English Touring Opera are delighted to announce a season of lyric monodramas to tour nationally from October to December. The season features music for solo singer and piano by Argento, Britten, Tippett and Shostakovich with a bold and inventive approach to making opera during social distancing.
This tenth of ten Live from London concerts was in fact a recorded live performance from California. It was no less enjoyable for that, and it was also uplifting to learn that this wasn’t in fact the ‘last’ LfL event that we will be able to enjoy, courtesy of VOCES8 and their fellow vocal ensembles (more below …).
Ever since Wigmore Hall announced their superb series of autumn concerts, all streamed live and available free of charge, I’d been looking forward to this song recital by Ian Bostridge and Imogen Cooper.
The Sixteen continues its exploration of Henry Purcell’s Welcome Songs for Charles II. As with Robert King’s pioneering Purcell series begun over thirty years ago for Hyperion, Harry Christophers is recording two Welcome Songs per disc.
Although Stile Antico’s programme article for their Live from London recital introduced their selection from the many treasures of the English Renaissance in the context of the theological debates and upheavals of the Tudor and Elizabethan years, their performance was more evocative of private chamber music than of public liturgy.
In February this year, Albanian soprano Ermonela Jaho made a highly lauded debut recital at Wigmore Hall - a concert which both celebrated Opera Rara’s 50th anniversary and honoured the career of the Italian soprano Rosina Storchio (1872-1945), the star of verismo who created the title roles in Leoncavallo’s La bohème and Zazà, Mascagni’s Lodoletta and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly.
Evidently, face masks don’t stifle appreciative “Bravo!”s. And, reducing audience numbers doesn’t lower the volume of such acclamations. For, the audience at Wigmore Hall gave soprano Elizabeth Llewellyn and pianist Simon Lepper a greatly deserved warm reception and hearty response following this lunchtime recital of late-Romantic song.
Collapsology. Or, perhaps we should use the French word ‘Collapsologie’ because this is a transdisciplinary idea pretty much advocated by a series of French theorists - and apparently, mostly French theorists. It in essence focuses on the imminent collapse of modern society and all its layers - a series of escalating crises on a global scale: environmental, economic, geopolitical, governmental; the list is extensive.
For this week’s Live from London vocal recital we moved from the home of VOCES8, St Anne and St Agnes in the City of London, to Kings Place, where The Sixteen - who have been associate artists at the venue for some time - presented a programme of music and words bound together by the theme of ‘reflection’.
'Such is your divine Disposation that both you excellently understand, and royally entertaine the Exercise of Musicke.’
Amongst an avalanche of new Mahler recordings appearing at the moment (Das Lied von der Erde seems to be the most favoured, with three) this 1991 Mahler Second from the 2nd Kassel MahlerFest is one of the more interesting releases.
‘And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven … that old serpent … Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.’
If there is one myth, it seems believed by some people today, that probably needs shattering it is that post-war recordings or performances of Wagner operas were always of exceptional quality. This 1949 Hamburg Tristan und Isolde is one of those recordings - though quite who is to blame for its many problems takes quite some unearthing.
There was never any doubt that the fifth of the twelve Met Stars Live in Concert broadcasts was going to be a palpably intense and vivid event, as well as a musically stunning and theatrically enervating experience.
‘Love’ was the theme for this Live from London performance by Apollo5. Given the complexity and diversity of that human emotion, and Apollo5’s reputation for versatility and diverse repertoire, ranging from Renaissance choral music to jazz, from contemporary classical works to popular song, it was no surprise that their programme spanned 500 years and several musical styles.
The Academy of St Martin in the Fields have titled their autumn series of eight concerts - which are taking place at 5pm and 7.30pm on two Saturdays each month at their home venue in Trafalgar Square, and being filmed for streaming the following Thursday - ‘re:connect’.
The London Symphony Orchestra opened their Autumn 2020 season with a homage to Oliver Knussen, who died at the age of 66 in July 2018. The programme traced a national musical lineage through the twentieth century, from Britten to Knussen, on to Mark-Anthony Turnage, and entwining the LSO and Rattle too.
With the Live from London digital vocal festival entering the second half of the series, the festival’s host, VOCES8, returned to their home at St Annes and St Agnes in the City of London to present a sequence of ‘Choral Dances’ - vocal music inspired by dance, embracing diverse genres from the Renaissance madrigal to swing jazz.
Just a few unison string wriggles from the opening of Mozart’s overture to Le nozze di Figaro are enough to make any opera-lover perch on the edge of their seat, in excited anticipation of the drama in music to come, so there could be no other curtain-raiser for this Gala Concert at the Royal Opera House, the latest instalment from ‘their House’ to ‘our houses’.
