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."
This concert of Christmas music at St John’s Smith Square confirmed that not only are the Gesualdo Six and their director Owain Park fine and thoughtful musicians, but that they can skilfully shape a musical narrative.
The programme that they presented was very similar, though longer, to that performed at Temple Church during last year’s Winter Festival , but with the items in a re-arranged order and with additional items interspersed, new relationships between musical works were articulated.
The singers made the most of the architectural space. A lone voice floated purely from the gallery at the start of Veni, veni Emmanuel, inviting first alto and tenor to join him in, then welcoming the full ensemble into the rejoicing: ‘Gaude, Gaude, Emmanuel.’ The supple polyphonic windings and the deftly negotiated harmonic progressions that followed had a smooth assurance which characterised the whole performance, and the tapered unison of the close was compelling. They moved segue into the plainchant Rorate Caeli, during which the ensemble processed through the nave; and then, moved on without pause, the vigorous and robust counterpoint of Michael Praetorius’ Nun Komm, der Heiden Heiland seeming to spring free from the poised chant.
The programme incorporated several traditional carols. Gaudete (arranged by Brian Kay), which had opened the lunchtime concert in Temple Church, here accompanied the procession through the nave which marked the recommencement after the interval. Park joined five of his ensemble for Praetorius’ arrangement of Es ist ein Ros Entsprungen, and here there was a lovely lyrical breadth. A deepening of the texture in the central verse was balanced by the freshness of the final verse, which depicts the new-born Christ as a ‘Flower whose fragrance tender with sweetness fills the air’, where James Guy’s countertenor melody floated above the ensemble hum with unaffected simplicity and sweetness, the phrasing beautifully eloquent.
There is no rose reduced the ensemble to three - alto, tenor, bass; somehow the trio sound seemed simultaneously lean and sumptuous, the pure clarity of Alexander Chance’s upper line placed against the freely moving lower voices. Coventry Carol followed segue, from the gallery, the tenor line imbuing vigour into the central verse which tells of Herod raging and slaying of the children, before another processed chant,Laetentur caeli brought the singers back together. In dulci jubilo as arranged by Bach allied a gentle lilt with a strong sense of spiritual purpose and musical direction.
Alongside the old we had the new. The concordance of dynamic, tone and rhythm at the pianissimo opening of Jonathan Harvey’s The Annunciation was impressive and this carol had a delicate preciousness, the sliding harmonies - perfectly tuned - suggesting the ‘strangest strangeness’ of the divine visitation and the homophonic melodiousness of the close conveying the rapture of the communion between angel and girl. Cheryl Frances-Hoad’s The Promised Light of Life was similarly tender of timbre, but more comforting in spirit, the ensemble voices swelling and receding with organic oneness; similar fluidity characterised Arvo Pärt’s Morning Star, the ebbs and flows of voices bringing to mind the softly pulsing star in the night sky, promising ‘everlasting day’.
I was impressed by the recent release, by Hyperion, of a collection of Park’s choral music and so it was good to have an opportunity to hear again Park’s own On the Infancy of our Saviour. The harmonic roving matched the initial questioning anxiety of Francis Quarles’ text which reflects on the child’s grace with bewildered hindsight of the betrayal to come, while the strong consonance of the closing episode seemed to swell from deep within the ensemble, blooming with the expressed certainty of faith. Such certainty is absent from Thomas Hardy’s poem ‘The Oxen’, but there is frail hope, and this was conveyed by the flowing continuity of the counterpoint in Jonathan Rathbone’s setting, particularly in the lower voices. Here, too, we had a compellingly well-projected narration of the poetic text - perhaps the slow tempo was advantageous in this regard, as elsewhere the group’s diction was not always so clear.
Masterpieces of Renaissance polyphony completed the programme. I had some misgivings last time I heard the Gesualdo Six perform Thomas Tallis’s Videte Miraculum, and they were not entirely swept away here. Again, the intonation was unsettled, the countertenor line seeming to tug away from the centre, and as the counterpoint did not blend into a seamless whole, so the unfolding episodes did not cohere convincingly. But, the performance became increasingly persuasive as Park pushed towards the close where the inner voices had compelling strength above the anchoring bass.
William Byrd’s Vigilate was a vigorous call to attention culminating in a florid final command, ‘omnibus dico: vigilate’ (I say to all: Watch.). And, the Bohemian composer Jacob Handl provided an example of late-Renaissance music from Europe, Canite tube (Blow the trumpet), which buzzed with festive energy and uplifting verve. Then, to Italy, for Andrea Gabrieli’s Hodie Christus natus est in which Park joined his singers. The full ensemble exhibited wonderfully relaxed and finely crafted phrasing as the voices worked in pairs and threes, running through the scalic lines and pushing towards the jubilant triple-time floridities of the ‘Alleluia’ close.
Claire Seymour
The Gesualdo Six: Owain Park (director), Guy James (countertenor), Alexander Chance (countertenor), Tom Castle (tenor), Josh Cooter (tenor), Michael Craddock (baritone), Sam Mitchell (bass).
Trad. arr. Lawson - Veni, veni, Emmanuel, Anon. (Plainchant) - Rorate Caeli, Praetorius - Nun Komm, der Heiden Heiland à 6, Harvey - The Annunciation, Trad. German harm. Praetorius - Es Ist ein’ Ros’ Entsprungen, Owain Park - On the Infancy of our Saviour, Tallis - Videte Miraculum, Cheryl Frances-Hoad - The Promised Light of Life, Byrd -Vigilate, Trad. arr. Brian Kay - Gaudete, Arvo Pärt -Morning Star, Anon. - There is no rose, Trad. - Coventry Carol, Anon. (Plainchant) - Laetentur caeli, Handl - Canite tuba, Gabrieli - Hodie Christus natus est, Praetorius arr. Bach - In dulci jubilo, Jonathan Rathbone - The Oxen
St John’s Smith Square, London; Friday 14th December 2018.