LFBM: An Exploration of Melancholy

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

London Festival of Baroque Music
Shut the Gate Against my Thoughts: An Exploration of Melancholy
Nardus Williams & Liz Kenny
Smith Square Hall. 30 October 2026

Photo: Camilla-Greenwell

This early evening concert took its title from the opening piece, John Danyel’s If I could shut the gate against my thoughts, the second line of which is And keep out sorrow from this room within. A noble sentiment, but not an appropriate on for a hour of music devoted to melancholy in its various musical forms. Billed as providing “Moments of profound lament lifted by flashes of wit and light, revealing melancholy not merely as sadness, but as a rich and complex emotional landscape”. That rich emotional landscape included music by John Dowland, Robert Johnson, Francesca Caccini, Claudio Monteverdi, and Barbara Strozzi with a focus on 16th and 17th Europe, the peak of the lute song repertoire.

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LFBM: Ensemble Théodora

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Ensemble Théodora
Concert: Wanderlust
London Festival of Baroque Music
Smith Square Hall. 28 October 2026
CD: Tranquilles Cœurs
Alpha. ALPHA1197. 60’49

The four Paris-based musicians of Ensemble Théodora (Mariamielle Lamagat, soprano, Louise Ayrton, violin, Alice Trocellier, viola da gamba, and Lucie Chabard, harpsichord) met as international students at London’s Royal Academy of Music. They returned to London for a concert as part of the London Festival of Baroque Music with their programme Wanderlust. Based on the music of Louis XIV’s French court and its influence of the music of the rest of Europe, the well-planned programme explored a musical dialogue between nations that reflected their own international origins. The concert was a slightly reduced version of their recent CD Tranquilles Cœurs with the subtitle “French Taste in German Courts”. This review covers the concert and the CD.

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LFBM The Mad Lover

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

London Festival of Baroque Music
The Mad Lover
Théotime Langlois de Swarte & Thomas Dunford
Smith Square Hall. 28 October 2026

Photo: Julien Benhamou (copied from the programme)

This concert, part of the week-long London Festival of Baroque Music, attracted a large and enthusiastic audience, helped, no doubt, by much advertising and media activity by the two French performers, violinist Théotime Langlois de Swarte and theorbo-player, Thomas Dunford and the fact that the concert was a live performance of their popular 2020 CD of the same name. I am not sure if they were forewarned, but the in-the-round performing space did them, or the audience, no favours at all. Both instruments are directional, so for most of the evening only those who sitting in one of the eight blocks directly in front of the two performers were able to hear them as intended. They did eventually attempt a rather awkward sort of 360 degree show, but it was a bit random and clearly unrehearsed. Quite what inspired the organisers to arrange the seating in such an awkard configuration is beyond me, as was the bizarre arrangements of rows and seat numbers, which meant that most people had to be escorted to their seats by staff.

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NSO: Charpentier David and Jonathan

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Charpentier: David and Jonathan
New Sussex Opera, Bellot Ensemble, Toby Purser
Theatre Royal, Winchester. 25 October 2026


New Sussex Opera and the Bellot Ensemble completed a short South-East England tour of Charpentier’s David and Jonathan with a performance in the Theatre Royal, Winchester, on World Opera Day. This follows their 2024 tour of The Dragon of Wantley, reviewed here. The first performance of David et Jonathas was at the Jesuit Collège of Louis-le-Grand, Paris in February 1688 when it was performed together with the play, Saul, with each of the five Acts of the Charpentier’s tragédie en musique interspersed with sections of the play. A huge success at the time, it was reprised at several other Jesuit colleges over the following 50 years, but was then more or less forgotten until recent times. New Sussex Opera is a community opera company based in Lewis, the community providing the chorus and various subsidiary solo roles in this production and, presumably, also helping to raise the funds for touring performances like this. Some of those funds went towards engaging the Bellot Ensemble, currently Radio 3 New Generation Baroque Ensemble and the six principal soloists for this production: Harun Ellis Tekin, David, Tom Lilburn, Jonathan, Massimo Modoni, Saul, Daniel Chomiak, Achis/Samuel, Nadiia Chaichenko, Pythoness, and Ambrose Chiu, Joabel.

