Pieter Dirksen: Jan Pieterzoon Sweelinck

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Jan Pieterzoon Sweelinck: The Orpheus of Amsterdam
Pieter Dirksen
English translation.
ISBN: 978-90-9041698-4. 266 pages. 210x150x18mm.
Uitgeverij Caecilia, Culemborg, 2026.

Sweelinck Clavierwerke II


Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1561-1621) has been hailed as the finest composer from the Northern Netherlands. Based in Amsterdam, his fame as an organ and harpsichord player and composer was legendary, but it was as a teacher that he was most influential, gathering a large number of students, particularly from Germany, who, on their return, helped to found the influential 17th-century North German organ school that eventually led to Dietrich Buxtehude and influenced Johann Sebastian Bach. Pieter Dirksen is a renowned authority on the music and life of Sweelinck, both as a performer and a scholar. Together with Harald Vogel, he edited the Breitkopf edition of Sweelinck’s complete keyboard works, reviewed here. In 2021, on the 400th anniversary of Sweelinck’s death, Pieter Dirksen wrote the original Dutch version of this book, and it has now been published in his own English translation, launched during a February Cambridge Academy of Organ study day. Although there is little available information about Sweelinck’s life, this book reveals what is known about him and places his music within the context of the developing city of Amsterdam.

Continue reading →

Krebs: Keyboard Works Volume 6

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Johann Ludwig Krebs (1713-1780)
Keyboard Works, Volume 6
Steven Devine, harpsichord
Resonus Classics RES10376 (70’50)


Sechs Preambulis (Vier Pieces, Part 1, 1740)
Suite No. 5 in F Major, (Clavier-Übung, Part IV, 1746) Krebs-WV 811
Suite in A Minor ‘nach dem heutigen Gusto’ (Vier Pieces, Part 2, 1741) Krebs-WV 819

The twice-extended series of recordings of the complete harpsichord works of Johann Ludwig Krebs (Bach’s ‘favourite pupil’) has reached what now seems to be its conclusion with the release of the sixth and (we are, perhaps rashly, promised) the final volume. This disc focuses on the first two parts of the Krebs collection ‘Vier Pieces’, dating from 1740/41. Krebs had left the Leipzig Bach circle in 1737 to become organist at the Marienkirche in Zwickau. The organ was in poor condition, and Krebs’ efforts to commission a new Silbermann failed. He stayed until 1744 by which time he had married and had his first child. He also wrote a lot of music during that time, including the Vier Pieces.

Continue reading →

OAE. Mozart’s World: The Last Symphonies

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Mozart’s World: The Last Symphonies (1788)
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Robin Ticciati
The Anvil, Basingstoke. 25 February 2026

The final few years of a composer’s life can often be a time of reflection, a re-evaluing of a lifetime’s work and, often, a burst of new compositions or revision of earlier works. However, with Mozart, it appears that his final years were not as well-planned. Did he realise that the 1788 Symphonies 39, 40 and 41 would be his last? How would we view them if they turned out to be the culmination of what might be called Mozart’s “middle period”? Would they have achieved the status they now have?

Continue reading →

Solomon’s Knot: George Jeffreys

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Solomon’s Knot
George Jeffreys & the Birth of the English Baroque
Jonathan Sells, William Whitehead, Federay Holmes
Wigmore Hall, 24 February 2026

George Jeffreys: Lost Majesty – Sacred Songs & Anthems
Prospero Classical. PROSP0086. 2CDs, 46’53 & 39’08

George Jeffreys (c1610-1685) was, in 1643, very briefly organist to Charles I during his time at Oxford during England’s Civil War, presumably based in Christ Church where Charles was living. That, as far as the public record of this mysterious composer is concerned, would seem to be the pinnacle of his musical career. Other records of his life only refer to his time as steward to the Hattons of Kirby, with responsibility for running the Kirby Hall estate while Christopher Hatton (Lord Hatton) was busy acting as comptroller of the royal household to Charles I before moving to France during the Commonwealth and, after the Restoration, becoming a rather unsuccesfull governor of Guernsey, as was his son, Viscount Hatton. In the meantime, George Jeffreys combined his estate management duties at Kirby with absorbing and copying what was then the largest collection of Italian music in the country, helpfully housed in Hatton’s library at Kirby.

