BREAKING NEWS: Classical Music

Classical highlights for the week ahead: 18-25 September

Fri, 18 Sep 2020 14:41:55 +0000

Five of the best concerts and operas - live and streamed - for the coming week

Weekend Concerts at Snape

The Doric Quartet kicks off Britten Pears Arts’ latest batch of short concerts, with programmes of Haydn and Mozart, and Mozart and Mendelssohn; performances by Kathryn Tickell and Julian Joseph complete the weekend.
• Snape Maltings, Aldeburgh, 18-20 September, live performances only

Music from a Room

Fri, 18 Sep 2020 12:42:58 +0000

Joel Lundberg Music from a room; Kalle Stenbäcken
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 18 September 2020 Star rating: 3.0 (★★★)
Diverse influences, including that of Frank Zappa contribute to this suite of piano pieces by contemporary Swedish composer, Joel Lundberg

Joel Lundberg is a contemporary composer based in Sweden, and his background includes a long stint playing the guitar in a progressive indie rock band as well as having a degree in composition and improvisation. His inspirations range from Kraftwerk, Charles Mingus, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and Radiohead to Stravinsky, Bartok and Debussy, with Frank Zappa looming large. Joel Lundberg's latest project is Music from a room, a disc of piano solos performed by Kalle Stenbäcken.

One of the inspirations that Lundberg quotes is Frank Zappa, "The most important thing in art is The Frame. For painting: literally; for other arts: figuratively - because, without this humble appliance, you can't know where The Art stops and The Real World begins. You have to put a 'box' around it because otherwise, what is that shit on the wall?"

And for this disc Lundberg's 'frame' is Impressionism, and he sees the works on the disc as an 'homage to the Impressionists who were active in Paris around the year 1900, spiked with my diverse vinyl collection almost a century later.'

The eight pieces all have intriguing titles, 'The Catalyst', 'Prelude to a PIB', 'PIB (Post Industrial Bliss)', 'The Friendly Antagonist', 'Predicaments', 'El Condor', 'Killer Whales', 'Dans le bateau, sur la plage'. And to add the layers of influence, the cover image is not an impressionist picture but a contemporary one by Ola Mellberg (who is a friend of the composer's). The music is available on-line via various streaming outlets, but there is also a limited run vinyl disc.

So, what of the music?

Lundberg admits that he is not a trained pianist (he is a guitarist) and that getting closer to the piano has been a difficult process. The music is surprisingly romantic for someone who has been a guitarist in an indie rock band. The harmonies are often lush with rich textures, which perhaps sometimes seem less like piano solos than good piano reductions of orchestral material (maybe an orchestral album is lurking in the wings). And, there is freedom to the music which suggests and improvisatory feel to Lundberg's composition techniques. This also brings a sense of narrative drama, which only serves to make the titles of the individual movements all the more intriguing.

These are far more than just songs, though they incorporate song-like fragments and some are pretty substantial with 'El Condor' lasting over 10 minutes. The entire album of eight movements is nearly 45 minutes long.

Joel Lundberg - Music from a room [44:07]
Kalle Stenbäcken (piano)
Recorded December 2018, Studio Epedimin, Göteborg

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Elsewhere on this blog

Intimate and forward-looking: Niccolò Jommelli's Requiem from Italian forces - Cd review
Of clocks, time and the hive mind: Martin Bussey's Timeless Figure and We Sing/I Sang at Tête à Tête - opera review
The Heath Quartet at Wigmore Hall: late Bach and middle-period Beethoven - concert review
Orchestral showcase: Simon Rattle conducts Janacek's The Cunning Little Vixen on LSO Live - CD review
A one-man Paradise Lost and an uproarious contemporary operetta: Tête à Tête brings live opera back to the Cockpit - opera review
The Telling's #HomeTour: soprano & playwright Clare Norburn on the challenges & rewards of creating on-line content & writing new plays - interview
Late Haydn and Brahms on an Autumn evening in the park: Anthony Friend and the Solem Quartet at Battersea Park bandstand - concert review
Less is more: Andrew Hamilton's Joy - CD review
Fizzing with energy: Beethoven's Seventh Symphony performed from memory outside at Kings Cross by Aurora Orchestra - CD review
Through late 18th-century ears: Lully's Armide in a radical adaptation from 1778 - cd review
The sheer joy of music making: the Maggini Quartet emerges from hibernation to celebrate the delight of playing together - concert review
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CD Spotlight. A Very Impressive Disc

Fri, 18 Sep 2020 12:00:00 +0000

Geoff Pearce listens to music for trumpet by Australian composer Brendan Collins. 'There is some fantastic playing by all the artists on the disc which is sure to delight all who hear it.'

ListN Up: Du Yun (September 18, 2020)

Fri, 18 Sep 2020 10:00:00 +0000

ListN Up is a series of weekly artist-curated playlists. Born from a desire to keep artists sharing and connected during times..

The post ListN Up: Du Yun (September 18, 2020) appeared first on I CARE IF YOU LISTEN.

A Splendid Contemporary B-flat Major Brahms Concerto From Lars Vogt

Fri, 18 Sep 2020 07:35:59 +0000

Together with the Royal Northern Sinfonia, Lars Vogt–in his fifth year heading the orchestra across the shore from Newcastle–got to record the Brahms piano concertos for Ondine. Anyone who reads a chamber orchestra’s and Brahms’ name on the same CD cover and might briefly flinch, fearing undernourished, pseudo-historically informed performances with an economically expedient small […]

Choral-electronic mixology! Festival Voices perform Handel remixes live in Peckham

Fri, 18 Sep 2020 07:30:20 +0000

Handel Remixed Volume II from Festival Voices on Vimeo.

The vocal ensemble Festival Voices has livened up previous London Handel Festivals with choral/electronic re-mixes of Handel favourites and the plan was for them to do something similar at this year's London Handel Festival. That performance has now been re-scheduled and on Saturday 3 October 2020, in collaboration with the London Handel Festival, Festival Voices are performing at Copeland Park in Peckham. If you are a Handel purist, then stop reading here as I doubt this is for you, but if you are willing to open your ears and consider new ways of performing and listening to Baroque music then read on.

Gregory Batsleer will conduct Festival Voices and Ensemble FV in what is described as 'a programme of choral-electronic mixology featuring Handelian choruses and arias from the Coronation Anthems, Jephtha and Tamerlano.' The programme will be re-mixed live with electronic music by DJ and producer Nico Bentley.

I have to confess that the term 'choral-electronic mixology' really grates, I dislike the term when used to refer to cocktails and it seems even more false when applied to electronic remixes of Handel's music. But it is unwise to let over-clever marketing affect our appreciation of music, and certainly Festival Voices' performance promises to be a breath of fresh air.

Nico Bentley has this to say about the music, 'Without doubt the standout features of the baroque repertoire are a fixation of both rhythm and pulse plus they love a solid harmonic progression. This is also the backbone of all electronic music. The fusing together of two genres like this is both an exciting and thrilling opportunity to experiment and explore how the fundaments of music haven’t changed for over 500 years. The style of Handel's music lends itself brilliantly to incorporating beats commonly heard in clubs throughout the world.'

There will be two performances, at 4pm and at 7pm, with 120 tickets for each. Full details from the Festival Voices website, and the London Handel Festival website.

The Various Paths Of COVID Era Bargaining

Fri, 18 Sep 2020 07:00:28 +0000

As shutdowns continue, orchestras with regularly scheduled collective bargaining agreement (CBA) renewals are finding themselves thrust into bargaining during less than ideal conditions. Add those with need reopen existing CBAs into the mix and we’re just starting to see how all of this is unfolding.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) announced a new multi-year agreement that includes cuts, although it’s a bit uncertain exactly how much and over what period. We’ll have to wait for a copy of the agreement as the press statement version only includes broad strokes. Cuts are spelled out in averages and any potential restoration is contingent on future revenues. Average pay cuts for the first year are reportedly 37 percent.

In other cities, CBA talks have grown downright contentious.

Janos Gereben, writing for Iron Tongue of Midnight, examines ongoing talks at the San Francisco Opera and based on information from his sources, things could be bleak.

Instead of news of a settlement at the Opera, I received a message from a donor recently: “Mr. Shilvock appears to be playing hardball with the orchestra musicians, demanding steep and long-term salary cuts. I support both West Edge and SF Opera, and I can’t help but notice that West Edge, with meager assets, managed to pay everyone 2/3rd of their committed salaries, while SF Opera, with 1/4 BILLION in assets, is squeezing the musicians – negotiations are ongoing but I hear Mr. Shilvock wants to pay only 20%!” Musicians confirmed that they are still waiting to find out about a plan for compensation, one of them saying “It seems they are not negotiating in good faith. We all thought we were a family. There are no plans.”

In Knoxville, things reached a boiling point and spilled over into public view at the end of August. Almost immediately, the orchestra began engaging patrons via Facebook wall conversations and things quickly went sideways. Let’s just say it’s doubtful the orchestra Leadership’s behavior will distinguish them in the annals of de-escalation techniques. For now, the musicians have filed a grievance after the employer furloughed them a week before the season was set to begin.

