The 1723 ‘Bach’ organ, Störmthal, Leipzig, Germany
Wednesday 15 June 2016
Andrew Benson-Wilson
And then came Bach
Composers with Central German connections in the years before Bach. Continue reading
Spitalfields Music: 40th Summer Festival
Spitalfields Music: 40th Summer Festival
Spitalfields Music has been an extraordinary musical and community success since its foundation 40 years ago. Starting life with a 1966 concert to help save Nicholas Hawksmoor’s architecturally important Christ Church Spitalfields (which was then, unbelievably, under threat of demolition) it soon grew into a ‘Summer Festival of Music’ led by Richard Hickox. Initially under the auspices of the Friends of Christ Church, it became an independent organisation and charity in 1989, setting up their continuing community and education programme two years later. Under the artistic and managerial leadership of the likes of Judith Serota, Michael Berkely, Judith Weir, Jonathan Dove, Diana Burrel, Abigail Pogson and the current Chief Executive, Eleanor Gussman, it has grown into an major musical and community force in London, sharing their passion for music with nearly half and million people, attracting more than 325,000 audience members to events in more than 70 venues in the Spitalfields and Tower Hamlets area. Alongside their Summer and Winter Festivals, they run an enormous Learning & Participation programme involved more than 125,000 people.
They have traditionally focussed on early and contemporary music, commissioning many new works from present day composers to create Continue reading
Weber: Der Freischütz
Weber: Der Freischütz
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, London Philharmonic Choir, Sir Mark Elder
Royal Festival Hall. 7 June 2016
The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment have been celebrating their 30th anniversary year with a remarkably wide range of music, culminating with this Birthday Concert performance of Weber’s Der Freischütz. Perhaps most noted for their exploration of Baroque and Classical music, it can be forgotten that the OAE have also performed many pieces from the Romantic era, with remarkable success – indeed, their second concert, 30 years ago, under Roger Norrington, was devoted entirely to Weber. And so it was with this powerful semi-dramatised performance.
‘Not all orchestras are the same’ is one of the OAE’s mottos, and they do seem to relish pushing boundaries. That was also the case with Weber and Der Freischütz, one of the opening salvos of the German Romantic movement. Set in a forest Continue reading
Zipoli: complete keyboard music
Zipoli: complete keyboard music
Carlo Guandalino, organ, Laura Farabollini, harpsichord
Brilliant Classics. 95212. 2 CDs. 76’10 + 72’20
Domenico Zipoli is often seen as a rather insubstantial composer compared to his contemporaries, his surviving organ pieces being generally short and sometimes rather light pieces intended for use in the Catholic service. Although his harpsichord suites were not constrained by such circumstances, they are also attractive, rather than emotionally intense, works. This double CD, one each devoted to organ and harpsichord, present his complete keyboard works and might help to put Zipoli in a better light. They were published in two volumes of Zipoli’s 1716 Sonata d’intavolatura per organo e cimbalo while he was organist of the Jesuit church in Rome. Shortly afterwards, he moved to Seville en route to Paraguary but, after an eventful voyage, ended up in Continue reading
Helper and Protector
Helper and Protector
Italian Maestri in Poland
The Sixteen, Eamonn Dougan
Coro COR16141. 67’32
Eamonn Dougan, associate conductor of The Sixteen, continues his exploration of music from Poland with this CD of music by Italian musicians in the late 16th century during the reign of Sigismund III Vasa. Sigismund III ruled the Polish/Lithuanian state at a time of religious upheaval. Raised a Catholic his Polish mother in the Protestant Sweden of his father (the King of Sweden), he soon became involved in the Counter-Reformation, seeking out musicians from Rome to help in his quest.
The most notably of these was Luca Marenzio, represented here principally by his superb Missa super Iniquos odio habui. This is the first complete recording of this work, much of which Continue reading
Royal Academy Opera:Poppea
Monteverdi: L’incoronazione di Poppea
Royal Academy Opera
Shoreditch Town Hall. 21 May 2016
Awaiting the construction of their new concert hall, the Royal Academy of Music have been trying out different venues in the past year. For their final opera of the season, Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea, they chose Shoreditch Town Hall (a space new to me) in the middle of a very lively and cosmopolitan part of London. There was some awkwardness in the staging arrangement as the audience enter past what would normally be back-stage, but they coped with this well. The staging was simple, a three-sided box with three entrances on either side, and five in the rear wall. There were very few props, with much depending on Jake Wiltshire’s excellent lighting to provide mood, most prominently at the end of Act 1 when Seneca’s death is depicting by a flood of red light.
