A willingness to explore: Stéphane Fuguet on recording Monteverdi and Lully at Versailles with his ensemble, Les Épopées

Stéphane Fuguet & Les Épopées (Photo: Pascal Le Mée)

In June 2024, harpsichordist, conductor and director, Stéphane Fuguet and his ensemble, Les Épopées are releasing their recording of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo on the Château de Versailles Spectacles label with tenor Julian Prégardien in the title role. This is the second of the ensemble's survey of Monteverdi's operas on disc, they released Il ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria in June 2022, and L'Incoronazione di Poppea will follow in April 2025. In March 2024 the ensemble released, also on the Château de Versailles Spectacles label, the final volume of their survey of the complete Grands Motets by Jean-Baptiste Lully.

Stéphane comments that every conductor has their own ideas for L'Orfeo. He is intensely interested in the approach to declamation in this period of opera, the particular combination of melody and text in Monteverdi's recitar cantando (speaking through singing). He has heard this music done almost as if the singer were speaking, and this willingness to explore is something that characterised their recording of Il ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria and continues in the new release. But there are other areas too, where the surviving printed materials do not give us the whole picture, performers need to make decisions and choose their approach.

Stéphane points out that whilst the score indicates what instruments are to be used, the musical material is not fully written out; at the beginning of the score there is a list of instruments which does not tally with those present in the score. For example, at the beginning of the score, three violas da gamba are mentioned, but there is never any music for the three. What to do with them? It is this gap which gives performers the space to be creative. Stéphane adds that as the instrumental writing is usually in five parts so one could use a type of broken consort, having different line-ups.

The realisation of the continuo part also gives scope and Les Épopées realise it in different ways, making use of the structure of the piece, bringing out different textures according to context, so that there are moments when Monteverdi seems to have textures that get bigger, suddenly different to a simple realisation for lirone. Additionally, everything is improvised, Stéphane never writes the music down, keeping it moving and always changing.

Stéphane Fuguet (Photo: Ludek Brany)

Part of the attraction of the opera is the way that the character of Orfeo is touchingly human, he doubts himself and at the end turns back toward Euridice, showing a real human fragility. For the title role, Stéphane was looking for a singer who could do something fragile, at different moments murmuring and screaming. Stéphane has known Julian Prégardien for around a dozen years and admires him because whilst his voice can be very sunny, round and emotional, he is also willing to try things out, there are no limits.

Mozart in 1774: Samantha Clarke, Jane Gower, The Mozartists, and Ian Page on stylish form at Wigmore Hall

Samantha Clarke (Photo: Benjamin Ealovega)

Mozart in 1774 - Mozart: Symphonies Nos. 28 & 30, Bassoon Concerto, music from La finta giardiniera, music from Paisiello's Andromeda; Samantha Clarke, Jane Gower, The Mozartists, Ian Page; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 2 May 2024

Ian Page and his ensemble explore the symphonic music Mozart wrote in 1774, along with a superb contribution from bassoonist Jane Gower and soprano Samantha Clarke in outstanding form

In 1773, Mozart returned from his long journey to Italy and for the next four years was based in Salzburg. The new Archbishop took the view that at 17, Mozart was old enough to pull his weight in the court music and not go gadding about. There were trips, however, to Vienna and to Munich, this latter for the premiere of his opera La finta giardiniera. Mozart would, in time, become discontent with the limitations of artistic life at the Salzburg court, but whilst he explored what avenues it could give him. This means that he wrote in a wide variety of genres, including writing concertos for friends. But much of 1774 seems to have been devoted to symphonies, then in 1775 it was violin concertos with piano concertos in 1776 (all rather Schumann-esque in a way).

Ian Page and The Mozartists' Mozart 250 project has, this year, reached 1774. They have already given us a survey of the music Mozart might have heard that year, and they returned to Wigmore Hall on Thursday 2 May 2024 for a concert centring on music that Mozart wrote that year including Symphonies Nos. 28 and 30, the Bassoon Concerto with soloist Jane Gower, and a scene from La finta giardiniera with soprano Samantha Clarke, who also sang a scene from Paisiello's Andromeda.