Speaking of furloughing musicians during negotiations, the Ft. Wayne Philharmonic decided to furlough musicians through the end of January 2021. The decision was reached after more than a dozen negotiation sessions and while the group was without a long-term agreement. According to the musicians’ Facebook page, they don’t believe the employer has been bargaining in good faith and are fearful these cuts are the first step in eliminating the CBA entirely.

O Lux Beata Trinitas

Fri, 18 Sep 2020 06:57:28 +0000

The Slovenian Philharmonic Choir, conducted by Sebastjan Vrhovnik in a setting of the early Christian hymn of St. Ambrosius, O Lux Beata Trinitas, by Slovenian composer Andrej Makor (born 1987). The choir was founded as a professional choir in 1991; initially known as the Slovenian Chamber Choir, it has been operating within the framework of the Slovenian Philharmonic since 1998.

Andrej Makor studied in his native Slovenia and at the conservatory in Padua, Italy. In Ausut 2015 his work Paisaje was performed by the BBC Singers, and in 2018 his composition Silence won second prize at the London Ear Festival, and his piece Kyrie was commissioned by the BBC for the BBC Singers.

The recording was made in August 2020 at the Church of St. Francis (Cerkev sv. Frančiška), Ljubljana, Slovenia. The church was built by Jože Plečnikbetween 1925 and 1927 and is similar to Plečnik's designs for the church of the Sacred Heart in Prague, built-in 1922.

A delightful Indian summer’s evening with the Hill Quartet

Fri, 18 Sep 2020 06:51:07 +0000

Haydn and Ravel: Hill Quartet (Bridget O’Donnell, David Lopez [violins], Julia Doukakis [viola], Ben Michaels [cello]). The Bandstand, Battersea Park, London, 15.9.2020 (MB) Haydn – String Quartet in E-flat major Op.64 No.6 Hob.III:64 Ravel – String Quartet in F major The last in a series of four Bandstand Chamber Festival concerts, in which the Hill ... Read more

Glowing Strauss from April Fredrick and the English Symphony Orchestra

Fri, 18 Sep 2020 06:44:42 +0000

Richard Strauss: April Fredrick (soprano), English Symphony Orchestra/Kenneth Woods (conductor), Wyastone Concert Hall, Monmouth, broadcast on ESO’s YouTube channel, 18.9.2020, (JQ) Vier letzte Lieder Op. posth. (arr, James Ledger) Morgen! Op.27/4 (arr. Tony Burke) In the last few months, British orchestras have been exploring urgently and creatively a number of solutions to enable them to ... Read more

Granville Bantock (1868–1946): A Guide to Research

Fri, 18 Sep 2020 05:00:00 +0000

I am an enthusiast (not a fanatic) of Granville Bantock’s music. However, it is based on the adage of knowing what I like and liking what I know. Nowadays, poor Bantock rarely gets an outing in the concert hall or the recital room. The notable exceptions are English Music Festival events. To be sure, there are several CDs and LPs devoted to his music (in print and deleted), including the 4-CD package featuring his magnum opus, Omar Khayyám (1906-09). This is a work I have yet to explore in detail. Yet, for a composer of his undoubted stature there is precious little information ready to hand to form the basis of an in-depth understanding of his life and achievement.

Any study of this composer is hampered by the lack of a definitive biography, such as exists for Parry, Stanford, and Dyson. Much has been written about Bantock, but most is hidden away in library stacks and institutional archives. Only some of this material is available online to researchers and interested listeners. The problem has always been, where to begin. That challenge is solved by this new book.

John C. Dressler’s Granville Bantock (1868–1946): A Guide to Research is a triumph for the advancement of Bantock scholarship, appreciation, and reappraisal (which must always be ongoing). This present volume will have an immediate appeal to musicians who may wish to gain background knowledge before embarking on a recording project or a concert performance. Then there are specialists planning to prepare editions of unpublished works. Another crucial audience for this book are programme and CD liner note annotators - and even record reviewers! It is for anyone who wishes to explore episodes in Bantock’s life and times and work. This will include students who might choose Bantock as the subject of their research and may one day add a dissertation or thesis to the precious few that currently exist.

This Guide to Research is hardly bedside reading for the ‘average’ music lover (whoever they may be) but it is an essential tool that will, or should, be found on library shelves in universities and music conservatories around the world. But it is also a book that ‘amateur’ Bantock enthusiasts will want to save up for. It will certainly help me to explore and examine several orchestral works that are amongst my favourite British symphonies and tone poems.

The earliest biographical details of Granville Bantock are found in Round the World with ‘A Gaiety Girl’ published in 1896. This was a jointly authored book between the composer and Frederick George Aflalo (a British Zoologist!). It is effectively a light-hearted travelogue of the show’s global progress. Bantock was A Gaiety Girl’s musical director and conductor. For historians, the first major work about the composer was by H. Orsmond Anderton, Bantock’s long-time personal secretary. This is one of the Living Masters of Musicseries and was published 1915. This study is a snapshot in time, as the composer was to live for another 31 years. Anderton also contributed many essays and articles to contemporary music journals and newspapers. These are noted in Dressler’s Guide to Research.

In 1972, the composer’s daughter Myrrha Bantock wrote Granville Bantock: A Personal Portrait (Dent). This is exactly as the title states, rather than being an analytical survey. The same year Trevor Bray submitted his doctoral thesis, Granville Bantock: his life and music. It is usually regarded as being the ‘seminal academic study’ of the composer. Unfortunately, I have not seen a copy of this document as it is not yet been ‘cleared’ for digitalisation. (Why not?) And, Cambridge University is long way to travel. An extract from this thesis was published by Triad Press in 1973 as Bantock: Music in the Midlands before the First World War.

In 2017 Michael Allis issued Granville Bantock's Letters to William Wallace and Ernest Newman, 1893-1921 (Boydell and Brewer). I have not read this book, but understand much space is devoted to Bantock and Wallace’s development of the ‘modern British symphonic poem’ as well as ‘fascinating details of the musical culture in London, Liverpool and Birmingham.’

Further important contributions to Bantock scholarship are two volumes by the composer’s grandson, Cuillin. The first is a booklet length study Never Lukewarm: Recollections of Granville and Helena Bantock (EM Publishing, 2012)which is a ‘vignette’ of the composer and his wife’s last years. It is written from the perspective of a ‘family’ memoir, complete with photos, ‘random thoughts and memorable quotes.’ A more involved study is A Musical Wanderer - The Later years of Granville Bantock (EM Publishing, 2018) which is a ‘narrative of the contents of GB’s set of diaries’ from 1938 to 1946. There is a need for more diary entries to be published: he began writing them in 1911.

In 1947, several leading musicians and other interested parties, promulgated a Bantock Society. A statement of the objectives and aims agreed at the launch were ‘published.’ (Musical Times, January 1947). Studying library catalogues, it is difficult to discover what if anything, they published. It was not until 1996 that a Bantock Society Journal appears. Prior to this, there was a Newsletter. In 2013 the Society was ‘relaunched’ but appears to have relapsed into total desuetude. Which is a pity. Nevertheless, there is a crying need for the few Journalsthat were issued to be ‘scanned’ and put ‘online’. Details of articles published here are scattered throughout the Guide to Research.

Which brings me to the Bantock website. This has fallen by the wayside too. A few scattered remains are available on MusicWeb International, but apart from that nothing. Even the Way Back Machine at the Internet Archive does not help. Surely a composer as significant as GB demands a functioning society or at the very least, a working webpage?

Most readers of this book review will know something about the composer and his work. However I was impressed by John Dressler’s succinct overview printed in the ‘Preface’ of this book: ‘Granville Bantock (1868-1946) was a British composer, arranger, editor, music department administrator, competitive singing promoter and adjudicator, world traveller, lover of life, literature and philosophy, radio talk presenter, champion of works of other rising British composers over his own, husband and father.’ In other words, he was a regular polymath. His best-known work is probably the Hebridean Symphony, but his accomplishments are hardly well understood and appreciated save amongst the most dedicated enthusiasts of British music.

Granville Bantock (1868–1946): A Guide to Research is divided into three principal formal sections. After the ‘preface’ and ‘acknowledgements ‘there is a short ‘biographical sketch’ which gives a basic overview of Bantock’s career. This is followed by the first main portion, ‘Works and Performances’ (W). This accounts for nearly half of the book’s length. Then, the ‘Discography’ (D) contains all known recordings of Bantock’s music, past and present, and in all media save streaming. This includes both commercial and archival material. The third section is the ‘Selected Bibliography’ (B) noting archival sources, dissertations, general and biographical references, reviews, and obituaries. The book concludes with an exceptionally detailed Index, cross referencing all musical works and most of the individuals referred to in the text.