Poppea is one of the more complex operas to stage, with many characters and a myriad of interconnections between the roles. Continue reading
Regensburg: Tage Alter Musik 2016
Regensburg: Tage Alter Musik
13-16 May 2016
If sixteen concerts of early music in just four days sound like your sort of thing, Regensburg is the place to be over the Pentecost/Whitsun weekend every year. Their Tage Alter Musik festival is not for the faint hearted, but the musical rewards are enormous, as are the architectural and historic delights of this beautiful Bavarian city on the Danube – the entire city centre is a World Heritage site. Venues for the concerts include extreme Baroque/Rococo, austere Gothic and the historic Reichssaal. This year was the 32nd such festival. One of the attractions of Tage Alter Musik for a reviewer from the UK is that most of the performers that they engage do not visit the UK, so it is an excellent chance to hear what our continental neighbours are up to.
Friday 13 May
The weekend traditionally opens on Friday evening with the famous Regensburg cathedral boys’ choir, the Regensburger Domspatzen, Continue reading
London Festival of Baroque Music: Tabea Debus & European Union Baroque Orchestra
London Festival of Baroque Music
Tabea Debus, European Union Baroque Orchestra
The London Festival of Baroque is growing from strength to strength after its rebirth from its previous incarnation as the Lufthansa Festival. Shorn of the former funding stream, it has had to rebuild its financial stability. The increase in the number of this year’s events over last year is one sign of their success. One of the big advantages of the former sponsorship deal was that it enabled many non-UK groups to travel to London for the festival, so it is encouraging that such visits by musicians from abroad continue to be a feature of the festival. Also most encouraging is their focus on young musicians, with three concerts specifically devoted to them under the banner of ‘Future Baroque’. They also included a late-night concert by the young folk-inspired singer-songwriter, Olivia Chaney.
Unfortunately this year’s festival (13-19 May) clashed with my annual invitation to the Regensburg Tage Alter Musik festival, which takes Continue reading
New music for choir and ancient instruments
New music for choir and ancient instruments
Choir of Gonville & Caius College Cambridge, Geoffrey Webber
London Festival of Contemporary Church Music
St Pancras Church. 7 May 2016
Shortly after reviewing the Gonville & Caius Chorus vel Organa CD (here) and the unrelated Spellweaving CD of ancient music from Scotland (here), I noticed that the opening concert of the London Festival of Contemporary Church Music would be combining some of the musicians in one event. The first half was of extracts from the Chorus vel Organa CD, based on music, mostly by Ludford, from the mediaeval Royal Chapel of St Stephen in the Palace of Westminster. Magnus Williamson’s clever reinterpretations of the organ verses that form an integral part of the music were played by an organ scholar on one of the St Pancras organs, a very different sound and temperament to the copy of a mediaeval organ used on the recording. The choir did well to cope with the different pitch and tuning.
The Gonville & Caius choir have previously worked with some of the instruments from the Spellweaving CD, and featured music in that idiom Continue reading
The Soldier’s Return
The Soldier’s Return
Guitar works inspired by Scotland
James Akers
Resonus RES10165. 61’00
Music by Mauro Guiliani, Lauigi Legnani, Fernando Sor & Johann Mertz
If the composers aren’t familiar to you, some of the melodies will be in this selection of 19th century guitar pieces inspired by Scotland during the early Romantic era. Scotland was an influence to many artists and musicians of that period, famously Mendelssohn after the 1829 visit that produced the Scottish Symphony, Hebrides Overture and Fingal’s Cave. Giuliani Mauro is given most coverage, with six simple pieces, some of which are enlarged into a larger format by combining, repeating, and adding a prelude. Fellow Italian Lauigi Legnani has the most extended and elaborate pieces with his two variation sets on themes from Rossini’s opera La donna del lage, based on Sir Walter Scott’s poem on James V of Scotland. Continue reading
1723 Störmthal ‘Bach’ organ
Andrew Benson-Wilson plays the famous 1723 Hildebrandt organ in Störmthal, Leipzig (where Bach gave the opening recital), on Wednesday 15 June 2016 at 7pm, during the Leipzig Bachfest.
