Author: Andrew Benson-Wilson

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.

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Programme notes: Schlick: Tabulaturen etlicher lobgesang (1512)

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Mayfair Organ Concerts – The Grosvenor Chapel
5 August 2025
Andrew Benson-Wilson
Arnolt Schlick
Tabulaturen etlicher lobgesang (1512)

Salve Regina (5 verses) 12’
(Salve regina – Ad te clamamus – Eia ergo, advocata- O pia – O dulcis Maria)
Pete quid vis 3’, Hoe losteleck 3’, Benedictus 2’30,
Primi toni 2’, Maria zart 2’30, Christe 1’30
Da pacem (3 settings) 7’

Title page of Spiegel der Orgelmacher und Organisten, 1511

Arnolt Schlick (c1455-c1525) has been described as”one of the greatest masters who have left their imprint on the history of organ music“. He was one of the most important members of the influential group of German late Renaissance organ composers, known as the Colourists. Others include Conrad Paumann and Paul Hofhaimer. Schlick lived and worked in the important university city of Heidelberg. In his late 20s, he was appointed court organist to the Palatinate Elector. In 1486 he played the organ for the coronation of the Habsburg Maximilian I as the King of the Romans. In 1511, he published the Spiegel der Orgelmacher und Organisten, the first German treatise on organ building and performance. The following year he published the Tabulaturen etlicher lobgesang und lidlein uff die orgeln un lauten (Tablatures of Several Canticles and Songs for the Organ and Lute). The collection shows the early development of keyboard music. Conveniently, the organ pieces fit into the length of a lunchtime recital.

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Organ Recital. Schlick: Tabulaturen etlicher lobgesang (1512)

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Andrew Benson-Wilson
The Grosvenor Chapel
South Audley Street, Mayfair, London W1K 2PA
Tuesday 5 August 2025, 1:10


Arnolt Schlick
Tabulaturen etlicher lobgesang (1512)

Salve Regina (5 verses)
Pete quid vis, Hoe losteleck, Benedictus, Primi toni, Maria zart, Christe
Da pacem (3 settings)

Described as “one of the greatest masters who have left their imprint on the history of organ music”, Arnolt Schlick (c1455-c1525) was one of the most important members of the influential group of late Renaissance German organ composers known as the Colourists, together with Conrad Paumann and Paul Hofhaimer. He lived and worked in the important university city of Heidelberg. In his late 20s, he was appointed court organist to the Palatinate Elector. In 1486 played the organ for the coronation of the future Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian I, as King of the Romans.

Title page of Spiegel der Orgelmacher und Organisten, 1511

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Oxford early music day

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Oxford early music day
Continuo Foundation & Oxford Festival of the Arts,
Linarol Consort of Viols, Bellot Ensemble, Sir Nicholas Kenyon
Grove Auditorium, Magdalen College. 12 July 2025


As part of the Oxford Festival of the Arts, the Continuo Foundation promoted an Early Music Day, or more accurately, an afternoon, in the nether regions of Magdalen College. The three events included two concerts, contrasting more established musicians with a recently formed group, both recipients of Continuo Foundation grants, and concluded with a talk by Sir Nicholas Kenyon exploring “A Century of Revolution in Musical Taste”.

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Melomania: Bojan Čičić & Stéphanie Brochard

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Melomania
Bojan Čičić & Stéphanie Brochard
Oxford Festival of the Arts
Festival Hall, Magdalen College School. 10 July 2025


melos = music | mania = madness

It was Goethe who suggested that “Music is liquid architecture and Architecture is frozen music”. Something very similar could be said of the link between dance and music. From medieval times up to the present day, most music has been linked in some way to dance, with many pieces directly related to a specific dance form. For example, the well-known Baroque Suite genre with an opening Prelude followed by a sequence of dance movements, traditionally allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue. The traditional musical forms of Passacaglia and Ciacona are both dance-based. This extraordinary duo performance between violinist Bojan Čičić and dancer and choreographer Stéphanie Brochard, commissioned by the Oxford Festival of the Arts, presented a unique combination of music for violin and a range of dance movements. It was called Melomania and was described as neither a dance performance nor a concert but a “danced concert that embodies an intense passion for music, awakening the senses”.

