Recently in Reviews

ETO Autumn 2020 Season Announcement: Lyric Solitude

English Touring Opera are delighted to announce a season of lyric monodramas to tour nationally from October to December. The season features music for solo singer and piano by Argento, Britten, Tippett and Shostakovich with a bold and inventive approach to making opera during social distancing.

Love, always: Chanticleer, Live from London … via San Francisco

This tenth of ten Live from London concerts was in fact a recorded live performance from California. It was no less enjoyable for that, and it was also uplifting to learn that this wasn’t in fact the ‘last’ LfL event that we will be able to enjoy, courtesy of VOCES8 and their fellow vocal ensembles (more below …).

Dreams and delusions from Ian Bostridge and Imogen Cooper at Wigmore Hall

Ever since Wigmore Hall announced their superb series of autumn concerts, all streamed live and available free of charge, I’d been looking forward to this song recital by Ian Bostridge and Imogen Cooper.

Henry Purcell, Royal Welcome Songs for King Charles II Vol. III: The Sixteen/Harry Christophers

The Sixteen continues its exploration of Henry Purcell’s Welcome Songs for Charles II. As with Robert King’s pioneering Purcell series begun over thirty years ago for Hyperion, Harry Christophers is recording two Welcome Songs per disc.

Treasures of the English Renaissance: Stile Antico, Live from London

Although Stile Antico’s programme article for their Live from London recital introduced their selection from the many treasures of the English Renaissance in the context of the theological debates and upheavals of the Tudor and Elizabethan years, their performance was more evocative of private chamber music than of public liturgy.

Anima Rara: Ermonela Jaho

In February this year, Albanian soprano Ermonela Jaho made a highly lauded debut recital at Wigmore Hall - a concert which both celebrated Opera Rara’s 50th anniversary and honoured the career of the Italian soprano Rosina Storchio (1872-1945), the star of verismo who created the title roles in Leoncavallo’s La bohème and Zazà, Mascagni’s Lodoletta and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly.

A wonderful Wigmore Hall debut by Elizabeth Llewellyn

Evidently, face masks don’t stifle appreciative “Bravo!”s. And, reducing audience numbers doesn’t lower the volume of such acclamations. For, the audience at Wigmore Hall gave soprano Elizabeth Llewellyn and pianist Simon Lepper a greatly deserved warm reception and hearty response following this lunchtime recital of late-Romantic song.

Requiem pour les temps futurs: An AI requiem for a post-modern society

Collapsology. Or, perhaps we should use the French word ‘Collapsologie’ because this is a transdisciplinary idea pretty much advocated by a series of French theorists - and apparently, mostly French theorists. It in essence focuses on the imminent collapse of modern society and all its layers - a series of escalating crises on a global scale: environmental, economic, geopolitical, governmental; the list is extensive.

The Sixteen: Music for Reflection, live from Kings Place

For this week’s Live from London vocal recital we moved from the home of VOCES8, St Anne and St Agnes in the City of London, to Kings Place, where The Sixteen - who have been associate artists at the venue for some time - presented a programme of music and words bound together by the theme of ‘reflection’.

Iestyn Davies and Elizabeth Kenny explore Dowland's directness and darkness at Hatfield House

'Such is your divine Disposation that both you excellently understand, and royally entertaine the Exercise of Musicke.’

Ádám Fischer’s 1991 MahlerFest Kassel ‘Resurrection’ issued for the first time

Amongst an avalanche of new Mahler recordings appearing at the moment (Das Lied von der Erde seems to be the most favoured, with three) this 1991 Mahler Second from the 2nd Kassel MahlerFest is one of the more interesting releases.

Paradise Lost: Tête-à-Tête 2020

‘And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven … that old serpent … Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.’

Max Lorenz: Tristan und Isolde, Hamburg 1949

If there is one myth, it seems believed by some people today, that probably needs shattering it is that post-war recordings or performances of Wagner operas were always of exceptional quality. This 1949 Hamburg Tristan und Isolde is one of those recordings - though quite who is to blame for its many problems takes quite some unearthing.

Joyce DiDonato: Met Stars Live in Concert

There was never any doubt that the fifth of the twelve Met Stars Live in Concert broadcasts was going to be a palpably intense and vivid event, as well as a musically stunning and theatrically enervating experience.

‘Where All Roses Go’: Apollo5, Live from London

‘Love’ was the theme for this Live from London performance by Apollo5. Given the complexity and diversity of that human emotion, and Apollo5’s reputation for versatility and diverse repertoire, ranging from Renaissance choral music to jazz, from contemporary classical works to popular song, it was no surprise that their programme spanned 500 years and several musical styles.

