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’.
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’.
Baroque at the Edge: London Festival of Baroque Music, 12-20 May 2017
On 9 January 2017 the London Festival of Baroque Music (formerly the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music) announced its programme for 2017. The Festival theme for 2017 is Baroque at the Edge. Inspired by the anniversaries of Monteverdi (450th of birth) and Telemann (250th of death) the Festival explores the ways that composers and performers have pushed at the chronological, stylistic, geographical and expressive boundaries of the Baroque era.
Baroque at the Edge, London Festival of Baroque Music, 12-20 May 2017
Artistic Director Lindsay Kemp said:
“This year’s two anniversary composers come from opposite ends of the
Baroque era, which got me thinking about ways in which musical styles
and tastes change over time. At times such as the transition from
Renaissance to Baroque around 1600, and from Baroque to Classical
around 1750, change can come quickly and different styles end up
jostling with each other. These corners of music history, and the whole
idea of blurred edges and crossed boundaries, is what has given us our
Festival theme this year.”
This year there are 13 concerts over 9 days, with highlights including
Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 from the stellar partnership of
Belgian vocal ensemble Vox Luminis and the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra; the
Pergolesi Stabat mater with Early Opera Company under Christian
Curnyn with soloists Lucy Crowe and Tim Mead; Telemann’s cantataIno with Florilegium and Elin Manahan Thomas; Monteverdi'sOrfeo with I Fagiolini and Robert Hollingworth; Handel’s Jephtha with the Holst Singers and the Academy of Ancient Music
under Stephen Layton; string-ensemble music by Biber, Schmelzer and Fux
from Swiss ensemble Les Passions de l’Ame (with Turkish percussion!); and a
harpsichord recital (entitled ‘Le Vertigo’) by Jean Rondeau.
Monteverdi’s iconic Vespers of 1610 is a classic example of a work
at the edge, juxtaposing the newest musical techniques of the early Baroque
with the older methods of the Renaissance. Ultimately this makes it not
just a work of stylistic reconciliation but also one of unparalleled
expressive richness. On Sunday 14 May at 7.30pm, this glorious music will
be performed by two top-class ensembles, both of whom have made strong
impressions at the Festival in the past: Belgian vocal ensembleVox Luminis and the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, coming together for the first
time for this project.
Like the Vespers, Monteverdi’s first opera Orfeo has one
foot in the world of Baroque vocal expression and the other in Renaissance
traditions, in this case those of court entertainment and madrigal. But it
is also music history’s first great opera, a work of power, depth and
beauty that never ceases to enthral. Written for Monteverdi's own regular
vocal ensemble, it will be performed on Thursday 18 May at 7.45pm at St John's Smith Square by Monteverdi masters I Fagiolini in
their 30th anniversary year, with the brilliant Matthew Long as the virtuosic demi-God of singing, and a full
cast of singers with a strong background in Monteverdi's secular and sacred
music. Directed by Robert Hollingworth, it is given in an
imaginative semi-staging by Thomas Guthrie that was first performed by I
Fagiolini in Venice in 2015.
Opening this year's festival on Friday 12 May at 7.30pm at St John's Smith
Square is the Early Opera Company, under the musical
direction of Christian Curnyn, with
Pergolesi’s exquisite and profoundly moving Stabat mater, with
soprano Lucy Crowe and countertenorTim Mead as soloists. Pergolesi was one of the 18 th century’s most influential and admired composers, and did
much to power the stylistic transition from the Baroque to the Classical
style in music. Curnyn and his superb ensemble also include more music from
the late Baroque cutting edge with fire-cracker modernistic orchestral
pieces by WF and CPE Bach.
On Saturday 13 May at 4pm at St Peter's Eaton Square, rising virtuoso Jean Rondeau
(‘One of the most natural performers one is likely to hear on a
classical music stage these days … a
master of his instrument.’
Washington Post) explores the flamboyant, poetic and compelling fantasy
world of the French harpsichord repertoire, with character pieces, preludes
and dances music by two of its most brilliant exponents, Jean-Philippe
Rameau and Pancrace Royer.
On the evening of Saturday 13 May at 7.00pm at St John's Smith Square,
leading British ensemble Florilegium focus on one of
2017’s great anniversary composers, Georg Philipp Telemann. Their concert
puts Telemann the man of the High Baroque up against Telemann the
progressive with two works from his final decade, including a powerful late
masterpiece, the extraordinary and dramatic cantata Ino. This work
is rarely heard in concert so this is an exceptional opportunity to
experience it sung by Elin Manahan Thomas. Before it
Florilegium perform one of the enduring favourites of the Baroque concerto
repertoire - Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 5.
The London Festival of Baroque Music's annual visit to Westminster Abbey on
Tuesday 16 May at 7pm honours Bach’s late masterpiece, his Mass in B Minor, compiled and adapted in his final years from
earlier works and seemingly devised as a summation of his life’s work as a
composer of sacred music. From joy to grief, celebration to supplication
and triumph to penitence this is one the great monuments of Western music.
It will be performed by The Choir of Westminster Abbey and St James's Baroque under James O'Donnell.
Swiss string ensemble Les Passions de l’Ame give their UK
full concert debut on Wednesday 17 May at 7.30pm at St John's Smith Square, under their violinist director Meret Lüthi. Their programme is entitled
‘Edge of Europe’, and presents string music from 17th-century
Austria, at that time Christian Europe’s interface with the Ottoman Empire.
The music, by Schmelzer, Biber, Fux and Walther is imaginative and often
quirky, enhanced in Les Passions de l’Ame’s performance by the colourful
addition of Turkish percussion.
There’s another meeting of cultures in the 9.30pm ‘Late o’Clock Baroque’
concert on Saturday 13 May at St John’s Smith Square, when harpsichordist
Jean Rondeau makes his second appearance of the Festival, this time in the
company of lutenist Thomas Dunford and classical Persian percussionist
Keyvan Chemirani. All three musicians are superb improvisers, and in a
project they have entitled ‘Jasmin Toccata’ they meld Persian percussion
and Baroque instruments in imaginative transformations of European masters
such as Scarlatti and Purcell and major composers from the Persian
tradition. The result (in their words) is ‘a vivid toccata that echoes the
sensuality of Jasmin’.
The Festival’s focus on young artists continues this year with three more
Future Baroque lunchtime concerts at St John’s Smith Square featuring some of the best new talent on the Baroque music scene. This year
there are concerts by two instrumental groups: Ensemble Molière in a
programme of music by Telemann and his French friends Blavet, Guignon and
Forqueray (Friday 12 May at 1.05pm); and Ensemble Hesperi, who will be introducing us to music from 18 th-century Scotland (Wednesday 17 May at 1.05pm). The third and final concert is a solo harpsichord recital by Nathaniel
Mander, who will perform works by English composers from Byrd to JC Bach
(Friday 19 May at
).
On Friday 19 May at
The Festival ends on Saturday 20 May at 7.00pm at St John’s Smith Square with a performance of Handel’s last, and in many people’s opinion best,
dramatic oratorio Jephtha. Stephen Layton
conducts the Holst Singers, the Academy of Ancient Music and a fine cast of young singers
led by Nick Pritchard as the Israelite warrior who lives to regret a rash
vow to God.
In addition to these concerts, the Festival also features 'Sing Baroque', a
special amateur choral workshop with conductor Robert Howarth on Sunday 14 May at
To quote Lindsay Kemp again:
“As ever it has been enormous fun to create a Festival around an
unusual theme, one that allows us to programme rarely heard but
deserving music alongside familiar works that reveal themselves in new
and particular contexts. It shows just how deep, complex and varied
Baroque music can be!”