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Academy of Ancient Music. “1765: Times of Transition”

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

1765: Times of Transition
Academy of Ancient Music
Laurence Cummings, Amanda Forsythe

Mozart: Symphony No.1in E-flat major
Philidor: Arias from Tom Jones
Haydn: Symphony No.39 in G minor
Telemann: Ino

One year, four composers, with a 76 year age-gap between them. Laurence Cummings and the Acadmeny of Ancient Music (AAM) opened their new season in Milton Court with Mozart, Haydn, Telemann and Philidor representing the year 1765 during a transitional age in music. It was the era of sturm und drang, the dramatic ‘storm and stress’ movement in German music and literature that emphasised deep emotions, individual freedom and love of nature. Along with the works of literature from the likes of Goethe and Schiller, came the musical reaction to the rational approach of the Enlightenment and Baroque and the start of the Classical period, a prelude to the upcoming early Romantic era. Composers such as Haydn, Gluck, and Mozart included elements of this genre, not least in angular themes, rapidly changing musical moods, and dramatic interventions. In opera, the increased use of fully orchestrated accompagnato recitatives took over from the baroque basso continuo genre.

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Organ recital: St Anne’s Limehouse

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Music for a Grand Exhibition Organ
Andrew Benson-Wilson
St Anne’s, Limehouse. Friday 2 October, 7:30

This is a rare opportunity to hear the magnificent 1850 Gray & Davison organ in the “Cathedral of the East End”, Nicholas Hawksmoor’s stunning 1730 church of St Anne’s, Limehouse. Before arriving in St Anne’s, it was displayed and won first prize at the 1851 Great Exhibition in Hyde Park. I gave a series of annual recitals many years ago at about the same time as a book was published that described the organ as “decrepit but still magnificent”. The idea of those recitals was to let people hear the important organ, whatever state it was in, before it became unplayable and forgotten. It then fell off my radar until recently, despite the much-needed William Drake restoration in 2006. I am delighted to be invited back for this recital.

The programme will contrast Bach organ music published in England around the time of the organ with dramatic and descriptive music composed in France at the same time. It was a time of increasing interest in Bach in England, largely through Mendelssohn, who prepared an edition of Bach’s Orgelbüchlein that was published in 1844 in Leipzig and London. 1850 was the centenary of Bach’s death, and a group of German composers, led by Schumann, founded the Bach Gesellschaft to publish the complete works of Bach.

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Music for a Grand Exhibition Organ. Programme notes

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Music for a Grand Exhibition Organ
Andrew Benson-Wilson
St Anne’s, Limehouse. Friday 2 October, 7:30


Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Alle Menschen müssen sterben BWV 643
Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein BWV 641
Ich ruf’ zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ BWV 639
Wer nur den lieben Gott läßt walten BWV 642

‘Cathedral’ Prelude and Fugue in E minor, BWV 533

Alexandre Pierre-François Boëly (1785–1858)
Quatour
Offertoire pour le Jour de Paques
Dialogue
Fantasia pour le verset Judex Crederis au Te Deum

Louis-James Alfred Lefébure-Wély (1817-1869)
Scène pastorale avec orage pour une inauguration d’orgue

J S Bach
‘St Anne’ Fugue in E flat, BWV 552

Welcome to a rare opportunity to hear the magnificent 1850 Gray & Davison organ in Nicholas Hawksmoor’s stunning 1730 church of St Anne’s, Limehouse – the “Cathedral of the East End”. The organ won first prize at the 1851 ‘Crystal Palace‘ Great Exhibition in Hyde Park. The organ features several gentle stops as well as some astonishingly powerful reeds. Around the late 1980s, I gave some annual recitals here, around the time a book was published that described the organ as “decrepit but still magnificent”. The idea of those recitals was to let people hear this important organ, whatever state it was in, before it became unplayable and forgotten. Following the 2006 William Drake restoration, I am delighted to be invited back for this recital.

All the proceeds from the retiring collection will go towards the continuing maintenance of this important organ.

