Italian Legacies: Geminiani and his English Contemporaries
Academy of Ancient Music, Bojan Čičić, Anna Devin
Milton Court, 7 February 2025

Arne Overture in G major No. 3
Mudge Concerto No. 1 in D major
Geminiani Concerto Grosso in C major Op. 7 No. 3
Linley Music for The Tempest
Boyce Overture from Peleus and Thetis
Linley Violin Concerto in F major
JC Bach La Tempesta

Billed as “Swinging London meets Italian flair, 18th-century style”, this imaginative concert from the Academy of Ancient Music, directed from the violin by Bojan Čičić, took us on a tour of the music scene in 18th-century Britain: a place where “everything was up for grabs”. The blurb continued – “A nation was remaking its identity – embracing global fashions and diverse cultures, and locked in passionate debate about its relationship with Europe. English composers wrote Italian operas, the spirit of Shakespeare met the inspiration of Corelli and Vivaldi, and Bach’s youngest son carved out a musical niche that was entirely his own”.

Sadly the blurb didn’t attract the size of audience that the AAM normally manage at Milton Court. Although the addition of some Handel would have bumped the audience numbers up, I was impressed by the AAM management in agreeing to Bojan Čičić programme, focussing on the other London composers around the middle of the 18th century. It was an ambitious project, requiring a large orchestra for one of the Tempests. The music was composed between the 1740s and 1770s, by composers born between 1687 and 1756.

The youngest composer was Thomas Linley, an extraordinary talent who was represented by his music for The Tempest, written for a 1777 Drury Lane Sheridan revival, and his only surviving Violin Concerto, probably composed in the early 1770s. These two pieces revealed the tragic loss to English music of Linley’s death aged 22 in a boating accident caused by a sudden “Squall of Wind“, something that particularly resonated during his dramatic opening Storm chorus (Arise, ye spirits of the storm”) of The Tempest. A sequence of soprano solos follow with a short and punchy central chorus (sung by four singers). Anna Devin was the spectacular soprano soloist for this and the later JC Bach Tempest, her voice catching the varying moods of the texts to perfection. Linley’s remarkable assured writing and use of orchestral colour made this the highlight of the evening.

Linley’s only surviving Violin Concerto showed the influence of Italy and the galant style as well as a remarkable imaginative approach to composition. The virtuoso writing for the soloist was treated with what seemed to be apparent ease and a light touch by director Bojan Čičić with frequent double stopping and venturing into the upper reaches of the fingerboard. It starts (and finishes) in a subdued mood, but the filigree solo antics soon take over. The central Adagio is in the form of a Scottish lament, while the final Rondeau, despite intervening fireworks, concludes inconclusively. The orchestration was interesting with a string orchestra supported only by pairs of horns and bassoons.

The concert opened with a nod back to last season’s celebrations of the AAM anniversary, with an Overture by Thomas Arne, the theme of the AAM’s very first recording. It was followed by a Concerto by one Richard Mudge, a composer and clergyman who had so far escaped my attention. He did attract the attention of the third Earl of Aylesford of Packington Hall, who installed him in the two Packington churches and may well have helped in the publication of his Six Concertos. With a single trumpet joining the strings this was a very competent composition, with an opening French-style stately Overture and bustling Fugue followed by a gentle Minuet. The influence of Francisco Geminiani was represented by his Concerto Grosso Op7/3, the three movements representing the French, English and Italian styles.

The concluding and rather subdued JC Bach La Tempesta should perhaps have some before the interval rather than at the end of the concert. A pair of accompanied recitatives and arias had a far more modest orchestration than the Linley Tempest, but the ‘English Bach’ (buried at St Pancras) demonstrated the skills that he passed on to the 8-year-old Mozart.

The pre-concert event opened with Katie Hawks in period style, dress and language describing the various musical venues in London in the mid-18th-century before chatting with Bojan Čičić and other members of the AAM. This was an important concert by the Academy of Ancient Music, covering a period of English music that not only saw the founding of the AAM’s original incarnation but also set a specifically English style of music, aided by the enormous influx of continental musicians that were encouraged to set root in London to English musics great advantage – a message for the present day, perhaps. I would urge them to turn their attention to John Stanley (1712-1786), a composer of massive importance in the mid-18th-century who is curiously overlooked by all but organists.