Bruckner’s Skull, Nordic Music Days, New Dimensions and Re:Connect: Scottish Chamber Orchestra's new season

Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Maxim Emelyanychev in Aberdeen (Photo: Christopher Bowen)

The 2024/25 season sees Maxim Emelyanychev returning for his sixth season as principal conductor of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (SCO) with nine concerts, both as conductor and as soloist. Andrew Manze takes up a new role as SCO's principal guest conductor, directing three concerts during the season from Scandinavian contemporary music to Mozart to Faure's Requiem.

The SCO will be giving seven premieres during the season including Bruckner’s Skull by Jay Capperauld, the SCO's associate composer. Bruckner’s Skull delves into Bruckner’s macabre fascination with fellow composers Schubert and Mozart. SCO will also be premiering Capperauld's Carmina Gadelica, inspired by the wonders of Gaelic hymns, incantations and lore, whilst his The Great Grumpy Gaboon, a musical adventure written in collaboration with children's author Corrina Campbell, returns after sell-out performances throughout Scotland in 2023.

Mark Wigglesworth conducts the UK premiere of Péter Eötvös' Aurora with SCO’s principal double bass Nikita Naumov. Eötvös, who died in March aged 80, dreamt up the work while contemplating the Northern Lights aboard a plan high above Alaska. And there will be music from the SCO’s youngest-ever commissioned composer, Georgian teenager Tsontne Zédginidze. 

As part of Nordic Music Days, Andrew Manze conducts Scottish premiere of Anders Hillborg's Viola Concerto with Laurence Power is the soloist, alongside music by Madeleine Isaksson and Sir James MacMillan’s powerful Second Symphony, written for the SCO in 1999. This concert is also part of a new SCO concert series, New Dimensions, with a more informal concert format and programmes designed to encourage audiences to stretch musical imaginations. Other concerts in the series are Ad Absurdum, with Maxim Emelyanychev conducting Jörg Widmann’s Ad Absurdum, Sir James Macmillan’s Tryst and John Adams’ Chamber Concerto, and Parabola where violinist Pekka Kuusisto and pianist/conductor Simon Crawford-Phillips join the SCO for an eclectic programme of music by Thomas Adès, Timo Andres, Sally Beamish and Haydn.

The SCO's long-standing Re:Connect programme for people living with dementia will continue to be delivered at Royal Edinburgh Hospital. Building this, and developing the SCO's ongoing partnership with Alzheimer Scotland, the SCO presents four dementia-friendly concerts in the 2024-25 Season. The performances offer an afternoon of music and light refreshments designed especially for people living with dementia, their friends and carers. 

The SCO will enter the fourth year of its residency in Craigmillar in Edinburgh, continuing to deliver workshops, events and performances across the community through its regular schools’ programme, which sees the SCO working with one local nursery, four primary schools and the local high school throughout the academic year and a programme of community projects with different local partners across the Greater Craigmillar area. And the SCO will also offer a programme of open rehearsals for secondary school pupils so they can discover how a professional orchestra works, see a performance take shape and observe how the Orchestra prepares for a public performance

Full details from the SCO website.

Father Willis, European Union Chamber Orchestra, Goldberg Variations: King's Lynn Festival's Early Music Day

European Union Chamber Orchestra

King's Lynn Festival's annual celebration of all things Early Music, its Early Music Day will be returning to St Nicholas' Chapel on Saturday 20 July featuring a lunchtime organ recital with Harvey Stansfield, a concert with the European Union Chamber Orchestra and a late-night recital with harpsichordist Masumi Yamamoto.

The day begins with a recital by the organ scholar at Peterborough Cathedral, Harvey Stansfield. He will play the Henry Willis organ at St Nicholas' Chapel, the last instrument on which Father Willis worked on before his death in 1901.

