Explore the Teatro Real, Madrid on-line for free

With closure of the theatre, the Teatro Real in Madrid is offering its on-line content for free until 30 March 2020, via the MyOperaPlayer platform. 

As well as a library of archive recordings of operas from the Teatro Real and other theatres, there is also a series of new releases planned:

Thursday 19: Aida (Verdi). Teatro Real (2018)
Friday 20: Madame Butterfly (Puccini). Teatro Real(2017)
Saturday 21: Romeo and Juliet (Gounod). Liceu (2018)
Sunday 22: A Ballo in Maschera (Verdi). Liceu (2017)
Monday 23: La traviata (Verdi). Teatro Real (2015)
Tuesday 24: Macbeth (Verdi). Liceu (2017)

Simply visit
http://www.myoperaplayer.com/
and use the code OPERAENCASA

Always playing: London Symphony Orchestra's digital programme

In the wake of the closure of the Barbican until 1 May, its regular London concert venue, the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) has announced that it is launching a programme of on-line concerts, interviews and other material on-line.

From Sunday 22 March, the orchestra will live stream concerts from their archives on Sundays at 7pm and on Thursdays at 7.30pm, to coincide with their regular Barbican concert times. There will also be other additional content.

Full details from the LSO's website:

http://www.lso.co.uk/alwaysplaying

Bach Together: creating an on-line crowd-performance of the choral 'Ich will hier bei dir stehen' from Bach's St Matthew Passion

I discovered trombone and sackbut player Adam Woolf's Bach Together on-line project by accident when one of its participants Tweeted about it. The concept is simple, Woolf has created a web page with a score of the choral 'Ich will hier bei dir stehen' from Bach's St Matthew Passion, with a recording of it. He invites people to sing/play along with the recording and then email the result to him and he adds it to the recording, thus creating a remarkable on-line crowd performance.

So far, there are over 60 contributes from voices and orchestral instruments to serpents and Wagner tubas. The results are, in a way, rather moving. The page includes archived versions of the choral with fewer performers, as well as some rather funny 'out takes'.

Adam Woolf's Bach Together

A Spanish tribute to Handel: L'Apothéose's delightful disc of chamber music on LBS

Handel trio sonatas, violin sonatas; L'Apothéose; IBS Classical
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 18 March 2020 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
A delightful Handel tribute from a young Spanish ensemble

This delightful disc on the IBS label features the Spanish group, L'Apothéose (Laura Quesada, traverse flute, Victor Martinez, baroque violin, Carla Sanfelix, baroque cello, and Asis Marquez, harpsichord, plus Ramiro Morales, archlute and guitar) in a selection of Handel's chamber music, two of the Trio Sonatas, Op. 2, two of the Trio Sonatas, Op. 5 and two solo sonatas.

Handel's chamber music mainly dates from his period in England, and seems to have been produced for a purely functional purpose, for music evenings at patrons (some may have been written for Lord Burlington for Burlington House, or during Handel's period as composer in residence with the Duke of Chandos at Cannons) or for private concerts with his Royal pupils. He seems to have created these works by re-using pre-existing material so that one of the delights of listening to his chamber music is the discovery of familiar material in new circumstances.

Supporting musicians: composer Oliver Leith's bandcamp

Oliver Leith

The composer Oliver Leith [whose Honey Siren is on 12 Ensemble's recent disc, see my review] has put together some of his early electronic tracks on Band Camp. There are currently five tracks there, Ldrollll, Tack slide, La mentsss, Balloon, and Sex Dance. 

All money from the downloads will go to supporting young musicians who have lost much of their income in the current crisis. 

Head over to Oliver Leith's bandcamp page

Alternative Classical's Mix-tape

Each month the people at Alternative Classical, the music PR, marketing and project management company, have produced an events guide recommending informal concerts, gigs and other classical music-inspired events in non-traditional venues across the UK. With the closure of venues, they have adopted a new approach and are creating an evolving Spotify playlist of pieces that would have been heard in concert halls this month.

So if you are feeling bereft, head along to Alternative Classical's Mix-tape, which is currently featuring Bach, Shostakovich, Beethoven, Barbara Strozzi, Alfred Schnittke, Benjamin Tassie, Sofia Gubaidulina, John Tavener, Cassandra Miller and more.