"Before the ending of the day, creator of all things, we pray that, with your accustomed mercy, you may watch over us."
Following from the fine collaboration between Stephan Genz and Roger Vignoles on an ambitious collection of various sets of Mahler’s Lieder (Hyperion CD 67392), which includes some of the composer’s early settings of poetry from the anthology Des Knaben Wunderhorn, the present recording contains thirteen later settings from that source.
Some of the most familiar of Mahler’s Wunderhorn Lieder, these are also among the most challenging. From the opening piece, Mahler’s setting of Revelge, the dynamic interaction between the two performers is evident. This is a vibrant rendering of Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn in the versions for voice and piano, a setting which requires the idiomatic approach Vignoles uses for the accompaniment and the nuanced tone Genz uses to evoke a sense of chamber music. Lacking the sonorous orchestral accompaniment, the singer is more exposed, and this allows Genz to display his vocal finesse well.
If the opening selection in this recording, Revelge, can be stentorian in some performances of the orchestral version, it requires the full-bodied intensity Genz uses to evoke the military music evoked in this setting. Here Vignoles’ lively approach to the accompaniment support’s the musical structure well, especially in the use of crisp articulation to suggest the percussive aspect of Mahler’s musical gestures. In contrast to this more extroverted song, the interpretation of Rheinlegendchen is wonderfully subtle, and Genz’s phrasing of certain lines is memorable for the nuances he brings to a song which deserves such attention to detail.
Vignoles makes use of a similar subtlety in Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen, a setting which benefits from the restraint the accompanist evinces, so that the vocal line can accumulate intensity in its execution. Here Genz’s sustained pitches are quite affective, and his sometimes hesitate approach to various lines is something difficult to achieve well with the full orchestra on stage. In the close ensemble with Vignoles, details like these emerge easily and to the benefit of literature that needs to be heard in performances like these. The delicacy Genz uses in the lines “Bein meinem Herzallerlieble” and “O Lieb auf grüner Erden” is touching, as is the warm intensity he brings to the sequential passage at the phrase “Sie reicht ihm auch die Schneeweiße Hand.” At the end Vignoles aptly bring out the reference to the folksong “Bruder Martin,” a reference wholly Mahlerian and yet absent from some performances of the piece.
Such synergy occurs in the Erlkönig-like setting of the poem “Verspätung” as Das irdische Leben (the counterpart of Das himmlische Leben, which became the Song-Finale of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony) With its perpetuum mobile accompaniment, Mahler brings out the reversal at the end, where the persistent child succumbs to the hunger its mother will not sate. In this performance Vignoles allows the accompaniment to bring details to the song, and thus supports Genz well. A similar kind of accompanying figure is part of the structure of the following song Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt, and the gesture in this piece reinforces the text in reference to recalcitrant audience of unrepentant fish, the metaphor for humanity’s failure to heed even the sermons of saints. In this performance the tempos are slightly slower than some take, and this allows a welcome clarity to come to the fore in the accompaniment - the vocal line benefits from the clear enunciation of the text, so necessary to bring out the irony of the piece.
Vignoles and Genz approach Wer hat dies Liedlein erdacht? in a similar way, and in their execution effect some fine accelerandos that accentuate the text and culminate in an exemplarily clear and even rendering of the vocal line that brings the piece to its conclusion. The use of tempo modifications emerges nicely in Trost im Unglück in which Vignoles and Genz demonstrate a solid interplay necessary for the song. Tempo also affects the way in which Vignoles makes the dissonant tones of the accompaniment figures of Verlorene Müh’ serve as a kind of commentary on the text, which Genz, in turn, intones with appropriate earnestness. Genz’s vocality culminates in a persuasive reading of Urlicht. Removed from the context of Mahler’s Second Symphony, where it serves as a vocal prelude to final movement, *Urlicht *can be challenging. Yet this performance by Genz and Vignoles is a strong reading of the piece, which shows both performers well.
The sound quality of this Hyperion recording serves the performances well, especially in rendering the range of dynamics and articulations Vignoles achieves on the piano. The sometimes close recording sometimes catches a breath from Genz, but it also serves to bring out his fine diction and nicely sustained pitches. It is a solid contribution which deserves attention. As to the presentation itself, Vignoles notes are reminiscent of the informative ones he contributed to his set of the complete chansons of Gabriel Faure. It is good to see his reference to Goethe’s comments about Des Knaben Wunderhorn, an essay which connects the anthology to the generations before Mahler who enjoyed its contents. The texts of the songs are reproduced with translation in English, as found in the previous release of Mahler’s Lieder by these performers on this label.
James L. Zychowicz