The programme explores composers with Central German connections in the years before Bach – and by Bach.
Conversed Monologue
Conversed Monologue
Fantasticus XI
Resonus RES10166. 70’08
Graun: Concerto for Viola da Gamba in C; Leclair: Concerto for Violin in G minor; WF Bach: Concerto for Harpsichord in F major.
I have been impressed with previous CDs by Fantasticus (see here) and am equally impressed by their latest project, now expanded from their usual trio into a small baroque orchestra with the name of Fantasticus XL. All three members of the original Fantasticus take solo roles in the featured concertos – and what fascinating pieces they are. One of the joys of this recording is that all three pieces are little-known, but well worth discovering.
When the CD starts, it is difficult to appreciate that this is the start of a viola da gamba Concerto, such is the bravado and élan of Graun’s opening phrase. Continue reading
Spellweaving: Ancient music from the Highlands of Scotland
Spellweaving
Ancient music from the Highlands of Scotland
Barnaby Brown, Clare Salaman, Bill Taylor
Delphian DCD34171. 74’37
Hindorõdin hindodre (One of the Cragich),
Cumha Mhic Leòid (McLeod’s Lament),
Fear Pìoba Meata (The Timid Piper),
Cruinneachadh nan Sutharlanach (The Sutherlands’ Gathering),
Hiorodotra cheredeche (a nameless pibroch),
Port na Srian (The Horse’s Bridle Tune),
Pìobaireachd na Pàirce (The Park Pibroch),
Ceann Drochaid’ Innse-bheiridh (The End of Inchberry Bridge).
Opening with the sound of a rowing boat, seagulls and breaking waves is just the start of an extraordinary aural journey exploring the ancient music and instruments of the Scottish highlands. This recording, and its related research activities, aim to trace the evolution of ‘pibroch’ (pìobaireachd), translating as ‘what the piper does’. One thing a piper probably did not do was to use such a vast range of instruments to perform the music. For another part of their project involves studying the ‘Strange and Ancient’ instruments of our musical past. And so, rather than an hour of traditional bagpipes, we have the haunting sounds of a vulture bone flute (copied from an 30,000 year old original), a Highland clarsach (20-string harp) wire and gut stringed lyres (from originals found at Sutton Hoo and Sweden), a medieval fiddle, hurdy-gurdy and, perhaps most unusually, a Hardanger fiddle, an instrument dating back only to the mid 17th century. I doubt that these instruments were well known to Highland pipers or, indeed, collectively, by anybody in pre-modern days. Continue reading
Meister: Il giardino del piacere
Meister: Il giardino del piacere
Ensemble Diderot, Johannes Pramsohler
St John’s Smith Sq. 8 May 2016
Meister: Il Giardino del piacere: La Musica Nona, Duodecima & Terza; Pachelbel: Partie II (Musicalische Ergötzung) & Partie V; Keller Chaconne; Biber: Partia VI (Harmonia artificioso-ariosa)
For the launch concert of their latest CD (of the music of Johann Friedrich Meister, reviewed here), Ensemble Diderot contrasted three of Meister’s 1695 La Musica sonatas with music by his near contemporise Pachelbel, Keller and Biber. We know little of Meister. He seems to have come from Hanover or thereabouts, and certainly worked in the Ducal Court there. After a dispute about pay, he moved to the Lübeck area before moving north to Flensburg in Schleswig (then part of Denmark and now the most northerly city in Germany) where he was organist of the Marienkirche and also work for the local Ducal Court. His collection Il giardino del piacere, overo Raccolta de diversi fiori musicali, come sonate, fughe, imitationi, ciaccone, passagaglie, allemande, correnti &c. was published in Hamburg in 1695, shortly before his death.