Lyrical contemporary: record producer Michael Fine's recent works for solo wind instruments and string quartet

Michael Fine Five for Five: Quintets for winds and string quartet; Fei Xie (bassoon), Robert Walters (cor anglais), Anton Rist (clarinet), Xiaodi Liu (oboe), Alice K. Dade (flute), Scott Yoo (violin), Erik Arvinder (violin), Maurycy Banaszek (viola), Jonah Kim (cello); Evidence Classics
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 16 March 2020 Star rating: 3.5 (★★★½)
Record producer Michael Fine reveals another side to himself in these five lyrical quintets for wind and strings

Michael Fine is perhaps best known as a recording producer, having worked with many major classical labels in the last thirty or so years, but he has another side. On this disc, Five of Five, from Evidence Classics we hear a selection of Fine's recent chamber music compositions (all written since 2013). All are quintets for wind instrument plus strings, with works for bassoon, cor anglais, clarinet, oboe and flute, performed by Fei Xie (bassoon), Robert Walters (cor anglais), Anton Rist (clarinet), Xiaodi Liu (oboe), Alice K. Dade (flute), Scott Yoo (violin), Erik Arvinder (violin), Maurycy Banaszek (viola) and Jonah Kim (cello).

We start with the Quintet for Bassoon and Strings, written in 2017 for the bassoonist on the recording, Fei Xie, principal bassoon with the Minnesota Orchestra. The work is in three movements, 'Allegro scherzando', 'Largo', 'Allegro', the traditional fast-slow-fast. It opens with an extremely perky bassoon part, which sounds as if Fine has been listening to lots of Poulenc, this is set against quite a contrapuntal string texture and this continues in the lyrical slow movement where the plaintive bassoon supported by contrapuntal strings. Throughout the disc, it was noticeable that Fine liked to write plenty of moving lines, textures often being formed from four or five contrapuntal lines. Harmonies are tonal, though never moving into pastiche, always with a distinctiveness to the harmony. The finale is busy yet serious.

Juditha resurgens: Hubert Parry's oratorio gets its first recording

Parry Judith; Sarah Fox, Kathryn Rudge, Toby Spence, Henry Waddington, Crouch End Festival Chorus, London Mozart Players, William Vann; Chandos
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 13 March 2020 Star rating: 5.0 (★★★★★)
Parry's influential oratorio finally makes it to disc in a terrific performance from the forces who performed it last year at the Royal Festival Hall

The great success of the 1846 premiere of Mendelssohn's oratorio Elijah at the Birmingham Festival of 1846 cast a long shadow on music in Britain. The structure of Mendelssohn's work became the model for a whole series of oratorios so that it is not surprising that when Hubert Parry was asked to write a work for the 1888 festival, Mendelssohn's work should figure in the calculations. Though Parry would write a significant amount of music for the theatre, he only every tried opera once and that essay, Guenever was turned down by Carl Rosa in 1886. Perhaps an element of frustrated opera composer can also be detected in the dramatic oratorio that Parry would write for Birmingham.

The resulting work, Judith was a success with numerous performances in the 19th century, this tailed off in the 20th and somehow Parry's reputation never really recovered. Whilst his symphonic output has been in the CD catalogues for some time and his songs are now being fully explored [see my reviews of his English Lyrics, Songs of Farewell and complete string quartets], his oratorios have been slower to be recovered. Thankfully this is beginning to change, and this new disc of Hubert Parry's Judith from Chandos records was recorded after the same forces gave a live performance at the Royal Festival Hall in 2019 [see my review].

For this premiere recording of Hubert Parry's Judith, William Vann conducts the London Mozart Players and the Crouch End Festival Chorus with Toby Spence as Manasseh, King of Israel, Kathryn Rudge as Meshullemeth, his wife, Sarah Fox as Judith, and Henry Waddington as the High Priest of Moloch and the Messenger of Holofernes.

Judith slaying Holofernes by Artemisia Gentileschi, 1614–18

Parry's sources for the libretto were both the story of Judith's beheading of Holofernes, a story which cropped up in works by Mozart and by Vivaldi, and also the story of King Manasseh who reintroduced polytheistic worship into Israel. In conflating the two, Parry was following the theories of an 18th century theologian, Humphrey Prideaux, but he also gave himself a story which had similar elements to Elijah, a ruler of Israel who has turned away from God, a test which is first failed but then a change happens, and a final exploit. There is sufficient difference between the two works to provide contrast, but in the overall structure of Judith we can detect the influence of Elijah. And Parry's text is highly sympathetic to his commissioners and their desire for a Biblical oratorio, the final scene which is devoted to 'The Exploit of Judith' keeps the attempted seduction and beheading off-stage.

In style, Parry does not completely avoid the English tendency towards the four-square, but his operatic leanings are also apparent and scenes such as the opening one have a such a clear dramatic urgency that you wish Parry had taken this further. Another, perhaps, surprising element to the work's make-up is Wagner; Parry's admiration for German music was profound and there are occasional elements here which seem to come from Wagner.