The European Union Chamber Orchestra, directed by violinist Hans-Peter Hofmann, perform Bach's celebrated 4th Brandenburg Concerto alongside music by Handel, Vivaldi, Corelli and Telemann. They are joined by recorder player, Tabea Debus, and she also stars in an early evening recital, Ear Worm, on Friday 19 July at All Saints’ Church, King's Lynn, together with Robin Bigwood. They perform their personal selection of Renaissance and Baroque works, their favourites being melodies you just cannot get out of your head. Then for the late-night concert, Masumi Yamamoto performs Bach's Goldberg Variations.

The full King's Lynn Festival runs from 14 to 27 July 2024. Full details from the festival website.

The Ballad of the Nipple: Paul Alan Barker's seven melodramas for piano

Melodrama as a dramatic musical genre has a somewhat patchy history. Whilst Mozart would say of Georg Benda's melodramas 'I love these two works so much that I carry them with me', and indeed works like Benda's Medea [recorded in 2021 by Cappella Aquileia on Coviello Classics, see my review] influenced Mozart's use of speech with music. Melodrama as a tool in the opera composers armoury does pop up, but the exploration of simple speech with music is still relatively rare. The development of post-War music-theatre works has meant that contemporary composers shy away from it rather less. 

Paul Alan Barker is a composer of dance, theatre, musicals, opera and more with over 13 operas to his name. He is also a writer and his first novel, The Ferry Inn, was recently published. So it comes as no surprise to find him interested in the combination of speech and music. As far back as 1980 he wrote The Pied Piper of Hamelin for narrator and piano, and in 2015 came Of Zoe and the Woman I sing, described as 'A melodrama for actress Zoe Lister, her avatar and pianist'. 

Less overtly dramatic but rather intriguing is The Ballad of the Nipple 'Seven melodramas for Piano' which take Barker's own words and apply music to them, designed for a single pianist able to speak, they can also be performed as melodramas with an actor. The sequence begins with Lemon Scented Blues, 'A fairy tale with a moral' and ends with the title piece, The Ballad of the Nipple, originally written after a tabloid magazine published a clandestine photo of a Royal nipple!

The results are compact and amusing, with cabaret hints yet with claws. The good news is that Barker has recorded them himself, speaking and playing, and the results are available as a playlist on YouTube.

Vigour, energy and joy: A Choral Celebration of Queen Mary II from the choirs of the Royal Hospital Chelsea and Old Royal Naval College

Willem Wissing (1656-87) - Mary II (1662-94) when Princess of Orange c.1686-87 
(Photo: Royal Collection Trust RCIN 405643)

A Choral Celebration of Queen Mary II: Clarke, Blow, Purcell, Handel;  chapel choir of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, the Old Royal Naval College Trinity Laban Chapel Choir, Brandenburg Baroque Soloists, Ralph Allwood, William Vann; Chapel of St Peter and St Paul, Old Royal Naval College
Reviewed 30 April 2024

A celebration of Queen Mary II's birthday brings together the choirs of two institution she was instrumental in founding, mixing professionals with students to create a choral sound full of vigour, energy and joy

Queen Mary II was born on 30 April 1662 so what better way to celebrate her than to bring together the choirs of two institutions that she was instrumental in founding. So, on 30 April 2024, the Chapel Choir of the Royal Hospital Chelsea and the Old Royal Naval College Trinity Laban Chapel Choir under their conductors Ralph Allwood and William Vann came together with the Brandenburg Baroque Soloists in the chapel of St Peter and St Paul at the Old Royal Naval College for a programme of music celebrating Queen Mary II including John Blow's The Lord God is a sun and a shield, Purcell's Come, ye sons of art and music from the Queen's funeral, and Handel's Utrecht Te Deum.

The venue, the chapel in the Old Royall Naval College is part of Sir Christopher Wren's original buildings for what was then the Royal Hospital for Seamen but a fire in the later 18th century means that the interior is by James 'Athenian' Stuart, creating rather a different atmosphere with its spectacular altarpiece painted by Benjamin West.