Continue reading →

J S Bach:’Marvellous are thy works’

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Johann Sebastian Bach: ‘Marvellous are thy works’
Michael Maul
English translation by Stewart D Spencer
Hardback, 220 pages, 220x142mm, ISBN: 978-1-7391103-7-6
Jaywood Press

Michael Maul’s monograph, Johann Sebastian Bach: ‘ Marvellous are thy works’ has now been released in an English translation. His book aims to make Bach’s cantatas more accessible through this “passionate declaration of love for his composer-god,” aiming to inspire readers to listen anew to Bach’s works. The German edition won the 2023 Gleim Literature Prize for a work on 18th-century cultural history. Maul gives descriptions and reflections on the three Leipzig cycles of cantatas, the Matthew Passion and the B minor Mass. He also includes rather curious “personal monologues”, where he records several one-sided conversations with Bach, which he uses to promote his own observations and questions without, perhaps sensibly, allowing Bach to respond. The book comes with a Spotify playlist, accessed via a QR code, with tracks referenced throughout the book.

Continue reading →

Academy of Ancient Music: Songs of Love & War

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Songs of Love & War
Academy of Ancient Music
Laurence Cummings, Ed Lyon, Anna Dennis
Milton Court, 12 February 2026


In a programme that has its roots in the first interaction between a post-grad singing student (tenor, Ed Lyon) and his tutor at the Royal Academy of Music (Laurence Cummings), the Academy of Ancient Music (AAM) presented a programme of Monteverdi’s 1738 Eighth book of madrigals, Madrigali guerrieri et amorosi (Madrigals of Love and War). Lyon had asked to do Monteverdi’s Eighth Book, a request that Cummings wasn’t able to fulfil – until now. Further musical links between Cummings and Lyon also involved soprano Anna Dennis, making for a wonderful vocal pairing for this inspiring concert.

Continue reading →

The Mozartists:Mozart Birthday Concert

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Mozart Birthday Concert
The Mozartists, Ian Page
Zheng Jiang, Alexander Semple
Cadogan Hall. 27 Januarys 2026


Mozart: Entr’acte from Incidental Music to Thamos, König in Ägypten, K.345
Mozart Concert Aria, “Ombra felice… Io ti lascio”, K.255
Haydn: Symphony No. 69 in C major, ‘Laudon’
Mozart: Two Entr’actes from Incidental Music to Thamos, König in Ägypten, K.345
Haydn: Three arias from Die Feuersbrunst
Mozart: Symphony from Serenade in D major, K.250, ‘Haffner’

The Mozartists‘ continued their ambitious MOZART 250 project, now entering its 12th year, with a 270th birthday concert featuring music composed during 1776. On his 20th birthday, Mozart was in Salzburg, as he would be for the whole of 1776, for the first time since he was five. By his standards, it was to prove a relatively quiet year, although it is worth remembering that he had by then already composed more than thirty symphonies, around half of his operas and all of his violin concertos! It does seem as though 1776 represented a valuable stage in his artistic development, with one writer commenting (in reference to the Haffner serenade that concluded this concert), “1776 sees the full blossoming of his rarest gifts of music and poetry.”

Continue reading →

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)

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.

Continue reading →

OAE. Mozart’s World: A Little Night Music

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Mozart’s World: A Little Night Music
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
Kati Debretzeni, director, Katherine Spencer, clarinet
The Anvil, Basingstoke. 20 January 2026

Kati Debretzeni

Juan Crisóstomo de Arriaga:  Overture in F minor Op. 1 (1817)
Mozart:  Clarinet concerto
Michael Haydn:  Divertimento in G (1780)
Mozart:  Eine kleine Nachtmusik

The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment is opening its 40th anniversary year with a short tour of a fascinating programme that, in inevitable OAE style, merges well-known pieces with little-known gems. They started their tour in the excellent acoustic of Basingstoke’s Anvil concert hall, a space that, although large, coped with the modest chamber-sized band with an appropriate intimacy. The three composers were linked by time, birthdays and friendship. Two of Mozart’s best-known pieces were balanced by music from his friend Michael Haydn and the extensively monikered Basque composer, Juan Crisóstomo Jacobo Antonio de Arriaga y Balzola, born in Bilbao 50 years to the day after Mozart. He was known as the ‘Spanish Mozart’ in honour of his prodigious talent, the birthdate link, and his tragically early death, just before his 20th birthday. Another link, which the concert organisers may not have noticed, is that both Arriaga and Mozart shared the same first two baptismal names (based on their birthdays being the feast of St. John Chrysostom, although Mozart’s first names of Joannes Chrysostomus didn’t last much beyond baptism.