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Rossini: Petite messe solennelle

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Rossini’s Petite messe solennelle
Monteverdi Choir, Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, Jakob Lehmann,
Robyn Allegra Parton, Natalie Lewis, Petr Nekoranec, Bogdan Talos
Alexandra Palace Theatre, 18 October 2026


This event was a musical revelation! Billed as “the first performance in modern times on period instruments” of the orchestrated version of Rossini’s Petite messe solennelle, this concert made it abundantly clear why it is so important to hear music played with the sound that the composer and early audiences would have heard. On this occasion, it was the orchestral forces of the appropriately named Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique with the Monteverdi Choir, brilliantly led by the very knowledgeable conductor Jakob Lehmann who had very obviously done a lot of research into the score and the musical background and performing conventions of the time. The venue was the enormous theatre in the Alexandra Palace complex with a surprisingly good acoustic for these musical forces, all enlivened by the sparse remains of some delightful wall decorations, all in a state of arrested decay.

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Laus Polyphoniae 2026, Antwerp

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Laus Polyphoniae 2026
Voices of Europe circa 1600: continent of counterpoint
Antwerp
21 – 29 August 2026


Laus Polyphoniae is the annual summer festival organised by AMUZ (Flanders Festival Antwerp), dedicated to the music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Since its inception in 1994, the festival has become the largest festival dedicated to the western heritage of polyphony following a focus on Historically Informed Performance (HIP). Following last year’s festival devoted to “Polyphony from the age of cathedral builders (1140-1440)”, this year the focus was on music of the decades around 1600 with Voices of Europe circa 1600: continent of counterpoint reflecting a period when music was at a defining moment of change as the polyphony of Palestrina gave way to the early Baroque gestures of Monteverdi. Music that would later be called Renaissance or Baroque existed in parallel, as demonstrated by the festival’s portrait of this many-voiced Europe as music printing opened the transmission of new ideas, as composers and scores migrated. Laus Polyphoniae also focuses on young up-and-coming talent through the International Young Artist’s Presentation (IYAP), reviewed here, held on the first Saturday of the Festival.

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Organ recital: the Spanish Golden Age

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Siglo de Oro: the Spanish Golden Age
Dramatic and sensuous organ music from the Spanish Golden Age
Andrew Benson-Wilson
St George’s, Hanover Square, Tuesday 8 September, 1:10


Organ music of the Spanish Golden Age (1500-c1700) is noted for its dramatic musical language and range of tonal colour. Pieces range from contrapuntal Tientos to extraordinary Battle Scenes, depicting the fight between Good and Evil – or between the Spanish and the Muslim armies of al-Andalus during the centuries leading up to the 1492 Reconquista. This recital will explore the wide range of musical styles of the period with Tientos, a Diferencias, Pasacalle, Gaitilla and a concluding Batalha by Antonio de Cabezón, Sebastián Aguilera de Heredia, Francisco Correa de Arauxo, Pablo Bruna, Gabriel Menalt, Sebastián Durón, and António Correa Braga.

This follows Andrew’s recent Grosvenor Chapel recital of music from Francisco Correa de Arauxo’s monumental Facultad Orgánica, published 400 years ago in 1626.

Details of the 2012 Richards, Fowkes & Co organ in
St George’s Hanover Square organ can be found here and here.

Admission is free, with a retiring collection.
Programme notes will be posted here in due course.

Laus Polyphoniae 2026: International Young Artist’s Presentation

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Laus Polyphoniae 2026
International Young Artist’s Presentation (IYAP)
AMUZ, Antwerp. 22 August 2026

The annual International Young Artist’s Presentation (IYAP) is a coaching and presentation scheme promoted by AMUZ (the Flanders Festival Antwerp) and Musica. Its aim is to help promising young musicians “grow into tomorrow’s stars”. Six young early music ensembles are invited to three days of coaching by early music specialists before performing short programmes during public concerts on the first Saturday of the Laus Polyphoniae festival (reviewed here). Although part of the festival, their music is not linked to the festival programme. Unlike many similar international young artist events, this is not a competition but an informal opportunity for young musicians to develop their performing style. An invited group of concert promoters and influential others comment privately on these public performances. Scarily for me (and possibly them) my reviews are far from private, but I hope they will be equally helpful.