The Academy of St Martin in the Fields 're-connect'

The Academy of St Martin in the Fields have titled their autumn series of eight concerts - which are taking place at 5pm and 7.30pm on two Saturdays each month at their home venue in Trafalgar Square, and being filmed for streaming the following Thursday - ‘re:connect’.

Lucy Crowe and Allan Clayton join Sir Simon Rattle and the LSO at St Luke's

The London Symphony Orchestra opened their Autumn 2020 season with a homage to Oliver Knussen, who died at the age of 66 in July 2018. The programme traced a national musical lineage through the twentieth century, from Britten to Knussen, on to Mark-Anthony Turnage, and entwining the LSO and Rattle too.

Choral Dances: VOCES8, Live from London

With the Live from London digital vocal festival entering the second half of the series, the festival’s host, VOCES8, returned to their home at St Annes and St Agnes in the City of London to present a sequence of ‘Choral Dances’ - vocal music inspired by dance, embracing diverse genres from the Renaissance madrigal to swing jazz.

Royal Opera House Gala Concert

Just a few unison string wriggles from the opening of Mozart’s overture to Le nozze di Figaro are enough to make any opera-lover perch on the edge of their seat, in excited anticipation of the drama in music to come, so there could be no other curtain-raiser for this Gala Concert at the Royal Opera House, the latest instalment from ‘their House’ to ‘our houses’.

Fading: The Gesualdo Six at Live from London

"Before the ending of the day, creator of all things, we pray that, with your accustomed mercy, you may watch over us."

OPERA TODAY ARCHIVES »

Reviews

24 Jul 2019

The VOCES8 Foundation is launched at St Anne & St Agnes

Where might you hear medieval monophony by the late 12th-century French composer Pérotin, Renaissance polyphony by William Byrd, a vocal arrangement of the stirring theme from Sibelius’s tone poem Finlandia, alongside a newly commissioned work, ‘Vertue’ (2019) by Jonathan Dove, followed by an arrangement of the Irish folksong ‘Danny Boy’ and a snappy rendition of Antonio Carlos Jobim’s ‘One Note Samba’ arr. for eight voices by Naomi Crellin, all within 90 minutes?

The VOCES8 Foundation is launched at the Gresham Centre.

A review by Claire Seymour

Above: VOCES8

 

At a concert by VOCES8 and Apollo5, is the answer. Diversity, together with vocal discipline and strong musical direction were the touchstones of the performance I attended at the VOCES8 Centre at St Anne & St Agnes in the City of London earlier this month, where long-standing supporters of the two vocal ensembles gathered with new audience members to mark the renaming of the VCM Foundation as the VOCES8 Foundation.

VOCES8 was founded by brothers Paul and Barnaby Smith in 2005, and the following year the music charity VCM Foundation was established to develop the ensemble’s music education and outreach programmes which today reach up to 40,000 people a year.

Initiatives include an annual programme of workshops and masterclasses at the Foundation’s home at the VOCES8 Centre; the VOCES8 Scholars programme, set up in 2015, which offers eight choral scholarships to young singers providing valuable experience and contacts as they commence their professional careers; and the unique teaching tool The VOCES8 Method, developed by Paul Smith, which adopts music to enhance development in numeracy, literacy and linguistics and is available in four languages.

VOCES8 don’t rest on their laurels either. 2017 saw the launch of the US Scholars Programme. The ensemble is the Associate Ensemble for Cambridge University and delivers a Masters programme in choral studies at the university. They are also official Ambassadors for Edition Peters, who published the VOCES8 method and this season the ensemble became Ambassador for the Tido App, an inspirational resource and learning tool created by Edition Peters.

This summer VOCES8 are the resident ensemble at the Milton Abbey International Music Festival, where they will deliver the VOCES8 Summer School in conjunction with the Festival. Now these activities, along with the work of the sister group Apollo5 and VOCES8 Records, will be brought together under a single unifying banner, the VOCES8 Foundation.

When I heard VOCES8 perform alongside Rachel Podger at King’s Place in March 2018 I remarked they ‘were notable for their unblemished blending, pure tone, true intonation and shapely phrasing - and, notably, their confident execution under the unobtrusive direction of countertenor Barnaby Smith’ and that they were equally accomplished in stylistically diverse idioms and genres. So, I was looking forward to this celebration of the 2018-19 season at the VOCES8 Centre, with performances of some of the works that have been highlights of the past year.

First, though, Apollo5 made the mystical strains of Pérotin’s Beata Viscera resonate transcendently across and around the Church of St Anne & St Agnes. It was wonderful to hear the blended sound unfold in Byrd’s own setting of the Communion motet for the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, so that the steady uniformity of Byrd’s setting was animated with the spirit of belief, before an expansive and confident Alleluia. Apollo5 also performed ‘Wishes’ by Fraser Wilson, a mellifluous composition in which the even-paced wandering of folk-like melody was supported by a smooth cushion occasionally made piquant by text-illuminating harmonic twists.

