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."
The Wigmore Hall, London, has launched Schubert : The Complete Songs, a 40-concert series to run through the 2015 and 2016 seasons. There have been Schubert marathons before, like BBC Radio 3's all-Schubert week and The Oxford Lieder Festival's Schubert series last year, but the Wigmore Hall series will be a major landmark because the Wigmore Hall is the Wigmore Hall, the epitome of excellence.
The Wigmore Hall's unique reputation springs from "the experience of music made by supremely gifted musicians for listeners open to what they may have to say", to quote John Gilhooly, the Wigmore Hall's Artistic Director. Simple words, but radical words in the current cultural climate where compromise means more than quality. The real way ahead for serious music is to treat it seriously. Excellence is by definition, "elitist" or it wouldn't be "excellent". But that basic ideal is simple. "The intensity of emotions, the concentration, the joy, the spiritual highs and lows, and the sheer vitality of what happens at the Wigmore Hall", Gilhooly continues, "all combine to create a sense of living art, renewed and refreshed in the moment of every performance".
"Don't let the song recital become an endangered species", Gilhooly writes in Classical Music magazine (August 2015). Great as it will be, the Schubert series is only part of the 96 song recitals this season. Head-on, Gilhooly confronts the fashion for marketing Lieder other than on its own terms. "If your experience of a song recital is of someone bluffing their way through pieces they barely know, why should you go back for more?" Lieder is fascinating because it connects to sources deep in European culture. Perhaps it's not an easy sell in a non-intellectual age, but the Wigmore Hall meets these challenges by providing the best, aiming to "open minds to this vast imaginary world", the ocean of creative experience unleashed by the Romantic revolution. Capital "R", Romanticism, not lower case.
This inaugural concert featured Florian Boesch and Graham Johnson, both icons in Lieder circles. It also started with a rarity to pique the interest of the Wigmore Hall's core Lieder audience, who were out in force. This was Schubert's Lebenstraum D1a, a fragment written without text, only recently and somewhat controversially identified with Lebenstraum D39. Here we heard a version created for performance by Reinhard Van Hoorickx. Johnson played the original part for piano, followed by the new arrangement based on the poem by Gabriele von Baumberg, which formed the basis of the later song. Bear in mind that the fragment was writen in 1810, when Schubert was 13. Boesch and Johnson followed this with a set of Goethe songs from 1815, Der Fischer D225, Erster Verlust D226 and Der Gott und die Bayajadere D 254. The first two displayed Schubert's fascination with driven, repeating rhythms, the last with his fondness for long declamatory ballads, both styles he would continue to explore.
Boesch and Johnson then moved to a set of songs from 1816 to poems by Johann Georg Jacobi (1740-1814), a theologian, jurist and academic. These were perhaps the treasures of this recital, since they are relatively underperformed. An Chloen D 462 and Hochzeit-Lied D 463 were delivered with graceful purity, the masculinity of Boesch's voice gently modulated to bring out their charms. The greater depth of In der Mitternacht D464 and Trauer der Liebe D 465 suited Boesch's characteristic timbre. Trauer der Liebe was particularly effective, as it's a very good poem. Although Jacobi employs typically Romantic images like mourning doves, dark forest foliage and whispering winds, the poem deals with unsentimental emotional strength. "Freiden gibt den treuen Herzen nur ein künftig Paradies" (Happiness is given to loyal hearts only in a future Paradise) Boesch sang with pointed dignity, suggesting the intellectual rigour in Jacobi's poetry. In Die Perle D 466, the text refers to a man who can't see the joys of Springtime because he's lost a pearl he found on a pilgrimage in distant lands. Schubert's music is jolly enough, invoking "Birke, Buch' unde Erle" (birch, beech and alder) but Jacobi's punchline is altogether more understated. "Was mir gebricht", sang Boesch quietly, "ist mehr als eines Perle".
The Jacobi set concluded with Lied des Orpheus, als er in die Hölle ging D 474. Johnson played the long piano introduction, so it felt like an overture to a miniature drama. Schubert chose to set only the section of the very long poem, in which Orpheus battles flames, monsters and shadows to enter Hades. Almost schizoid frenzy contrasts with eerie stillness. Jacobi and Schubert knew full well what the story of Orpheus symbolizes. Orpheus doesn't interact much with other characters, so the drama is, by its very nature, an inner monologue rather than a narrative. Orpheus doesn't save Eurydice but in the process, discovers the power of creative art.
oesch and Johnson continued with three settings of poems by Matthias Claudius, An die Nachtigall D497 1816, Der Tod und das Mädchen D531 (1817) and Täglich zu singen D533, 1817), then five songs to texts by Schubert's strange companion, Johann Baptist Mayrhofer Der Schiffer D 536 1817, Memnon D 541 1817, Auf der Donau D553 1817, Aus Heliopolis 1 D 753 1822 and Aus Heliopolis II D 754 1822. Mayrhofer's poems reference Classical Antiquity to mask the inner demons the poet faced. How he must have dreamed of an "unbewölktes Leben" (a life without clouds) To some extent, Schubert may have intuited what lay beneath the shimmering surface calm.
Then, on to Der blind Knabe D833 1825, and Totengräbers heimweh D842 1825 (Jacob Nikolaus Craigher de Jachelutta), the latter performed so well that it set off spontaneous applause - genuine applause, totally sincere, not daft "audience participation". Boesch beamed with appreciation. It's a marvellous song, and was done so well! Then, back to "Happy Schubert", Das Lied im Grünem D 917, 1827, (Johann Anton Friedrich Reil). Schubert and Reil, an actor, were friends, so the song may be a memory of good times in the countryside, in the past. We know , now, that Schubert was already ill with the disease that killed him 16 months later, but Schubert didn't, and nor did Reil. It is enough that we can enjoy this lovely song for itself and revel in its freshness.
Anne Ozorio