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."
There were eighteen rather than sixteen singers. And, though the concert was entitled Saint Cecilia the repertoire paid homage more emphatically to Mary, Mother of Jesus, and to the spirit of Christmas.
But, no matter. This performance by Harry Christophers’ ensemble at Kings Place was characteristically accomplished and well-composed, in terms of, respectively, the singers’ assurance (though I’m not sure why Christophers needed to employ pitch pipes between items, given the singers’ experience and the harmonic clarity and focus of the works performed) and the balance of compositional styles presented.
Britten’s ‘A Hymn to the Virgin’ (1931) opened proceedings, and here the strengths of The Sixteen were obvious: the clarity of diction; the persuasive nuance of suspension and dissonance; the give and take between phrases which creates fluency; the independence of voices where necessary which injects drama and vigour.
The programme included works by many women composers of the 20th and 21st centuries. Ruth Byrchmore’s ‘Prayer of St Teresa of Avila’ was noteworthy for the way harmonic stasis and movement were opposed, creating a dynamism that flowered in rich timbral majesty. In contrast, the lines of the composer’s ‘A Birthday (St Cecilia)’ seemed at times to be swimming against each other, resulting in no less dynamic urgency. The latter climaxed in a sustained proclamation, “my love is come to me”, through which the female voices seemed to evolve from a human to an instrumental to an almost abstract timbre.
We had two works by Cecilia McDowall, ‘Now may we singen’ and ‘Of a Rose’, both of which recalled carolling traditions - and the spirit of John Rutter - in their combinations of melody and drone, and the temporal flexibility which seems to be a direct representation of linguistic veracity. Similarly, there were two works by Margaret Rizza: ‘O speculum columbe’, which sprayed its harmonic light like a fan of colour in the opening stanza, and ‘Ave generosa’ which was one of the evening’s more individual and engaging offerings, bringing together soprano and alto solos in a complementary partnership and culminating in a blaze of jubilation: “Dei Genitricem. Amen.” (Mother of God. Amen)
The programme did evince an occasional waft of ‘English gentility’: Elizabeth Poston’s ‘Jesus Christ the apple tree’ was an exquisite dose of Christmas-come-early; The Sixteen’s Kim Porter showed her choral nous in ‘Christmas Eve’, combining contrapuntal dialogue with harmonic nuance. But any sense of comfort or complacency, however beautiful, was challenged most creatively by Alissa Firsova’s ‘Stabat Mater’, which foraged through piquant harmonic landscapes and sonorities, exploiting false relation and flattened ‘blue notes’, and sculpting an architectural expanse of quiet dignity. Similarly Peter Maxwell Davies’ ‘Lullaby for Lucy’ made its mark without undue ceremony: as the text spoke of “plants and creatures of the valley” which “Unite,/ calling a new/ Young one to join the celebration”, so the music expanded organically from tenor solo to tender intertwinings, culminating in startling luminosity: “Lucy came among them, all brightness and light.”
Ironically, if there was one item that left me feeling a bit ‘bristly’ it was Britten’s Hymn to Saint Cecilia. Though the text was well articulated throughout, I longed for more rhythmic swing and suaveness at the opening, to avoid the impression of English-country-house etiquette and stiff-upper-lips. In the second section, “I cannot grow”, there was precision but not tension: the counterpoint was precise but prim. The tuning of some of the unison refrains was not entirely settled, though there was a persuasive organ-like timbre and sonority at time for the appeal, “Blessed Cecilia, appear in vision”; the pause on “Love me” at the close of this second section was distinctly troubled intonation-wise.
With the arrival of the concluding Auden poem, “O ear whose creatures cannot wish to fall”, I longed for more fluency of line: all was absolutely accurate, but, for example, the men’s stepwise lines came across as separate notes rather than a melodic sweep. And, this may be an entirely personal preference or predilection, but I found soprano solo - though powerfully sung by Julie Cooper - too empowered and vibrant: this is surely an angelic song, and if we can’t have a boy soprano then we might have a voice which approximates the abstract elevation of such? Similarly, when it came to the poetic ‘punchline’, so to speak, I felt that Jeremy Budd’s solo tenor proclamation, “O wear your tribulation like a rose”, needed greater spaciousness to take in the import of the text; and that more precise tuning of the chord supporting the fanfare-like declaration was required. This work highlighted, too, the tendency of The Sixteen to over-sing in this venue; they did not need to cast their utterances into a cathedral’s sonic void that would magnify and return and enrich; the acoustic in Hall One is excellent, the space fairly intimate. Less would have been more at times.
Most affecting of all was Herbert Howells’ ‘Take him, earth, for cherishing’, which is often said to have been commissioned following the death of John F. Kennedy, though the real dedicatee is surely Howells’ son, Michael, who died 28 years earlier from polio. The initial unison challenged; imperatives, “Guard him well”, compelled; the counterpoint was simultaneously knotty and dynamic: “Comes the hour God hath appointed/ To fulfil the hope of men:” The plea to the Lord, “O take him, mighty Leader, Take again thy servant’s soul”, was expansive and compelling. The final prayer, “Take him, earth, for cherishing.”, was quietly touching. Christophers sculpted a cathedral of sound, simultaneously gracious and fragile.
Claire Seymour
The Sixteen:
Saint Cecilia
Harry Christophers (conductor)
Britten - Hymn to the Virgin, Ruth Byrchmore - Prayer of St Theresa of Avila, Britten - Hymn to Saint Cecilia, Cecilia McDowall - Now May We Singen, Margaret Rizza - O Speculum Columbe, Alissa Firsova - Stabat Mater, Howells - Take Him Earth for Cherishing, Kim Porter - Christmas Eve, Byrchmore - A Birthday (St Cecilia), McDowall - Of a Rose, Roxanna Panufnik - Prayer, Elizabeth Poston - Jesus Christ the Apple Tree, Maxwell Davies - Lullaby for Lucy, Rizza - Ave generosa.
Kings Place, London; Friday 29th November 2019.