His music seems to sum up the varied and exciting music of that period in German musical history, a time still dominated by the stylus phantasticus, or fantasy style of free and often rather anarchic musical structures. The latter is shown in the fact that none of the three pieces played had the same format. Although all open with a Sonata, usually with a central fugal section, the following dances seem to be in almost random order and style, although they all end with a Gigue. The two pieces by Pachelbel were similar in structural style, although they both included a distinctive and lively Treza movement. The Biber Partita VI (that ended the concert) was built around an imaginative central set of 13 variations, with an opening Praeludium and closing Finale. The Pachelbel Musicalische Ergötzung was played with two piccolo violins, with scordatura tuning, making a nice tonal contrast to the sound of normal baroque violins.
Johannes Pramsohler and his three fellow musicians of Ensemble Diderot relished the contrast between and within the various pieces, playing with an exquisite combination of consort and individuality. Their intonation was perfect throughout, and they managed to bring exaggeration to the already exciting music without ever pushing things too far. I particularly liked the fact that, despite having a clear group leader, his playing never dominated. These were true Trio Sonatas, where the balance between the three voices is vital – and Roldán Bernabé and Gulrim Choi had important contributions on second violin and cello. Philippe Grisvard’s harpsichord continue was delicate and sensitive, correctly avoiding the temptation to do too much.
Johannes Pramsohler introduced the music in a delightfully informal, but occasionally rather lengthy manner.
CD. Meister: Il giardino del piacere
Meister: Il giardino del piacere
Ensemble Diderot, Johannes Pramsohler
Audax ADX13705. 66’45
Johann Friedrich Meister: Il Giardino Del Piacere (La Musica Terza, Settima, Ottava, Nona, Prima & Duodecima).
About ten years after Reinhard Goebel’s Musica Antiqua Köln disbanded, Ensemble Diderot have completed their last CD project by recording the remaining six Trio Sonatas from his Il giardino del piacere, overo Raccolta de diversi fiori musicali, come sonate, fughe, imitationi, ciaccone, passagaglie, allemande, correnti &c. We know little of Johann Friedrich Meister. He seems to have come from Hanover, and certainly worked in the Ducal Court there. After a dispute about pay, he moved to the Lübeck area before moving north to Flensburg in Schleswig (then part of Denmark and now the most northerly city in Germany) where he was organist of the Marienkirche and work for the local Ducal Court. His collection, Il giardino del piacere (pleasure garden), was published in Hamburg in 1695, shortly before his death.
Meister’s music seems to sum up the varied and exciting music of that period in German musical history, a period dominated by the stylus phantasticus (fantasy style) of free and often rather anarchic musical structures. The latter is shown in the fact that none of the Sonatas on this CD have the same format. Although all open with a Sonata, usually with a central fugal section, the following dances seem to be in almost random order and style, although they all end with a Gigue.
Johannes Pramsohler and his three fellow musicians of Ensemble Diderot clearly relish the contrast between and within the various pieces, and they play with an exquisite combination of consort and individuality. Their intonation is perfect throughout, and they manage bring exaggeration to the already exciting music without ever pushing things too far. I particularly like the fact that, despite having a clear group leader, his playing never dominates. These are true Trio Sonatas, and the balance between the three voices is vital – Roldán Bernabé and Gulrim Choi have important contributions on second violin and cello. Philippe Grisvard’s harpsichord continue is delicate and sensitive, correctly avoiding the temptation to do too much. And Johannes Pramsohler is a very talented violinist that is well worth watching out for.
The recording is of excellent quality. I like the fact that the little up-beat breaths before pieces start are retained. These are an essential part of performance practice but are usually inaudible from the concert stage, or edited out from recordings. The CD was launched at their concert in London’s St John’s, Smith Square on 8 May, reviewed here.
John Scott Commemoration
John Scott Commemoration
St Paul’s Cathedral. 6 May 2016
The untimely death in August 2015 of the eminent organist and choral director John Scott was a shock to many. Organist and Director of Music of St Paul’s Cathedral from 1990 to 2004, and then at St Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue, New York, John’s reputation as solo organist and choir director seemed to be on a perpetual rise. His memory remains strong in St Paul’s Cathedral, as was evident from the packed Service of Commemoration and Thanksgiving to mark his life, held in place of the usual Evensong on Friday 6 May.