Firstly, turning to the main catalogue, I was amazed at just how much music Granville Bantock wrote. Each piece has been allocated the conventional ‘W’ number (as for many of these volumes). This is true for every work from large scale choral piece through to the most obscure choral arrangements and even drafts. Bantock’s Sketchbookhas been allocated a single number: W546. In total there are some 637 works listed. I wonder if consideration has ever been given by the ‘Bantock Estate’ to introducing a unique reference letter such as GRB like Graham Parlett’s ‘GP’ prefix for Arnold Bax’s music.

The index is comprehensive, and as noted above is the ‘go-to place’ to begin research. It includes the titles of all works, many contemporary musicians, and luminaries, as well as current musical historians and performers.

There are three routes to references: the index, the individual section devoted to the work, and the ‘W’ entry itself. If using the index, the reference is simply given a page number, so the reader must scan through the text to spot the relevant search term. Coming from the ‘Works and Performances’ section, the unique bibliographical ‘B’ or ‘D’ discography number is given.

As an example of the working process, I took my favourite Bantock work, A Celtic Symphony. ‘Facts’ not stated in Dressler’s book are noted here in square brackets. Looking at the index referred me to p.150 as the starting point. I discovered that the work (W383) was composed as late as 1940 [Finished 16 September 1940] and was dedicated ‘To [my old pupil] Clarence Raybould’ an English conductor, pianist, and composer. (see Jürgen Schaarwächter’s Two Centuries of British Symphonism, Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 2015, p.843). Details of movements are not included, nor the duration, which is about 20 minutes. It is not mentioned that this work was scored for six (my italics) harps or for pianoforte, both ‘ad lib’. How many orchestras can manage the former! According to the Guide, the manuscript is untraced but was published by Novello. I found a reference to a holograph/score ‘owned’ by Goodwin and Tabb 1953 (Schaarwächter, op.cit. and the Catalog of Copyright Entries: Published Music, Third series, January-June 1954). The Guidestates that the work’s premiere was a BBC broadcast performance on Saturday 1 August 1942 during a BBC Scottish Symphony [Orchestra] Concert conducted by Clarence Raybould [broadcast from Glasgow]. I found this concert listed in the Radio Times. It is noted there that this was the ‘first performance.’ Dressler then lists a further nine ‘selected’ performances of this work between 1952 and 2013. There may have been several more. In this example, there are no reviews cited of the premiere or subsequent performances.

I turned now to explore the ‘D’ numbers – the discography. These are referenced in the ‘Works’ section and the index. I know and love the one splendid modern recording of Bantock’s A Celtic Symphony: Vernon Handley and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra on Hyperion CDA 66450. This CD was issued in 1991 (not 1990 as noted here, which was the recording date): it was coupled with A Hebridean Symphony, The Witch of Atlas and The Sea Reivers. This was subsequently repackaged in 2007 as a part of a six-CD set of Bantock’s Orchestral Music (CDS 44281/6). Dressler mentions a 78rpm record (Paxton GTR 113/4) of A Celtic Symphony. This featured the London Promenade Orchestra, conducted by Walter Collins. It is assigned no date but was probably 1949. This recording of the Symphony was subsequently re-released in 1959 on Paxton LPT 1003. This two-LP set also included the Comedy Overture: Frogs of Aristophanes and the Women’s Festival Overture. This latter piece (listed here as W386) is also titled the Overture to a Greek Comedy. The ‘work’ entry states that the manuscript is untraced, and the overture remains unpublished. I wonder what the London Promenade Orchestra played from. There is another entry (W388) for a ‘Comedy Overture to the Thesmophoriazusae) literally meaning ‘The Women Celebrating the Festival of the Thesmophoria’) by Aristophanes. This is shown as being undated and sketches only. Was this an early draft of W386?

According to Dressler there are no more recordings of A Celtic Symphony in existence. It would have been good to have had references to record reviews in the ‘Discography’ section, instead of in the main entry/index for the work.

For most researchers, the bibliographical cross references are of considerable interest. Clearly the number of citations varies from work to work. For many compositions there is the discrete section ‘References to Specific Works’. Here, the student of Omar Khayyám (W133) has a massive 79 entries to absorb and guide them on their way and Bantock’s best known orchestral work, the Hebridean Symphony (W398), has 22. For a study of the tantalising Two Scottish Pieces for piano (W541) there is a single reference in the ‘Works and Performances’ section to an article in The Gramophone August 2009. Alas, this seems to be for the CD Songs of the Isles (Meridian CDE84570) rather than the disc of Rediscovered Bantock’ (SOMMCD 0183).

As A Celtic Symphony is one of Bantock’s most significant works, it has a section devoted to it. Alas, there are only three citations. Two are reviews in The Gramophone of the Paxton recordings (1949 and 1960) and one is a slightly off-tangent comment by Ivan Hewett in the Daily Telegraph (9 September 2013).

Additionally, (from the ‘Works and Performances’ entry) there are a few other general references including the above-mentioned Jürgen Schaarwächter’s Two Centuries of British Symphonism, the American Record Guide (September/October 1991) and the Penguin Guide to CDs (1999), both for assessments of the Hyperion CD. Interestingly, W.A. Chislett’s discussion in The Gramophone (February 1960) is cited twice (B296 and B403). On p.241 I chanced upon La musica classica inglese by John Allitt [2006]. It was not incorporated in the cross referencing. This Italian book includes ‘historical and analytical remarks’ about several Bantock works including A Celtic Symphony.

Other possible reviews that could have been included were the Birmingham Post (27 November 1967) and The Stage 12 March 1953. One crucial document omitted from the bibliographical cross referencing are the excellent liner notes by Michael Hurd provided for the Hyperion CD. At least I could not find it…

Finally, like all books of this nature it pays to check any given reference before citation.

So, what is my conclusion about this ‘worked’ example. I guess that I feel that more references could have been included for A Celtic Symphony, but space was most likely the major constraint. Then there are one or two facts that seem unclear (or maybe lacking or plain wrong). The citations included in this Guide will provide a great starting point for further surveys and critiques. By utilising all the information provided here, it would allow the music historian to write a reasonable programme note and a small amount of reception history. It is a long way from enabling them to create a thorough study. To achieve the latter, it will require examining many of the other general references contained in this book, and most likely visiting several libraries and repositories.

Stille Liebe: Lieder by Robert Schumann review | Andrew Clements's classical album of the week

Thu, 17 Sep 2020 14:00:28 +0000

Samuel Hasselhorn/Joseph Middleton
(Harmonia Mundi)
Hasselhorn’s rich, dark baritone captures Schumann’s extraordinary extremes of light and darkness and Middleton is a discerning accompanist

In 1840, Schumann was finally able to marry Clara Wieck, and he celebrated his happiness in his songs, composing at least 138 of them, including his four great cycles, Dichterliebe, Frauenliebe und -leben, and the two Liederkreis. This carefully planned recital disc from the German baritone Samuel Hasselhorn, with Joseph Middleton as his unfailingly perceptive pianist, concentrates however on some of the other products of that extraordinary Liederjahre – settings of Heine, Kerner, Chamisso and Hans Christian Andersen.

Columbia University Marching Band Disbands Itself For ‘A History Riddled With Offensive Behavior’

Thu, 17 Sep 2020 13:35:02 +0000

For 116 years, the ensemble (a term loosely applied, at least musically) has been both beloved and disdained for its un-march-like on-field scrambles; its sometimes witty, sometimes tasteless, always irreverent satirical routines; and its on-campus pranks. This week, more than 20 members voted “unanimously and enthusiastically” to shut the group down for its history of “sexual misconduct, assault, theft, racism and injury to individuals and the Columbia community as a whole.” (Some observers are hoping that this, too, is a prank.) – The New York Times

Igor Levit review – Beethoven programme affirms deep affinity

Thu, 17 Sep 2020 13:04:00 +0000

Wigmore Hall, London
The pianist’s dynamic, live-streamed performance had all the immediacy of his twitter house concerts that became a lockdown phenomenon

Igor Levit’s pianism emerges as a force of nature, hence perhaps in part his deep and seemingly fundamental affinity with Beethoven. As Levit returned to the Wigmore Hall for this recital in their autumn season, a sequence of four Beethoven sonatas was the logical choice for his programme, and everything about the playing affirmed the symbiotic relationship.

CD Spotlight. Magic and Mystery

Thu, 17 Sep 2020 12:00:00 +0000

Gerald Fenech listens to music for guitar and orchestra played by Junhong Kuang, Darrell Ang and the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice. 'An attractive assortment of guitar music from both sides of the Atlantic, marvellously executed and recorded, with some well researched notes thrown in for good measure.'

I CARE IF YOU LISTEN Joins American Composers Forum

Thu, 17 Sep 2020 11:00:00 +0000

I CARE IF YOU LISTEN, the award-winning multimedia hub for living music creators, has officially become part of the American..

The post I CARE IF YOU LISTEN Joins American Composers Forum appeared first on I CARE IF YOU LISTEN.

Petworth Festival - live on-line

Thu, 17 Sep 2020 07:04:57 +0000

You won't need to travel to Petworth for this year's Petworth Festival as the events are all being performed live in Petworth and streamed on the festival website. And a fine line-up of performers they have too, with instrumental recitals, chamber concerts and Beethoven concerto.