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York Early Music Festival

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

York Early Music Festival
3-11 July 2026

The 2026 York Early Music Festival celebrated its 50th birthday with a week of performances from Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers to Bruhn’s/Keiser’s St Mark Passion, including a commemoration of the 400th anniversary of John Dowland. I was there to review the closing event of the festival, the two days of informal concerts and the final of the biennial York Early Music International Young Artists Competition (reviewed here), but managed to take in a few of the festival events.

By far the most important of the festival concerts I attended was the final one, on 10 July in The Quire of York Minster, when Solomon’s Knot presented their version of a St Mark Passion. This was composed in Hamburg around 1700, copied out by Bach in the early 1710s, and revived ot exactly 400 years ago in Leipzig on Good Friday 1726. This is the version performed, although Bach also adapted it for a performance in the mid-1740s. Originally billed in the Festival as by Bruhns (not the earlier North German organist, but the music director at Hamburg Cathedral), but more usually referred to as by Kaiser, the far more likely composer. The link to the programme notes for this, and other festival concerts, can be found here. Whoever composed it, it is a remarkable piece, with fascinating insights into the Passion tradition in North Germany during Bach’s youth. It also raised interesting aspects of performance in a huge space like York Minster.

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2026 York Early Music International Young Artists Competition

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

2026 York Early Music International Young Artists Competition
National Centre for Early Music
York, 9-11 July 2026

The biennial York Early Music International Young Artists Competition was founded in 1985. It takes place in the National Centre for Early Music (NCEM) in the impressively restored and extended former church of St Margaret’s, Walmgate in York. It forms the conclusion of the annual York Early Music Festival, celebrating its 50th birthday this year. A few events from the Festival are reviewed here.The theme for the festival was Beyond Borders, which perfectly sums up the focus of the Young Artists Competition, with its international cohort of performers presenting music from around the world, ranging from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century, using historically informed playing techniques, instruments and stylistic conventions. The competition is open to ensembles of at least three people, with performers aged 36 years or under, with an average age of 35 years or under on the day of the final. During the two days before the final, the nine ensembles gave informal concerts, with no judges present, all compared by Steven Devine. The final was livestreamed and recorded by BBC Radio 3. Highlights will be broadcast on the Early Music Show on 30 August at 5pm, and will be available afterwards on BBC Sounds.

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Mozart 250. “Ronald Brautigam plays Mozart”

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Mozart 250
“Ronald Brautigam plays Mozart“
The Mozartists, Ian Page, Ronald Brautigam
Cadogan Hall, 30 June 2026


Serenata notturna, K.239
Piano Concerto No. 6 in B flat major, K.238
Piano Concerto No. 8 in C major, ‘Lützow’, K.246
Divertimento in D major, K.251

The Mozartists’ innovative MOZART 250 project travels 250 years back in time to follow the chronological trajectory of Mozart’s life, works and influences. Starting on the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s childhood visit to London in January 2015, the project is now following Mozart’s musical life, year by year, up to 2041, the 250th anniversary of his death. Ronald Brautigam is one of the world’s leading fortepianists, with an award-winning discography of the complete concertos and sonatas of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven. For this, his twice Covid delayed début with Ian Page and The Mozartists, he performed two concertos that Mozart wrote in Salzburg during the first half of 1776, bookended by two other pieces from 1776: the Serenata notturna K.239 and the Divertimento in D major, K.251. Playing a reproduction of an 18th-century Viennese Walter fortepiano (by Paul McNulty), this was a rare opportunity to experience the sound-world of the 20-year-old Mozart.

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In the Belly of the Beast 

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

“In the Belly of the Beast“
Élisabeth Claude Jacquet de La Guerre: Cantates Bibliques
Carolyn Sampson, Mariana Rodrigues
Liam Burne, Lynda Sayce, Alice Earll
Metronome London, 27 June 2026


London’s latest record-breaking heatwave, combined with the lack of air conditioning at the previous evening’s venue, turned this into the opening event of this year’s Spitalfields Festival. The air conditioning at this event in Metronome London (a small black-box venue forming part of a new building that seems to house elements of various out-of-London universities) certainly made itself felt, to the bizarre extent that the organisers emailed attendees to warn them to bring additional clothing, something that was apparently easier than anybody actually turning the air conditioning down! The concert featured a staging of three of Élisabeth Claude Jacquet de La Guerre’s Cantates françoises sur des sujets tirez de l’Écriture à voix seule, et basse-continue, published in two volumes in 1708 and 1711, sometimes referred to as Cantates Bibliques.

