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."
‘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.
Our progress through the centuries was more or less chronological and began at the Elizabethan court. The programme notes explained that the repertoire chosen reflected ‘love in its ‘many different manifestations’: ‘life and loss; beauty and mortality; brave romance and fragility in rejection; the steadfast devotion of a mother’s love (heightened by the awareness of inevitable separation); and in the Christian narrative the Virgin Mary and the eventual ultimate sacrifice.’
I’m not sure how the two motets from Byrd’s 1589 Cantiones Sacrae, with their non-liturgical texts alluding to the persecution and penitence of Byrd’s fellow Roman Catholics in Protestant England, fit into this narrative, but, singing from memory, Apollo5 summoned an appropriate urgency in the opening phrases of ‘Vigilate’ (“Watch ye”), making the counterpoint lithe and strong. These motets were just as likely to have been sung in domestic settings, with a single voice to a part, as by full choirs during religious services, so the characterful interplay of the individual voices that we heard here was apt. The contratenor part pushed tenor Oli Martin-Smith a little high at times, and the lower lying soprano motifs did not always cut through the dense texture, but bass Greg Link’s sure foundations bound the whole neatly together. The texts were clearly enunciated, too, with the sentiments of each phrase communicated through dynamics and colour. Perhaps the sudden forte for the cock-crow (“an gallicantu”) after the descending hush of “an media nocte” (in the middle of the night) was a trifle too emphatic, but the homophonic declaration, “omnibus dico” (I say to you all), and subsequent final warning, was commanding and persuasive.
‘Ne irascaris Domine’ was a soothing appeal, with emphasis on the lyrical expansiveness of Byrd’s linear lines (I found the tempo a touch too leisurely), but the singers did not neglect the harmonic nuances: the sudden interjection of the minor mode with the command, “Ecce” (Behold), was pointed with a surge of vigour and volume, and the false relation that highlights “iniquitas” was made more portentous by the reduced texture and softening of the tone. I’m not certain, but I think that the individual lines were occasionally reassigned, presumably to accommodate voice ranges and create particular effects; the overall result was harmonious and full of feeling.
There were continental motets from the period, too, in the form of Francisco Guerrero’s ‘Veni Domine’ and Josquin des Prez’s four-part ‘Gaude virgo’, the latter allowing tenor Josh Cooter to relax for a few minutes and enjoy the vigorous and buoyant performance of his fellow singers. The tempo adopted for ‘Gaude virgo’ was brisk, rhythms were animated and consonants crisp. The paired vocal ‘sparring’ was full of energy, though occasionally I found Martin-Smith’s tenor a little too emphatic, particular when rising to the top or when initiating the final “Alleluia”. The blend of voices wasn’t always as liquid and silken, nor the phrasing as refined, as some other a cappella ensembles who specialise in this repertoire, but Apollo5 used the character of their individual voices to bring about the expressive development such as the compositional methods are designed to achieve, and to nurture the devotional fervour of the music; the intonation was immaculate.
Thomas Tallis’s psalm-setting, ‘Why fum’th in fight’, is probably most familiar as the ‘theme’ which inspired Vaughan Williams’s ‘Tallis’ Fantasia for string orchestra. I wondered if the five voices would be able to create the sustained fluency of the congregation hymn; the answer was, yes. Apollo5 demonstrated a natural feeling for the fluid homophonic phrases, singing with lyrical expressiveness and a lovely fresh tone. We heard only one verse of the hymn, the last note of which was held and transformed into the opening of ‘Lost Innocence’ by Paul Smith, who is also the chief executive of VOCES8.