The festival runs from 16 October to 1 November 2020, and opens with Howard Shelley and the London Mozart Players in Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3. Other events include cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason and pianist pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason in Bridge, Beethoven and Rachmaninov, pianist Mitsuko Uchida in Beethoven's Diabelli Variations, violinist Tasmin Little in one of her final concerts before retirement performing music by Brahms, Strauss, Amy Beach and Lili Boulanger with pianist John Lenehan, guitarist Milos, and pianists Charles Owen and Katya Apekisheva in Brahms, Schubert and Beethoven. There are also concerts from Clare Teal and her trio, and Patti Boulaye, who is singing repertoire associated with Aretha Franklin.

The festival also includes the Petworth Literary Week which kicks off on 24 October 2020 with Joanna Trollope.

Full details from the festival website.

Just The Sort Of Thing To Help You Stay On Track

Thu, 17 Sep 2020 07:00:05 +0000

I published an article at ArtsHacker yesterday pointing to something written by researcher Victor Yocco that provides exactly the sort of thing arts marketers need right now: effectively design to gain and hold attention for digital products.

He had me at an overview of transient and sustained attention. The ArtsHacker articles covers some the highlights that are particularly applicable to arts marketers but you should absolutely check out the full post.

Please Don’t Ignore Me! Rethinking How We Design For Attention

Intimate and forward-looking: Niccolò Jommelli's Requiem from Italian forces

Thu, 17 Sep 2020 06:39:50 +0000

Jommelli Requiem; Sandrine Piau, Carlo Vistoli, Raffaele Giordani, Salvo Vitali, Coro e Orchestra Ghislieri, Giulio Prandi; Arcana
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 14 September 2020 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
An eighteenth century pre-cursor to Mozart's Requiem proves to be an intimate and subtle work

If Niccolò Jommelli is known at all it is mainly for his sequence of operas written for the Duke of Württemberg at his palace of Ludwigsburg near Stuttgart. These operas played an important role in the development of the operatic reform movement whose best known operas are those of Gluck. But though Jommelli is known for his operas, he wrote other works too, particularly in the period of his life before he worked for the Duke of Württemberg. But even for the Duke, Jommelli did write some sacred music and on this new disc from Arcana we hear Niccolò Jommelli's Requiem with Coro e Orchestra Ghislieri, conducted by Giulio Prandi, with soloists Sandrine Piau, Carlo Vistoli, Raffaele Giordani, and Salvo Vitale.

The Duke was cultivated and music loving (a pupil of C.P.E. Bach, who dedicated a celebrated collection to him) and he allowed Jommelli considerable lee-way when it came to the sequence of operas written for him. So, when on 1 February 1756, the Duke's mother, Maria Augusta of Turn und Taxis, died it was to Jommelli that the duke turned for a Requiem Mass. Maria Augusta had been Roman Catholic, though the duchy was Protestant, and her funeral was held in the intimate chapel at Ludwigsburg. Evidently the music was composed quickly (the surviving manuscript suggests three days!), but it became very well known and was one of the most popular settings of the Requiem Mass until that of Mozart (written in 1791). Mozart may well have known the setting, as a pupil of his father's transcribed the work in Salzburg in 1775.

It is a relatively small-scale, rather sober work as befitted the quite intimate setting for the funeral. But it is quite a substantial piece, setting the Kyrie, Sequence (Dies Irae), Offertory (Domine, Jesu Christe), Sanctus and Benedictus, Agnus Dei, Communion and Responsory (Libera Me). To this the performers have added four plainchant movements, Antiphon, Introit, Tract and Postcommunion sung by a Schola Gregoriana made up of the men from the choir. The result is to give us a well-made and pleasing whole.

It is a work which seems to look forward rather than back, so there is little hint of old forms and instead we can hear the style of masses written by Michael Haydn (whose Requiem of 1771 was a big influence on Mozart) and Mozart. As with these later masses, the soloists generally form a group which acts almost as a concertino group, with occasional small solos, except for moments like the Benedictus with its soprano solo (a beautifully limpid performance from Sandrine Piau). There are big dramatic moments, but these tend to remain in context and there is little feeling of operatic drama, instead we have sense of narration of the liturgical story. There are some passages of 'learned counterpoint' which seem to hark back to some of Jommelli's early sacred music, but overall what comes over is the economy of means. Just soloists, choir and strings (no wind, in accordance with a recent Papal encyclical), and the writing is not showy.

But there is much to enjoy. The performance is relatively small scale (13 strings plus organ) and very stylish, the performers seem to have got inside Jommelli's style so this does not suffer from a desire to make the piece different, and Prandi gets a very fine performance from all concerned.

Ludwigsburg: palace chapel (Photo Steffen Hauswirth)

The forces used are probably somewhat larger than those at the first performance, and if you are interested in that degree of authenticity then Il Gardellino and Peter van Heygen have a recording released this year on the Passacaille label which uses far just four singers and no star soloists.

The performers, the Coro e Orchestra Ghislieri, are based at the Centro di Musica Antica at Ghisleri College, the second oldest college in Pavia, Italy and founded in 1567 by Pope Pius V (Antonio Ghisleri). Directed by Giulio Prandi, the Coro e Orchestra Ghislieri was founded in 2003 and explores forgotten works of 18th century repertoire, link to new scholarship.

This performance benefits from a new edition, based on the surviving manuscript in Naples (where Jommelli retired to after leaving the duke's service) written by a friend of the composer. The CD booklet has a photograph of the elaborate chapel at Ludwigsburg along with images of the composer, as well as two articles giving background to the work.

This is one of those recordings which fills in a gap, but which also provides a satisfying musical performance.

Niccolò Jommelli (1714-1774) - Requiem
Sandrine Piau (soprano)
Carlo Vistoli (alto)
Raffaele Giordani (tenor)
Salvo Vitale (bass)
Coro e Orchestra Ghislieri
Giulio Prandi (conductor)
Recorded 19-22 November 2019
Gustav Mahler Hall,Kulturzentrum Grand Hotel, Dobbiaco (Italy)
ARCANA A444 1CD [55:15]

Elsewhere on this blog

Of clocks, time and the hive mind: Martin Bussey's Timeless Figure and We Sing/I Sang at Tête à Tête - opera review
The Heath Quartet at Wigmore Hall: late Bach and middle-period Beethoven - concert review
Orchestral showcase: Simon Rattle conducts Janacek's The Cunning Little Vixen on LSO Live - CD review
A one-man Paradise Lost and an uproarious contemporary operetta: Tête à Tête brings live opera back to the Cockpit - opera review
The Telling's #HomeTour: soprano & playwright Clare Norburn on the challenges & rewards of creating on-line content & writing new plays - interview
Late Haydn and Brahms on an Autumn evening in the park: Anthony Friend and the Solem Quartet at Battersea Park bandstand - concert review
Less is more: Andrew Hamilton's Joy - CD review
Fizzing with energy: Beethoven's Seventh Symphony performed from memory outside at Kings Cross by Aurora Orchestra - CD review
Through late 18th-century ears: Lully's Armide in a radical adaptation from 1778 - cd review
The sheer joy of music making: the Maggini Quartet emerges from hibernation to celebrate the delight of playing together - concert review
Children can do so much more than you think: Susan Moore, artistic director of W11 Opera on challenging young performers to produce an opera under lockdown - interview
Home

On-line fundraiser for Conway Hall: Jubilee Quartet in Haydn, Schubert and Beethoven

Thu, 17 Sep 2020 06:19:25 +0000

The Jubilee Quartet

Like many venues, Conway Hall is short of money having had to cancel its live programme. The Sunday concerts series is the longest-running of its kind in Europe and the hall is fundraising to that the series may continue. On Sunday 20 September 2020, the Jubilee Quartet (Teresa Privratska, Julia Loucks, Lorena Canto Wolteche, Toby White) will be giving an on-line concert from the hall as a fundraiser to support the continuation of concerts. The quartet was recently named as the Associate String Quartet at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, and in 2019 released its debut disc of Haydn quartets [see my review]. Sunday's programme will be Haydn's Quartet in E flat Op.20 No.1, Schubert's Quartetsatz D703 and Beethoven's Quartet in A minor, Op.132.

To experience the event, you need to register in advance and the hall is asking for a donation when registering. Further details from the hall's website. You can also simply support the fundraising directly

Richard and the revolutionaries: why did lefties love Wagner?

Thu, 17 Sep 2020 05:00:50 +0000

His antisemitism made him a far-right icon. So what attracted reds and radicals from Lenin to George Bernard-Shaw to the tumultuous sounds of Hitler’s favourite composer?

In 1883, the year of Richard Wagner’s death, the theatre critic William Archer noticed a red-haired, bearded youth who was sitting day after day in the British Library with two volumes open on his desk: the French edition of Das Kapital, which Karl Marx had written in the same library decades earlier, and the full score of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. The young man was George Bernard Shaw, a staunch leftist who saw no conflict between the composer’s Romantic mythology and Marx’s historical materialism. In The Perfect Wagnerite, his anticapitalist reading of The Ring of the Nibelung cycle, Shaw wrote that the descent into Nibelheim, the realm of the enslaved dwarves, is “frightfully real, frightfully present, frightfully modern”. Both Wagner and Marx bear witness to the “predestined end of our capitalistic-theocratic epoch”.