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The Four Seasons for Percussion & Strings

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

The Rhythm of the Seasons
Vivaldi’s Four Seasons for Percussion & Strings
Figure Ensemble, James Larter, Frederick Waxman
The Great Hall, Barts North Wing. 25 June 2026

This was Vivaldi, but not as you know it – an arrangement by James Larter and Frederick Waxman for a small Baroque orchestra and an impressive array of percussion instruments. It was first performed last year and has been recorded for release next year. As well as the music, I was also attracted by the chance to see the newly restored Great Hall of Barts North Wing and its spectacular Hogarth staircase, part of a 1730 redesign by architect James Gibbs.

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AAM: Handel Serse

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Handel: Serse
Academy of Ancient Music, Laurence Cummings
Barbican Hall, 19 June 2026

Perhaps one day somebody will compose an opera about a magalomaniac world leader wreaking havoc on the state of Persia (aka Iran), while constructing vast self-promotional construction projects at home. If so, that might trump the storyline of Handel’s Serse, an opera based on the antics of Xerxes I, the successor of Darius the Great of the Achaemenid Empire, first performed in London in April 1738. Xerxes was depicted in Aeschylus’ play The Persians, first performed in 472 BCE, shortly after Xerxes ill-fated invasion of Greece. The play presents him as an effeminate figure whose “hubristic effort to bring both Asia and Europe under his control leads to the ruin of both himself and his kingdom”. Later commentators describe him as “a power-crazed despot, inept, ridiculous, self-serving, self-loving, narcissistic ruler of the free world, with claims to be a god-king”.

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English Baroque Soloists: Haydn in London

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Haydn in London
English Baroque Soloists
Peter Whelan, Christophe Coin
St Martin-in-the-Fields, 18 June 2026

Charlotte Spruit, leader of the English Baroque Soloists

Haydn: Symphony No. 100 in G major (Military)
Haydn: Cello Concerto No. 2 in D major
J.C. Bach: Symphony in G minor
Haydn: Symphony No. 104 in D major (London)

Haydn is a little outside my usual early music reviewing radar, apart from the occasional Creation, which I’m afraid always gives me the giggles. So an evening with three major Haydn pieces was a bit of an eye and ear opener for me. Part of the 300th anniversary celebrations of St Martin-in-the-Fields, this concert from the English Baroque Soloists featured music written and first performed within a stone’s throw of the church. A pre-concert talk by historian Katherine Alcock set the historic scene, with conductor Peter Whelan joining for a discussion on the evening’s music.

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Rune. Lost in Contemplation: Saints and Miracles

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Rune
Lost in Contemplation: Saints and Miracles
St. Bartholomew the Great, Smithfield. 26 May 2026

Rune, the five-strong group specialising in music “from 700 years ago and beyond”, completed a UK tour at their home base of St. Bartholomew the Great in London’s Smithfield, one of the finest medieval buildings in London, where they are Medieval Ensemble in Residence. Their concert was based on four stories of miracles, each illustrated by sequences of music, sacred and secular, ranging from 12th century Occitan Troubadour songs to the 15th century polyphony of Machaut, with birdsong-related and Marian music in between. The four stories were narrated by the members of the group, to the varying degrees of comprehension allowed by the microphone and loudspeaker situation.

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A Venetian Coronation 1565

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

A Venetian Coronation 1565
Gabrieli, Paul McCreesh
Temple Church, 19 May 2026

photo: Frances Marshall, from 2022 St John’s, Smith Square rehearsals

Under the auspices of Temple Music, Paul McCreesh’s Gabrieli (formally Gabrieli Consort) brought their large-scale liturgical reconstruction of the 1595 Coronation Mass for the Venetian Doge Marino Grimani. This was first performed in St John’s, Smith Square, in 1990 and has since been recorded twice and performed numerous times around the world, most recently in London in 2022 in a return to St John’s, Smith Square. I have heard this on several occasions, including the 2022 performance and during the reopening of Christ Church Spitalfields in 2005. The big advantage of those performances was the layout of the churches, both having galleries running the full length of the church, allowing the multidimensional aspects of the event to be portrayed in a manner that could be considered close to the original performance. That was in St Mark’s, Venice, the Doge’s private chapel as well as the state church of Venice. The music for such ceremonial events would have been focused on the central seats for the Doge and his entourage rather than the wider audience spaced around the rest of the church. Organs, instruments and singers were positioned on galleries on either side of the Doge’s central space.