Unusually for English cathedral services, the commemoration was prefaced by 35 minutes of organ music, played by two of John’s former Sub-Organists Continue reading
Chorus vel Organa: Music from the Lost Palace of Westminster
Chorus vel Organa
Music from the Lost Palace of Westminster
Choir of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge,
Delphian DCD34158. 66’56
Geoffrey Webber, director, Magnus Williamson, organ
Anon c1519: Processional: Sancte Dei pretiose; Ludford: Missa Lapidaverunt Stephanum (Gloria & Agnus Dei), Lady Mass Cycle (Agnus Dei, Alleluia – Salve Virgo, Gloria, Kyrie, Laetabundus); Cornysh Magnificat; Sheppard Hymn: Sancte Dei pretiose; Anon c1530: Offertory: Felix namque.
Anybody who has visited the Houses of Parliament in Westminster will probably have entered by the St Stephen’s entrance and walked through St Stephen’s Hall towards the famous ‘Lobby’, all built around 1850 to the design of Charles Barry. Most will not realise the significance of the St Stephen’s name, or what lies hidden beneath their feet. St Stephen’s Hall is the site of the mediaeval Royal Chapel of St Stephen’s, originally a private chapel for the King and his family and only accessible from the Royal Palace of Westminster. Barry’s sumptuous ceremonial hall was built on top of the surviving undercroft of the Royal Chapel, now known as St Mary Undercroft. The chapel was first mentioned in 1184, and was rebuilt by Edward I around 1292, a project that lasted many years. It was raised to the status of a college by Edward III in 1348, and developed an outstanding tradition of music which lasted until the dissolution in 1548 when it became the first meeting place of the English House of Commons, until 1854. Many of the current parliamentary traditions stem from these Continue reading
Tallis Lamentations
Tallis Lamentations
The Cardinall’s Musick, Andrew Carwood
Hyperion CDA68121. 75’09
Lamentations of Jeremiah I/II; In pace, in idipsum; Lord have mercy upon us: Short Service ‘Dorian’ (Responses, Credo, Sanctus, Gloria); Not every one that saith unto me; Solemnis urgebat dies; Sancte Deus; Dum transisset Sabbatum; Why brag’st in malice high; Salvator mundi I; Te deum ‘for meanes’; Come, Holy Ghost.
This is the penultimate recording in The Cardinal’s Musick’s Tallis Edition, and it opens with a masterpiece, the two settings of the Lamentations of Jeremiah. As Andrew Carwood explains in his programme notes, it seems that they were written during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, rather than the earlier Catholic Queen Mary. It is not clear why these, and other similar Lamentations, were composed or when they would have been performed, if not in the Holy Week Tenebrae service in the Catholic rite – hence the usual assumption of composition during Queen Mary’s reign. They are remarkable pieces, using the simple textural style of one note per syllable encouraged by Archbishop Cranmer. The Hebrew incipits are particularly well set, as are the concluding, and rather sombre Continue reading
Telemann: Suites and concertos for recorder
Telemann: Suites and concertos for recorder
Erik Bosgraaf, Ensemble Cordevento
Brilliant Classics 95248. 75’46
Suite in E-flat, TWV 55:Es2; Suite in A minor, TWV 55:a2;
Concerto in F, TWV 51:F1; Concerto in C, TWV 51:C1.
Telemann taught himself to play the recorder, violin and zither before the age of 10, and continued to practice the recorder well into his teens – something very few youngsters do today. He seems to have retained a love for the recorder, judging by the number of pieces he wrote for it, including these Suites and Concertos. Incidentally, the two Suites are both titled Ouverture in their manuscripts, and are examples of Telemann’s so-called concert en ouverture style of composition, which combines elements of the traditional suite with the overture. Apart from the E-flat suite (which is intended for the flute pastorelle, which perhaps means the panpipes), all the music is from the same manuscript surviving in the Hesse Court library in Darmstadt, suggesting that they were composed for Michael Böhm, Telemann’s brother-in-law and a virtuoso woodwind player. They are all written for alto recorder.