Master of the Guitar Pepe Romero DECCA 11CD

Thu, 17 Sep 2020 01:44:00 +0000

Young Japanese Musicians Rally To Save The Art Of The Shamisen

Wed, 16 Sep 2020 19:03:00 +0000

The centuries-old three-stringed lute, a mainstay of traditional Japanese art music, remained popular up at least to the turn of the millennium, but most of the remaining players today are well over 60. With the pandemic paralyzing an already shrinking market, the country’s largest shamisen maker was about to close when it was rescued (for now) by an online fundraising campaign. There’s some hope that a newer style called tsugaru shamisen, livelier and less austere than the genteel music of Kyoto geishas, can keep interest in the instrument alive. – The Observer (UK)

Back in business: St John's Smith Square announces a season of live concerts and digital events

Wed, 16 Sep 2020 17:59:46 +0000

St John's Smith Square

Having successfully piloted concerts with live audiences in July, St John's Smith Square has announced a season of live concerts commencing in October and stretching all the way to the venue's 35th Christmas Festival. The concerts for October have already been announced and start on 1 October 2020 with a lunchtime concert, Foi d'animal from soprano Sian Dicker and pianist Krystal Tunnicliffe, organised in conjunction with the Oxford Lieder Festival. Concerts for November and December will be announced on 5 October 2020, with the Christmas Festival running from 8 to 23 December. Alongside the live concerts is a programme of digital events.

Other lunchtime concerts in October include Anneke Scott (horn) and the Consone Quartet in the intriguingly titled Mozart's Stolen Beauties with music by Michael Haydn, Beethoven and Mozart, baritone Roderick Williams, pianist Mark Bebbington with members of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Jan Latham Koenig in Poulenc's Aubade and Le bal masque, The Gesualdo Six in Tallis and White juxtaposed with Roxanna Panufnik, Judith Bingham and Alec Roth, the Minerva Piano Trio in Schubert and Ravel, and the Early Music group Improviso as part of SJSS Young Artist Series. There will also be a chance to hear the SJSS organ in recital with Peter Holder.

There are also afternoon concerts, including bass James Platt and pianist Michael Pugh in Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death and Brahms' Four Serious Songs, Chineke Chamber Ensemble, the Revolutionary Drawing Room in Beethoven's Late Quartets (including the Grosse Fugue) spread over four concerts.

Evening concerts include Rolf Hind's festival Occupy the Pianos returns, pianist Joseph Havlat in Suk and Dvorak as part of SJSS Young Artist Series, James Blair conducting the Young Musician's Symphony Orchestra, a repeat of the Gesualdo Six's lunchtime concert, a further appearance from Chineke Chamber Ensemble in Samuel Taylor Coleridge and RVW, and Kristian Bezuidenhout conducting the English Concert in a programme of Purcell odes.

Many of the concerts will also be available on line, and Improvisio will also be giving an online workshop, whilst soprano Lotte Betts Dean and pianist Joseph Havlat will be giving an exclusive online performance of Messiaen's Hawari.

The hall will be operating at significant reduced capacity (20% of peak capacity) with a one-way system in operation and many other measures.

Full details from the SJSS website.

Britten: where to start with his music

Wed, 16 Sep 2020 16:09:04 +0000

The man who put British opera on an international stage and changed the UK’s musical map for ever, his pacifism and his sense of being an outsider inspired much of his most memorable writing

Starting with Peter Grimes in 1945, Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) completely changed the shape of opera in the UK, and opera in English. He brought the same level of intensity to works for huge forces as to his smallest-scale chamber operas, changing perceptions of what the genre could achieve, and at least half a dozen of his works are now mainstays of the international opera scene. He had the ability to compose for amateurs and young performers without writing down to them – a composer’s job, he said, was “to be useful”. Establishing the Aldeburgh festival and the concert hall at Snape Maltings, he transformed a pocket of Suffolk into one of the UK’s most important musical centres.

Of clocks, time and the hive mind: Martin Bussey's 'Timeless Figure' and 'We Sing/I Sang' at Tête à Tête

Wed, 16 Sep 2020 15:39:53 +0000

We Sing/I Sang - Hannah Gardiner, Leo Doulton, CN Lester - Tête à Tête 2020
(Photo Claire Shovelton)

We Sing/I Sang, Martin Bussey Timeless Figure; Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival at the Cockpit
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 15 September 2020
A meditation on time, based around 17th century Shropshire clock-maker, and an improvised opera which attempted to assess the reactions of the audience's Hive Mind

Martin Bussey: Timeless Figure
Peter Edge - Tête à Tête 2020
(Photo Claire Shovelton)

On Tuesday 15 September 2020, we returned to The Cockpit for two further live opera premieres from Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival. Timeless Figure by Martin Bussey, performed by Peter Edge, baritone, Daniel Mawson, clarinet, Joe Lenehan, viola, and Darren Gallacher, marimba, conducted by Martin Bussey with images by Laurel Turton, plus We Sing/I Sang, an improvised opera devised by Leo Doulton with CN Lester, voice, and Hannah Gardiner, viola, musical director Erika Gundesen.

Martin Bussey was the composer of Mary's Hand about Queen Mary I, which was performed at the 2018 festival [see my review]. His new opera also takes an historical figure, the clockmaker JB Joyce (Peter Edge) who founded the eponymous firm of clockmakers (still in existence) in 1680. During the 19th and early 20th centuries the company was responsible for installing many of the display clocks around the world. Bussey, who wrote his own text, used the historical figure of Joyce and the connection to clocks around the work, to create a meditation on clocks and time across the ages.

The result was something of a 45-minute tour de force for baritone Peter Edge, whose engaging performance very much carried the piece. Edge managed to bring personality to what was less of a narrative and more of a thoughtful and complex philosophical consideration. He was finely supported by the musicians, and Bussey's writing structured the work in sections so that we got to appreciate his imaginative writing for marimba, clarinet and viola, with the composer using the instruments singly or severally to create some striking textures. In style the music was fundamentally tonal, but complex with Edge's vocal line being expressive and singer-friendly yet highly wrought.

Accompanying the music was a series of images by Laurel Turton, these formed their own meditation on clocks and time, with a focus very much on clocks installed by JB Joyce and company. Unfortunately, these images were perhaps a bit too absorbing and sometimes took attention from the performance, particularly when there was a disjoint in subject. Turton seemed to have a particular fascinating for historic locations in Chicago, which was a city which did not seem to crop up in Bussey's text, leading you to wonder why.

Bussey's text was quite thoughtful and whilst Edge's diction was perfectly adequate, the rather poetic nature of the words meant that it would have been nice to have them printed/displayed so that we could consider them a little more.

Martin Bussey: Timeless Figure - Daniel Mawson, Darren Gallacher - Tête à Tête 2020
(Photo Claire Shovelton)

As with other productions in the festival, this was adapted to suit the needs of a socially distanced performance and has to be regarded more as a semi-staging than a fully dramatic presentation. Bussey's new piece seems to lack an essential dramatic narrative which might compel the work and for me it sat somewhere between pure concert work and opera. But that is the beauty of artistic creation, things do not always fall into neatly defined categories and it is a work I would love to encounter again.

Timeless Figure will be broadcast by the festival on 17 September, see the festival website.

Leo Doulton is a director and writer, and his was the concept behind We Sing/I Sang. The work was not only improvised, but interactive as throughout the piece the audience was asked questions (via their phones) and the music reacted to the result. The idea was to assess the reactions of the audience as a hive mind. The subject was, of course, the current pandemic. I have to confess that the computer nerd in me was a bit more interested in the mechanics of how they were choosing the answers than the answers themselves, and also intrigued as to how the music performed by CN Lester and Hannah Gardner was affected by the answers.

We Sing/I Sang - Hannah Gardiner, CN Lester - Tête à Tête 2020 (Photo Claire Shovelton)

Whatever the answers to those questions, the resulting piece was intriguing and engrossing; not unlike a sung lecture, where the lecturer (CN Lester) had access to a remarkable fund of powerful, lyrical and affecting music, sung in a beautifully focussed alto voice, and with striking string figures from Hanna Gardiner. Leo Doulton, wearing a striking parti-coloured mask provided a more visual element, movement which sometimes complemented the music and sometimes counterpointed it.

We Sing/I Sang will be broadcast on 17 September 2020, see the festival website for details.