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AAM/Wave. Rhythm Across Time

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Rhythm Across Time
Academy of Ancient Music, Wave Quartet, Bojan Čičić
Milton Court, 14 May 2026

Bertali: Ciaccona in C major
Geminiani: Concerto Grosso No 12 ‘La Folia’, after Corelli Op 5
Handel: Chaconne in G major HWV 435
Bach: Concerto in A minor BWV 1065 (arr for marimbas and strings)
Piazzolla: Concerto ‘Aconcagua’: Moderato, Presto
Festa: Variations on ‘La Spagna’ – Contrapunto 46, 88, 77 and 108
Bach: Harpsichord Concerto in C major BWV 1061 (arr for marimbas and strings)

The Academy of Ancient Music (AAM) continued its innovative sequence of concerts during its 2015/16 Cambridge and London season, a collaboration with the Wave Quartet of four marimba players, based in Vienna. In their pre-concert talk, mention was made of a shared Austro-Hungarian Empire heritage between the Croatian AAM director Bojan Čičić and the Romanian founder of Wave, Bogdan Bacanu, although the fact that the Dual Monarchy ended in 1918 suggests that the cultural link was perhaps not so strong. It could be argued that the same applied to this concert, where, I suggest, there were several cultural clashes. The catalyst for this concert was a similar combined event in 2019, also in Milton Court.

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Baroquestock. King Arthur

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Baroquestock Festival
Purcell: King Arthur
Istante Collective, Matthew Brown, Natalie Coury
Heath Street Baptist Church, Hampstead. 10 May 2016

Under the title of “Possible Planets, Musical Spheres”, the latest annual Baroquestock Festival has been bringing the crowds into Hampstead’s homely Heath Street Baptist Church, notably for two performances of Purcell’s King Arthur. The original was first performed in May 1691 in the form of the very English Restoration genre of semi-opera, combining a spoken play with a series of musical masques at intervals during the play, reflecting aspects of the play, but usually without any of the principal roles of the play. Although it is usually performed just as a musical suite, this innovative production included enough elements of the spoken text and action to get a feel of a 17th century performance, aided by some impressive acting from the five singers, and real acting and narration from Christopher Hunter and dance from Tamra Hinson.

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The Roaring (16)20s. Dulwich. 17 May

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

The Chapel of Christ of Alleyn’s College of God’s Gift
Gallery Road, Dulwich, SE21 7AD
Sunday 17 May, 2026. 3pm

THE ROARING (16)20s

Andrew Benson-Wilson, organ


The 1620’s saw an enormous burst of organ music publications throughout Europe. This recital features some of the organ music published in, or from manuscripts dated from, the 1620s, from composers such as Frescobaldi, Sweelinck, Cosyn, Titelouze, Bull, Steigleder, Correa de Arauxo, and Scheidt.

The organ of The Chapel of Christ of Alleyn’s College of God’s Gift is William Drake’s 2009 restoration of the 1760 George England organ. The College and Chapel itself was founded in 1616, a few years before the 1620’s started to roar!

Admission free – retiring collection
Post-concert refreshments
Organ details here

The Chapel and College adjoin the Dulwich Art Gallery
Free street parking

Mozart Requiem: The Portuguese Historical Score

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Mozart Requiem: The Portuguese Historical Score
Americantiga Ensemble, Ricardo Bernardes
Americantiga AAE2601. 45′

As the 2020 Covid lockdowns started, I reviewed a livestreamed concert from Portugal that a cellist friend of mine was playing in. You can read that review here, That concert, given by the Americantiga Ensemble under the local Covid restrictions of the time (which allowed a maximum of 10 people and no audience), included the première of an anonymous early 19th-century version of Mozart’s Requiem based on a manuscript found in the Cathedral of Évora. That included the vocal text of Mozart’s original, but required just four singers and a completely different chamber-style accompaniment based on basso continuo instruments (cello, two bassoons, double bass, and organ) – the cello part (played by Pedro Massarrão) is particularly prominent. They have now realised a world premiere recording of that Requiem, as part of the 30th anniversary of the Americantiga Ensemble.