Wishes’ is included on Apollo5’s recently released CD, O Radiant Dawn , along with Wilson’s arrangements of traditional songs, ‘Scarborough Fair’ and ‘The Skye Boat Song’. There’s also a folk arrangement by another contemporary choral conductor, Alexander Levine, of a traditional Russian song, ‘Oh, You Wide Steppe’ which was also performed at St Anne & St Agnes. The sustained tones of the opening are haunting, but the rich blossoming of subsequent verses brings a frisson of passion for the homeland and the free flowing River Volga. It’s a striking conclusion to the disc.

O Radiant Dawn comprises characteristically eclectic repertoire: from Thomas Morley’s ‘I Love, Alas, I Love Thee’ to Ralph Vaughan Williams ‘The Call’ (arr. Harry D Bennett), from Claudio Monteverdi’s ‘Sfogava con le stelle’ to the album’s eponymous motet by James MacMillan. The rhythmic precision and the concordance of tuning and phrasing of the four-part homophony in the latter is superb, and the delicate, rising and falling thirds for soprano and alto in the central episode are no less carefully placed. The performance conveys both the joy of the new day and a hint of man’s vulnerability before the glory of God.

The Elizabethan madrigals seem to my ear more successful than the polyphony of Byrd; in Orlando Gibbons’s ‘The Silver Swan’ - taken here at quite a slow, reflective pace which makes those dark, desirous chromaticisms all the more deliciously telling - the ensemble seem to respond instinctively to the text and craft a sure overall structure. The same is true of Monteverdi’s madrigal (from the Fourth Book) in which the declamatory style is imbued with energy which pushes towards the musical conceits delineating the vivid images of Rinuccini’s text.

The CD liner booklet includes texts and translations, although the singers from the group (Penelope Appleyard and Clare Stewart (sopranos), Joshua Cooter and Oli Martin-Smith (tenors) and Greg Link (bass) who perform solos within particular items are not identified, and nor are there explanatory notes. The sound is resonant and rich. This is an hour’s worth of music of moving luminosity and lyricism: music which, in the ensemble’s own words, reaches for ‘a glimpse of the sublime’.

At the Church of St Anne and St Agnes, Apollo5’s atmospheric performance was followed by a similarly diverse series of items by VOCES8. The rendition of Sibelius’s hymnic ode ‘Be still my soul’ was tremendously impassioned and rich - were there really only eight singers? - while Dove’s setting of George Herbert’s ‘Vertue’ captured the gradual darkening of the poem’s sentiments, as the death that shadows all natural things grows ever more present, only evaded by the virtuous soul which will be made eternal through union with God. The swelling divisi phrases of ‘Let My Love Be Heard’, a setting of a poem by Alfred Noyes by American composer Jake Runestad, offered both a sense of catharsis following grief and softer consolation, while similar certainty and comfort was offered by polyphonic expressions of faith by Thomas Luis de Victoria and Orlando di Lasso.

VOCES8’s ability to switch from one idiom to another in a blink of the eye, and perform anything from motets to the melodies of Broadway which equal accomplishment and stylishness, was demonstrated by their soulful rendition of Joshua Pacey’s arrangement of ‘Danny Boy’ and the cool clarity of Antonio Carlos Jobim’s ‘One Note Samba’ which brought proceedings to a close.

The evening had opened with three compositions by Paul Smith, performed by the VOCES8 Scholars, Apollo5, soloist soprano Clare Stewart and viola player Neil Valentine. These works are included on Smith’s forthcoming debut album, Reflections, which features 2,500 voices from across the globe, from age 8 to 80, personally recorded by Paul on his travels over Asia, Europe, Africa and America during the last decade: ‘the disc moves from plainchant to lullabies, early opera to contemporary choral, inviting the listener on a journey of introspective reflection’.

‘Chant’ began with a searching melody meandering about a sustained tone, the latter expanding slowly into a sound wave punctuated first by Valentine’s quiet but pressing pizzicati (more audible on the recording than live in the church) and then by delicate piano reflections which urge the viola to take flight in a poignant melody. Think Enya meets Keith Jarrett. Very chilled. Smith’s Nunc Dimittis, in contrast, is more Tavener-like in its pulsing chords and registral contrasts, and in its striving towards finely grained, warm, euphonious resolution - with a tinge of tension lingering in the after-silence.

The first performance of Reflections took place at an IMAX cinema in California, at a special event which raised $100,000 for a local music charity. The disc is released by VOCES8 Records on 2nd August 2019.

Claire Seymour

Send to a friend

Send a link to this article to a friend with an optional message.

Friend's Email Address: (required)

Your Email Address: (required)

Message (optional):