Both types of piece reflect Telemann’s cross-cultural inspiration, taking bits of French and Italian style with a dollop of the inevitable Polish influence. Continue reading
Royal Academy of Music: Early Music Prize
Royal Academy of Music
Nancy Nuttall Early Music Prize
RAM Duke’s Hall. 29th April 2016
The Royal Academy of Music’s annual early music prize has in recent years been known as the Nancy Nuttall Early Music Prize, rather than its earlier incarnation with the name of a sherry manufacturer who donated a crate of sherry to the winners. The competition is for groups of from 3 to 10 players playing music from before 1800 on historically appropriate instruments. The winning group receives £1,000. It is a few years since I have been able to get to this event, and the increase in the standard of performance, and in the number of performers, was noticeable. Around 24 young musicians appeared, with very little duplication within the six groups.
It started with one of those awkward reviewer moments when I realised that instead of arriving embarrassingly early for a 6pm start I was actually embarrassingly late for the 5pm start. So I missed the first two groups, although I Continue reading
Jommelli: Il Vologeso
Niccolò Jommelli: Il Vologeso
Classical Opera Company, Ian Page
Cadogan Hall, 28 April 2016
It is when you hear music from composers like Niccolò Jommelli (1714-74) that you realise just how deep the musical well is, if you peep behind the wall of well-known composers. Writing in that fascinating limbo period between the Baroque and Classical era, Jommelli perhaps completed too many operas for posterity to master. Il Vologeso is one of his best-known works and, on the strength of this performance by Classical Opera Company (giving the UK premiere), deserves to be heard more, and in a full staging rather than this concert performance. This was another part of their MOZART 250 project, aimed at exploring the works of Mozart and his contemporaries on the anniversary of their composition – which, in the case of Il Vologeso, was on 11 February 1766, in the enormous theatre at the Duke of Württemberg’s Ludwigsburg Palace near Stuttgart.
The opening extended Overture showed many of the features of Jommelli’s writing that would be reinforced as the evening progressed, including Continue reading
1880: Brahms, Rott & Bruckner
1880: Brahms, Rott & Bruckner
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Sir Simon Rattle
Royal Festival Hall. 22 April 2016
Brahms: Tragic Overture; Hans Rott: Scherzo (Symphony in E); Bruckner: Symphony No.6.
Having helped to sort out the early music world over the past 30 years, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment is now turning its hand to the high Romantics. Hot on the heels of their 14 April RFH performance of Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony (reviewed here), they now turn their hands to Bruckner and his rarely performed 6th Symphony, with Sir Simon Rattle. Their programme was built around the year 1880, and compared the music of three works composed in that year by three very different composers, one almost completely unknown.
The evening started, slightly unfortunately, with the Tragic Overture of Brahms, the bête noire of Bruckner and Hans Rott (pictured), and several others of a progressive ilk, such as Mahler. Unfortunate, because of the effect that Brahms’ withering comments on Hans Rott’s First Symphony had on the young composer. The unfortunate Rott (1858-84) was a student contemporary of Mahler and Hugo Wolf at the Vienna Conservatory, and studied organ with Bruckner, who saw him as his ‘favourite pupil’. Although Rott hadn’t impressed a conservatory competition panel with a piano reduction of the first movement, he went on to expand it into a four movement symphony. For reasons unknown, and certainly ill-advised, the then 22 year-old Rott showed the score to Brahms, an enemy of anything musically progressive, and of Bruckner and the Vienna conservatory. Brahms advised the already vulnerable young man to ‘give up composing’, leading to a possibly hallucinatory incident that resulted in him being committed Continue reading
Weckmann recital: programme notes
The Queen’s College Chapel, Oxford. 27 April 2016
Matthias Weckmann
1616–1674
Andrew Benson-Wilson
Praeambulum Primi toni a 5
Ach wir armen Sünder (3v)
Canzon V
Magnificat Secundi Toni (4v)
Toccata ex D
Gelobet seystu, Jesu Christ (4v)
Matthias Weckmann is one of the most influential 17th century organist composers of the North German – a compositional school that started with Hieronymus Praetorius and the pupils of Sweelinck and culminated in Buxtehude and, by influence, Bach. Weckmann’s contribution was to bring elements of the Italian style to North Germany. Unlike most of his contemporaries who were born in or near Hamburg and studied in Amsterdam, Weckmann was born in Thuringia. He studied in the Dresden Court under Heinrich Schütz, a pupil of Giovanni Gabrieli, and in Hamburg with Jacob Praetorius, a Sweelinck pupil. After periods in Denmark and Dresden (where he befriended Froberger, also born in 1616), Weckmann settled in Hamburg in 1655, becoming organist of the Jacobikirche and setting up the Collegium Musicum. He is buried beneath the Jacobikirche organ.