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra's 2024/25 season

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra's 2024/25 season is its third with chief conductor Ryan Wigglesworth. Wigglesworth will be directing Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius and a new work by Helen Grime, along with playing the solo part in Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 17. There will be a further premiere from Ricardo Ferro, plus works by Donghoon Shin, Errollyn Wallen, Gabriela Montero and the orchestra’s Composer-in-Association Hans Abrahamsen.

Ilan Volkov conducts percussion concertos with Scottish virtuoso Colin Currie, including a UK premiere by Olga Neuwirth and a concerto by Andy Aiko. Other visitors include tabla player Zakir Hussain who performs his Triple Concerto with conductor Alpesh Chauhan, and the orchestra’s former Artist-in-Association Matthias Pintscher returns to conduct Rachmaninov’s less frequently performed Piano Concerto No.4 with Denis Kozhukhin plus his own work Neharot and a world premiere by his student Ricardo Ferro.

Young people are very much to the fore. The orchestra has announced that during its current season young audiences have hit new heights, with Under 26s and Students making up 1 in 4 audience members across the Thursday Night Series, reaching up to 34% of ticket sales. As part of Sir James MacMillan's first Scottish performance of his new Concerto for Orchestra ‘Ghosts’, he conducts a substantial spread of new music from six of his younger colleagues at the Cumnock Tryst festival - Matthew Grouse, Gillian Walker, Electra Perivolaris, Scott Lygate, Jay Capperauld and Michael Murray. And BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists will be showcased in the orchestra's new Sunday concerts as part of Glasgow's Afternoon Performances season. 

As part of Nordic Music Days 2024 (hosted in Scotland for the first time since its inaugural festival in 1888), Emilia Hoving conducts the orchestra in music by Britta Byström, Eli Tausen á Lava and Maja Ratkje, plus Hildur Guðnadóttir’s The Fact of the Matter  with University of Glasgow Chapel Choir.

Full details from the BBC SSO's website.

14 premieres, music in iconic spaces, the Cries of London: Spitalfields Music Festival 2024

Spitalfields Music Festival returns with events in iconic spaces across East London from 27 June to 10 July 2024. The festival opens with soprano Nardus Williams and lutenist Elizabeth Kenny in In the Shadow of the Tower, exploring East London's cosmopolitan history in a recital at St Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London. The concert features a new work by Roderick Williams, one of 14 premieres being presented at this year's festival. And we return to St Peter ad Vincula for Sing Joyfully: Tudor and Jacobean Music for the Chapel Royal performed by Choir of the Chapels Royal, HM Tower of London.

The Carice Singers explore another aspect of London history with Cries of London at St Botolph without Bishopsgate, featuring Berio's Cries of London alongside music by Alexander Papp, Mary Offer, Robert Crehan, Effy Efthymiou, Alice Beckwith, and Anibal Vidal. Whilst the Gentle Author will be talking about the cries of London at St Botolph without Bishopsgate hall, and one of the festival's Neighbourhood Schools projects also focuses on the subject. Students will be producing a sound installation inspired by the modern day Cries of London, which will be on display at St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate on Tuesday 2 July.

The Manchester Collective are returning to Village Underground for a programme including music by Missy Mazzoli, Edmund Finnis, Kaija Saariaho, Caroline Shaw, Errollyn Wallen, Dobrinka Tabakova and a new commission from Jocelyn Campbell. The National Youth Choir Fellowship Ensemble will be joining Zoe Martlew (cello), Roderick Williams (baritone), Andrew West (piano) and the trombone quartet Slide Action for a concert at the Dutch Church, Austin Friars, celebrating NMC Recordings' 35 anniversary with a wide range of music associated with the label from Ben Nobuto and Alex Paxton to Zoe Martlew and Roxanna Panufnik to Brian Elias and Howard Skempton to Imogen Holst and Richard Rodney Bennett.