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AAM: Beethoven’s 5th

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Beethoven’s 5th
Academy of Ancient Music
Laurence Cummings, David Blackadder, trumpet
Academy of Ancient Music
Barbican Hall. 27 June 2025


Maria Theresia Ahlefeldt: Telemachus on Calypso’s Isle
Haydn: Trumpet Concerto
Beethoven: Symphony No. 5

In what was billed as “struggles, seduction and sparkling wit”, Laurence Cummings and the Academy of Ancient Music (AAM) gave another of their enterprising concerts, this time in the Barbican Hall. They opened with music from Maria Theresia Ahlefeldt, a composer little known today whose nationality seems to confuse many people. She was born in 1755 in Regensburg (then the permanent seat of the Imperial Diet of the Holy Roman Empire) as Princess Maria Theresia of Thurn and Taxis, the princely house that, since 1812, has had its seat in Regensburg’s Schloss Thurn und Taxis. After an ‘interesting’ early life of royal culture, privilege and intrigue, she eventually married a Danish Count against the wishes of her family (a criminal offence at the time for a royal), leading to her flight to Ansbach, part of the Brandenburg domains. In 1792, her husband later became director of the Royal Danish Theatre, where the ballet-opera Telemachus on Calypso’s Isle was first performed later the same year.

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Bach: The Art of Fugue

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Bach: The Art of Fugue
on Bach’s Original Instruments
Collegium Musicum ’23
OUTHERE/RAMEE RAM2406. 82’41


Bach left many unanswered questions with his monumental Art of Fugue, one of which was which instruments they were intended to be played on – if, indeed, they were intended to be played at all. It was presented in open score, with a separate line for each line of music. This was common practice for many decades for music intended for scholarly or didactic purposes, particularly for organists. Samual Scheidt, for example, used the same format in his 1624 Tabulatura Nova, asking organists to copy the music into their own preferred format for performance. The instruments chosen for this interpretation by Collegium Musicum ’23 are very special: two 1729 violins and a viola by Johann Christian Hoffmann from the Leipzig Thomaskirche’s own collection of instruments of Bach’s time. The anonymous cello is from 18th-century Central Germany from the same collection. They are all usually displayed behind glass in the side room of the church.

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Mozart 250: 1775

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Mozart 250: 1775
The Mozartists, Ian Page, Rachel Podger
Wigmore Hall. 18 June 2025

Photo: The Mozartists

Haydn: Symphony No. 66 in B flat
Mozart: Violin Concerto No.2 in D major, K.211
Symphony in D major, K.196+K. 121/207a
Violin Concerto No.5 in A major, K.219


The Mozartists‘ enterprising MOZART 250 project has reached its 10th anniversary, with concerts this season focusing on the year 1775, when Mozart was about 19. The project started in 2015 on the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s childhood visit to London and will follow 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”, but it will probably outlive many members of the current concert audience. Given the noise the audience made during tuning up, I am not sure if they deserve to see the project through to the end. Perhaps surprisingly, given their status in the repertoire, Mozart completed all of his violin concertos by the time he was 19. This concert included two of them, with two more coming in November. The soloist, making her debut with The Mozartists, was the distinguished violinist Rachel Podger.

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OAE: Elgar

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Elgar
Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment
Dinis Sousa, Frances Gregory
The Anvil, Basingstoke. 6 June 2025

In the South (Alassio)
Sea Pictures
Enigma Variations

The Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment has long since expanded their musical interests well beyond the bounds of the historical (18th-century Age of Enlightenment, not least into the music of the last 150 years or so, on this occasion focusing on the music of Edward Elgar from the years around 1900. Their conductor, the Portuguese Dinis Sousa, was making his debut with the orchestra. This must be a terrifying experience for any conductor, given the extraordinary musical knowledge of the OAE musicians and their willingness, in true Enlightenment manner, to question percived musical wisdom. It was also possibly his debut conducting an all-Elgar concert. Both experiences proved to be memorable for him; his rapport with the OAE players was obvious, as was his refreshing take on Elgar, notably his most famous piece, the Enigma Variations.

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Rune & Ensemble Gamut!