Judith's best claim to fame is that Meshullemeth's aria 'Long since in Egypt's plenteous land' gave rise to the hymn tune Repton ('Dear Lord and Father of all man kind'). This is, to a certain extent, a red herring as Parry's style is not naturally a melodious one. This is not a work where you come away singing the tunes, instead he provides a very flexible and highly dramatic structure, wonderfully coloured and inflected by the orchestral writing, creating a highly sophisticated piece. What you cannot fail to detect significant pre-echoes of Elgar's oratorios such as The Dream of Gerontius (1900), making it clear that for all Elgar's particular genius, his writing did not come out of nowhere. There are other pre-echoes too, it is clear that whilst Judith has not been around for a lot of the 20th century, many British composers were familiar with the work and the idiom!

Quarantine soirées: on-line live from the Budapest Festival Orchestra

With the worldwide musical shutdown beginning to bite, some organisations are going on-line. From tonight, 16 March 2020, conductor Ivan Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra (BFO) are presenting nightly quarantine soirées at 19:45 local time (an hour ahead of the UK). Tonight's concert, presented live from the BFO's rehearsal room, will feature music by Saint-Saens and Villa-Lobos, plus Beethoven's String Quartet No. 4 in C minor, Op.19 and folk music.

If you do decide to watch one of the concerts, please do think about contributing to the orchestra's costs, via their donate link.

For full details of the nightly live streams, see the BFO's website.

This crazy day: Joe Hill-Gibbins' new production of The Marriage of Figaro at English National Opera

Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro - Rowan Pierce, Hanna Hipp, Louise Alder, chorus - English National Opera 2020
(Photo © Marc Brenner)

Mozart The Marriage of Figaro; Elizabeth Watts, Johnathan McCullough, Louise Alder, Božidar Smiljanić, Hanna Hipp, dir: Joe Hill-Gibbins, cond: Kevin John Edusei; English National Opera at the London Coliseum
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 14 March 2020 Star rating: 4.5 (★★★★½)
Theatre director Joe Hill-Gibbins provides a refreshing take on Mozart's masterpiece, with an emphasis on character

Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro - Božidar Smiljanić,
Susan Bickley in the background
English National Opera 2020- (Photo © Marc Brenner)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponte's opera Le nozze di Figaro was written for a recently established Italian opera company in Vienna specialising in opera buffa. When that first audience saw the work in 1786, they would have seen a cast of singers with whom they were familiar from other comic operas presented by the company. Singers such as Francesco Bernucci (who sang Figaro) and Nancy Storace (who sang Susanna) would have, to a certain extent, invested Mozart's characters with elements of the stock Italian comic characters that the audience had seen them playing in the same theatre.

Mozart and da Ponte's innovation wasn't to mix comic and seria characters (this had already been done by Galuppi and Goldoni in Venice in the 1750s and 1760s), though from Mozart's letters to his father it was clear that his interest was in this mixture of comic and serious characters. But where the opera broke new ground was in treating the whole piece as music drama, depicting the comic characters with the same depth as the serious ones.

It is this balance between comic and serious that makes Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro delicious, and it is a balance that is difficult to get right. Productions can often get bogged down in the fact that this is great music, and the farce elements just are not funny, conversely if things are too comic then we do not invest enough in the characters. The Count must be a real threat, his actions must count so that the great moment at the end of Act Four when he begs for mercy from the Countess is suitably transformative.

For the new production of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro (Le nozze di Figaro) at the London Coliseum, English National Opera chose the theatre director Joe Hill-Gibbins, with strong cast including Johnathan McCullough as the Count, Elizabeth Watts as the Countess, Louise Alder as Susanna, Božidar Smiljanić as Figaro, Hanna Hipp as Cherubino, Susan Bickley as Marcellina, Andrew Shore as Dr Bartolo, Colin Judson as Don Basilio and Don Curzio, Clive Bayley as Antonio and Rowan Pierce as Barbarina. The work was conducted by Kevin John Edusei. Lighting was by Matthew Richardson, with choreography by Jenny Ogilvie and the translation was by Jeremy Sams.

The activities of La folle giornata, the crazy day at the Almaviva's palace are perhaps an apt metaphor for our crazy times, and we must be grateful that the performance was able to go ahead.

Joe Hill-Gibbins directed Thomas Ades' Powder her Face for ENO in 2014, and Mark-Anthony Turnage's Greek in a co-production between the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Scottish Opera and the Edinburgh International Festival in 2017/18. The Marriage of Figaro was a co-production with Oper Wuppertal where the production has already appeared in 2019. He seems to have approached The Marriage of Figaro with less reverence and more theatricality than some directors, perhaps his being primarily a theatre director meant that his production came with rather less historical operatic baggage. Unlike some directors, Hill-Gibbins and his design team seem to have given a lot of thought to the problems of producing a small to medium scale piece like The Marriage of Figaro in a large theatre like the London Coliseum using young voices.

Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro - Johnathan McCullough - English National Opera 2020- (Photo © Marc Brenner)

Their solutions were intriguing and engaging, if a little mannered at times.

An entirely delightful way to spend an evening, two hours away from the doom & gloom swirling around us - Massenet's 'Chérubin' at the Royal Academy of Music

Massenet: Chérubin - Niall Anderson, Clare Tunney - Royal Academy Opera (Photo Robert Workman)

Massenet Chérubin; Yuki Akimoto, Hazel Neighbour, Clare Tunney, Niall Anderson, dir: James Hurley, cond: Anthony Legge; Royal Academy Opera at the Susie Sainsbury Theatre, Royal Academy of Music
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 13 March 2020
Massanet's late comedy makes a delightful coming of age romp at the Royal Academy of Music

Massenet: Chérubin - Hazel Neighbour, Yuki Akimoto
Royal Academy Opera (Photo Robert Workman)

Massenet wrote over 30 operas over a period from 1867 to 1914, and these embrace a wide variety of styles. Of these, only a selection are ever done though I have never quite understood why some are favoured above others. Chérubin is one which pops up occasionally, it was performed at the Royal Opera House in the 1990s (with Susan Graham and Angela Gheorgiu) and has been seen at the London colleges (it was performed at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 2010).

Massenet's Chérubin was Royal Academy Opera's choice for its Spring opera at the Susie Sainsbury Theatre at the Royal Academy of Music. The opera was fully double cast, and we saw the second performance by the first night cast, on Friday 13 March 2020, with Yuki Akimoto as Chérubin, Hazel Neighbour as L'Ensoleillad, Clare Tunney as Nina and Niall Anderson as Le Philosophe. The production was by James Hurley with design by April Dalton, lighting by Ben Pickersgill and movement by Victoria Newlyn. Anthony Legge conducted the Royal Academy Sinfonia.

The opera dates from 1905 and was one of a number which Massenet premiered at Monte Carlo's opera house, grand, glitzy, but quite small. Like many of Massenet's later pieces (he was 63 when it was premiered) it is quite lightly written, a long way from the large scale grand operas from his youth. The plot and the comedy are similarly light.

The libretto, by Francis de Croisset and Henri Cain, is based on de Croisset's play which details the later exploits of Cherubino! In the opera, it becomes a coming of age story as the 17-year old Chérubin explores the freedom of youth, gets his heart broken and, seemingly, settles for a young woman, Nina, who loves him. Though the last word goes to Le Philosophe, Chérubin's tutor who has supported him (and egged him on) during these exploits, and we are left in no doubt that Le Philosophe considers that Chérubin's philandering ways will continue.

It is slight, delightful, goes at quite a pace and is chock-full of smaller roles, the opera has under two hours of music and 12 named roles. Chérubin is a travesty role (there is very much an element of using the plot as an excuse to present an attractive woman in tights on stage). It was written for Massenet's then muse Mary Garden (she had premiered the role of Mélisande in Debussy's opera in 1902) and the character runs headlong, passionately through the opera. You either surrender to him or despair. Frankly in Chérubin (often thought have elements of a portrait of the young Massenet), the composer has created a character like his Manon, of whom you either fall in charmed love or sit stony faced and want to slap them.

This sort of conversational French in opera is a challenge for singers, and in deciding to perform the piece the language was clearly a factor.

Composing gives him a way of looking at his faith through something less hard-edged than words: composer Paul Mealor chats about his latest disc

Paul Mealor at the recording session for Blessing on Signum Classics

The Welsh composer Paul Mealor has a new album out, Blessing on Signum Classics, a disc of his choral music from the American choir Voce, conducted by Mark Singleton. I met up with Paul to chat about the music on the disc, his approach to composition and to language, being a closet symphonist, and how he started composing.

Voce is an ensemble which Paul has developed a relationship with over the years, and he was closely involved in the selection of the music on the disc. Paul describes them as one of the best choirs to ever sing his music, he admires the singers' subtlety and gentleness, and the fact that they don't belt, but also that the group sounds wholly American and does not try to emulate the sound of a British choir.

In fact, the American composer Morten Lauridsen recommended Voce to Paul, and when Paul heard them live he found it a completely new take on his music. That Paul and the group's conductor Mark Singleton got on well was a bonus.

The selection of music on the album involves a number of Paul's complex, multi-layered pieces in many parts, pieces which are difficult for many choirs, and a number of works on the disc were recorded for the first time. Some pieces, such as All wisdom cometh from the Lord with its stratospheric soprano solo, are rather tricky and rarely performed. But the selection of works on the disc shows Paul's simpler side too, in works such as If ye love me in which Paul quotes Thomas Tallis' setting of the words and which is a simple line for just the sopranos.