Continue reading →

The Gesualdo Six: Death of Gesualdo

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Death of Gesualdo
The Gesualdo Six, Owain Park, Concert Theatre Works, Bill Barclay
St Martin in the Fields, 16 January 2026


Billed as a “theatrical concert”, this follow-up to the 2023 Secret Byrd (reviewed here) featured The Gesualdo Six (director Owain Park) again pairing with Concert Theatre Works for a staged reflection on the life (and death) of the extraordinary madrigal composer, Carlo Gesualdo (1566-1613). Co-commissioned by St Martin-in-the-Fields to mark its 300th anniversary, The National Centre for Early Music in York and Music Before 1800 in New York City, this was the first performance before a short tour to York (Sunday 18 and Monday 19 January and New York’s St. John the Divine (Friday 13 February 2026. It was described as a “Stations of the Cross” for the composer’s tortured conscience, and sought to show “how the life and music of this enigmatic prodigy function”.

Continue reading →

Bach: Christmas Oratorio

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Bach Christmas Oratorio
The Hanover Band and Chorus, Andrew Arthur
Philippa Hyde, Tim Morgan, Bradley Smith, Edward Grint
Kings Place, 22 December 2025

Bach’s Christmas Oratorio (Weihnachtsoratorium, BWV 248) is a collection of six cantatas performed in Leipzig on six separate occasions over the 1734 Christmas period. Each cantata was performed twice, in the Thomaskirche and the Nikolaikirche. They were performed on December 25th, 26th, and 27th, New Year’s Day, the first Sunday in the New Year, and finally Epiphany (6 January), covering the complete Lutheran Christmas season. Despite the separate nature of the performance schedule, it seems clear from the autograph title page that Bach saw the six cantatas as a unified whole. There is a logical sequence of keys, moving from D major, G, D, F, A and back to D, and the first and last cantatas are connected by Bach reuse of the chorale melody of Part I’s Wie soll ich dich empfangen for the last chorus of Part VI, Nun seid ihr wohl gerochen. That choral melody is the same as the Passion Choral in the St Matthew Passion. The different instrumentation would have made it difficult for Bach to have performed them all as a continuous whole, as is usually done nowadays in concert performances. On this occasion, as is usually the case, the 4th cantata, for New Year’s Day (the circumcision and naming of Jesus), was omitted.

Continue reading →

Medieval Carols by Candlelight

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Medieval Carols by Candlelight
Angela Hicks
Patricia Hammond, May Robertson, Louise Anna Duggan, Jean Kelly
St Giles Camberwell, 11 December 2025


The vast church of St Giles Camberwell was packed with an enthusiastic audience for a magical concert of Medieval Carols by Candlelight given as part of a UK-wide tour arranged and directed by singer Angela Hicks with Patricia Hammond, voice, May Robertson, fiddle and voice, Jean Kelly, harp, and Louise Anna Duggan, percussion, all playing under the banner of Ancient Music Promotions. Their wide-ranging choice of music covered most of the genres of medieval music, ranging from the 12th-century mystic Hildegard von Bingen to the mid-17th-century, together with the music for a 15th-century poem set to music specially for this tour by the group’s percussionist, Louise Anna Duggan.

Continue reading →

AAM: Messiah

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Handel: Messiah
Academy of Ancient Music, Lawrence Cummings
Nardus Williams, Reginald Mobley, Thomas Walker, Ashley Riches
Barbican Hall, 15 December 2025


The Academy of Ancient Music (AAM) has a long and distinguished history with Handel’s Messiah, not least in being one of the first period instrument orchestras to record the piece in anything like the form, and with the soundworld of the original performance. After a stunning Messiah performance last year in the same Barbican venue, they returned for another sell-out performance with a new line of soloists Nardus Williams, Reginald Mobley, Thomas Walker, and Ashley Riches. I was impressed with all four of the coloists, although I did find the vibrato of the soprano a little disturbing, not least because the persistent pulse interfered with semiquaver runs. But, as with her colleagues, she expressed the words clearly and with meaning. The 18-strong choir similarly impressed, again with very clear diction and impressive consort. All four soloists excelled in adding historically appropriate ornaments and embellishments to the musical text. Of course, Messiah has no recognisable characters, as would be the case in an opera, so each recitative, accompagnato, and aria is a projection of the words, an essential component of Laurence Cummings’ interpretation, which he describes as a ‘Theatre of the Mind’.