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Rune & Ensemble Gamut!
St Mary’s Church, Rotherhithe
Sunday 1 June 2025

There is medieval music, and there is medieval music, as demonstrated by this double-bill concert in the 18th-century riverside church of St Mary, Rotherhithe, a church known to organists for its 1764 John Byfield organ. The medieval music in the first half came from Rune, a recently formed London-based group of five musicians, but on this occasion, four: Angela Hicks, soprano & harp, Daniel Thomson, tenor, May Robertson, vielle, and Daniel Scott, recorders. Their name originates from the Old English ‘rūn’, meaning a mystical spell-song, and reflects their fascination with music from 700 years ago. Their programme was based on stories from the 14th-century Decameron, described in the concert flyer as “portraying various aspects of human nature and experience through some of the most beautiful music of the time”.

Photo: Ben Tomlin

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My London organ recitals: August to October 2025

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

My London organ recitals
August to October 2025

Tuesday 5 August, Grosvenor Chapel, 1:10.
For the anniversary of Arnolt Schlick (c1455-c1525), I will play all the pieces from his 1512 Tabulaturen etlicher lobgesang, including the large-scale Da pacem and Salve Regina, the latter described as “one of the truly great masterpieces of organ art”. 


Monday 8 September, Christ Church, Spitalfields 7.30.
Under the title of “Mr. Stanley, I Presume!” this will be an exploration of English 18th-century life through the organ music of John Stanley (1712-1786) – “the best organist in Europe, maybe in the world”. It will include music reflecting country house saloon soirees; the hunting horns, shepherd songs and birdsong of the English countryside; the trumpets of military marches; and jovial London pleasure gardens. Played on the internationally renowned 1735 Richard Bridge organ.

Sunday 19 October, St Lawrence (Little Stanmore) Whitchurch HA8 6QS, 3pm.
Thirty years ago, I gave the opening recital on this Goetze & Gwynne organ, based on the surviving parts of the 1716 Gerard Smith organ that Handel played when he worked for the Duke of Chandos at Cannons. This anniversary recital of English 17th-century music will honour the lives of Martin Goetze and Dominic Gwynne. The church is a short walk from Canons Park underground station. 

More details to follow in due course, including booking details for the Spitalfields and Whitchurch concerts.

AAM. Bach: Art of Fugue

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Bach: Art of Fugue
Academy of Ancient Music, Concert Theatre Works
Laurence Cummings, Bill Barclay
Peter Bray, Steffan Cennydd, Imogen Frances, Simon Slater
Milton Court, 15 May 2025

Photo: Mark Allan

Johann Sebastian Bach’s Art of Fugue (Die Kunst der Fuge) is one of the greatest monuments of Western music. You mess with it at your peril. And mess with it at their peril is just what writer and director Bill Barclay with Concert Theatre Works did with the connivance of Lawrence Cummings and the Academy of Ancient Music (AAM), who commissioned this particular messing.

The Art of Fugue was composed during the last decade of Bach’s life, although the spurious accounts of Bach dying while composing the final fugue, on which much of the plot of this concert-theatre production relies, have long since been discredited. It was not published until shortly after Bach’s death, although autograph manuscripts of most of it survive. It consists of fourteen fugues (each called Contrapunctus) and four canons, all in D minor, and all using the same main theme, albeit in many varied forms. With the exception of the final fugue, which is written in conventional two-stave keyboard format, each piece has a separate line for each of the four voices (open-score) in a similar fashion to several learned musical works of the previous century or more. There is no indication of which instrument Bach intended or, indeed, if he intended it for performance at all, using it as an example of his skill in contrapuntal composition. There are no orchestral instruments of the time that could play all the lines on the same instrument, leading to the assumption that it was intended for the harpsichord. Performance on the organ is common, although there are many questions to be considered, not least the choice of registrations.

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Sense & Musicality: Jane Austen and Music

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Sense & Musicality
The love story of Jane Austen and Music
Penelope Appleyard, Jonathan Delbridge
Newbury Spring Festival
Shaw House, Newbury. 13 May 2025

In the 250th anniversary year of Jane Austen’s birth in Steventon, near Basingstoke, much attention has been paid to her writings and the aspects of her own life that her books reveal. One part of her life that can be overlooked is her love of and interest in music. One example of the quest to explore Jane Austen’s musical interests came with a performance of Sense & Musicality: “The love story of Jane Austen and Music” given by soprano Penelope Appleyard and Jonathan Delbridge, playing his own 1814 Broadwood square piano, in the Hall of Shaw House, Newbury, not far from her birthplace.