Voce and conductor Mark Singleton at the recording session for Blessing on Signum Classics

The music on the disc is largely (though not entirely) sacred, and when I ask about this Paul's comment is that 'this is what he does'. In fact, when Paul was younger he was drawn to the priesthood, and he feels that for him music has become a surrogate, giving him a 'priestly way of looking at things' (which he admits sounds pretentious), and he goes on to elucidate, saying that composing gives him a way of looking at his faith through something less hard-edged than words.

Paul spends ages thinking about language

The works on the disc set mainly, but not entirely, English texts (some set Latin).

Nico Muhly: Drawn Lines at Sadler's Wells Theatre

Iván Pérez: Flutter (music by Nico Muhly) - Natalia Osipova, Jonathan Goddard at Sadler's Wells in 2018
(Photo Johan Persson)

Sadlers Wells Theatre's Composer Series features evenings devoted to the works of a contemporary composer choreographed by a wide range of contemporary choreographers. The third such evening is devoted to Nico Muhly (previous Composer Series events focused on Mark-Anthony Turnage in 2011, and Thomas Ades in 2014). Nico Muhly: Drawn Lines at Sadler's Wells Theatre from 19 to 21 March 2021, will feature three works by Muhly, performed by the Britten Sinfonia with Muhly conducting, and choreography by Sadler’s Wells New Wave Associate Julie Cunningham (a former dancer with Merce Cunningham Dance Company and Michael Clark Company), Sadler’s Wells Associate Artist Michael Keegan-Dolan and the Netherlands-based Spanish choreographer Iván Pérez.

Michael Keegan-Dolan's The Two Sisters uses Muhly's folk-song arrangement The Only Tune and will feature dancers from Keegan-Dolan's Ireland-based company Teaċ Daṁsa, who will be joined on stage by folk singer Sam Amidon and nine musicians. Julie Cunningham's work uses Muhly's Drones. Iván Pérez' Flutter uses Muhly's Mother Tongue. The work was premiered at Pure Dance at Sadler’s Wells in 2019, and was created on and will feature ballet superstar Natalia Osipova.

Full detail from Sadler's Wells Theatre's website.

Before opera what? Matthew Locke's 'Cupid and Death' and John Blow's 'Venus and Adonis'

John Blow

Matthew Locke & Christopher Gibbons Cupid and Death, John Blow Venus and Adonis; Anna Dennis, Keri Fuge, Benjamin Appl, Early Opera Company, Christian Curnyn; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 12 March 2020 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
A fascinating pairing of music from one of the last 17th century English masques and the first surviving English opera

Our knowledge of how English opera developed in the 17th century is, to a certain, extent hampered by the lack of survival of musical sources. The Stuart court masque, rather remarkably, continued as a form during the Interregnum and there seems to have been a movement towards operatic drama, leading to the full-blown operatic experiments which took place during the reign of Charles II. The masterpiece of this latter genre is, undoubtedly, Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, but that was preceded in 1683 by John Blow's opera Venus and Adonis (the earliest surviving English opera), and that in turn was preceded by, what?

As a partial answer to this question, Christian Curnyn and the Early Opera Company performed John Blow's Venus and Adonis at the Wigmore Hall on Thursday 12 March 2020, preceded by a selection of music from Matthew Locke and Christopher Gibbons'  masque Cupid and Death, with Anna Dennis (soprano), Keri Fuge (soprano) and Benjamin Appl (baritone).

The masque Cupid and Death, with words by playwright John Shirley and music by Matthew Locke (1621-1677) and Christopher Gibbons (1615-1671), son of Orlando Gibbons, was premiered in 1653, presented by the impresario William Davenant as entertainment for the Portuguese Ambassador. Evidently Davenant managed to get round Oliver Cromwell's ban on plays by emphasising the musical aspects of the performance, and whilst Cupid and Death is still a masque it moves closer towards opera with the fourth and fifth Entries (Acts), which we heard at the Wigmore Hall, almost entirely musical, i.e. pushing the form closer towards opera. And in 1656, Davenant (who had spent time in exile in Paris in the 1640s) presented what is considered to be the first English opera, The Siege of Rhodes with music by five composers including Matthew Locke. Alas, it does not survive.

Music of our time: the opening concert of JAM's 2020 season celebrates its 20th anniversary

For the opening concert of its 2020 season, JAM is revisiting three substantial commissions, in celebration of the organisation's 20th anniversary. On 19 March 2020, at St Bride's Church, Fleet Street. The Chapel Choir of Selwyn College, Cambridge, Onyx Brass, Simon Hogan (organ), Philippe Durrant (tenor), Michael Bawtree (conductor) will be performing Paul Mealor's Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal from 2010, Julian Philips' Body of Water from 2012, and Daniel Saleeb's Soliloquy from 2019 alongside five works from JAM's most recent Call for Music, by Christopher Best, Richard Peat, William Harmer, Philip Lancaster and Kathryn Rose.

