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?
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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”.
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.
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 Hickswith 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.
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’.
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 MoralesSancta et immaculata virginitas F. GuerreroMissa Sancta et immaculata C. de MoralesAve Maria, gratia plena
T.L. de VictoriaEcce Dominus veniet R. de CeballosO Virgo Benedicta A. de SilvaAlma redemptoris Mater P. RuimonteLuna que reluces F. GuerreroAl 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.
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.
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.
“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.
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 recordedit (SIGCD615). Several of the singers and players from that recording remain for their latest London performance in St Martin-in-the-Fields.
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 250thanniversary 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.
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.
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.
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.
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”.
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 andArchitecture 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”.
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.
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 250thanniversary 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.
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.
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”.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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”.
Andrew Benson-Wilson : Early Music Reviews + 