Elsewhere on this blog

The Heath Quartet at Wigmore Hall: late Bach and middle-period Beethoven - concert review
Orchestral showcase: Simon Rattle conducts Janacek's The Cunning Little Vixen on LSO Live - CD review
A one-man Paradise Lost and an uproarious contemporary operetta: Tête à Tête brings live opera back to the Cockpit - opera review
The Telling's #HomeTour: soprano & playwright Clare Norburn on the challenges & rewards of creating on-line content & writing new plays - interview
Late Haydn and Brahms on an Autumn evening in the park: Anthony Friend and the Solem Quartet at Battersea Park bandstand - concert review
Less is more: Andrew Hamilton's Joy - CD review
Fizzing with energy: Beethoven's Seventh Symphony performed from memory outside at Kings Cross by Aurora Orchestra - CD review
Through late 18th-century ears: Lully's Armide in a radical adaptation from 1778 - cd review
The sheer joy of music making: the Maggini Quartet emerges from hibernation to celebrate the delight of playing together - concert review
Children can do so much more than you think: Susan Moore, artistic director of W11 Opera on challenging young performers to produce an opera under lockdown - interview
An eight-hour solo piano masterpiece: Sorabji's Sequentia cyclica receives its premiere performance from Jonathan Powell - CD review
Home

Rachel Podger and Kristian Bezuidenhout bring the beauty of Bach to Wigmore Hall

Wed, 16 Sep 2020 13:45:57 +0000

J.S. Bach, Froberger: Rachel Podger (violin), Kristian Bezuidenhout (harpsichord), Wigmore Hall (live stream), London, 15.9.2020. (CS) J.S. Bach – Violin Sonata in E minor BWV1023, Violin Sonata No.1 in B minor BWV1014, Violin Sonata No. 2 in A BWV1015 Froberger – Suite No.12 in C major FbWV612 J.S. Bach – Violin Sonata No.3 in E ... Read more

La Maestra, A New Competition Specifically For Female Conductors

Wed, 16 Sep 2020 13:05:42 +0000

The event, operated by the Philharmonie de Paris concert hall and the Paris Mozart Orchestra, is taking place this week in the French capital. Conductor Marin Alsop, who is on the jury, talks with host Olivia Salazar-Winspear about why the competition is (still) necessary and the obstacles that women conductors still face, even as their prospects are finally starting to improve. (video) – France 24

Ensemble. It Pays to be Brave

Wed, 16 Sep 2020 12:00:00 +0000

George Frideric Handel's 'Rinaldo' in Florence, reviewed by Giuseppe Pennisi

5 Questions to Mari Esabel Valverde (composer, singer)

Wed, 16 Sep 2020 10:00:00 +0000

Mari Esabel Valverde is a composer and singer whose music is full and rich, with texts that delve into the..

The post 5 Questions to Mari Esabel Valverde (composer, singer) appeared first on I CARE IF YOU LISTEN.

The Heath Quartet at Wigmore Hall: late Bach and middle-period Beethoven

Wed, 16 Sep 2020 09:35:10 +0000

The Heath Quartet
(Oliver Heath, Gary Pomeroy, Sara Wolstenholme, Christopher Murray)

Bach The Art of Fugue, Beethoven String Quartet in C Op.59 No.3 'Razumovsky'; The Heath Quartet; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 16 September 2020 Star rating: 5.0 (★★★★★)
A riveting account of middle-period Beethoven and some stylish, expressive late Bach
My first visit to the Wigmore Hall since it re-opened, a strange experience with a widely spaced out audience and staggered entry times, but it was lovely to be able to experience live music indoors. Whilst the hall's concerts are available for streaming on the hall's website, there is nothing like hearing live music in close quarters.

On 15 September 2020, the Heath Quartet (Oliver Heath, Sara Wolstenholme, Gary Pomeroy, Christopher Murray) performed a programme of Bach and Beethoven at Wigmore Hall, pre-fixing Beethoven's String Quartet in C Op.59 No.3 'Razumovsky' with four movements from Bach's The Art of Fugue, contrapunctus 1, 5, 9, 14.

Bach's The Art of Fugue survives in short score with no indication of instrumentation. Here we heard four of the fugues, chosen to create a rather satisfying four-movement symphonic-like structure with plenty of contrast, starting with the first Contrapunctus and ending with the last, which remains unfinished and that is how the players performed it. It was lovely to hear such clear, expressive lines and whilst the performances were not Historically Informed, there was much shapely phrasing and a sense of communal conversation. A four-part fugue is the ultimate quartet, in a sense, four independent yet linked lines all weaving around each other and reacting. The first fugue was quite steady, whilst the second was an elegant discussion, the third felt like the scherzo, with a great contrast between the exciting running figure and the slower fugue subject. The fourth started quietly and intense, almost aetherial with a slow build towards the faster fugue which increased in intensity until, nothing. The sudden end.

Beethoven's Opus 59 quartets were written as the result of a commission from Count Andreas Razumovsky, the Russian ambassador in Vienna. Razumovsky was an accomplished amateur violinist and had a house string quartet led by Ignaz Schuppanzigh, a friend of Beethoven's who was involved in the first performances of many of the composer's pieces. Two years before establishing the quartet, Razumovsky had commissioned the three quartets from Beethoven. Contemporaries were somewhat unsure of the quartets, seeing them as long and difficult, and differing somewhat from contemporary norms, whereas nowadays we regard the Razumovsky quartets as the first of Beethoven's middle period quartets.

After an arresting, and dissonant opening, the slow introduction was full of contrasts between the dissonant and loud, and the quiet and harmonious, and then suddenly the main theme appeared, full of character, and we were off. There was a real feeling of communal enjoyment in the music its complexities. This was a supremely artful account of a sophisticated work, bringing out much detail and leading to the remarkable coda. The second movement started full of contrast, between the haunting, shapely theme and the cello pizzicato, but then settled into something a little more lilting yet still with an unnerving edge, and a middle section which was intense yet otherworldly. The third movement minuet was quite serious yet engaging with a sense of communal activity and engagement leading to a fast, vigorous, tight and exciting finale. A vivid ride which was full of details.

The concert had started rather late, because Oliver Heath's car had broken down, but the performance showed no sign of hurry or disturbance, yet perhaps this perturbation in the regular order of things had brought an extra edge because whether giving us late, late Bach or prime middle-period Beethoven, the players were never less than riveting, with a sense of their long experience together.

Elsewhere on this blog

Orchestral showcase: Simon Rattle conducts Janacek's The Cunning Little Vixen on LSO Live - CD review
A one-man Paradise Lost and an uproarious contemporary operetta: Tête à Tête brings live opera back to the Cockpit - opera review
The Telling's #HomeTour: soprano & playwright Clare Norburn on the challenges & rewards of creating on-line content & writing new plays - interview
Late Haydn and Brahms on an Autumn evening in the park: Anthony Friend and the Solem Quartet at Battersea Park bandstand - concert review
Less is more: Andrew Hamilton's Joy - CD review
Fizzing with energy: Beethoven's Seventh Symphony performed from memory outside at Kings Cross by Aurora Orchestra - CD review
Through late 18th-century ears: Lully's Armide in a radical adaptation from 1778 - cd review
The sheer joy of music making: the Maggini Quartet emerges from hibernation to celebrate the delight of playing together - concert review
Children can do so much more than you think: Susan Moore, artistic director of W11 Opera on challenging young performers to produce an opera under lockdown - interview
An eight-hour solo piano masterpiece: Sorabji's Sequentia cyclica receives its premiere performance from Jonathan Powell - CD review
A distinct voice: a new disc from Resonus explores Florent Schmitt's Mélodies, a wide-ranging survey of song by an under-rated composer - CD review
Home

Another Step Toward Monetizing Socially Distanced In-Person Concert Events

Wed, 16 Sep 2020 07:00:10 +0000

Jim Farber has been following classical music organizations making the leap from testing free in-person socially distanced events to those that are strictly admission based. His latest article in the 9/14/2020 edition of the sfcv.org examines Mainly Mozart’s efforts over the summer that have evolved into a sort of live concert terrarium testing environment.

The article takes a look at the efforts from business, artistic, and operations perspectives. The organization plans on rolling out the latest phase for their October 17-24 five-event series of drive-in concerts where admission is charged per car.

I’m hoping lessons learned from these events don’t get lost once groups adopting a mostly shelter-in-place approach return to traditional concert activity. In the meantime, be sure to set aside some time to give the full article a thorough read.

