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.
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 …).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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’.
'Such is your divine Disposation that both you excellently understand, and royally entertaine the Exercise of Musicke.’
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.
‘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.’
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.
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.
‘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 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’.
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.
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.
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’.
"Before the ending of the day, creator of all things, we pray that, with your accustomed mercy, you may watch over us."
A French Affair, as this programme was called, was a promising concept on paper, but despite handsomely sung contributions from the featured soloists and much energetic direction from David Bates, it never quite translated into a wholly satisfying evening’s performance.
Much of this seemed to be the result of hasty planning of the
back-of-an-envelope kind. The influence of 17th-century French
musical manners on the English Baroque has been an oft-explored recipe, and
this snapshot of stylistic assimilation by Henry Purcell was given partial
illumination through La Nuova Musica’s choice of anthems and motets
associated with the English and French royal courts.
Matters were not helped by the printing of the entire text to Purcell’s
1690 Arise, my muse only to abandon this opulently scored music
after its opening movements without any explanation. Some joined up
thinking would have helped here, and since the work is one of Purcell’s
least performed birthday Odes, it would have been welcome to hear more of
it, especially as two uncredited trumpet players were redundant for the
rest of the evening. Musically, it was satisfying enough in the sort of way
that a film trailer leaves you wanting more, and its opening ‘Symphony’
immediately flagged up Purcell’s borrowing of the French-style overture.
Other Purcell selections included the 1685 Coronation anthem I was glad when they said unto me, curiously performed here with
just five singers (plus organ continuo). However impressive singing
one-to-a-part maybe, vocal ensembles rarely achieve perfect blend and
balance in live performance. The absence of a uniform quality aside and an
unvarying vocal weight and tempi, this festive anthem was conceived for the
choirs of Westminster Abbey and the Chapel Royal, so this ‘semi-skimmed’
rendition meant that any sense of ceremony and gravitas largely had to be
imagined.
Purcell’s music fared better in the wonderful marriage of words and music
that is My beloved spake, one of the composer’s finest
anthem-symphonies and blest with an undeniable theatrical instinct
and youthful vitality. That said, some more joie de vivre could
have enlivened its spritely “alleluias” (where evocations of courtly French
dances didn’t quite emerge), but that’s not to ignore Nick Pritchard
mellifluous tenor depicting a flourishing fig tree or the solo group
celebrating “the voice of the turtle”.
No greater contrast could have been achieved beforehand than in the
dreamlike repetitions of Cassandra Miller’s newly commissioned work Sleepsinging here receiving its world premiere. Setting a text by
the Restoration poet Thomas Betterton, this Canadian composer draws
inspiration from two songs belonging to Purcell’s Fairy Queen and
melodic reimaginings from Christopher Lowrey and Nick Pritchard for whom
the work is written. This collaboration comprises a series of slow
descending canons (and not so subtle portamenti) given to the
string players, against which smoothly fashioned meditative vocal lines add
to its trance-like mood and culminates in a closing paragraph of rapt
beauty.
More involving musically was a superb account of John Blow’s Ode on the Death of Henry Purcell forming the emotional centrepiece of
the evening. Both Lowrey and Pritchard successfully negotiated its awkward tessitura at the start and brought much
refinement to the warbling of Dryden’s Lark and Linnet, as did two merrily
chirping recorder players Sarah Humphrys and Rebecca Austen-Brown.
Throughout, this heartfelt tribute was a thoroughly absorbing affair,
whether reflective or rejoicing, voices and instruments in perfect accord.
Not so the trio of women’s voices that sang Jean Baptiste Lully’s Dixit Dominus, a devotional setting, possibly originally intended
for performance by Parisian nuns, was rendered with variously unforgiving
and woolly tone. It was, otherwise, an excellent choice not least in
underlining the dotted rhythms and expressive harmonies that Purcell would
later adopt. More persuasive was Charpentier’s extended Passion motet Le Reniement de St Pierre, a dramatic portrait of Peter’s
threefold denial of Christ to which La Nuova Musica responded with an
intensity of expression marked by strong individual characterisation and
stylish direction.
It was good to hear church music from two composers seldom heard beyond the
confines of our cathedrals. From the supposedly vain Pelham Humphrey (whom
Samuel Pepys considered ‘an absolute Monsieur’) was a
poignantly sung Like as the hart. Across the channel came Jean
Phillipe Rameau’s Lenten motet Laboravi clamans where five voices
outlined its contrapuntal manner embellished with tasteful ornamentation. The programme concluded with Rameau’s ravishing quartet ‘Tendre amour’ from Les Indes galantes, now
glowing with some much-needed warmth.
David Truslove
La Nuova Musica: David Bates (director), Christopher Lowrey (countertenor),
Nick Pritchard (tenor)
John Blow:
Ode on the Death of Henry Purcell,Marc-Antoine Charpentier: Le reniement de St Pierre,Pelham Humfrey: Like as the hart,Jean Baptiste Lully: Dixit Dominus,Cassandra Miller: Sleepsinging, Henry Purcell: Arise, my muse, I was glad when they said
unto me, My beloved spake, Jean Phillipe Rameau: Laboravi
clamans, Les Indes galantes Tendre amour
Wigmore Hall, London; Thursday 23rd January 2020.