Nicholas Mulroy

I Fagiolini: Monteverdi Vespers

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Monteverdi Vespers of 1610
I Fagiolini, English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble
Robert Hollingworth
St Martin in the Fields, 26 September 2025

The Monteverdi Vespers of 1610 is one of those enigmatic pieces with a complicated back story and fascinating performance quandaries, not unlike the Bach B minor Mass. Under the title of Vespers for the Blessed Virgin, it is part of a larger publication, Mass for the Most Holy Virgin for six voices, and Vespers for several voices with some sacred songs, suitable for chapels and ducal chambers. It combines music for a Mass and the Vespers together with “a few sacred songs” and a largely instrumental Sonata. It does not fit into either a traditional Mass or Vespers ritual. At the time, Monteverdi was maestro di capella to the Gonzaga Dukes of Mantua, but the score was personally dedicated and presented to the Borghese Pope Paul V in Rome, suggesting that it was a not-so-subtle calling card for preferment, representing as it does the wide scope of his compositional powers. Despite that, within three years, he was appointed maestro di capella at St Mark’s in Venice. It is unlikely that it was ever heard the Vespers in the form that we know it today. Indeed, it might never have been intended to be heard in that form.

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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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Academy of Ancient Music. St Matthew Passion

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

St Matthew Passion
Academy of Ancient Music, Laurence Cummings
The Barbican, 29 March 2024


The Academy of Ancient Music (an Associate Ensemble at the Barbican Centre) is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its foundation by Christopher Hogwood. At a time when practically everybody else was concentrating on the St John Passion, in its anniversary year, they promoted a special performance of the Matthew Passion in the Barbican Hall, directed by their Music Director, Laurence Cummings. What was special about it was that they took the music back to its Leipzig roots, with a small orchestra (or, to be exact, two small orchestras) and a choir of just 8 (4+4) singers, all of whom contributed solos (of various importance), including, in Choir 1, the key roles of the Evangelist and Christus and the multi-character bass in Choir 2.

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See, See, the Word is incarnate

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

See, See, the Word is incarnate
Choral & Instrumental music by Gibbons, Tomkins & Weelkes
The Chapel Choir of Trinity Hall, Cambridge,
Newe Vialles, Orpheus Britannicus Vocal Consort, Andrew Arthur
Resonus Classics RES10295. 70’51

The Chapel Choir of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, under the College’s Director of Music, Andrew Arthur, follow their previous recording of Buxtehude (reviewed here) with this exploration of some of the best-known music from the early decades of the 17th-century. This was the period when James I was on the throne of the two kingdoms of Scotland and England. Gibbons and Weelkes were both dead by the end of his reign (in 1625), but Tomkins (the first-born of the three) lived on until 1656 to witness, at considerable personal loss, the collapse of the Stuart dynasty and the Commonwealth.

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Monteverdi Vespers

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Monteverdi Vespers
L’Arpeggiata, Christina Pluhar
Tue 14 Dec 2021, Barbican Hall

Monteverdi’s monumental 1610 Vespro della Beata Vergine is now considered mainstream repertoire, but it was unusual to hear it performed alongside the inevitable sequence of Messiah’s in the run-up to Christmas. It was equally good that, amongst the current complicated Anglo-French relations, London could welcome the French group L’Arpeggiata and their founder/director Christina Pluhar. Current Covid and travel issues meant that they were rather more Anglo than usual, with several UK musicians drafted in at short notice to replace those unable to travel. The concert took place live on 14 December in the Barbican Hall, but was also available to stream live, which is how I saw the performance.

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Baroque at the Edge Festival

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Baroque at the Edge Festival
Recorded at  LSO St Luke’s, London
Broadcast online between 7-10 January 2021, available to 31 March 2021

In pre-coronavirus days, the musically barren early days of January have been enlivened by the imaginative Baroque at the Edge Festival, usually spanning a weekend in venues around their home base of LSO at St Luke’s in London. Previous festivals are reviewed here and here. Run by Artistic Director Lindsay Kemp and Festival Manager Lucy Bending (the team behind the London Festival of Baroque Music and its predecessor, the Lufthansa Festival), the festival has secured a place in the London concert scene with their refreshing approach to Baroque music, as exemplified by such banners as “No rules, no boundaries – just Baroque music set loose” and “Imagine if Vivaldi was a folk-fiddler, Purcell a protest-singer, or Bach a techno-geek”. The more succinct and apt “No rules, no walls” for this year’s Covid-constrained festival reflected the on-line nature of the events.