It’s a brave composer who would set text drawn from W.H. Auden’s ‘Hymn to St Cecilia’, inevitably inviting comparison with Britten, but Smith embraces the challenge by incorporating references to Britten, Vaughan Williams and Tallis within his own largely homophonous and ‘hymn-like’ score, in which lines and phrases of the text are repeated and stepwise movements of the synchronised vocal lines produce passing, gentle dissonances - in the manner of Eric Whitacre - which resolve into bare and open chords, creating a reverential mood. Smith sets only the last of Auden’s three stanzas together with the final three lines of the preceding stanza. This choice of starting point not only breaks a semantic unit but also removes the context for Auden’s words, which transform the emotions of the first stanza, urging man to quell the inner struggle between natural passion and the civilised reason which is a result of his ‘fallen’ state, and instead to embrace the loss of innocence. There can be no ‘art’ without the artist’s suffering: “O wear your tribulation like a rose.” In Smith’s setting the emphasis falls on the children who are urged to “weep away the stain” of their lost innocence. Apollo5 clearly found much to respond to in Smith’s composition. A well-focused bass solo brought about a central climax, with the truth that “what has been may never be again”, and subsequently each singer took their turn to delineate Auden’s elusive images, culminating in Clare Stewart’s tender shaping of Auden’s final line.
‘Lost Innocence’ took us into the 21st century, and thereafter we stayed in recent and present times. Eric Whitacre’s website describes ‘This Marriage’ (2004), which sets text by Rumi, as a ‘a small and simple gift to my former wife on the occasion of our seventh wedding anniversary’. It was Martin-Smith’s turn to take a short break now, as the other four voices euphoniously sang Whitacre’s characteristically gloopy harmonies. Taylor Scott Davis’s ‘Music, When Soft Voices Die’ is more texturally diverse and employs exploratory harmonies to convey the tactile richness of Shelley’s imagery - vibrating voices, pungent scents and fragile rose petals. It was beautifully sung, the combined voices both soothing and luxuriant. The rose imagery was sustained in Michael McGlynn’s ‘Where all Roses Go’, which featured a lovely, easeful solo from Josh Cooter above an expressive carpet of vocalised undulating harmonies.
Just when the mood seemed to be turning a little too sombre, Apollo5 lightened the ambience by switching track and venturing into various popular repertoires of the 20th century. (As so often in these terrific Live from London recitals, the 18th and 19 th centuries were disregarded.) ‘These Foolish Things’ had a richness which belied the number of voices and, like Elton John’s ‘Your Song’, offered individual singers the opportunity to shine while the ensemble demonstrated the breadth of their colour palette and their rhythmic animation. The Beatles’ ‘Eleanor Rigby’ was a little hesitant initially but soon got into its stride; Blake Morgan’s interesting arrangement certainly poses a few vocal challenges, which Apollo5 negotiated confidently and stylishly. Martin-Smith sang Yahoo’s ‘Only You’ with gentle expressiveness, accompanied by a light ‘instrumental’ accompaniment which was given some slight percussive assistance from Cooter. An encore, Jerome Kern’s ‘The Way You Look Tonight’, closed the performance in swinging style.
On 19th September, The Sixteen perform Music For Reflection, Live from London.
Claire Seymour
Apollo 5: Penelope Appleyard (soprano), Clare Stewart (soprano), Josh Cooter (tenor), Oli Martin-Smith (tenor), Greg Link (bass)
William Byrd - ‘Vigilate’, ‘Ne irascaris Domine’; Francisco Guerrero - ‘Veni Domine’; Josquin des Prez - ‘Gaude Virgo’; Thomas Tallis - Psalm 2, ’Third Tune’ from Archbishop Parker’s Psalter; Paul Smith (for Apollo5) - ‘Lost Innocence’; Eric Whitacre - ‘This Marriage’; Taylor Scott Davis (for Apollo5) - ‘When Soft Voices Die’; Michael McGlynn - ‘Where all Roses Go’; Jack Strachey & Harry Link (arr. Jim Clements) - ‘These Foolish Things’; Elton John (arr. Matt Greenwood for Apollo5) - ‘Your Song’; The Beatles (arr. Blake Morgan for Apollo5) - ‘Eleanor Rigby’; Vince Clark (arr. VOCES8) - ‘Only You’.
Streamed live from the VOCES8 Centre, St Anne and St Agnes, City of London; Saturday 12th September 2020.