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."
On the surface, the theme of this Prom seemed to be Sci Fi movies at the Proms. Both Ligeti's Atmosphères and Richard Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra became huge hits when Stanley Kubrick used them in 2001 : A Space Odyssey. So how did Mahler's *Kindertotenlieder* fit in ?
The Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester certainly aren’t Mahler specialists. The name was chosen by Claudio Abbado when he set up his network of interrelated orchestras which have changed the face of European music. Although none of the performers are aged over 26, it’s not a youth orchestra in the usual sense. These players are carefully hand picked from thousands of applicants, and many go on to play in major orchestras.
Their Schoenberg’s Five Orchestral Pieces was lively and crisp and they did the spectacular moments in Also sprach Zarathustra to great effect. But the real test of an orchestra is how they handle the more subtle moments, rather than the big flashy passages like that striking entree to Zarathustra, which everyone knows from TV ads even if they don’t know Kubrick. The GMJO are very accomplished but there is only so much a musician can do at 20, compared to what he or she might do at, say, 45. So this wasn’t a performance of great interpretative depth, but something to enjoy for its sheer beauty.
Ligeti’s Atmosphères is an abstract soundscape. What seems like huge washes of white noise are created by extremes of detail, “microtonal polyphony”. The music moves in swathes of sound, the strings giving way to a surge of brass, each part played with slight variation. It’s the blend that creates the “atmosphere”. Hence the otherworldy sound of percussion brushes played against the strings of the piano : it’s music going boldly where no man has gone before. No wonder Kubrick heard it as “music from another planet”. Jonathan Nott’s soft focus sometimes underwhelms in other repertoire, but it’s perfect for this work, which is one of his specialities.
How would Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder fare in such a program and with an audience geared up for big movie themes ? The songs are about the death of children, and Ruckert’s poems are so personal that it’s almost painful to read them exposed on the printed page. Yet it’s a mistake to assume that such tragedy should lead to hyperfervid, overly operatic performance. Goerne’s approach was psychologically astute. The father in the poems is so numbed, he can only articulate his pain in brief moments : most of his grieving is inwards. This isn’t a time for histrionics.
Goerne’s approach is also musically astute. Kindertoitenlieder evolves like a miniature symphony. Like most of Mahler’s music, it moves towards a resolution, beyond immediate struggle towards some kind of transcendence. Dark into light. So the final song “In diesem Wetter, in diesem Braus”, starts with a storm. Significantly the storm clears into music of great delicacy and clarity. The dead children have gone into a better place where they will be cared for, “as in their mother’s house”. Miss this, and you miss so much of Mahler’s aesthetic. So “going into another place” isn’t really so far away from the rarified vision of Ligeti’s Atmosphères after all.
This Prom is available online on demand until 11 September on www.bbc.co.uk/proms both in audio and TV rebroadcast.
Anne Ozorio