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The Edward Lewis viol of 1703

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

The Edward Lewis viol of 1703
Henrik Persson
Barn Cottage Recordings BCR028. 72’44

Hely Suite in A minor; Suite in A major
Brown Three Ayres
Telemann Fantasia no. 6 in G major; Fantasia no. 7 in G minor
Sumarte Prelude and Daphne, Monsieur’s Almain, Lachryme; Fortune my Foe
Anon Dances from the Williamsburg Musick Song Book
Anon Suite in D major from the Brünner MS
Hume Good Againe

A companion recording to Newe Vialles Old Viols, reviewed here, focuses on the 1703 Edward Lewis bass viol, played by Henrick Persson. The music is by Benjamin Hely, Thomas Brown, Telemann, Richard Sumarte and Tobias Hume, together with dances from the Williamsburg Musick Song Book of 1738 (the only known compositions for viola da gamba from an 18th-century American source) and traces the development of solo viol music from Hume up to the time of Telemann. There are 14 bass viols by Edward Lewis known to have survived to the present day, of which only seven are in performance condition. The one used on this recording is the only playable one in the UK, owned by the viol maker, Jane Julier, who loaned the instrument. The sound is absolutely gorgeous, with rich and resonant harmonics, here helped by a generous acoustic.

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Bach: St John Passion

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Bach: St John Passion
Academy of Ancient Music, Lawrence Cummings
Barbican Hall, 18 April 2025


Nicholas Mulroy, Evangelist, Dingle Yandell, Christus,
Carolyn Sampson, soprano, Helen Charlston, alto, Ed Lyon, tenor, Jonathan Brown, bass

Music has played a key role in religious occasions since the earliest times, and has played a notable role in most aspects of Western Christianity. When listening to pieces like the John or Matthew Passions or Messiah, I often wonder whether it is the words and the story, or the music that has the most highly charged emotional effect on those listening. For Christians, 3pm on Good Friday is one of the most sacred times of the year: according to one of the gospels, the moment when Jesus died after a three-hour-long crucifixion. In many Christian traditions, the whole day is devoted to fasting. But, for around 2000 people, 3pm was the start of the Academy of Ancient Music’s performance of Bach’s St John Passion in a packed Barbican Hall.

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Newe Vialles Old Viols

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Newe Vialles Old Viols
Newe Vialles
Barn Cottage Recordings BCR027. 65’26

Benjamin Hely (d.1699): Sonatas in G minor and B flat major
Christopher Simpson (c.1604-1669): Divisions in C major and F major
John Jenkins (1592-1678): Dances and Divisions in G minor
William Young (d.1662): Duos for two bass viols
Daniel Norcombe (c.1576-1655): Tregian’s Ground
Nicola Matteis (c.1650-after 1714): Pieces for guitar and continuo
and arrangements of tunes from Playford and Sumarte

The possibly confusing title of this recording needs some explanation. As I understand it, Newe Vialles is the group’s name and Old Viols the title of the recording. Newe Vialles was founded in 2015 by Henrik Persson and Caroline Ritchie, the name coming from the “Newe Vialles” of Henry VIII’s court which replaced the “old vialles” (rebecs or fiddles), starting a long tradition of English viol-playing. My previous reviews of Newe Vialles can be found here. For this recording, they are in their consort format, with Henrik Persson and Caroline Ritchie joined by Lynda Sayce (theobo and lute) and James Akers (baroque guitar). Their programme is music for two division viols, played on two original English viols by John Pitts (1675) and Edward Lewis (1703). The concept for the recording is stated as … “If the original owners of these viols had met, what music might they have played? The programme encompasses repertoire from the latest sonatas by Benjamin Hely (who himself owned a viol by Pitts) to divisions by Christopher Simpson and John Jenkins, duos by William Young, and arrangements of popular tunes and grounds from the time. An imaginary glimpse into a private music meeting in the early years of the 18th century.”