Daniel Saleeb’s Soliloquy was premiered last year at JAM on the Marsh and receives its first London performance. The concert will also include Hannah Kendall’s Nativity, another work which JAM premiered. JAM's recent Call for Music attracted 106 entries and of the five selected, Christopher Best and Richard Peat have been successful in previous years whilst William Harmer, Philip Lancaster and Kathryn Rose are new to JAM.

The concert is also a celebration of those who have collaborated with JAM in the 20 years since it was founded. Onyx Brass have been involved every year since 2000, the Chapel Choir of Selwyn College, Cambridge since 2002, Simon Hogan, organist, since 2009, and Michael Bawtree, principal conductor of JAM, since 2010, whilst tenor Philippe Durrant makes his debut.

Full details from JAM's website.

Mozart & more: in 'Arias for Josepha', Sarah Traubel explores the arias written for Mozart's Queen of the Night, Josepha Hofer

Arias for Josepha - Mozart, Jacob Haidel, Vincenzo Righini, Franz Xaver Süßmayr, Peter von Winter, and Benedikt Schack / Franz Xaver Gerl; Sarah Traubel, PKF - Prague Philharmonia, Jochen Rieder; SONY CLASSICAL
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 11 March 2020 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
An enterprising debut recital which explores the music written for Mozart's first Queen of the Night, much of it sung as part of Schikaneder's company

Josepha Hofer née Weber (1758-1819) must have been quite a singer, Mozart wrote the role of the Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflote for her, and she seems to have specialised in the high lying roles but her performances also included the Countess on Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro and Konstanze in Die Entfuhring aus dem Serail. On this new disc from Sony Classical, Arias for Josepha: Mozart's first Queen of the Night, soprano Sarah Traubel is accompanied by PKF - Prague Philharmonia, conductor Jochen Rieder, in arias by Mozart, Jacob Haidel, Vincenzo Righini, Franz Xaver Süßmayr, Peter von Winter, Benedikt Schack and Franz Xaver Gerl, all either written for or performed by Josepha Hofer.

In 1778, the young Mozart met the Weber family in Mannheim. Father was a cousin of composer Carl Maria von Weber and was himself a prompter, music scribe and singer, and he had four daughters. Mozart was clearly taken with them, and at first fell in love with Aloysia Weber but eventually married Constanze Weber. Josepha Weber was also a singer, her career would take her to Munich, Graz and Vienna and in 1788 she married a violinist friend of Mozart's, Franz de Paula Hofer. She became a member of Emanuel Schikaneder's troupe, performing at his Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden in the Vienna suburbs, and it was here that almost all the works on the disc were performed.

The disc, which is Traubel's debut recording, gives us a chance not only to explore a particular singer's voice through her repertoire, but also adds another glimpse into the world of the German singspiel which was performed by Schikaneder's troupe.

La Roxolana: Giovanni Antonini reaches volume eight of his complete Haydn symphonies series

Haydn Symphonies Nos. 28,43,63, Bartok Romanian Folk Dances; Il Giardino Armonico, Giovanni Antonini; Alpha Classics
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 10 March 2020 Star rating: 5.0 (★★★★★)
Folk influences form the thread running through this vividly engaging volume from a projected complete Haydn symphonies

Anyone announcing a complete edition of Haydn's symphonies on disc is very much holding a hostage to fortune. There are 107 known symphonies, and many projects have fallen by the wayside before completion. Now the Joseph Haydn Stiftung of Basel has joined forces with the Alpha label to record all the symphonies in time for 2032, the 300th anniversary of the composer's birth. Giovanni Antonini is conducting and the orchestral honours are shared between Il Giardino Armonico and the Basel Chamber Orchestra.

Volume Eight of Giovanni Antonini's complete Haydn symphonies on Alpha Classics, La Roxolana, features Il Giardino Armonico performing Haydn's Symphony No. 63 La Roxolana, Symphony No. 43 Mercury and Symphony No. 28, plus Bartok's Romanian Folk Dances and an anonymous Sonata Jucunda.

Antonini is grouping the symphonies thematically, and recording them alongside music written by other composers contemporary with Haydn or in some way connected. The link on this disc is folk music. It crops up a lot in Haydn, after all he would have heard folk and gypsy bands whilst in Esterhaza, and music such as his Gypsy Rondo piano trio pays explicit homage to this. On this disc, Antonini groups three symphonies, each of which has elements that can be traced to folk music. Alongside this, very intriguingly, the orchestra plays Bartok's Romanian Folk Dances.

