Recently in Reviews
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."
Reviews
31 Aug 2014
Powerful Mahler Symphony no 2 Harding, BBC Proms London
Triumphant! An exceptionally stimulating Mahler Symphony No 2 from Daniel Harding and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, BBC Prom 57 at the Royal Albert Hall. Harding's Mahler Tenth performances (especially with the Berliner Philharmoniker) are pretty much the benchmark by which all other performances are assessed. Harding's Mahler Second is informed by such an intuitive insight into the whole traverse of the composer's work that, should he get around to doing all ten together, he'll fulfil the long-held dream of "One Grand Symphony", all ten symphonies understood as a coherent progression of developing ideas.
Pierre Boulez used to speak about the importance of trajectory, that is, the sense of direction that drives a symphony. Even the first bars zinged with purpose: Harding setting the trajectory in motion right from the start. When Bernard Haitink conducted this symphony at the Proms in 2006, he chose tempi so slow that it was hard for his orchestra to sustain the line, suggesting the approach of death. Harding's tempi are less extreme, but equally purposeful. He emphasized the inherent tension between forward-reaching lines and tight staccato, suggesting that a powerful transformation is underway even in the presence of annihilation. Harding showed how Mahler's themes of transcendance and renewal were in place even at this point in his career. The tension Harding creates suggests the power of what is to come, even when it's curtailed, temporarily, by death. If this is a funeral procession, it operates on many levels. The pastoral woodwinds might suggest happy memories of the past. Quiet, purposeful pizzicato, like footsteps, lead into savage brass climaxes, creating the sense of hard-won stages on a difficult ascent. Perhaps we can already hear the "mountains" in Mahler's Third Symphony, rising ever upwards.
Then the sudden, anguished descent into silence. The Luftpause which follows is very much part of meaning, "inaudible music" during which one might contemplate the finality of death. Harding sat on a chair, head bowed. Instead, the Royal Albert Hall ushers let in dozens of latecomers, totally destroying the moment of reverence. Someone needs to tell the staff that Luftpauses are not intervals.
The second movement began with gleeful energy, leading into lyrical Ländler themes, which will recur again through many symphonies to come. Although this movement is marked "Nicht eilen", it should be leisurely rather than slow, for something positive is stirring. Perhaps we begin to hear the Pan theme for Mahler's Third, as summer marches in. Harding took particular care to bring out the life force in the third movement, Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt, an illustration of which stands in Mahler's composer hut. Like Dionysius, St Anthony is drunk. Perhaps the song is used to indicate the futility of words, which is rather droll, since in this symphony Mahler begins to use voice as part of his orchestral toolbox. Harding might be more taken with the inherent energy in the leaping figures which suggest the movement of fish, leaping upwards, and swimming away. Exuberant playing here, the passages undertaken with great agility.
Perhaps it's included to illustrate the futility of words, but the liveliness of the writing suggests energy and escape from the sombre mood of the first movement. Harding led his orchestra into a glorious climax: summer is marching in, underlined yet again by the exuberant Fischpredigt allusion to leaping fish.
Excellent use of offstage trumpets and trombones, even if some sounds went slightly awry. These sections aren't merely for show, since they illustrate cosmological meaning. Harding's musicians may have to run up and down a lot, but by doing so they literally connect earthly reality with the promise of Heaven. This isn't the "Resurrection" symphony for nothing. Angels blow horns and trumpets, as do Alpine herdsmen and farmers. Mahler's making connections on all levels. Very possibly, we might think ahead to Mahler's Fourth with its cataclysmic burst of energy. What thrust Harding got from his players, trumpets leading! Processional footsteps yet again, this time confident and assured. Having shown us how near we are to the summit, Harding and his orchestra descended once more into quiet reverence. The trumpet solo, calling from the highest reaches oif the Royal Albert Hall, seemed to glow forever, like a sunset. The hushed voices of the Swedish Radio Choir and the Philharmonia Chorus were so well blended that their impact was enhanced: an image of vast panoramas and repose, from which Christianne Stotijn's voice rose with dignity.
"Aufersteh'n, ja aufersteh'n wirst du, Mein Staub, nach kurzer Ruh!" Stotijn, Kate Royal, the choruses and orchestra united in a blaze of glorious sound. Crashing cymbals, the klang of metal on metal and a thunderous timpani roll cut short much too soon by an audience too excited to hold back any longer.
Anne Ozorio