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AAM. Transatlantic: Classical Masters

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Transatlantic: Classical Masters
José Maurício Nunes Garcia, Haydn, Mozart
Academy of Ancient Music, Laurence Cummings, Katherine Spencer, clarinet
Milton Court, 13 March 2025

Nunes Garcia: Overture in D major; Dilexisti justitiam
Mozart: Clarinet Concerto in A major
Nunes Garcia: Tantum ergo
Mozart: Ave verum corpus
Haydn: Notturno in G major
Nunes Garcia: Litany for the Sorrows of Our Lady

The Acadamy of Ancient Music (AAM) continues its Transformation season with the programme Transatlantic: Classical Masters, focusing on the Brazilian composer José Maurício Nunes Garcia (1767-1830) and his heroes Haydn and Mozart. Nunes Garcia was born in poverty in Portuguese Rio de Janeiro to Afro-Brazilian parents, both seemingly the children of slaves, courtesy of their respective slave owners. An early musical talent was recognised, and Nunes Garcia was soon singing in Rio’s cathedral and, by the age of 12, was teaching music and learning keyboard instruments at the homes of his wealthy pupils. He was composing by the age of 16, and just a year later was sufficiently recognised as a music teacher to be a founding signature to the Brotherhood of Saint Cecilia. His wish to take Holy Orders was finally achieved at age 25 after being excused from the requirement to be “free from any colour defect” and becoming the required “estate owner”, courtesy of the father of one of his students. Shortly afterwards, he was appointed as “public music instructor” and set up a free music school for local children in his newly acquired house.

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Audition for the first organist, on the 300th anniversary of St George’s, Hanover Square

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Early Music Day 2025

Mayfair Organ Concerts
St George’s, Hanover Square
Tuesday 11 March 2025, 1.10pm

Andrew Benson-Wilson

Audition for the first organist
on the 300th anniversary of St George’s, Hanover Square


The church of St George’s Hanover Square was consecrated by the Bishop of London
on March 23rd, 1725. The three-manual organ was built by Gerard Smith, nephew and successor of the famous Father Smith. The case of his organ remains as the central part of the current organ case. This recital will reflect the audition for the first organist, with music by the four assessors (Pepusch, Croft, Handel and Geminiani) and the successful candidate, Thomas Roseingrave, chosen for his ability to improvise fugues.

Johann Christoph Pepusch (1667-1752) Lesson in D (Two Aires)
William Croft (1678-1727) Voluntary IX in d; Voluntary X in D;
Handel (1685-1759) Fugue in B flat; Fugue in a (HWV607/609)
Francesco Geminiani (1687-1762) Duo in F
Thomas Roseingrave (1690-1766) Voluntary & Fugue in f; Fugue in d

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.
The programme notes can be read here.

Recital programme notes: The 1725 audition for the first organist of St George’s, Hanover Square

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Mayfair Organ Concerts
St George’s, Hanover Square
11 March 2025
St George’s, Hanover Square 300th Anniversary
The 1725 audition for the first organist


Johann Christoph Pepusch (1667-1752) Lesson in D (Two Aires)
William Croft (1678-1727) Voluntary IX in d; Voluntary X in D;
Handel (1685-1759) Fugue in B flat; Fugue in a (HWV607/609)
Francesco Geminiani (1687-1762) Duo in F
Thomas Roseingrave (1690-1766) Voluntary & Fugue in f; Fugue in d.

This recital celebrates the 300th anniversary of St George’s, Hanover Square. The church was consecrated on 23 March 1725. It was designed by the architect John James, the son of the head of the Holy Ghost School in Basingstoke where a plaque in his honour has been unveiled. He was architect for two other London churches with an organ interest, St Mary’s Rotherhithe and St Lawrence Whitchurch. The 1725 Hanover Square organ was built by Gerard Smith, nephew and successor of the famous ‘Father’ Smith. Its case remains as the central part of the current organ. A panel of Pepusch, Croft, Handel and Geminiani choose Thomas Roseingrave as organist, noting that he was best able to improvise a fugue on the given subject. This recital includes music by the four assessors and concludes with fugues by Roseingrave.