Continue reading →

Un niño nos es naçido – An Iberian Christmas

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Un niño nos es naçido – An Iberian Christmas
The Renaissance Singers, David Allinson
St Sepulchre-without-Newgate (Holy Sepulchre), 13 December 2025


J.G de Padilla Christus Natus Est
C. de Morales Sancta et immaculata virginitas
F. Guerrero Missa Sancta et immaculata
C. de Morales Ave Maria, gratia plena

T.L. de Victoria Ecce Dominus veniet
R. de Ceballos O Virgo Benedicta
A. de Silva Alma redemptoris Mater
P. Ruimonte Luna que reluces
F. Guerrero Al resplandor de una estrella; Niño Dios d’amor herido; Alma mirad vuestro Dios
Diego José de Salazar ¡Salga el torillo hosquillo!

This imaginative programme from the always excellent Renaissance Singers aimed “to dispel the cynicism of modern Christmastide with a mixture of superb motets, mass music and villancicos drawn from the Spanish golden age”. Most of the music was based on musicians of Seville’s Cathedral, Santa Maria de la Sede, notably the composer Cristóbal de Morales and his pupil Francisco Guerrero, whose Missa Sancta et immaculata was the focus of the first half of the concert.

Continue reading →

Claire M Singer: Gleann Ciùin

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Gleann Ciùin
Claire M Singer, LCO
Queen Elizabeth Hall, 7 December 2025

Solas; Ode to Saor;
56.9500° N, 3.2667° W; Maps; 57.0908° N, 3.6939° W;
Forrig; Gleann Ciùin.

Claire M Singer is a Scottish composer, cellist and performer of acoustic and electronic music who “draws inspiration from the dramatic landscape of her native Scotland, exploring rich harmonic textures and complex overtones that create ever-shifting melodic and rhythmic patterns disappearing almost as soon as they emerge”. Although she had previously composed some pieces for organists, her own introduction to the organ world came in her imaginative appointment in 2012 as music director at the Union Chapel, an enormous Congregational church and events venue in Islington, and home to a famous 1877 ‘Father’ Willis organ. She has since managed a major restoration of the organ and an impressive series of organ-related events, not least curating the annual Organ Reframed festival, focused on encouraging experimental music based on the organ. This event at the Queen Elizabeth Hall featured music from three of her five CDs (Solas, Saor and Gleann Ciùin), played on the Queen Elizabeth Hall organ with added electronics and orchestrations played by members of the London Contemporary Orchestra.

Continue reading →

JS Bach: Two organ Chaconnes

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Johann Sebastian Bach: Two organ Chaconnes
Ciacona ex d BWV 1178, Ciacona ex g BWV 1179
Ed. Peter Wollny
Supplement to Bach Complete Organ Works, Volume 4
 24 pages, 32x23cm, 137g, ISMN: 979-0-004-19141-5, Saddle Stitch
Edition Breitkopf 9648, 2025

The much hyped promotion by the Bach Archive Leipzig of two organ Chaconnes that have recently been attributed to the young J.S. Bach has resulted in a torrent of internet posts raising every possible view of the music and how it should be performed. This commenced with the first performance of the new attributions given by Ton Koopman, playing the 2000 Bach organ at an official ceremony on 17 November 2025, livestreamed from Bach’s own Thomaskirche Leipzig. The two pieces have been available for a while on IMSLP, in facsimile and typeset, under the tentative attribution to Johann Christoph Graff. They are now published by Breitkopf in an edition by Peter Wollny, director of the Bach Archive Leipzig and the scholar who attributes the two pieces to JS Bach. A detailed Preface in German and English (four pages each) outlines the voyage of discovery over a period of more than 30 years. The new Breitkopf edition of the two pieces is beautifully produced and presented, with clear musical text.