The Praeambulum Primi toni a 5 is a fine example of the mid-17th century North German style of free composition that led Continue reading
Janáček: Jenůfa
Janáček: Jenůfa
Czech Philharmonic & Choir of Brno, Jirí Bélohlávek
Royal Festival Hall. 16 April 2016
As part of their International Orchestra Series, the Royal Festival Hall welcomed the Czech Philharmonic and their conductor Jirí Bélohlávek for a concert performance of Leoš Janáček’s opera Jenůfa, first performed in Brno 1904. It is known in Czech as Její pastorkyňa, “Her Stepdaughter”, the name of the book upon which it is based. It is the stepmother, Kostelnička Buryjovka who is the focus of the story, although the tragic figure of the story is the hapless Jenůfa. Kostelnička has a frequently manipulative hold on the complex system of family, friends and villagers that the opera explores, not least on her stepdaughter, Jenůfa, who is in love with, and secretly pregnant by, her cousin Števa Buryja, the frequently drunken saw-mill owner. Števa’s half-brother, Laca has loved Jenůfa since childhood and is insanely jealous of his half-brother who appears to have everything he lacks, including the girls. When his clumsy attempt at a kiss is repelled, he slashes Jenůfa’s face witha blunt knife, disfiguring her. Continue reading
Menuhin International Violin Competition 2016
Menuhin International Violin Competition 2016
Senior Final and Closing Gala Concert
Royal Festival Hall. 16 & 17 April 2016
It was fitting that for this, the 100th anniversary year of Yehudi Menuhin’s birth, the competition that he founded in 1983 returned to the UK. It started life, rather curiously, in Folkestone and has since had a peripatetic existence, moving around countries and continents every two years. Menuhin was not particularly keen on competitions, and wanted the one he founded to be more of a festival. This was amply demonstrated in the extraordinarily wide range of activities for competitors and listeners during the 11 days of the 2016 competition. Hosted largely by the Royal Academy of Music, the festival was presented in partnership with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Southbank Centre, and the Yehudi Menuhin School.
Some 300 young violinists from around 40 countries applied for selection for the competition, and 22 were chosen for each of the Junior and Senior groups. The age range is very young, up to 16 for the Junior section, and up Continue reading
Monteverdi: Messa a Quattro voci
Monteverdi: Messa a Quattro voci – Vol 1.
The Sixteen
Coro COR16142. 71’29
Monteverdi: Dixit Dominus (Primo), Confitebor tibi Domine (Secondo), Lauda Jerusalem; Cavalli: Magnificat; Monteverdi: Laetatus sum, Nisi Dominus, Laudate pueri, Laetaniae della Beata Vergine, Beatus vir.
In the last two years of his life, Monteverdi collected a substantial amount of his music for publication (the Madrigali guerrieri et amorisi, 1638, and Salve morale et spirituale, 1641), reflecting his musical output over the previous decades. After his death, one of his publishers had the good sense, or the commercial sense, to put together some unpublished manuscripts to form the 1650 Messa a 4 v. et salmi a 1–8 v. e parte da cappella & con le litanie della B.V. This is the first of two CDs from The Sixteen of music from this posthumous collection: the Mass setting of the title will be on the second volume. This CD includes a selection of liturgical pieces, but not in any specific liturgical context, with several Vespers Psalms, a Litany to the Virgin Mary and a Magnificat by Cavalli who probably assisted in the preparation of the publication. Continue reading
Spiritato! Guts and Glory
Guts and Glory
Spiritato!