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OAE. Beethoven: Hero/Rebel

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Beethoven: Hero/Rebel
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
Maxim Emelyanychev conductor, Vilde Frang violin
Queen Elizabeth Hall. 27 February 2025

Vilde Frang. Photo credit: Marco Borggreve

Beethoven: Violin Concerto, Symphony No.3 (Eroica)

Responding to the question “What does it mean to be a hero or a rebel?”, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment featured two of Beethoven’s works that they suggest represent his rebellious spirit and heroism. As Beethoven faced his struggles of increasing deafness, Napoleon’s campaign to free Europe from tyrannous monarchies had given him hope. But when Napoleon declared himself Emperor, the composer famously scratched out the dedication from the cover page of the Symphony’s manuscript, reportedly declaring: ‘So he is no more than a common mortal! Now he, too, will tread underfoot all the rights of man and indulge only his ambition.”

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Italian Legacies: Geminiani and his English Contemporaries

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

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”.

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Polyphony/OAE. Christmas Oratorio

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Bach: Christmas Oratorio
Polyphony, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Stephen Layton
St John’s, Smith Square. 22 December 2024


The Christmas Festival at St John’s, Smith Square (now rather boringly renamed as Smith Square Hall) has been a key part of London’s Christmas music season for nearly 40 years. The climax of these festivals has been the traditional two performances of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and Messiah from Polyphony and, in recent years, the choir of Trinity College Cambridge, conducted by the artistic director of the festival, Stephen Layton. Having recently left his post of Director of Music at Trinity College, both events now feature Polyphony together with the period instrumentalists of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

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Lyrebird Music appeal

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Readers will know of the excellent Lyrebird Music editions of early keyboard music, many of which I have reviewed positively on this site. This small publisher is now under a legal threat which could affect its future. Please read the story and donate to help preserve this important early keyboard music publisher.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/lyrebird-music-please-help-save-this-music-publisher?fbclid=IwY2xjawHPqrNleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHTCPyq3ZuAK4i040pFHhZ7G3fqoBWgiEM47n1GbRAXmrmYSbrCWYdguewQ_aem_PcUPgCtOLN7B5lDRbx_bFg

AAM: Messiah

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Handel: Messiah
Academy of Ancient Music, Laurence Cummings
The Barbican, 17 December 2024

Handel’s Messiah is a curious piece. Usually ritualistically churned out at Christmas and Easter, it was first performed at Easter in Dublin in 1742 after a mere 24 days of composition (a speed not unusual in Handel’s opera compositions), the autograph score bearing witness to the compositional haste. It went through several revisions in the following years, generally to suit the available forces for each performance. The score wasn’t published until eight years after Handel’s death. The version used for this Barbican performance from the Academy of Ancient Music stems from the early 1750s. The rather obtuse libretto was put together by the wealthy landowner, Charles Jennens, from the King James Bible and Psalms from the Book of Common Prayer, seemingly in support of his staunch Anglican leanings. The text is not easy to follow, let alone understand, but Handel composed with apparent relish, making no change to the texts to suit his musical ideas.

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Matthias Weckmann: Complete Organ Works

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Matthias Weckmann: Complete Organ Works
Léon Berben
1637 Stellwagen organ, St. Jakobi, Lübeck
1624 Hans Scherer organ, St. Stephanus, Tangermünde
Aeolus. AE-11431. 2CDs 72’27+78’29


Matthias Weckmann (c1616-1674) is one of the most interesting and influential of the North German pre-Buxtehude organist composers. Unlike most of the other organists in Hamburg, he was not a pupil of Sweelinck but was clearly influenced by those who were, not least his teacher for three years, Jacob Praetorius, organist of the Hamburg Petrikirche and Heinrich Scheidemann organist of the Catharinenkirche. His own organ playing was said to have combined elements of the style of both Praetorius and Scheidemann. His earlier musical training had been in Dresden when he was a chorister at the Saxon Court under the court composer Heinrich Schütz, a pupil of Giovanni Gabrieli. After his Hamburg years and a short period with Schütz in Denmark, he became the Electoral Court Organist in Dresden where he met and befriended the much-travelled Froberger, a pupil of Frescobaldi. The pair engaged in a famous keyboard competition arranged by the Saxon Elector. In 1655 he returned to Hamburg as organist of the Jakobkirche after a well-documented audition, records of which gave valuable information about the expectations of a Hamburg organist and practical information about, for example, registration practice at the time. He founded the Hamburg Collegium Musicum.

