraculous Pop-up Opera presents: Le doctor Miracle

Le docteur Miracle - Photo credit: Jenny Dale

Bizet Le docteur Miracle: Pop-Up Opera
Reviewed by Hilary Glover on Mar 10 2014
Star rating: 4.0
Bizet's early opera given the lively Pop-ip Opera treatment

Pop-up opera company, founded only three years ago by Clementine Lovell, performs opera in unusual and intimate spaces to great effect. This is grand opera on a small scale. Performing in pubs, tea rooms, barns, tunnels, and department stores it seems no venue is too small or too wacky for them to use. Drink, Shop & Do, near King’s Cross Station, may not be the Royal Opera House but, due to the talent and enthusiasm of Pop-up, it still works.

Leonardo Vinci arias

Leonardo Vinci - Alto Arias: Filippo Mineccia, Stile Galante, Stefano Aresi: Pan Classics
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Mar 9 2014
Star rating: 3.0
Survey of alto arias by Leonardo Vinci

Leonardo Vinci (1690 - 1730)  was one of Handel's contemporaries who had an important role to play in the development of the galant style. Handel himself used Vinci's music in some of the pasticcios that he created. Vinci's operas have not yet been widely circulated and this new disc of arias from the Italian counter-tenor Filippo Mineccia and Stile Galante directed by Stefano Aresi takes in arias from operas which Vinci wrote in the 1720's giving us a fine overview of his mature style.

Vinici was educated in Naples and his first opera was in fact in Neapolitan dialect, and his first opera seria was premiered in Naples in 1722. His mature opera serias were written for Naples, Rome and Parma, but he died prematurely in 1730 (rumoured to be from poisoning by a jealous husband).

For the 18th century writer Charles Burney, Vinci was the most innovative and influential of composers of Italian opera:  'Vinci seems to have been the first opera composer who, ... without degrading his art, rendered it the friend, though not the slave to poetry, by simplifying and polishing melody, and calling the attention of the audience chiefly to the voice-part by disentangling it from fugue, complication and laboured contrivance'. And it is Vinici's relationship with his texts which is important, particularly the librettos of Metastasio of which Vinci was a refined interpreter.

Magid el-Bushra in Lullaby for a Lost Soul

Magid El-Bushra
photo: Nadia Al-Sakkaf

Last night (12 March) we attended a private recital given by the counter-tenor Magid El-Bushra to celebrate the release of the CD of Ronald Corp's Lullaby for a Lost Soul. For the recital El-Bushra was joined by Jemma Freestone (flute), Julia Desbruslais (cello), Kizzy Brooks (vibraphone) and Chad Vindin (piano) to perform extracts from Corp's Lullaby for a Lost Soul along with songs by Schubert, Granados, Rachmaninov, Ireland, Corp and Britten.

Lullaby for a Lost Soul sets a sequence of poems by Francis Booth, originally written after the death of Booth's song. The full song cycle consists of 24 movements with songs interspersed by instrumental movements in which Corp has orchestrated/re-imagined music by John Dowland. Scored for the unusual combination of counter-tenor, flute, cello and vibraphone, El-Bushra, Freestone, Desbruslais and Brooks treated us to a selection of eight movement from the work, starting with a striking instrumental version of Dowland's Flow my tears.

Rokoko - Opera Arias by Johann Adolf Hasse

Rokoko - opera arias by Johann Adolf Hasse: Max Emanuel Cencic, George Petrou, Armonia Atenea: DECCA
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Mar 13 2014
Star rating: 4.0
Virtuoso playing and singing on this disc of arias by the undeservedly neglected Hasse

The composer Johann Adolf Hasse (1699 - 1783) was associated with the Italian opera seria for much of the 18th century, but since his death his works have rather gone into the shadows. Whilst a Hasse revival cannot be said to be quite happening, his works are steadily becoming known and now counter-tenor Max Emanuel Cencic has recorded a disc of choice arias from Hasse's operas, accompanied by George Petrou and Armonia Atenea on Decca. There are eleven arias, from nine operas spanning the years 1729 to 1774 along with Hasse's Mandolin Concerto,  fine introduction to the work of this composer.

In many ways the career of Hasse shadowed that of Handel, some 14 years his senior. Hasse too worked at the opera in Hamburg and also made the journey to Italy for further study, finally settling in Naples. Here he diverged from Handel's path and converted to Roman Catholicism, which would have made him eligible for the role of kapellmeister in one of Europe's Roman Catholic Courts. He was officially based at the court of Saxony in Dresden from 1730 to 1763, but Hasse's operas became ubiquitous. A profitable relationship with the librettist Metastasio developed with Hasse eventually setting the poet's texts complete and unchanged. Hasse was renowned for his writing for the voice, writing music both fitting and challenging for the voice; with Hasse writing the music singers knew they would have something to show themselves off to the best advantage.

London Oriana Choir at 40

Dominic Peckham

The London Oriana Choir is celebrating its 40th birthday, a fine achievement in the busy world of London non-professional choirs. The choir has been directed by Dominic Peckham since September 2013 and they celebrate with a concert at St. Paul's Covent Garden on 14 March, accompanied by the London Mozart Players. The programme includes a new work from their recently appointed composer in residence, Toby Young. Young's Love and Harmony will be joined by music by Vivaldi, Jackson, Monteverdi and Tallis.  

Toby Young won the Guardian/BBC Proms Young Composer of the Year in 2006 and the International ABRSM Composition Competition in 2009.

Aurora Orchestra develops its regional residencies

The Aurora Orchestra has announced residencies in Bristol, Bury St Edmunds and Ashford, committing to taking a minimum of two performances annually to each venue. The venues involved, St George's Bristol, the Apex Bury St. Edmunds and St. Mary's Ashford, are all ones where Aurora has an existing relationship having started visiting all of the them in 2011, and these new residencies will build on these relationships. The residencies are being undertaken in partner with Orchestras Live, the national music charity which works across the orchestral sector, and last year delivered 700 orchestral events across England working with 25 professional British orchestras.