Continue reading →

Buxtehude: Complete organ works

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Dieterich Buxtehude: Complete organ works
Urtext: Critical Source Edition
Ed. Harald Vogel
Breitkopf & Härtel. 2025


The release of the third and final volume of the Edition Breitkopf complete organ works (the choral works, in two sub-volumes) of Dieterich Buxtehude marks a considerable achievement in the complicated history of the transmission of the Lubeck master’s organ works. Edited by Harald Vogel, one of the pioneers of the modern interpretation of Buxtehude and his North German organ composer predecessors, the new edition answers many of the questions that Buxtehude interpretation has raised over the years. One of the many problems is that there are no autograph copies of any of Buxtehude’s organ pieces. We only have copies, which may or may not be based on authentic autographs. This new edition is a “pure source” edition, with no attempts to combine different transmissions or to apply editorial “corrections” to the texts.

Continue reading →

HGO: Monteverdi – Poppea

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Monteverdi: Poppea
HGO, Seb Gillot, Ashley Pearson
Jacksons Lane. 15 November 2025


Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea explores themes of power, ambition, greed, intrigue, toxic relationships, vengeance, moral decadence and, viewed with modern eyes: mental health. Busenello’s libretto adopted a relaxed approach to historical facts in a manner that would likely result in several lawsuits if the protagonists were still alive to launch them. The events of seven years are compressed into a single day’s action and the characters are adapted to suit the plot. which, shorn of direct historical relevance, allows a focus on the characters and their interaction with each other. Much about the opera is conjecture, including how much of it was actually composed by Monteverdi. It was his last opera, and was first performed in Venice shortly before his death in November 1643. A revival in Naples in 1651 was the last known performance until the late 19th century. It is now considered as one of the most important 17th-century operas. Following HGO’s well-reviewed 2017 production, this was a new staging, directed by Ashley Pearson with musical direction from Seb Gillot.

Continue reading →

London International Festival of Early Music

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

London International Festival of Early Music
Double Book Launch, Dorothee Oberlinger & Peter Kofler
Blackheath Halls. 13 November 2025


What is now the London International Festival of Early Music has been through several incarnations since its inception in 1973. Originally housed at the Royal College of Music, it moved to the Royal Horticultural Halls and then to the sumpuous surroundings of the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich as the Royal Greenwich International Early Music, which then moved to Blackheath Halls, eventually changing to the current name. Run by the Early Music Shop, the main focus is on the three-day exhibition of instrument makers, retailers, publishers, record companies, early music forums, the National Early Music Association and other related societies, which combine with concerts of various types. Every other year, it hosts a solo recorder competition.

Continue reading →

London Festival of Baroque Music

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

“Immortal Harmony”
London Festival of Baroque Music
Arcangelo, Spiritato, Les Demoiselles Couperin,
Choir of New College Oxford, Ensemble Marguerite Louse Versailes,
Smith Square Hall, 1, 7 & 8 November 2025

The London Festival of Baroque Music was founded in 1984 as the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music by conductor Ivor Bolton and musicologist Tess Knighton, its Artistic Director until 1997. Kate Bolton was Artistic Director from 1997 to 2007, succeeded by Lindsay Kemp. The first concerts took place at St James’s, Piccadilly, before settling into the fine Baroque church of St John’s, Smith Square, now renamed variously as Smith Square Hall or Sinfonia Smith Square. This year’s festival was given the overall title of “Immortal Harmony”. I attended the first and final three concerts, featuring Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, Bach’s Leipzig legacy, vocal music by Couperin, and ceremonial music by Purcell, Lalande, and Charpentier.

Continue reading →

Gabrieli: Purcell – Fairy Queen

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Purcell: The Fairy Queen
Gabrieli Consort & Players, Paul McCreesh
St Martin-in-the-Fields. 7 November 2025

The Fairy Queen is one of Gabrieli’s calling cards, with many performances over the years. I last reviewed them in 2018 at St John’s, Smith Square, shortly before they recorded it (SIGCD615). Several of the singers and players from that recording remain for their latest London performance in St Martin-in-the-Fields.

Continue reading →

Mozartists: Mullova plays Mozart

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Mullova plays Mozart
Mozart 250: 1775
The Mozartists
Viktoria Mullova, Ian Page
Cadogan Hall. 4 November 2025


Haydn: Symphony No. 68 in B flat major
Mozart: Violin Concerto No.3 in G major, K.216
CPE Bach: Symphony in D major, Wq.183/1
Mozart: Violin Concerto No.4 in D major, K.218

The Mozartists‘ enterprising MOZART 250 project has reached its 10th anniversary, with concerts this season focusing on the year 1775, when Mozart turned 19. The project started in 2015 on the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s childhood visit to London and follows Mozart’s musical life and that of his contemporaries year by year until the 250th anniversary of his death in 2041. It has been described as a “journey of a lifetime”, and will probably outlive many members of current classical music concert audiences. Following their Wigmore Hall concert in June (reviewed here), when Rachel Podger played two (2 & 5) of Mozart’s five violin concertos, this concert in the larger Cadogan Hall featured the other two concertos composed during 1775 (3 & 4) performed by Viktoria Mullova, making her debut with The Mozartists.