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MOURN: Figure, Alkanna Graeca

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

MOURN
Figure, Alkanna Graeca
Frederick Waxman, Alexandra Achillea
Stone Nest. 17 April 2026

Event promotional photo: “Nyx (the night),” 2019 by Ioanna Sakellaraki

Stone Nest is not a typical early classical music venue, and this wasn’t a typical early classical music concert. A former Welsh Presbyterian church, since 1982 it has been a nightclub, a pub, a squat, and, since 2012, a new (work in progress) home for performing arts in central London. The smoke-filled space prevented me from appreciating the architecture of the internal space, but gave a clue as to the nature of the performance to come. That was a joint production between Frederick Waxman’s “forward-thinking” historical performance ensemble, Figure, who are “committed to reaching new and existing audiences through immersive musical experiences”, and the three singers of Alkanna Graeca, specialists in polyphonic music from the Balkans, the Mediterranean, and the Black Sea, blending “raw folk traditions with soundscapes and improvised sounds”. Their programme brought together these seemingly disparate strands in an extraordinary musical-theatrical exploration of the experience of loss, imaginatively staged by Alkanna Graeca’s Alexandra Achillea‍ and Konstantina-Maria Spyropoulou‍, with musical direction by Frederick Waxman.

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AAM: The Chosen One

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson


‘The Chosen One’
Academy of Ancient Music, Laurence Cummings
Rowan Pierce, Helen Charlston, Nick Pritchard, Ben Kazez
Milton Court. 16 April 2026

Christoph Graupner: Lobet den Herrn, alle Heiden
Christian Friedrich Rolle: Es wurden aber auch and Verdammliche Bosheit
Georg Friedrich Kauffmann: O ich elender Mensch, wer wird mich erlösen?
Georg Philipp Telemann: Ich muß auf dem Bergen weinen und heulen
Johann Friedrich Fasch: Concerto for Flute and Oboe
Johann Sebastian Bach: Du Wahrer Gott und Davids Sohn

The story behind Bach’s eventual 1723 appointment as Leipzig Thomaskantor is well known, but the details of the appointment process are perhaps less so. This programme aimed to shed a closer light on the appointment process by playing the music that some of the candidates performed during their audition. The post of Thomaskantor consisted of far more than the title implies – its official title was Cantor et Director Musices, which better describes the twin roles. As Cantor, he was responsible for directing the music in Leipzig’s four Lutheran churches: the Thomaskirche, Nikolaikirche, Neue Kirche, and Peterskirche. He also had important responsibilities at the Thomasschule, including selecting pupils, and teaching music and Latin. As the Director Musices, he was the principal musician of Leipzig, with civic responsibilities for providing music for official occasions, together with music for the university, usually at the Paulinerkirche. He reported to the city council, the Thomasschule rector, and the Thomaskirche superintendent, but it was the former who ran the auditions and made the decisions on the appointment. 

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Vox Luminis: Johann Sebastiani & Agostino Steffani. Music for the Passion

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Johann Sebastiani & Agostino Steffani. Music for the Passion
Vox Luminis, Lionel Meunier
Jacob Lawrence, Sönke Tams Freier, Tessa Roos
Wigmore Hall, 1 April 2026

Johann Sebastiani (1622-1683): Das Leyden und Sterben unsers Herrn und Heylandes Jesu Christi nach dem heiligen Matthaeo
Agostino Steffani (1654-1728): Stabat mater

The adventurous Belgian early music ensemble, Vox Luminis, directed by Lionel Meunier, brought their enchanting programme of music for Holy Week to the Wigmore Hall, focusing on music for Passiontide by two little-known composers active in Germany in the mid-17th and early 18th centuries, one Calvanist, the other Catholic. The key work was Johann Sebastiani’s Das Leyden und Sterben unsers Herrn und Heylandes Jesu Christi nach dem heiligen Matthaeo a Matthew Passion in all but name. Sebastiani was born in Weimar and may well have studied in Italy. In 1661 he became Kantor at Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) Cathedral and later Court Kapellmeister to the Elector of Brandenburg. Königsberg was part of the Hohenzollern’s Duchy of Prussia. When Sebastiani arrived, Frederick William (the “Great Elector” of Brandenburg) had just taken full control over the duchy, bringing with him the Calvinism that presumably dates back to his early years in the Netherlands during the Thirty Years’ War.