What never ceases to amaze is the sheer inventiveness of Haydn's writing, the freshness, wit and imagination that he brings to music which could easily be seen as being churned out for the delectation of his employer, the Prince Eszterhazy.  In all three symphonies on this disc, Antonini and the orchestra bringing vivid energy to bear, but though speeds can be fast the music never feels driven and there is a wonderful sense of engagement. This is playing that makes you want to listen to more.

Oh Goodie! Celebrating English Touring Opera's 40th anniversary.

Handel: Giulio Cesare - Christopher Ainslie - English Touring Opera 2017 (Photo Richard Hubert Smith)

Not for the first time, I have opened the leaflet about English Touring Opera's (ETO) forthcoming season and thought 'Oh, goodie'. This year ETO celebrates 40 years  and whilst the company is busy touring its current programme, Handel's Giulio Cesare [see my review], Bach's St John Passion [see my review], Mozart's Cosi fan tutte and the children's opera The Extraordinary Adventures of You and Me, it has announced plans for its Autumn 2020 tour, which will include Sir Michael Tippett's The Knot Garden, Benjamin Britten's The Turn of the Screw and Mark-Anthony Turnage's Greek.

I don't think that Tippett's The Knot Garden has been staged in London since the 1980s when Nicholas Hyntner directed it at the Royal Opera, though Scottish Opera did a centenary production in 2005. This is the second Tippett opera that ETO has staged having given us King Priam in 2014, thus providing a valuable service at a time when these major 20th century operas are generally ignored by larger companies.

During Tippett's lifetime, the relationship between himself and Britten was generally friendly, and each seems to have held a positive attitude to the other's work, so it will be interesting to see two major operas side by side: The Knot Garden which premiered in 1970 and The Turn of the Screw which premiered in 1954.

For The Knot Garden, director David Freeman will be revisiting his 1984 Opera Factory production which premiered at the Royal Court Theatre (dear reader, I was there) with Richard Baker conducting [we last saw him conducting Philip Venables' 4:48 Psychosis, see my review]. For The Turn of the Screw, Amy Lane, artistic director of the Copenhagen Opera Festival, will direct and Dane Lam will conduct [we last saw him conducting Opera Holland Park's production of Cilea's L'Arlesiana in 2019, see my review].

The third work is Mark-Anthony Turnage's Greek, his operatic version of Stephen Berkoff's powerful contemporary re-working of the Oedipus myth. It will be directed by Jonathan Moore, who directed the premiere of the opera in 1988 and co-adapted the text, and conducted by Tim Anderson. Anderson recently conducted the UK premiere of Philip Venables' Denis and Katya with Music Theatre Wales, and conducted Jonathan Moore's production of Greek at the Grimeborn Festival in 2019.

ETO's Autumn tour starts at the Hackney Empire (7 October 2020) and visits Buxton, Durham, Snape, Saffron Hall, Exeter and Bath, ending on 10 November 2020.

Tippett: King Priam - English Touring Opera 2014 (Photo Richard Hubert Smith)

2020 is the company's 40th anniversary (it was started as Opera 80) and there is much to celebrate, the range of its work is remarkable (as is the ability to stretch a limited budget).  I first saw them many years ago, at the Theatre Royal Brighton in a production of Richard Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos (directed by Anthony Besch whose production of that opera I saw at Scottish Opera in the 1980s with Janet Baker), and was bowled over by a vivid account of Donizetti's Maria Stuarda at the Cambridge Arts Theatre in 2005. Other 'Oh Goody' moments since then have included Tippett's King Priam, Rossini's Elisabetta Regina d'Inghilterra, Kurt Weill's Der Silbersee, Gilbert & Sullivan's Patience, Gluck's Iphigenie en Tauride, Monteverdi's Il ritorno d'Ulisse, the world premiere of Alexander Goehr's Promised End and a whole series of fine Handel stagings.


And of course, we should not forget that alongside the main stage operas there are a series of operas for children including Russell Hepplewhite's award-winning Laika the Spacedog.

What is remarkable is not so much that the company dares to go where many UK companies do not, but that it takes the productions on long UK tours (19 different venues for the current Spring tour). So that alongside small-scale versions of established classics it encourages audiences to open eyes and ears whether it be  Baroque opera, Italian 19th century opera seria or challenging 20th century classics.