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Dunedin Consort: How Lonely Sits the City

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

How Lonely Sits the City
Dunedin Consort, Nicholas Mulroy
Filmed at Greyfriars Kirk
19 November 2020

Scheduled Live thumbnail

One of the finest of the many online concerts available during the Covid calamity comes from the Edinburgh based Dunedin Consort. Under the direction of their new Associate Director, the distinguished tenor Nicholas Mulroy, their programme was built around the rarely heard Orlande de Lassus Lamentatione Hieremiae Prophetae (Quinque vocum), the three sections of the Primi Diei acting as a binder amongst music from the 16th, 20th and 21st centuries. Unlike many such performances, the concert is, commendably, free to watch although donations are clearly not only encouraged but in the current climate, absolutely essential for the future of music making. Full details about the performance and programme notes can be found here and donation can be made here.

Orlande de Lassus: Lamentatione Hieremiae Prophetae (Quinque vocum)
Cecilia McDowall: I know that my redeemer liveth
Lassus: Lamentatione Hieremiae Prophetae
Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade: Vigil I
Rudolf Mauersberger: Wie liegt die Stadt so wüst
Lassus: Lamentatione Hieremiae Prophetae
William Byrd: Ne irascaris Domine – Civitas sancti tui
James MacMillan: Miserere

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Buxtehude: Membra Jesu Nostri

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Buxtehude: Membra Jesu Nostri
The Chapel Choir of Trinity Hall, Cambridge
Orpheus Britannicus, Newe Vialles, Andrew Arthur (director)
Resonus Classics RES10238. 70’17

Buxtehude’s cycle of seven cantatas, under the collective title of Membra Jesu nostri patientis sanctissima, is one of the finest sacred vocal works of the 17th-century. It reflects on The holy limbs of our suffering Jesus, using texts from the Medieval hymn Salve mundi salutare, probably written by Arnulf of Leuven (d1250). Each cantata focusses on a specific part of Christ’s crucified body: feet, knees, hands, sides, breast, heart, and face, adding to the hymn text words from the Bible. It is composed for five solo singers, who usually also make up a chorus although, in this case, the chorus is the 24-strong Chapel Choir of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, conducted by Andrew Arthur, the Director of Music at Trinty Hall. They are accompanied by the College’s professional period ensemble Ensemble-in-Residence, Orpheus Britannicus (founded by Andrew Arthur), with the five viols of Newe Vialles (directed by Henrik Persson and Caroline Ritchie) playing for the sensuous sixth cantata, Ad cor (To The Heart). Continue reading →

Barbara Strozzi: Star of Venice

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Barbara Strozzi: Star of Venice
Orchestra & Choir of the Age of Enlightenment
Mary Bevan, Christian Curnyn
Kings Place, 10 January 2018

Barbara Strozzi: L’amante modesto, Pace arrabbiata, Lagrime Mie, Canto di bella bocca,
E pazzo il mio core, Le tre Gratie a Venere, Silenzio nocivo
Claudio Monteverdi: Volgendo il ciel, Il ballo delle ingrate

For several years now, Kings Place has selected a specific theme for each year under the banner of ‘Unwrapped’. Past examples have included Time Unwrapped, Cello Unwrapped, Baroque Unwrapped, and Minimalism Unwrapped. Their offering for 2019 is the enticing named Venus Unwrapped. The year-long series of around 60 concerts aims to “unlock the secret history of music by women”. It opened with a focus on Barbara Strozzi, one of the best known of the very few female composers of the Baroque era – or, indeed, of any era if musical history is to be believed. The painting below (The Viola da Gamba Player) is believed to be off Barbara Strozzi.

Strozzi.jpg

The distinguished conductor Christian Curnyn directed a group of singers and instrumentalists from the Orchestra & Choir of the Age of Enlightenment, with Mary Bevan as the main billed soloist, although several other singers had prominent roles.

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Dunedin: Vespers 1610

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson ~ Leave a comment

Monteverdi: Vespro della Beata Vergine
Dunedin Consort, His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts, John Butt
Linn Records. CKD 569. 2CDs 94′

During this 450th anniversary year of Monteverdi’s birth, there have been a plethora of performances and recordings of his 1610 Vespro della Beata Vergine. It’s not an easy work to address, not least because of the many complex musicological and performance issues that surround it.

The first point of call for anybody remotely interested in such things is to read the programme notes. The second is to glance at the track list. If it has more than 12 separate items, then it is probably placed in a quasi-liturgical, and almost certainly spurious, setting, with additional plainchant and instrumental pieces intended to represent how it might if it were performed liturgical. But it is most unlikely ever to have been thus performed.  Scholarship changes almost daily, but it seems likely that this is Monteverdi showing what he is capable of, exploring differing style of music on the cusp of the transition from the Renaissance to the Baroque (the prima pratica to the seconda praticca), and possibly (rather like Bach’s B Minor Mass) as a calling card; in Monteverdi’s case, for potential posts in Venice and Rome.  Continue reading →

BBC Proms: Reformation Day

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson ~ Leave a comment

BBC Proms: Reformation Day
Prom 47: Bach’s ‘Little Organ Book’ past and present
Prom 48: A Patchwork Passion
Prom 49: Bach’s St John Passion
Royal Albert Hall, 20 August 2017