Continue reading →

OAE: Solomon

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Handel: Solomon
Orchestra and Choir of the Age of Enlightenment, John Butt
Nardus Williams, Helen Charlston, Hugo Hymas, Florian Störtz
Queen Elizabeth Hall. 12 October 2025


The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment opened its 40th anniversary season in impressive style with a performance of Handel’s 1748/9 Solomon in London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall. Described as one of “the most human and spectacular of Handel’s oratorios”, Handel’s colossal work tells the (rather sanitised) story of one of the Bible’s most prominent characters, King Solomon. The three Acts explore themes of leadership through illustrations of Solomon’s qualities. In Act I, his devoutness in consecrating the Temple and (bizarrely, considering the Biblical account of his amours) marital bliss are celebrated “amid flowers, sweet breezes and nightingales’ songs”. Act 2 recognises Solomon’s wisdom as he resolves the famous dispute between two women claiming to be the mother of the same child, whilst the final act highlights the splendour of Solomon’s kingdom through a lavish masque presented to the visiting Queen of Sheba, whose arrival is announced with the now well-known Sinfonia.

Continue reading →

Organ recital: Byrd to Blow

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

The Friends of St Lawrence
“Byrd to Blow”
17th-century English organ music,
for the 30th anniversary of the Goetze & Gwynne ‘Handel’ organ

Andrew Benson-Wilson

St Lawrence, Whitchurch
Whitchurch Lane, Edgware HA8 6QS
Sunday 19 October, 2025. 3pm


30 years ago, Andrew Benson-Wilson gave the all-Handel opening recital on the new Goetze & Gwynne ‘Handel’ organ, a reconstruction of the 1716 Gerard Smith instrument using the original Grinling Gibbons case and surviving elements of the original organ. Handel used the original 1716 organ when he worked for the Duke of Chandos at Cannons in 1717/18.

Having given two subsequent recitals of music by Handel, Andrew now returns to explore English organ music from the century leading up to Handel’s time, ranging from Byrd to Blow, with music by William Byrd, John Bull, Orlando Gibbons (d1625), Thomas Tomkins, John Lugge, Matthew Locke and John Blow. It will feature pieces for “double organ”, a genre that developed during the 17th-century. The recital will also honour the lives of the organ builders, Martin Goetze and Dominic Gwynne. Click here to find out more about the organ.

Continue reading →

Ricordanze: a record of Love

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Ricordanze: a record of Love
Music of the Biffoli-Sostegni manuscript
Musica Secreta, Laurie Stras
Lucky Music Ltd. LCKY005. 2CDs 50’28 + 51’20

This recording from Musica Secreta is the result of serious musicological research combined with a labour of love – a fulfilling combination. Ricordanze: a record of Love is an audible culmination of a decade or more of research by Musica Secreta’s director, Laurie Stras (Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Southampton), into the Biffoli-Sostegni manuscript (Bibliothèque du Conservatoire royal de Bruxelles, MS 27766). It dates from 1560, and is the only surviving manuscript of polyphony from a sixteenth-century convent. The title comes from the names of two nuns embossed on its binding. It belonged to San Matteo in Arcetri, a small convent community in the hills just south of Florence. It was where Suor Maria Celeste Galilei, the eldest daughter of Galileo Galilei, spent her life. Through the “haunting and extraordinary music of sixteenth-century nuns who sang their community through siege, plague, and deprivation”, the recording narrates the convent’s history, from the 1530 Siege of Florence to the final letters written by Suor Maria Celeste Galilei (a later convent choirmistress) to her father in 1634. The San Matteo is depicted in the left foreground (the red building) in Vasari’s painting of the 1530 Siege of Florence.

Vasari: Siege of Florence.