Maxim Emelyanychev's eclectic second season with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra

Maxim Emelyanychev & the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (Photo Ryan Buchanan)

The Scottish Chamber Orchestra's 2020/21 season sees principal conductor Maxim Emelyanychev celebrating his second season with them, with an eclectic mix of programming, plus premieres by Anna Clyne, Karine Polwart and Pippa Murphy, and Julian Anderson along with music by Andrea Tarrodi, Erkki-Sven Tüür, Pēteris Vasks, Oliver Knussen, George Benjamin, John Adams and Einojuhani Rautavaara.

Emelyanychev opens the season with John Adams, Tchaikovsky and Bruch's Violin Concerto with Nicola Benedetti, and he continues with Adams' Violin Concerto (with Josef Špaček), Mozart's Vesperae Solennes de Confessore, Schubert, Poulenc and Prokofiev, alongside Stravinsky's complete Pulcinella. Emelyanychev is the soloist in Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No.5, and he ends the season with Brahms Ein Deutsches Requiem, and a programme of Ravel, Mendelssohn and Rimsky-Korsakov.

The orchestra's Associate Composer is Anna Clyne and she has three premieres in the new season, Overflow which marks Scotland’s Year of Coasts and Waters and is inspired by Emily Dickinson's poem By the Sea, a new work for a cappella choir to be performed by the SCO Chorus, and a new work conducted by Andrew Manze in February 2021.

Other new music in the orchestra's season includes folk-artist and theatre-maker Karine Polwart and composer and sound designer Pippa Murphy examining climate change in If You See Me, Weep, the title coming from one of The Hunger Stones, ancient drought markers in the River Elbe which serve as both memorials to past hardships and warnings to future generations. The works movements will be interspersed throughout a programme directed by Pekka Kuusisto, which also includes music by Beethoven, Andrea Tarrodi, Erkki-Sven Tüür, and Pēteris Vasks.

Other highlights include countertenor Iestyn Davies, soprano Lydia Teuscher and baritone Matthew Brook in an evening of Handel conducted by Bernard Labadie, tenor Allan Clayton and horn player Alec Frank-Gemmill in Britten's Serenade for tenor, horn and strings, cellist Alban Gerhardt in the Scottish premiere of Julian Anderson’s Cello Concerto ‘Litanies,’ written in memory of Oliver Knussen whose music is included in Sir George Benjamin's programme with the orchestra alongside Benjamin's own music, and Ravel.

Saxophonist Jess Gilham makes her debut with the orchestra in John Adams' Saxophone Concerto, soprano Carolyn Sampson performs Canteloube's Songs of the Auvergne pianist Gabriela Montero is the soloist in Clara Schumann's early Piano Concerto (written, with some help from Robert, when she was in her teens), and Colin Currie performs Einojuhani Rautavaara’s Percussion Concerto ‘Incantations’ conducted by John Storgårds.

The SCO Youth Academy launches in Autumn 2020. It is a new, unique and distinct youth orchestra for school-aged musicians, who will work with top professionals over a series of Sunday afternoon sessions in the centre of Edinburgh. Designed to enhance and complement existing provision, it builds on the success of the SCO String Academy (launched 2019) and the SCO Wind Academy (launched 2020) and aims to enhance musical learning in a welcoming environment. Conducted by SCO violinist Gordon Bragg and tutored by SCO musicians, the SCO Youth Academy is open to aspiring school-aged orchestral musicians who have reached Grade 6+ and who are able to commit to a series of sessions. Applications open in April. For more information see the SCO website.

 Full details of all the SCO's concerts from its website.

Poulenc at the piano: a chance to hear an alternative version of the 'Concert champêtre' on this new disc of concertos and chamber music

Francis Poulenc Piano Concerto, Concert champêtre; Mark Bebbington, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Jan Latham-Koenig; Resonus Classics
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 10 March 2020 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
Poulenc's harpsichord concerto in its rarely performed piano version on this new disc where Mark Bebbington teams up the composer's concertos with his chamber music

This new disc featuring music by Francis Poulenc has two intriguing features. The first is that pianist Mark Bebbington has chosen to pair two of Poulenc's concertante works for piano and orchestra with two of his chamber music pieces. The second is that Bebbington is performing Poulenc's Concert champêtre in the composer's version for piano and orchestra.

Pianist Mark Bebbington performs Francis Poulenc's Piano Concerto and Concert champêtre with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor Jan Latham-Koenig, and Poulenc's Trio for Piano, Oboe & Bassoon and Sonata for Oboe & Piano with oboist John Roberts and bassoonist Jonathan Davies on Resonus Classics.

Francis Poulenc's Piano Concerto dates from 1949 and was a commission from the Boston Symphony Orchestra as a piece for Poulenc to play on his second American tour in 1950 when he premiered the work in Boston conducted by Charles Munch. The work was politely received, but it wasn't the virtuoso showcase that audiences wanted, nor was it well-received when given its European premiere, though nowadays we are able to enjoy the piece for itself.