Prom 47: Bach’s ‘Little Organ Book’ past and present
William Whitehead, Robert Quinney, organ

The BBC Proms’ acknowledgement of the anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation came with three concerts on Sunday 20 August, starting with a lunchtime organ recital featuring the premieres of three pieces from The Orgelbüchlein Project played by its founder/director, the organist William Whitehead. The programme opened and closed with Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in E flat (from the Clavierübung III, BWV 552), played by Robert Quinney (who also played Mendelssohn’s Organ Sonata in A major (Op. 65/3)). It also included the fourth of Schumann’s Fugues on B-A-C-H and two of Bach’s own Orgelbüchlein chorale preludes played by William Whitehead and, just before the final Bach Fugue, Samuel Sebastian Wesley’s ‘Prelude to the Grand Organ Fugue by Johann Sebastian Bach’: a duet for both organists. Continue reading →

Monteverdi: The Other Vespers

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Monteverdi: The Other Vespers
I Fagiolini, The English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble, The 24, Robert Hollingworth
Decca 4831654. 80’23

During this 450th Monteverdi anniversary year there will be many performances and recordings of the 1610 Vespers. But for this ‘not the 1610’ recording, I Fagiolini have reconstructed a Vespers service inspired by a Dutch tourist’s 1620 record of hearing Monteverdi direct a Vespers on the Feast of the Nativity of John the Baptist. The psalms and the plainchant on this recording are from that feast, using music by Monteverdi and his contemporaries. The Monteverdi contribution comes from his Selva morale e spirituale, published in 1641, but containing music written much earlier. Whereas the 1610 Vespers are intended for feasts of the Virgin or other female saints, the 1641 collection contains psalms for feasts of male saints. Continue reading →

The Courts of Earth and Heaven

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson ~ Leave a comment

Crickhowell Music Festival: The Courts of Earth and Heaven
Crickhowell Choral Society, Stephen Marshall
St Edmund’s, Crickhowell, 30 April 2017

Handel: Eternal source of light divine (Birthday Ode for Queen Anne)
Delalande: Regina coeli 
Campra: Quam dilecta
Vivaldi: Gloria (RV588 – the ‘other’ Gloria!)

A walking weekend in the Brecon Beacons happened to coincide with the annual Crickhowell Music Festival. I have reviewed the whole Festival in the past but, on this occassion, could only manage one performance, given in St Edmund’s Church, Crickhowell by the Crickhowell Choral Society and a ‘festival’ orchestra, together with a very impressive group of soloists. One of the things that most impressed me on my earlier visit was the ability of their director Stephen Marshall to attract outstanding and international renown singers such as, on this occasion, Grace Davidson, Nicholas Mulroy, and Catherine King.

The ambitious programme featured music from England, France, and Italy. It opened with Handel’s 1713 Birthday Ode – a homage to Queen Anne, and indeed, to Purcell, whose style he so perfectly absorbed. The opening arioso ‘Eternal lource of light divine’ is one of the most beautful musical creations of all time, with Handel’s understanding of Purcell’s style made obvious. It makes for a very exposed start to a concert, and one which tenor Nicholas Mulroy coped with magnificently. His high lyrical tenor voice hasn’t quite the timbre of a countertenor that Handel intended, but was nonetheless quite exquisite, in this, and in later movements. Grace Davidson’s soprano aria ‘Let all the wingéd race’ was similarly impressive. Both of these key singers demonstrated their excellent ability at singing Baroque ornaments properly, rather than using the often heard reliance on vibrato alone. Continue reading →

Spitalfields Music: The English Concert

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson ~ Leave a comment

Spitalfields Music: The English Concert
Christ Church Spitalfields. 9 December 2015

Dandrieu: Trio Sonata Op 1/2; Charpentier: Magnificat H73; Charpentier: In nativitatem Domini nostri Jesu Christi canticum; Stradella: Cantata per il Santissimo Natale ‘Ah! Troppo è ver’.

Following their paired-down concert at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse a few days earlier (reviewed here), The English Concert transferred their magic to the magnificent East London church of Christ Church Spitalfields for one of the Spitalfields Winter Festival showpiece concerts. Contrasting the seasonal music of France and Italy, the music spanned the period from the mid-17th to the early 18th century.

The evening started with Jean-François Dandrieu, a composer well-known to organists for his lively Noël variations, but otherwise overlooked in favour of the likes of Rameau and Couperin. The delightful Trio Sonata in D from his 1706 Livres de Sonates en trio demonstrated Italian influence, not least in its use of counterpoint and the Corellian walking bass in the opening Largo, and its vivacious concluding Presto. A true trio, with Joseph Crouch’s cello (or, in this case, perhaps more correctly Continue reading →