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."
Another highlight of the Wigmore Hall complete Schubert Song series - Christoph Prégardien and Christoph Schnackertz. The core Wigmore Hall Lieder audience were out in force. These days, though, there are young people among the regulars : a sign that appreciation of Lieder excellence is most certainly alive and well at the Wigmore Hall. .
Prégardien is a perennial favourite, who has been singing at the Wigmore Hall for at least 25 years. Prégardien's programmes are thought-provoking. His choice focused on Schubert's settings of Schiller and Mayrhofer, which are Prégardien specialities, but this time he included songs that are less well known, to stimulate the audience's appreciation of the composers craft.
Schubert set 44 songs to texts by Schiller, of which three were settings of Der Jüngling am Bache. His first, D 30, dates from as early as 1812. Prégardian sang the version D192 from 1815. The brooks still runs cheerfully in the piano part, but now the more contemplative approach emphasizes Schiller's image of flowers crushed in fast-flowing waters, an allusion to impermanence and to unfulfilment. The agile lucidity of Prégardien's timbre captures much of the whimsy of the first version, though the later song is more emotionally rewarding. Later in this Wigmore Hall series, no doubt we'll hear the third version, D 638 (1819), even more poignant.
For a moment, though, we remained in fanciful mode, with Schubert's settings of Ludwig Hölty (1748-1776). Der Liebende D207 1815 recaptures the sprightly lyricism of the first version of Der Jüngling am Bache. "Beglückt, beglückt, Wer dich erblickt", bright, sharp consonants, which Prégardien articulated so they sparkled. "Wem süsser Blick, und Wink und Nick Zum sussern Kusse winket". Utterly delicious. Der Traum D218 1815 feels almost like folksong with its paired phrases suggesting the fluttering of a bird : "Mir träumt, ich war ein Vögelein". Prégardien captured the lilting charm in the song with delicate but deft clarity. The sentiments of Die Laube D214, 1815, is decidedly period. "Schauer wird durch meine Nerven haben" and "Wann ich auf der Bahn der Tugend wanke". But Pregardien's respect for the song as song gives it dignity.
Thus were we prepared for more Schiller. Hoffnung D251 1815 is relatively straightforward compared with D 637, a darker and more beautidul setting of the same poem,. but it made a good transition to the Schiller ballad Ritter Togenberg D397 1816. Again, the subject is rather "of its time". a knight, rejected by a maiden, goes on the Crusades where he "Schreckt den Muselmann". When he returns, the girl has become a nun. So the knight spends the rest of his life in a hut near the convent until the girl dies and becomes an angel. Strophic ballads aren't that easy to carry off but they are one of Prégardien's great strengths. He sang with direct, unfussy commitment, so the tale felt totally plausible. Context aside, emotions are universal.
In his programme notes, Richard Stokes quotes Albert Einstein on Die Liebesgötter D 446 1816, to a poem by Johann Peter Uz, as "Anacreontic doggerel". "Cypris meiner Phyllis gleich, sass von Grazien umgeben....mich berauschten Cyperns Reben". Cypris's grapes have made the poet drunk. As a poem this is a howler. The poet sees nymphs fleeing "mit leichtem Fuss allen Zwang betränkter Kettern flatteren von Fuss zu Fuss und von Blonden und Brünetten". Yer Prégardien makes the song feel right, though he smiled benevolently when singing the florid phrases. If we can take 18th century paintings of Classical Antiquity, we can perhaps take .Uz (1730-1796) on his own terms. In any case, the poem is more risqué than it seems since nymphs hang out with satyrs, and wine frees inhibitions.
Prégardien and Schnackertz then paired Der Hirt D 490 1816 and Bei dem Grabe meines Vater D496 1816. Both deal with loss. In the first, the poet (Mayerhofer) looks at the tower where his beloved lives now that she's married. In the second, to a poem by Matthias Claudius, the poet mourns his father in conventionally dutiful terms. Both settings are rather dispassionate, and don't draw from Schubert his finest moments, but we need to hear them to appreciate Schubert's work as a whole. That's the point of a complete song series. In that context, Schubert's songs to Mayrhofer shone all the more brightly.
Five more Schubert settings of Mayrhofer followed : Der Alpenjäger, D524 1817, Nach einem Gewitter D561 1817, Tröst D671 1819, Nachstück D D672 19, Nachtviolen D752 1822 and Alfölsung D 807 1824, all of which Prégardien has performed many times in the past and still does with characteristic grace and intelligence.
Anne Ozorio