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."
‘Apt for voices or viols’: eager to maximise sales among the domestic market in Elizabethan England, publishers emphasised that the music contained in collections such as Thomas Morley’s First Book of Madrigals to Four Voices of 1594 was suitable for performance by any combination of singers and players.
Applying the same principle to a work from the sacred repertoire, in the first part of this deeply contemplative concert at King’s Place the viol consort Fretwork performed John Taverner’s Missa Gloria tibi trinitas, a Mass which was most probably first sung by the choir at Cardinal College (later Christ Church) Oxford, where Tavener was employed before 1530.
The transference from voice to viol seems apt for this Mass, which is named after the plainsong antiphon to the first Psalm at Lauds and Second Vespers on Trinity Sunday, actually generated a whole repertoire: many English composers, up to and including Purcell, based consort pieces on the ‘in nomine’ section of the Benedictus, for viol consort or keyboard. In this way it became one of the most influential works in the English repertoire. The Mass was also striking for its use of six voices, including a high treble, a combination perfectly suited to the wide-ranging tessitura of the different sized viols played by the members of Fretwork. And, it must be said, the glowing wood of their shapely instruments with their sloping shoulders and deep ribs, formed a beautiful visual image, arranged in a semi-circle and bathed in a subtle red glow.
Taverner’s Mass is florid and ornate, representative of the prevailing liturgical idiom of the 1510s and 1520s. Fretwork achieved a sensitive balance between the six strands, and the infinitely varied detail within each section of the four movements was clearly audible. The contrast between the full six-part passages and those for reduced parts generated interest, the latter often introducing highly ornamental and decorative gestures. The players’ phrasing was exquisitely graceful and unfailingly self-possessed, and the small motifs were skilfully extended into longer, sustained sequences; the music seemed to unfold organically and inevitably.
The two highest viols - representing the treble and mean voices - provided brightness and sweetness, the highest line dancing at times like a piping flute above the bed of sound. The chant which appears as a cantus firmus in the Mass - three times in the Gloria, Credo and Sanctus and twice in Agnus Dei - is sung by the mean voice (not the tenor, as is usual) and this placement, higher in the texture made the chant more audible, particularly when it was itself the uppermost line, tranquilly articulated while the lower viols busily explored the generating motifs below. Sometimes, however, as in the Credo, it was the bass’s vigorous movement which injected energy and passion. In the Agnus Dei the players seemed to adopt a firmer bow stroke, and once again the dynamism was driven from beneath. In contrast, the Sanctus gained strength from the reassuring quality of the repetitions of its motifs.
Towards the end of each movement, shorter rhythmic values created renewed momentum. However, though the viols’ smooth articulation was beguiling, the slight hollowness of the timbre could not generate the magnificence of massed choral voices in these climactic moments; there was much pleasure to be derived from the blended richness of the sound, but I regretted the lack of deep resonance.
In his CD liner notes for The Tallis Scholars’ first, 1984 recording of the Mass (Gimmell DCGIM 004), Peter Phillips suggests, ‘Taverner’s style of writing does not require the euphonious, seamless sound so often appropriate to the music of Palestrina and Byrd. The very length of this Mass recommends variety in its interpretation - as much of tempi and dynamics as of scoring; and the detail of the writing certainly supports this fundamental need for textual contrast.’
Here Phillips pins down the reasons for my own misgivings. For, while the tone beautifully subdued and mellow, and there was contrast of register, the timbre was essentially uniform. And, as the music was divorced from the text that inspired it, the ‘head motifs’ from which the phrases grow lacked a point of reference; seemed meditative rather than directly expressive. Indeed, the phrases might have continued evolving indefinitely, there seemed no logical structural stopping-points, such as a text might provide. For this listener, the overall effect was one of introspection and intimacy; players in an intimate domestic setting might gain much gratification from performing this music in this form, but I could not shake off the thought that the Mass was designed to communicate the glory of God.
