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."
The death of his friend and mentor Franz Seiler, notary at the St Florian monastery to which he had returned as a teaching assistant in 1845, was the immediate circumstance which led the 24-year-old Anton Bruckner to compose his first large-scale sacred work: the Requiem in D minor for soloists, choir, organ continuo and orchestra, which he completed on 14th March 1849.
On his death, Seiler bequeathed Bruckner his Bösendorfer grand piano, which Bruckner kept all his life, and upon which he composed all his subsequent compositions; it now stands in the Bruckner memorial room of the St Florian monastery.
On 22nd November 2018, the RIAS Kammerchor performed the Requiem and Bruckner’s Libera me in F minor in the Chamber Music Hall of the Berlin Philharmonie, with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin and four vocal soloists: Johanna Winkel (soprano), Sophie Harmsen (mezzo-soprano), Michael Feyfar (tenor) and Ludwig Mittelhammer (baritone). Conducted by Łukasz Borowicz, and employing the new Anton Bruckner Urtext Complete Edition edited by Dr Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs, this live performance has been captured - alongside other early, funereal, choral music by Bruckner - for this recently released recording on the Accentus label.
The Requiem was first heard on 15th September 1849, the anniversary of Seiler’s death, with Bruckner himself playing the organ. A scholarly article (in German, French and English) in the liner booklet by Dr Cohrs, who is Head of the Vienna Bruckner edition, informs the listener about the complex issues relating to the sources of the Requiem: while Bruckner gave the autograph score to Franz Bayer in 1892, the composer’s original parts went missing after his death, and absence led to some inaccurate assumptions about subsequent revisions made by the composer. Modest forces were employed at the first performances: eight singers, including the soloists, seven strings, three trombones and organ. This recording adopts the forces - 22 strings, horn, three trombones and organ, and a 35-strong chorus - that were available to Bruckner for the performances of his masses at the Hofburg Chapel at the Imperial Palace in Vienna, where from 1878 Bruckner was organist.
If the syncopation and low, dark register of the opening bars of the ‘Requiem aeternum’ summon (sometimes almost verbatim) echoes of Mozart’s Requiem to mind, then the prevailing idiom seems to me more consistently to pay homage to the Baroque, or at least to a pre-Beethoven/Schubert Viennese age, though this is not to suggest that the music is lacking in interest: there are some striking timbral glances as the three trombones assert their robust nasal presence, for example. From the opening bars it is clear that music’s melodiousness and straightforward harmonic dramas would undoubtedly provide much enjoyment for able amateur choirs, for whom this recorded performance - persuasive of tempo, vivid of vocal colour, ever alert in the continuo - would provide an exemplary model.
The ‘Dies irae’ similarly echoes Mozart in its rhythmic vigour, energised strings, thunderous bass accents and stirring choral cries, which alternate with the solo quartet. But, however derivative Bruckner’s idiom, the chorus here summon a terrifying forward sweep, and the urgency carries through to solo voices - tenor Michael Feyfar’s lyricism in the short passage of recitative provides welcome respite - and the movement between moods and groupings is smoothly and coherently negotiated. The choral counterpoint feels more than an academic exercise, not least because of the excitement contributed by the string playing and the flexibility of the voices.
Baritone Ludwig Mittelhammer doesn’t quite have the solidity at the bottom to match the organ and low strings in the ‘Domine Jesu’, but when the chorus enter tremendous forward momentum is generated. And, the ‘Hostias’ for male solo quartet with trombones - the latter really make their presence felt - is beautifully tuned and blended. The fugal ‘Quam olim Abrahae promisisti’ (which follows Mozart’s formal example) is notable for the way in which the bass line and organ embed such vigour-inspiring foundations for the polyphonic architecture above; similarly striking is the grandeur of the tutti cries, ‘Gloria!’, in the ‘Sanctus’, which are further vivified by throbbing instrumental triplet quavers.
The ‘Benedictus’ for solo quartet feels especially Mozartian. The Andante marking is interpreted with sensible freedom - this is no amble in the park, but a purposeful statement of faith - and features a solo for horn in Bb which, Cohrs explains, the parts show was in Bruckner’s day played on the horn by a bass trombonist. Winkel’s soprano sits dynamically atop the solo quartet, the line inflected with lovely emphasis and gestures, while Feyfar’s tenor responses are notably pliant. The brief a cappella choral conclusion is honest and true, and leads into a short, but intensely beautiful ‘Agnus Dei’, in which Sophie Harmsen’s solo mezzo melody is full of feeling. The ‘Cum Sanctis’ makes for assertive conclusion: all spiky strings and majestic voices.
In his seventies, Bruckner is reported to have passed judgement on his Requiem: ‘It isn’t bad!’ That probably sums it up, but this performance is both persuasive and affecting. The Requiem lasts just under 30 minutes, and the rest of the Accentus disc comprises smaller choral works by Bruckner.
These include imposing works such as the Libera in F minor (Cohrs D02) and ‘Brüder, trocknet Eure Zähren’ (Vor Arneths Grab , Cohrs G01) which were performed at the funeral rites for Bruckner’s patron Prelate Michael Arneth on 28th March 1854. The former has some striking harmonic nuances at the start, but lapses into rather perfunctory polyphony, though the sense of strong belief never wavers, and here it is followed by an Aequales in F minor - the form draws upon the eighteenth-century tradition of performing music for three trombones and other wind at occasions of mourning - arranged by Dr Cohrs, and standing in for a work that the scholar believes originally followed the latter - a substantial funeral chorus - but which is now lost. ‘Brüder, trocknet Eure Zähren’ may itself be unadventurous harmonically and formally, but it has the beautiful directness of a Bach chorale and is sung here with genuine commitment and drama, and it resolves with consoling softness.
Several of the works included are world premiere recordings, such as the Libera in F (Cohrs E01) which Bruckner composed in 1845 when he returned to St Florian to become teaching assistant and organist-in-waiting at the monastery. The truthfulness of the performance here is very touching. Similarly recorded for the first time is ‘Vereint bist, Tönehheld und Meister’ (Nachruf! / Trösterin Musik, Cohrs H05) for large male chorus and organ, a work composed in memory of Josef Seiberl - Bruckner’s friend and successor as organist at St Florian who died on 10 th June 1877 - arranged here by Cohrs for smaller mixed choir and organ, but retaining all of the drama and passion of the original. The homophony and unisons defy the listener to ignore their pleas, and the sonorous organ entry expands the canvas thrillingly.
Dr Cohrs offers clear explanation regarding the performance decisions that have been taken, and why - in the light of missing scores, and ambiguous or contradictory extant sources - and of the circumstances of composition and first performances. The performance was clearly an endeavour characterised equally by scholarly endeavour and musical belief: it follows the 2018 Accentus release of Bruckner’s early Missa Solemnis , with almost the same quartet of soloists, tenor Sebastian Kohlhepp being replaced here by Feyfar.
Borowicz and his singers and players respect the sincerity of this music. Perhaps this disc might appeal most to those who are already Bruckner aficionados, but anyone whose heart is touched by Bruckner’s motets will surely find the directness of both the music and delivery undeniably powerful. This is authentic and beautiful music-making.
Claire Seymour