Continue reading →

I Fagiolini: Monteverdi Vespers

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Monteverdi Vespers of 1610
I Fagiolini, English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble
Robert Hollingworth
St Martin in the Fields, 26 September 2025

The Monteverdi Vespers of 1610 is one of those enigmatic pieces with a complicated back story and fascinating performance quandaries, not unlike the Bach B minor Mass. Under the title of Vespers for the Blessed Virgin, it is part of a larger publication, Mass for the Most Holy Virgin for six voices, and Vespers for several voices with some sacred songs, suitable for chapels and ducal chambers. It combines music for a Mass and the Vespers together with “a few sacred songs” and a largely instrumental Sonata. It does not fit into either a traditional Mass or Vespers ritual. At the time, Monteverdi was maestro di capella to the Gonzaga Dukes of Mantua, but the score was personally dedicated and presented to the Borghese Pope Paul V in Rome, suggesting that it was a not-so-subtle calling card for preferment, representing as it does the wide scope of his compositional powers. Despite that, within three years, he was appointed maestro di capella at St Mark’s in Venice. It is unlikely that it was ever heard the Vespers in the form that we know it today. Indeed, it might never have been intended to be heard in that form.

Continue reading →

Laus Polyphoniae 2025, Antwerp

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Laus Polyphoniae 2025
Ars Antiqua – Ars Nova – Ars Subtilior
Polyphony from the age of cathedral builders (1140-1440)
Antwerp, Flanders
22 August – 31 August 2025

Laus Polyphoniae is the annual festival organised by AMUZ  (Flanders Festival Antwerp), dedicated to the music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance era. Since its inception in 1994, the festival has grown to become the largest festival dedicated to the European heritage of polyphony. The rebirth of Notre Dame in Paris following the fire was an ideal moment to explore the musical heritage of Europe’s cathedrals – architectural masterpieces that sparked a revolution in music. Under the title of Ars Antiqua – Ars Nova – Ars Subtilior: Polyphony from the age of cathedral builders (1140-1440), Laus Polyphoniae 2025 told the story of how cathedrals became musical laboratories where the greatest composers and performers of their time created the sounds of the Middle Ages. The programme covered different periods of medieval music history: the ‘old style’, or ars antiqua, with its search for new ways of notating rhythms; ars nova, in which polyphony became ever richer and more complex; and ars subtilior, with its exquisite musical renderings of outstanding poetry. Alongside this sacred repertoire, the festival also explored the secular world of the troubadours and minnesingers. 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.

Continue reading →

IYAP 2025: International Young Artist’s Presentation

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

International Young Artist’s Presentation
Laus Polyphoniae 2025
AMUZ, Antwerp. 23 August 2025

The annual International Young Artist’s Presentation (IYAP) is a coaching and presentation scheme promoted by AMUZ (Flanders Festival Antwerp) and the Musica Impulscentrum. 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). Unlike many similar young artist events, it is not a competition but an informal opportunity for young musicians to develop their performing style. An invited Feedback Committee of concert promoters and 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.

Continue reading →

Organ Recital. Mr. Stanley, I Presume!

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Mr. Stanley, I Presume!
“The best organist in Europe, maybe in the world”

Andrew Benson-Wilson

Christ Church Spitalfields
Commercial St, London E1 6LY
Monday, 8 September, 2025. 7.30

Experience country house saloon soirees; the hunting horns, shepherd songs
and birdsong of the English countryside; the trumpets of military marches;
and London’s opera houses and pleasure gardens,
through the organ music of John Stanley (1712-1786).

Continue reading →

Fugue State Films & RCO Cinema: Bach – The Great Toccata

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

The Great Toccata
Daniel Moult
Fugue State Films & RCO Cinema

I have reviewed several of the excellent films produced by Will Fraser’s award-winning Fugue State Films (see here). Their latest offering heralds a new and welcome collaboration with the Royal College of Organists in a new RCO initiative, RCO Cinema, which aims to bring “high-quality films about the organ and its music available to the widest possible audience around the world” Fugue State films on RCO Cinema will be available to watch, free, for around six to eight weeks. Future films will include pairs of films on the organ music of Olivier Messiaen and César Franck, giants of the 20th and 19th centuries. In the meantime, the first film to be offered on RCO Cinema is Fugue State Films’ The Great Toccata, featuring the distinguished English organist and teacher, Daniel Moult, Head of Organ Studies at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and an RCO Trustee. The film can be viewed on RCO Cinema here until the end of August 2025. If you are too late reading this to view it on RCO Cinema, streaming and box-set purchase and options are available here.

Continue reading →