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."
“On the wings of song, I’ll bear you away …” So sings the poet-speaker in Mendelssohn’s 1835 setting of Heine’s ‘Auf Flügeln des Gesanges’. And, borne aloft we were during this lunchtime Prom by Louise Alder and Gary Matthewman which soared progressively higher as the performers took us on a journey through a spectrum of lieder from the first half of the nineteenth century.
Alder’s programme had me reflecting on the challenges of devising a sequence of song for a fairly short mid-day recital. Does one take a theme and offer the audience contrasting responses from a variety of composers? Is homogeneity of idiom and period preferable to diversity? At first glance, this programme looked fairly conventional: a chronological progression from Schubert, through the Mendelssohn siblings, and on to Liszt and Chopin - complemented by a geographical movement from central Europe, then further eastwards, though with a nod towards Paris.
But closer inspection revealed a slight idiosyncrasy in the programme, for two of the three Schubert songs and the five songs by Liszt were to be performed in ‘versions’ less well known to audiences. And to Alder herself: during a brief word after the recital, the soprano commented that there had been a lot of ‘new’ music to learn, and that it was a challenge to sing the ‘variants’ of songs whose more familiar incarnation was so present in one’s musical memory.
Not that there was any sign of this ‘challenge’ during a performance that was characterised by relaxed affability, even playfulness at times, and confident, easeful musicianship. Alder is a natural ‘actor’, and she brought the varied contexts and protagonists of the lieder immediately to life, aided by Matthewman’s discrete but superlatively attentive accompaniments. The clarity of Matthewman’s voicing, the gentleness and precision of the quietest episodes, the fine definition of motive and pattern, the lively coloristic touches: all such made for an impressively sensitive complement to Alder’s vocal line.
Matthewman’s mastery of both tiny motif and broader canvas, and the relationship between the two, was exemplified in the opening song, ‘Gretchen am Spinnrade’, in which the piano’s murmuring wheel gained almost imperceptible momentum as the abandoned Gretchen’s yearning grew and the visions of her lover intensified, resuming its spinning with wonderful hesitancy then determination after the climactic memory of his kiss, a peak that Alder’s passion pushed a little off kilter - a rare, small lapse, but entirely forgivable at such an early stage in the recital as she settled into her stride. The second version of ‘Nacht und Träume’ (published in 1823 as Op.43 No.2) followed. Matthewman’s soft pedalling conjured a sleepy mood, the piano sinking low, and Alder’s soprano acquired a floaty dreaminess as she longed for the spirit of the night to return. My first impression was that the tempo was rather slow, weakening the ‘pull’ of some of the harmonic progressions. But a subsequent glance at the two versions revealed that in 1823 Schubert did indeed add ‘sehr’ to the ‘langsam’ instruction of the first version! The performers had been true to his intended languid reflectiveness after all.
Alder closed the Schubert sequence with ‘Die Forelle’, in its fifth version (1821). She performed this song during the Song Prize Final of the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World, and the beguiling vivacity and drama that she brought to her Cadogan Hall performance made it clear why she won the Dame Joan Sutherland Audience Prize in 2017 and prompted Gerald Finley to remark “she is born for that stage”!
Three songs by Felix Mendelssohn preceded three by his sister Fanny, and here Alder’s soprano seemed freer, more fluid in the upper register and more focused in the middle. Matthewman’s rippling arpeggios sparkled in ‘Auf Flügeln des Gesanges’, while after the delicacy of the roses’ delicate scented whispers, Alder allowed the blissful dreams to bloom at the close. The rocking syncopations of the brief ‘Der Mond’ throbbed with a passion which burst vibrantly forth in the second stanza, with the poet’s plea to the shining moon for a single glance brimming with heavenly peace, while ‘Neue Liebe’ found Mendelssohn in ‘fairy mode’ and the duo tripping precisely, fleetly and with a feverish frisson through the racing night journey.
Fanny Hensel’s ‘Bergeslust’ seems to offer a joyful vision of nature, with the woods and mountains stretching up to the heaven, but Alder and Matthewman used the brief modulation to the minor mode to subtly intimate graver thoughts. Lovely rubatos imbued ‘Warum sind denn die Rosen so blass?’ with a tender wistfulness; in contrast, ‘Nach Süden’ was as exuberant and purposeful as the birds flying southwards, ‘into the eternal blossoming’, that the poet-speaker eulogises.
It was the five songs by Liszt, though, that were both most substantial and most impressive. The major-minor dialectic of the piano’s introduction pulsed through ‘Freudvoll und Leidvoll’, which trembled with anguish and surged with love. Alder was fully in tune with the poetic sentiments which she and Matthewman communicated with genuineness and creative inflection. ‘S’il est un charmant gazon’ was delightfully fresh, joyous and spontaneous; ‘Oh! Quand je dors’ billowed wonderfully, with Alder drawing every nuance from the text - the lover’s passing breath and the transformation of woman into angel made tangible by the coaxing vocal delivery. Best of all was ‘O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst’, in which natural simplicity gave way to more artful expression, as Alder’s beautiful soprano soared through the ever more impassioned arcs. Matthewman’s harmonies roved, breaking beyond the ordered confines of the opening of the song and pushing the voice towards impassioned declamation which overflowed with feeling, until, with wonderful control, soprano and pianist drew the emotions which had so richly flamed back within their hearts.
After such heights of Romantic sensibility, a relaxation into a more folky spirit was welcome, and Chopin’s lilting ‘Życzenie’ (The Maiden’s Wish) swept us into a more carefree world. Alder may have required the score for these Polish songs, but - while I’m not in a position to judge the authenticity of her Polish - she didn’t seem to glance down at it very often! ‘Śliczny chłopiec’ (Handsome lad) was similarly winsome and full of playfulness, preparing us for the smouldering and teasing of Rossini’s ‘Canzonetta spagnuola’ which accelerated with gleeful confidence and devil-may-care abandon, as Alder raced through the vocal ripples.
As they accepted the spirited applause of the capacity Cadogan Hall audience, Alder thanked Matthewman with a warm hug. The performers obviously enjoyed themselves as much as we did.
This recital is available on BBC Radio 3 iPlayer for 28 days.
Claire Seymour
Proms at … Cadogan Hall 5: Louise Alder (soprano), Gary Matthewman (piano)
Schubert - ‘Gretchen am Spinnrade’, ‘Nacht und Träume’, ‘Die Forelle’; Mendelssohn - ‘Auf Flügeln des Gesanges’, ‘Der Mond’, ‘Neue Liebe’; Fanny Hensel - ‘Bergeslust’, ‘Warum sind denn die Rosen so blass’, ‘Nach Süden’; Liszt - ‘Freudvoll und leidvoll’, ‘O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst’, ‘S'il est un charmant gazon’, ‘Ah! quand je dors’, ‘Comment, disaient-ils’; Chopin - ‘Życzenie’, ‘Śliczny chłopiec’; Rossini - ‘Canzonetta spagnuola’.
Cadogan Hall, London; Monday 19th August 2019.