Beauty, simplicity, and emotion mark Joyce DiDonato’s foray into Met Stars Live in Concert

Tue, 15 Sep 2020 22:58:22 +0000

Met Stars Live in Concert [5] – Joyce DiDonato in Bochum (a second review): Joyce DiDonato (mezzo-soprano), Carrie-Ann Matheson (piano), Il Pomo d’Oro. Live stream (directed by Gary Halvorson) from Jahrhunderthalle, Bochum, Germany, 12.9.2020. (RP) Monteverdi – ‘Addio Roma’ (L’incoronazione di Poppea), ‘Illustratevi, o cieli’ (Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria) Berlioz – Didon’s Final Scene ... Read more

Live in Concert Joyce DiDonato is a virtuoso singer who dives body and soul into all she sings

Tue, 15 Sep 2020 22:46:19 +0000

Met Stars Live in Concert [5] – Joyce DiDonato in Bochum: Joyce DiDonato (mezzo-soprano), Carrie-Ann Matheson (piano), Il Pomo d’Oro. Live Streamed in HD (directed by Gary Halvorson) from the Jahrhunderthalle, Bochum, Germany, 12.9.2020. (MMB) Monteverdi – ‘Addio Roma’ from L’incoronazione di Poppea, ‘Illustratevi, o cieli’ from Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria Berlioz – ‘Didon’s Final ... Read more

Clarinetist Anthony McGill Wins $100,000 Avery Fisher Prize

Tue, 15 Sep 2020 20:01:56 +0000

Mr. McGill was the Philharmonic’s first Black principal musician when he joined in 2014; he is currently its only Black player. He appears at David Geffen Hall and elsewhere as a concerto soloist, and is in a trio with his brother, Demarre McGill — the principal flute of the Seattle Symphony — and the pianist Michael McHale. In 2009, he performed at Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration. – The New York Times

The Wagner Problem

Tue, 15 Sep 2020 19:31:37 +0000

By making music ideological and semantic in new ways, Wagner made it much easier to talk and write about—which is one reason why he has always been so appealing to intellectuals. A book like Alex Ross’s Wagnerism, a survey of Wagner’s influence on art and ideas over the last 150 years, could not be written about any other composer. – The New Republic

Alex Ross: Classical Music Grapples With Race

Tue, 15 Sep 2020 18:33:57 +0000

Since nationwide protests over police violence erupted, in May and June, American culture has been engaged in an examination, however nominal, of its relationship with racism. Such an examination is sorely needed in classical music, because of its extreme dependence on a problematic past. – The New Yorker

Wagnerism publication day

Tue, 15 Sep 2020 16:59:37 +0000

Bea cautiously sniffs my latest creation.

Stephen Hough’s New Book Mirrors A Pianist Of Parts

Tue, 15 Sep 2020 16:39:21 +0000

By John Fleming

BOOK REVIEW – Filled with more than 200 essays, Hough's Rough Ideas abounds in aphoristic commentary, like a concert of virtuosic bonbons. Topics range from stage fright and trials of touring to the aging of classical audiences.

Study: Listening To Mozart As A Treatment For Epilepsy

Tue, 15 Sep 2020 15:28:25 +0000

They found that listening to Mozart, especially on a daily basis, led to a significant reduction in epileptic seizures, and also to a reduced frequency of abnormal brain activities in epileptic patients (called interictal epileptiform discharges, which are commonly seen in epileptic patients). These effects occurred after a single listening session and were maintained after a prolonged period of treatment. – Eureka

Boston Symphony Musicians Accept 37% Pay Cut In New Contract

Tue, 15 Sep 2020 12:34:31 +0000

“In ratifying a new contract guaranteeing their jobs through August of 2023, BSO players have agreed to pay cuts averaging 37% … to mitigate a $50 million loss of ticket and rental revenue from the organization’s $100 million annual budget. If and when monies re-materialize, the contract provides for tiered, and possibly retroactive, restoration of the cuts. … Under the plan, no player shall receive less than $120,000, and many will continue to benefit from seniority bumpups and overscale compensation.” – The Boston Musical Intelligencer

Ensemble. Absolute Purity of Tone

Tue, 15 Sep 2020 12:00:00 +0000

American mezzo Joyce DiDonato's Met Stars Live recital from Germany, reviewed by Maria Nockin

Sand Storm: Kaze and Ikue Mori Traverse Experimental Soundscapes

Tue, 15 Sep 2020 10:00:50 +0000

Sand Storm, a collaboration between Kaze and Ikue Mori on Circum-Libra Records, opens like a sensory hurricane that carries you..

The post Sand Storm: Kaze and Ikue Mori Traverse Experimental Soundscapes appeared first on I CARE IF YOU LISTEN.

Sinfonia Cymru looks forward to returning to live performance to celebrate 25 years

Tue, 15 Sep 2020 08:27:30 +0000

Sinfonia Cymru will be 25 next year, and the Welsh chamber orchestra is going to be celebrating. Its on-line presence continues with two series, In Conversation and Musicians in Lockdown, whilst it is planning a return to live performance in 2021, with 25 performances across Wales in The Mainly Village Halls Tour, and Tales from a French trumpet with French trumpeter Lucienne Renaudin Vary.

Summer 2021 will see the ensemble giving 25 free mini-concerts in towns and villages around Wales to celebrate its 25th anniversary. Before then in March (18-21/3/2020) in Cardiff, Hafren and Mold, the twenty-one-year-old French trumpeter Lucienne Renaudin Vary will join the orchestra for a jazz-inspired programme which moves from Hummel's Trumpet Concerto to Kurt Weill's Je ne t'aime pas! March also sees the continuation of the ensemble's Curate series at Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff, in which members of the orchestra create their own concerts. Next year also sees the continuing of the orchestra's lunchtime concerts at The Riverfront, Newport, and they will be joining with the National Museum in Cardiff for A Day at the Museum (8/4/2021).

Before then, there is a chance to get to know the orchestra on-line. A new on-line series, In Conversation (beginning 22/9/2020) sees the orchestra's leader, Caroline Pether having a series of conversations with musicians including conductor Gábor Takács-Nagy, and Sinfonia Cymru musicians Simmy Singh and Roberto Ruisi, plus board member Simone Willis. The orchestra's on-line Musicians in Lockdown series also continues, with orchestra members producing content from their own homes, including a version of Aretha Franklin's I say a little prayer.

Full details from the Sinfonia Cymru website.

Orchestral showcase: Simon Rattle conducts Janacek's The Cunning Little Vixen on LSO Live

Tue, 15 Sep 2020 07:37:46 +0000

Janacek The Cunning Little Vixen; Lucy Crowe, Gerald Finley, London Symphony Orchestra, Simon Rattle; LSO Live
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 11 September 2020 Star rating: 4 (★★★★)
This live recording of Janacek's delightful opera from Simon Rattle is very much a showcase for the London Symphony Orchestra, with a strong ensemble cast

Sir Simon Rattle has quite a long history with Janacek's 1924 opera The Cunning Little Vixen. He performed in it as a student (and a very transformative experience this was, according to his booklet note on this new recording), and it was the opera with which he made his debut at the Royal Opera House in 1990 in Bill Bryden's new production (a performance which can also be found Chandos' Opera in English series). Bryden's production, for all its charm, was not naturalistic and instead used elements of the man-made industrial landscape to create the forest. When Rattle returned to the work in 2017, it was in a semi-staging by Peter Sellars at the Berlin Philharmonie with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. It was the London version of this production [see the review on The Arts Desk], with Rattle conducting the London Symphony Orchestra in 2019, which forms the basis for this new set. Evidently, Sellars' production was rather a gritty urban vision, so perhaps Rattle likes his Vixen rather edgy.

LSO Live has now issued Simon Rattle's account of Janacek's The Cunning Little Vixen with the London Symphony Orchestra, and Lucy Crowe as the Vixen, Gerald Finley as the Forester, Hanno Müller-Brachmann as Harašta, Jan Martiník as Badger and Parson, Peter Hoare as Mosquito, Rooster and Schoolmaster, and Sophia Burgos as the Fox.

The performances in 2019 were very much events involving the whole LSO community, so that there was the orchestra, the London Symphony Chorus (over 70 non-professional singers) and 25 children from the LSO Discovery Voices some of whom provided solo voices in the work. The recording was made at two live performances, so we get all the vivid advantages of live performance in a work which relies for its effect very much on the story telling ability of the cast.

Janacek: Cunning Little Vixen - Gerald Finley, Lucy Crowe with LSO in 2019
(Photo Mark Allan / LSO / Barbican)

A perhaps surprising decision was to perform it in Czech. The use of Czech in Janacek's operas has become more common, and evidently Rattle and Sellars chose Czech because the English version fails to do justice to Janacek's rhythms. But we lose a lot in comprehensibility, and I still feel that this opera works best if you can understand the words, something is lost if you have to concentrate on a printed libretto.

In many ways, the opera is a strange patchwork of small moments which Janacek has woven into a miraculous whole. Famously, when Janacek composed he ruled his own manuscript paper and this meant that if he wanted to add an instrument he could do so, he simply ruled some more lines. You feel that this libretto was created in the same instinctive way, and melding it all together is the orchestra out of whose textures the voices emerge and disappear.

Rattle's view of the work is perhaps inflected by the grittiness of the production. With the LSO players he creates a superbly vivid and engaged account of the score, full of detail and always alive. Yet it does not have the twinkly story-tale glow that some performances do (Charles Mackerras takes a rather softer view of the work in his classic recording with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra), but then the story is not really a twinkly story-tale either. The life of the animals is straightforward, direct and sometimes difficult, death is ever present, and the humans are all rather sad creatures. [In fact, if you make the characters completely human, then the story has a very nasty undertone, something mined by Daisy Evans in her production for Silent Opera, where Vixen is a street person and the Forester's relationship with her becomes disturbingly sexually oppressive, see my review] It is this vivid edginess to the story which makes the transformation which comes at the end all the more magical.