Me Without You from composer Emily Levy and Writer-Director Mella Faye celebrates those we’ve lost and those of us who are still here, through music, dance and recorded interviews, at Metronome London.

The Academy of St Martin in the Fields makes its festival debut with a programme of Ruth Gipps, Britten, Walton, Elgar, Walton, Jonathan Woolgar and Philip Herbert' s Elegy: in memoriam Stephen Lawrence at St Anne's Church, Limehouse. Stephanie Lamprea (soprano) and Anna Kjær (choreographer / dancer) join the Hebrides Ensemble for Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire alongside an exhibition of new paintings by double bassist and artist Kirsty Matheson at St Mary at Hill.

Alongside these and other events there are walking tours, talks and much more.

Full details from the festival website.

The meaning of music in a terrifying world: BCMG to premiere Joe Cutler and Max Hoehn's Sonata for Broken Fingers

An urban myth tells of how, one evening, Stalin made a surprise phone call to Radio Moscow demanding the urgent delivery of a record: a Mozart piano concerto played by Maria Yudina. Unfortunately, radio companies at this time did not always preserve their broadcasts for a future release or even for their own archive. But rather than say 'no' to Stalin, Radio Moscow gathered together Yudina and their orchestra in the middle of the night and made the recording from scratch, ready to be delivered to the Kremlin the following morning. In the version of the myth as told by Shostakovich, it was this recording that was found on Stalin’s gramophone player when the dictator had his fatal stroke.

Now, the remarkable life of virtuoso pianist, Maria Yudina (1899-1970) is the inspiration for a new opera, Sonata for Broken Fingers, by composer Joe Cutler and librettist Max Hoehn to be premiered by Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (BCMG) on 14 July 2024 at the CBSO Centre in Birmingham. 

The project is a collaboration between BCMG, the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, and Birmingham-based composer, Joe Cutler, who runs the Conservatoire’s composition department. The premiere is being presented in collaboration with Birmingham Record Company and Opera21. Sian Edwards conducts with a cast including Claire Booth, James Cleverton, Stephen Richardson, Lucy Schaufer and Christopher Lemmings. And the good news is that the work will be recorded for future release by Birmingham Record Company.

Sonata for Broken Fingers is Joe Cutler's first opera. An 80-minute claustrophobic thriller, it is conceived as an intimate sound experience, strongly influenced by the genre of radio drama and explores the meaning of music in a terrifying world.

Full details from BCMG's website.

A neglected gem revived: New Sussex Opera in Lampe's The Dragon of Wantley combining historic style and 1980s politics

Lampe: The Dragon of Wantley - Charlotte Badham - New Sussex Opera (Photo: Robert Knights)

Lampe & Carey: The Dragon of Wantley; Ana Beard Fernandez, Charlotte Badham, Magnus Walker, Robert Gildon, director: Paul Higgins, conductor: Toby Purser, Bellot Ensemble; New Sussex Opera at the Theatre Royal, Winchester
Reviewed 28 April 2024

Updated to the 1980s miners' strike, New Sussex Opera's production mixes political satire and period style along with a sense of enjoyment in the work's send-up of opera seria

British theatre always seems to have been fond of music, Purcell's semi-operas were the musical spectaculars of their day and regular plays often included music. The development of ballad opera (songs based on pre-existing melodies with spoken dialogue) was a logical extension with most ballad operas, from The Beggar's Opera (1728) onwards having a satirical edge to them, usually making fun of the Italian opera seria as well as political hot potatoes of the day.

What took far longer to develop was a tradition of lighter, comic English operas. One notable example, which has been consistently undervalued, is John Frederick Lampe and Henry Carey's The Dragon of Wantley. Originally written in 1737 this was a fully sung English comic opera with newly composed music, yet its dramatic thrust has a lot in common with ballad opera, satire on Italian opera seria and poking fun at politics.