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Vivanco – Missa pro defunctis

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Sebastián de Vivanco – Missa pro defunctis, Motets
The Renaissance Singers, David Allinson
Toccata Classics, TOCC0770. 66’01


Sebastián de Vivanco’s Missa pro defunctis, a setting of the Office for the Dead, was not published and survives only in two incomplete and differing manuscript versions found in two Spanish cities many decades after Vivanco’s death in 1622. These have now been reconstructed in a critical edition by Jorge Martín. The Renaissance Singers, directed by David Allinson, are the first choir to record this magnificent work, alongside related motets by Vicanco and Cristóbal de Morales, Bernardino de Ribera, Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla, and Melchor Robledo. They formally launch the CD on March 28th 2026, during the Masters of Ávila: Vivanco, Victoria, Ribera concert in St Mary’s, Bourne Street, London. Shortly after that concert, the Renaissance Singers will sing in Ávila Cathedral, where Vivanco had his musical training and where one of the two manscripts survive. They will perform the Missa pro defunctis along with music by Tomás Luis de Victoria, Vivanco’s near-contemporary, and music by Bernardino de Ribera, the teacher of both composers when they were choirboys at Ávila Cathedral.

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Programme note. Correa de Arauxa: “Libro de tientos . . . Facultad organica” (1626)

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Mayfair Organ Concerts – The Grosvenor Chapel
17 March 2026

Andrew Benson-Wilson
Early Music Day recital

Francisco Correa de Arauxo (1584–1654)
Libro de tientos y discursos de musica practica y theoríca de organo (1626)

Tiento de Quinta Tono 6′
Tiento de Quarto Tono 4’30
Segundo Tiento de Quarto Tono – a modo de canción 5’30
Quinto Tiento de Medio Registro de Baxones de Primero Tono 4’30
Tiento de dos tiples, de Septimo Tono 7′
Tiento de medio registro de tiple de Sexto Tono – a modo de Batalla 10′

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Early Music Day. Correa de Arauxa: “Libro de tientos . . . Facultad organica” (1626)

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Mayfair Organ Concerts
Andrew Benson-Wilson, organ
The Grosvenor Chapel
South Audley Street, Mayfair, London W1K 2PA
Tuesday 17 March 2026, 1:10

Francisco Correa de Arauxo (1584–1654)
Libro de tientos y discursos de musica practica y theoríca de organo
intitulado Facultad organica (1626)

Tiento de Quinta Tono (5)
Tiento de Quarto Tono (15)
Segundo Tiento de Quarto Tono – a modo de canción (16)
Quinto Tiento de Medio Registro de Baxones de Primero Tono (34)
Tiento de dos tiples, de Septimo Tono (54)
Tiento de medio registro de tiple de Sexto Tono – a modo de Batalla (63)

This year’s annual Early Music Day recital focuses on the publication, exactly 400 years ago, of the monumental Libro de tientos y discursos de música practica, y theorica de organo intitulado Facultad organica (“Book of Tientos and Discourses on Practical and Theoretical Organ Music entitled Organic Faculty“) by the Spanish organist, composer, and theorist Francisco Correa de Arauxo.

Correa de Araujo was born in Seville. In 1599, aged just 15, he became organist of San Salvador, the second most important church in Seville. He became a priest around 1608, but became embroiled in various tussles with the authorities. In 1608, he was ordained as a priest. He maintained the Seville post until 1636 when, after many unsuccessful attempts to become cathedral organist, he was, after four years at Jaén Cathedral, appointed organist at Segovia Cathedral, where he stayed for the rest of his life, despite repeated offers from Seville to return as cathedral organist.

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