Lucy Crowe also has history with the role of the Vixen, and can be seen in the 2013 DVD production from Glyndebourne conducted Vladimir Jurowski. Crowe is not really a soubrette style of Vixen, which means that we avoid one of the main problems with the role; Janacek's orchestration is such that by casting a young soubrette as Vixen we lose an element of clarity as the orchestra can win in the balance. Here Crowe is always to the fore, and her performance is quite serious, though fully rounded with some delightful pert moments and the impressive character needed for such scenes as the farmyard. She is paired with another soprano, Sophia Burgos, who makes a luscious fox and the two's duet comes over very well.

Gerald Finley makes a very human Forester, despite his actions you can never get annoyed with him and his final scene is a glorious paen to nature. He is surrounded by a fine cast of humans, Paulina Malefane as his wife, Peter Hoare as the schoolmaster, Jan Martinik as the parson, Hanno Muller- Brachmann as Harasta, Jonah Halton as Pasek, and Anna Paskova as Pasek's wife. None of them terribly admirable, and all very human.

As I have said, the nature of the performance does have some drawbacks. The child soloists are all admirable, but as recorded live some of them are a little far back in the mix and this rather draws attention to the imbalance. There were also moments when the LSO Chorus, admirable though it is, simply sounded too large and too robust for the circumstances.

I have to confess that my first choice for a recording of The Cunning Little Vixen would be for one in English, which rather means Rattle's first recording with Lilian Watson in the title role, and I would also not want to be without Sir Charles Mackerras, which means his Vienna Philharmonic recording with Lucia Popp (in Czech). But this new recording brings a vivid modern perspective onto the score and combines a superb performance from the London Symphony Orchestra with a fine ensemble account from the soloists.

The pairing is a live recording of Janacek's Sinfonietta with Rattle conducting the London Symphony Orchestra in 2018. A taut account of the work which comes over well, though for me it is a work which simply has to be heard live.

Leos Janacek (1854-1928) - The Cunning Little Vixen (1923)
Janacek - Sinfonietta
Lucy Crowe - Vixen
Gerald Finley - Forester
Sophia Burgos - Fox, Chocholka
Peter Hoare - Schoolmaster, Cock, Mosquito
Jan Martinik - Parson, Badger
Hanno Muller-Brachmann - Harasta
Paulina Malefane - Forester's Wife, Owl, Woodpecker
Anna Lapkovskaja - Mrs Paskova, Lapak
Jonah Halton - Pasek
Irene Hoogveld - Jay
Poppy Dawid, Inji Galliet-Jakoby, Saoirse Exelby, Maeve McAllister, Eben Watson, Olivia Solomou, Theo Smith - treble soloists
London Symphony Orchestra
London Symphony Chorus
LSO Discovery Voices
Simon Rattle (conductor)
Recorded live at the Barbican, London, 27 & 29 June 2019, 18 & 19 September 2018
LSO LIVE LSO0850 2CDs [63:09, 56:28]

Support Planet Hugill by buying this from Amazon.

Elsewhere on this blog

A one-man Paradise Lost and an uproarious contemporary operetta: Tête à Tête brings live opera back to the Cockpit - opera review
The Telling's #HomeTour: soprano & playwright Clare Norburn on the challenges & rewards of creating on-line content & writing new plays - interview
Late Haydn and Brahms on an Autumn evening in the park: Anthony Friend and the Solem Quartet at Battersea Park bandstand - concert review
Less is more: Andrew Hamilton's Joy - CD review
Fizzing with energy: Beethoven's Seventh Symphony performed from memory outside at Kings Cross by Aurora Orchestra - CD review
Through late 18th-century ears: Lully's Armide in a radical adaptation from 1778 - cd review
The sheer joy of music making: the Maggini Quartet emerges from hibernation to celebrate the delight of playing together - concert review
Children can do so much more than you think: Susan Moore, artistic director of W11 Opera on challenging young performers to produce an opera under lockdown - interview
An eight-hour solo piano masterpiece: Sorabji's Sequentia cyclica receives its premiere performance from Jonathan Powell - CD review
A distinct voice: a new disc from Resonus explores Florent Schmitt's Mélodies, a wide-ranging survey of song by an under-rated composer - CD review
Beethoven refracted and contemplated: Peeter Vähi's Hommage à Brillance de Lune - CD review
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Shop Talk S01E03: Deconstructing Silos

Tue, 15 Sep 2020 07:00:45 +0000

In the beginning when Artsgod created nonprofit administration, the org chart was a formless void of jack-of-all-trades that covered the face of the deep.

Then Artsgod said, “Let there be light” and there was light. Artsgod saw that the light was good; and he separated marketing from development.

Artsgod called the light earned income and the darkness was called unearned income. There was now a revenue stream where never the two shall meet.

Artsgod saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good…until it wasn’t.

And that’s where today’s topic comes in: deconstructing the silos that are marketing and development. This episode’s guests include Anwar Nasir, the Chief Revenue and Advancement Officer for the Omaha Symphony, and Scott Harrison, Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra’s interim executive director and senior strategic facilitator.

Today’s episode is a bit longer than normal thanks to conversation points dovetailing so nicely. We go down several fun rabbit holes like professional development and how the platforms we use create limitations and potential; as such, there’s no Last Call segment this week. Here are some memorable quotes:

“Deconstructing silos is about becoming a more empathetic and thoughtful institution.”

“Innovation must be iterative.”

“If you’re looking for the perfect customer management system, know that it doesn’t exist.”

Head’s up: there was a bit of Zoom lag from Anwar’s connection. It’s not overly intrusive and only cycles through infrequently so knowing it’s not show-stopper in advance helps.

VIDEO

Guests

Anwar Nasir

Anwar Nasir is the Chief Revenue and Advancement Officer for the Omaha Symphony. He sets the vision and strategy for relationship management, public-facing communications, and revenue generation for the orchestra. Previously, he has held management positions with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Hollywood Bowl, Atlanta Ballet, and Philadelphia Workforce Development Corporation.

Scott Harrison

LinkedIn | BLUME Haiti | LPO

Celebrated as a leader with “imagination and ambition” by the LA Times, Scott Harrison has secured tens of millions of dollars in funding from individuals, institutions, and public sources for arts organizations nationwide while designing initiatives that are changing cultural practice and audience engagement. He has helped lead multiple organizations through uncertain times with a focus on culture, creativity, collaboration and cultivation – among them the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Hawai’i Symphony Orchestra and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. He has just joined the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra as their interim executive director and senior strategic facilitator. Scott is a founding board member of BLUME Haiti, which supports youth development via strengthening Haiti’s music education ecosystem.

About Shop Talk

The official podcast of Adaptistration.com, Shop Talk invites captivating guests to talk about engaging topics connected to the orchestra business.

Shop Talk Archives | Shop Talk; Last Call Archives

Season 1 Publication Schedule (subject to change #obvs)

S01E01: Reaching Diverse Audiences Through The Marcom Lens, Ann Marie Sorrell and Ceci Dadisman 08/18/2020
S01E02: Art Has Always Been Political, Weston Sprott and Jason Haaheim 09/01/2020
S01E03: Deconstructing Silos, Anwar Nasir and Scott Harrison 09/15/2020
S01E04: Fostering BIPOC And Women Composers, Anne M. Guzzo, Daniel Hege, and Holly Mulcahy 09/29/2020
S01E05: What Orchestras Administrators Really Need, Zak Vassar and Jeff Vom Saal 10/13/2020
S01E06: The Need For Expertise, Mark Almond and Jason Haaheim 10/27/2020
S01E07: How To Change Your Narrative, Mark Larson and Scott Silberstein 11/10/2020
S01E08: Centering Equity, Ruby Harper Lopez and Brea M. Heidelberg 11/17/2020
S01E09: 12/08/2020
S01E10: 12/22/2020
S01E11: 01/05/2020
S01E12: 01/19/2020

Bringing you closer to the music and the musicians: new festival at Clerkenwell’s Fidelio Orchestra Café - Up Close and Musical

Tue, 15 Sep 2020 06:27:48 +0000

Clerkenwell’s Fidelio Orchestra Café has been hosting live, socially distanced concerts since July and in November the café will host Up Close and Musical, a three-day cross-genre festival created by violist Shiry Rashkovsky.

There will be hour-long concerts by featuring short, candid interviews led by Shiry Rashkovsky, and special Q&A sessions with musical entrepreneurs and journalists. All the events are scheduled around meals and drinks to facilitate spontaneous interaction with the artists throughout the weekend. Those taking part include recording artist Francesca Dego, composer Gabriel Prokofiev, cellist Abel Selaocoe, jazz-bassist and composer Misha Mullov-Abbado, pianist Alasdair Beatson, soprano Héloïse Werner, and Trio Klein, plus discussion and workshops with musical entrepreneur Raffaello Morales, journalist and writer Jessica Duchen and composer Nimrod Borenstein.

The festival will take place 6 -8 November 2020 and differs from the Café’s existing programme in that tickets can also be purchased as full day or full weekend passes.

Full details from the festival website.