In the case of The Dragon of Wantley, the composer John Frederick Lampe had a secret weapon. He was the bassoonist in Handel's orchestra and had actually written opera seria. The Dragon of Wantley is a fully-developed opera seria yet sung to an English libretto which makes fun of the whole thing, allied to a ludicrous plot taken from a broadside ballad about a Yorkshire dragon defeated via a kick up the backside by a beer-swilling local knight. In Lampe's day, audiences understood the dragon in the plot was satirising Robert Walpole's tax policies, so there is a political point to all the fun.

Lampe: The Dragon of Wantley - Ana Beard Fernandez, Rob Gildon, Charlotte Badham - New Sussex Opera (Photo: Robert Knights)

The Dragon of Wantley has come to attention again thanks to the excellent new recording on Resonus Classics [see my review], and now New Sussex Opera has taken up the gauntlet, staging the work and touring it around South East England. The tour opened in Lewes on 14 April, and we caught its stop at the Theatre Royal, Winchester on Sunday 28 April 2024. The production was by Paul Higgins with designs by Mollie Cheek. Toby Purser conducted the Bellot Ensemble, with Ana Beard Fernandez as Margery, Charlotte Badham as Mauxalinda, Robert Gildon as Gaffer Gubbins and the Dragon, and Magnus Walker as Moore of Moore Hall.

Lobesgesang: Mendelssohn's rarely performed symphony-cantata is a fine climax to Sir Andras Schiff and the OAE's exploration of the composer's symphonic music

Portrait of Mendelssohn by Wilhelm Hensel, 1847

Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto, Symphony No. 2 'Lobesgesang'; Lucy Crowe, Hilary Cronin, Nick Pritchard, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Choir of the Enlightenment, Sir Andras Schiff; Queen Elizabeth Hall
Reviewed 26 April 2024

A near ideal performance of the violin concerto followed by an account of Mendelssohn's great symphony-cantata that never compromised the work's idiosyncrasy yet brought out its rich detail and emotionalism

Sir Andras Schiff and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (OAE) have been celebrating Mendelssohn. It is strange that the effort needs making, but we still have a tendency to downgrade the composer's symphonic output. Schiff and the OAE, however, have been putting it top dead centre with three concerts at the Southbank Centre's Queen Elizabeth Hall which featured all of the composer's symphonies, two piano concertos with Schiff directing from the keyboard and the Violin Concerto in E Minor with Alina Ibragimova. 

We caught the final concert, on Friday 26 April 2024 which featured Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor with Alina Ibragimova, and Symphony No. 2 'Lobesgesang' with the Choir of the Enlightenment and soloists Lucy Crowe, Hilary Cronin and Nick Pritchard (replacing Nicky Spence).

We began with Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, his last major orchestral work. Conceived for the concertmaster of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the work took Mendelssohn from 1828 to 1845 to write, belying its apparent effortlessness. Schiff used an orchestra based on 33 strings, double woodwind, two horns and two trumpets, quite a large group for a work which can sometimes be given chamber proportions. Alina Ibragimova began with a fine-grained tone, light and fluid playing allied to free phrasing. She never attempted to big-up her tone nor force her way into the spotlight, it all felt somehow effortless and natural, yet compelling and very stylish. In the first movement, there were moments that were daringly intimate, but for all the period manners, there was some very real drama. Schiff encouraged his players to bring out some beautifully vivid colours in the orchestral transition. When the second movement proper, began, it was all singing elegance and fine grained tone. Intimate and delicate, yet with an underlying strength. This delicate approach continued into the last movement, which was delightfully pointed and I loved the sound of Ibragimova's violin with the wind bubbling along beside her, and the excitement continued to the end. What this performance did was discover a work that was both stronger and more delicate than is often the case, and was notably lacking that sense of saccharine that an over-vibrato-laden violin solo can bring.