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Ton Koopman @ 80

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Ton Koopman 80th Birthday Celebrations
Soloists of the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Ton Koopman
Wigmore Hall, 29 November 2024

Ton Koopman and a pocket-sized version of his Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra came to the Wigmore Hall as part of his extended 80th Birthday Celebrations. The main touring programme of the celebration year has been a new version of Handel’s Esther, which I don’t think ever came to the UK, but this was a less ambitious programme of music by the prolific Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) performed by six soloists from his orchestra.

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AAM: Viennese Virtuosity

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Viennese Virtuosity: Symphonies by Mozart, Haydn and friends
Academy of Ancient Music, Laurence Cummings
Milton Court, 14 November 2024

Wanhal: Symphony in D major, Bryan D17
Mozart: Symphony No 36, Linz
Dittersdorf: Symphony No 4 from Symphonies after Ovid’s Metamorphosis
Haydn: Symphony No 80

The Academy of Ancient Music (AAM) and Laurence Cummings continue their Transformation series of 2024/5 concerts with a concert of symphonies by Johann Baptist Wanhal, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf and Joseph Hadyn. It was based on an occasion around 1784 when they played as a string quartet during a social gathering in Vienna. The story comes from an 1826 publication by a singer friend of Mozart, who noted that “… the players were tolerable, not one of them excelled on the instrument he played; but there was a little science among them, which I dare say will be acknowledged when I name them: The First Violin: HAYDN, Second Violin: BARON DITTERSDORF, Violoncello: VANHALL, Viola: MOZART“.

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OAE: The Six Brandenburgs

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

J S Bach: The Six Brandenburg Concertos
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
The Anvil, Basingstoke. 12 November 2024


Performing all six of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos in a single concert is a relatively rare occurrence, so this was a very welcome event in Basingstoke’s Anvil concert hall, a favourite venue for the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, one of the Anvil’s Associate Orchestras. One of the problems of playing all six concertos is the logistics of gathering so many instrumentalists together, with several only needed for one piece. Another is the length, on this occasion lasting from 7.30 until nearly 10pm. Although the programme suggested the concertos would be played in their numbered order, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment performed them in the sensible order of 1, 3, 5 + 4, 6, 2, as they did in their St John’s, Smith Square concert in 2017, reviewed here. This order provides some key contrast, and saves the most powerful concerto to the end, made more dramatic by following two more intimate concertos.

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Krebs: Keyboard Works Volume 3 & 4

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Johann Ludwig Krebs (1713 – 1780)
Keyboard Works Volume 3 & 4
Steven Devine, harpsichord
Resonus Classics RES10329 (77’30) & RES10344 (63’50)


Steven Devine continues his crustation-inspired (Krebs = crayfish or crab) series of recordings of Krebs’ keyboard works with Volumes 3 and 4. They follow the two earlier recordings reviewed here (Volume 1) and here (Volume 2). I understand there will now be two further CDs after the originally planned series of four, an essential and welcome addition needed to cover Krebs’ known harpsichord works. I should repeat the warning I gave in earlier reviews of this series that it only represents a part of Krebs’ keyboard music. The programme note essay gives the far more accurate ’Works for Harpsichord’ title. The works for organ fill another 7 full-sized CDs. Many of Krebs’ organ compositions show a direct Bach influence, often to a specific piece that Krebs then expands, often to enormous length and complexity. That is far less apparent in the harpsichord works on this recording, although the Bach-inspired moments are fairly easy to spot.

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Picardy Players: Birch Tales

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

‘Birch Tales‘
The Picardy Players, James Batty
Art Workers’ Guild, 19 October 2024


This fascinating “multi-sensory concert experience” from the Picardy Players ticked several boxes of musical and historical interest alongside the senses of sight, smell, taste and touch, represented by displays of birch bark, wafts of woodland smells, birch juice drinks from the bar, and a honey pastry and a little pendant tied to birch bark left for us on our seats – all explained in the brief programme note by linking them to the various tales that we were about to hear.

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