Johan Löfving

Northern Star Festival: A Glimpse of Earthly Delights

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

A Glimpse of Earthly Delights
Northern Star Festival 2020 Online
The Swedish Church in London. 18 October 2020

When one coffee-loving soul meets another . . .
A love story riding on the river of ground bass surrounded by all delights on earth and everything wonderful in life.

With little chance of a live audience, many musicians are taking to online concerts. One such is this delightful video from the Northern Star Festival, with a performance of “music and poetry about food, drink, love and all that’s wonderful in life“.

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Johan Löfving: Fandango!

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Fandango!
Music for solo guitar and String Quartet
Johan Löfving, Consone Quartet
Resonus Classics RES10260. 72’43

The guitar is more usually associated with rock/pop music from the 1950s onwards or, in more classical thinking, as a Baroque continuo instrument of Spanish origin and influence. But in this recording, Swedish-born guitarist Johan Löfving puts paid to both those assumptions with a lovely exploration of the guitar in the early Romantic era in places such as Paris and Vienna where the newly developed six-string guitar enjoyed a relatively brief moment of glory. Continue reading →

St. Anne’s International Bach Festival

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Music-at-Hill Golden Jubilee
24th St. Anne’s International Bach Festival
St. Mary-at-Hill, Lovat Lane, City of London
19 & 26 July 2019

The Music-at-Hill Concert Society was founded 50 years ago as the St Anne’s Music Society based in the church of St Anne & Agnes Church in Gresham Street, then the home of London’s Lutheran congregation. The church and the music society moved to St Mary-at-Hill in 2013. Music-at-Hill arranges weekly Friday lunchtime concerts, often of early music. During the four weeks in July leading up to the date of Bach’s death, they present the annual St. Anne’s International Bach Festival now in its 24th year, run in conjunction with its partner organisation, the City Bach Collective, who run regular Bach Cantatas for the St Anne’s Lutheran congregation in St Mary-at-Hill. The final two Fridays of the four-week festival featured two lunchtime recitals and a Gala Bach Concerto Finale from the City Bach Collective.

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