St John’s Smith Square. 15 April 2016
The young period instrument group Spiritato! is one of the most exciting arrivals on the UK early music scene. Their most recent and most ambitious project is Guts and Glory, exploring the relatively little-known repertoire of military and art music for natural trumpets, which they contrasted with more reflective (or, at least, quieter) works by the same composers for strings and continuo. A key feature of this 
performance was that the trumpets were not only valveless, but also had no finger holes to assist in the tuning of notes. These finger holes (or ‘venting’ or ‘nodal’ holes) are in any case a relatively recent innovation, and may not have been used in early natural trumpets, at least not for the purpose to which they are now used; to make the tuning of the higher harmonic notes easier. Indeed, it seems that the original holes found in some instruments were actually place at the anti-node, rather than the node, and were therefore intended to silence the tricky notes altogether, rather than to try to bring them into tune.
Not surprisingly, it was the distinctive tuning that results from valveless trumpets was a major feature of the evening. When played in their lower Continue reading
Mozart/Oliver: The Goose of Cairo
Mozart/Oliver: The Goose of Cairo
London Mozart Players
St John’s Smith Square. 14 April 2016
Billed as a ‘completion’ of Mozart’s unfinished opera, L’oca del Caïro, Stephen Oliver’s approach to the task of making Mozart’s remnants performable is more of a complete re-working of the original. The resulting two-act, 90 minute opera is half Mozart, half Oliver. It blends and merges the two distinct musical style in a compelling manner. Composed for, and first performed (fully staged) at the Musica bel Chiostro festival in Batignano in 1991 (a year before Stephen Oliver’s untimely death), this concert performance was its British premiere, and its first performance in a new English translation.
The story of how this comic opera came to be discarded by Mozart reveals something of the tension between composers and librettist. Varesco was librettist for I re pastore and Idomeneo, the latter already causing ructions when Mozart changed the text to suit his music. This conflict was carried on with some gusto into Continue reading
OAE. Mahler: Resurrection Symphony
Mahler: Resurrection Symphony
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Philharmonia Chorus, Vladimir Jurowski
Royal Festival Hall. 12 April 2016
The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment is a remarkable institution. They are equally at home as a tiny Baroque trio sonata format, a string quartet in a crowded pub or, as they were on this occasion, with nearly 120 players fronting a choir of more than 130 singers in one of the major works of the late Romantic repertoire. They bring an extraordinary wealth of knowledge and expertise of period instruments and performing styles, and nurture, support and influence the conductors that they invite to direct their concerts. With Sir Simon Rattle soon to lead them in Bruckner, this was Vladimir Jurowski’s chance to put them through their paces with Mahler’s 2nd Symphony, the so-called ‘Resurrection’.
This often performed giant of the repertoire is very rarely, if ever, heard with the instrumental sound of Mahler’s time. And although that is only just over 100 years ago, the sound difference to the modern orchestra is almost as great as that between Mahler’s time and Mozart’s, 100 years before. The most Continue reading
Tabea Debus: Cantata per Flauto
Cantata per Flauto
Tabea Debus & Ensemble
TYXart TXA15060. 73’01
Hasse: Cantata per Flauto; Tsoupaki: Charavgi für Blockflöte; van Eyck: Variations on ‘Come again, sweet love doth now invite’; Sarro: Concerto in d-moll; Jarzebski: Diligam Te Domine, Venite Exultemus; Töpp: a due; Telemann: Concerto in C; Purcell: An Evening Hymn.
Following her first CD, Upon a Ground (reviewed here), recorder player Tabea Debus here works with a larger group of instruments and with a wider range of music, including two pieces by present-day composers. The first track (the opening of Hasse’s Cantata per Flauto – a recent discovery, found in the collection of the Viceroy of Naples) sets the mood perfectly, and makes it absolutely clear why you will love this CD. Tabea Debus’s spirited, virtuosic and musically compelling playing is immediately obvious, as is her evident sense of humour, demonstrated in this case by an extraordinary sense of articulation and phrasing and a lovely little cadenza. In the second movement Adagio, the recorder weaves a complex musical line, elaborated by ornaments (many presumably improvised) in the manner of an operatic aria. This reflects the CD’s title and principal focus: of the recorder as a ‘singing’ or ‘vocal’ instrument, closely linked to the human voice, and the Continue reading
Andrew Benson-Wilson : Early Music Reviews + 