In the second part of the concert, we moved forward almost five hundred years and Fretwork were joined by countertenor Iestyn Davies and oboist Nicholas Daniel for two works by Sir John Tavener. Nipson (1998) was composed at the suggestion of countertenor Michael Chance (and was recorded by Chance and Fretwork by Harmondia Mundi in 2002, on a disc which also includes The Hidden Face, with Daniel, and the Sanctus and Benedictus of Taverner’s Mass).
Tavener’s text is a Greek palindrome, "Nipson anomēmata mē monan opsin" (Wash the sins, not only the face), which is supplemented by Latin text. (The latter was not given in the programme, but I think I detected ‘Gloria in excelsis Deo’ and ‘Kyrie eleison’.)
Above the sustained, full texture of the viol ensemble, Davies’ voice was astonishingly compelling: sometimes light, almost floating and otherworldly, then swelling richly and penetrating the air with striking power. The voice’s melismatic wanderings contrasted arrestingly with the viols’ rootedness, though there were passages were there was more interplay between voice and accompaniment; in one such, the viols’ repeating strokes, articulated initially with airy bowing then gradually growing in impact, were impressively co-ordinated and structured. Davies demonstrated his warm lower register too, in an unaccompanied passage; indeed, in the concluding section where the influence of the Greek orthodox liturgy were readily evident, the music makes huge demands on the singer and Davies was able to negotiate the large leaps cleanly and securely, and to encompass the music’s wide tessitura effortlessly.
The Hidden Face, arranged by the composer at the request of Nicholas Daniel and Michael Chance, was originally composed for countertenor, oboe and 16 muted violins and violas. The work is a prayer which Tavener has explained should ‘hold within it a whole tradition with nothing personal or idiosyncratic, as in ikon painting’. Richard Boothby’s programme notes contained Tavener’s full explanation of the work’s intent and meaning: ‘Prayer, in the Orthodox East, is from the heart. The mind must have gone into the heart … only the Divine Presence knows what is in our hearts, and this suggests a music of such humility, wrapped in a depth of inner silence and stillness of which we have no idea. Paradise was made of peace, and so Adam could hear the Divine Voice. It is almost impossible now. We have to cast off all the received, intellectual, sophisticated garbage and also the preconceived knowledge of God that modern man has so disastrously collected, and listen with a heart that has become so soft that the Face is no longer Hidden. But we are still at the beginning, so the title remains The Hidden Face.’
As the lights were lowered the two soloists were themselves almost hidden in the dim obscurity of the balcony above the viol players on the stage beneath. Fretwork demonstrated consummate discipline and poise, intoning Tavener’s radiant parallel harmonies with the transcendence of ritual, while aloft oboe and voice engaged in a fervent, elaborate exchange of increasingly impassioned melisma, ranging to extreme heights and depths. Charles Ives’ The Unanswered Question came to mind, in which the strings are ‘the silences of the Druids, who know, see, and hear nothing’, above which the trumpet poses ‘the perennial question of existence’ and the woodwind represent the ‘fighting answerers’ who, for all their sound and fury, get nowhere.
The expressness of the performers’ technical mastery was remarkable; there was both luminosity and mystery. But, while I recognised and relished the expertise of the performers, the end result left me feeling rather distanced. Tavener once professed the he ‘wanted to produce music that was the sound of God. That’s what I have always tried to do’. I think it’s hard for non-believers to entirely immerse themselves in such enterprises.
It didn’t help either that the audience in the Hall did not aspire to the music’s meditational stillness. Coughing and spluttering repeatedly disturbed the rhapsodic transcendence of the two Tavener works, while Taverner’s Mass was twice interrupted by the arrival of late patrons, stamping down the wood-floored aisles. Given the concentrated intensity of this programme, this was a pity.
Claire Seymour
Iestyn Davies (countertenor), Nicholas Daniel (oboe), Fretwork - Asako Morikawa, Richard Boothby, Reiko Ischise, Emily Ashton, Richard Tunnicliffe and Sam Stadlen (viols).