Fear no more: Brindley Sherratt on releasing his first recital disc

Brindley Sherratt (Photo: Gerard Collett)

I first chatted with bass Brindley Sherratt in early 2020 about a fundraising gala he was organising. Much happened afterwards, and the interview did not appear on the blog until 2022 [see my interview]. When we chatted then, Brindley was moving into singing larger, more dramatic roles including Wagner.

But when we met again recently it was to talk about a project on an entirely different scale, Brindley's first recital disc, with pianist Julius Drake, Fear No More on the Delphian label. A disc that features music by Schubert, Richard Strauss, John Ireland, Gerald Finzi, Ivor Gurney, Michael Head, Peter Warlock and Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death.

Brindley suggests that, like most things in his career, his releasing of a debut disc is a bit topsy turvy as he is singing larger roles including Wagner and doing more recitals, both ends of the performing spectrum in other words. Some years ago, the mezzo-soprano Alice Coote told him that he needed to do some recitals and introduced Brindley to pianist Julius Drake. 

Julius Drake suggested that Brindley come round and they would go through some repertoire. At the time, Brindley admits that he didn't really know any songs. Lockdown intervened, but after a long time, they settled on a programme and performed it at the Oxford Lieder Festival and as part of Temple Song. Doing recitals had never been part of Brindley's big plan, but once he started he found that he loved the process. 

His first response, to having recital work suggested to him, was 'No'. He was afraid of the intimacy of the recital hall. Normally, his audience is in the dark, some 80 feet away with an orchestra between. But he found that the very thing he had been afraid of was something he loved. He found he enjoyed the flexibility of a recital, just the two of them. And Julius Drake can play firmly and strongly, which means he lets Brindley be.

David Pickard says farewell to the BBC Proms with 90 concerts across the UK including Bizet's Carmen, Julius Eastman's Symphony No. 2, Suk's Asrael Symphony and much more

So, the BBC Proms are on us again. The 2024 festival runs from 19 July to 14 September 2024 with 73 concerts at the Royal Albert Hall and 17 around the UK, with short seasons at Bristol Beacon and The Glasshouse, Gateshead, plus concerts in Nottingham, Newport, Aberdeen and Belfast. This season represents David Pickard's last as director and Hannah Donat has taken over as Director of Artistic Planning for the BBC Proms. She is former Concerts Director of Britten Sinfonia and has been Artistic Producer of the Proms for the last seven years, which has seen her bring orchestras and ensembles to the event and work closely with the BBC’s Orchestras and Choirs

Visiting ensembles this year include the Berlin Philharmonic and Kirill Petrenko, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle, Czech Philharmonic and Jakub Hrůša, and the West–Eastern Divan Orchestra and Daniel Barenboim. Another visitor on a smaller scale is Sir Andras Schiff who will be playing Bach's The Art of Fugue.

2024 also sees the 100th anniversary of the founding of the BBC Singers and this year's programme not only celebrates the ensemble, but the idea of choral music, with the BBC Singers in seven Proms including premiering a work written for them by Eric Whitacre, a three-concert Choral Day reflecting a wide range of styles with professional and amateur choirs including Voices of the River’s Edge, a community youth choir formed by the BBC Proms and the Glasshouse International Centre for Music during lockdown, and London LGBTQ+ chamber choir, the Fourth Choir. Further choral highlights across the summer include performances of Verdi’s Requiem, Britten’s War Requiem and Bach’s St John Passion.

Glyndebourne Opera is bringing its new production of Bizet's Carmen, with Rihab Chaieb and Evan LeRoy Johnson conducted by Anja Bihmaier, and for the first time Garsington Opera is bringing a production, so we get a chance to hear their new production of Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream with Iestyn Davies and Lucy Crowe, conducted by Douglas Boyd.

This year, 23 premieres and BBC commissions/co-commissions will be performed. Composers Thomas Ades, Anna Clyne, Sarah Class, Francisco Coll, Sarah Gibson, Dani Howard, Sir Karl Jenkins, Cassandra Miller, Ben Nobuto, Laura Poe, Steve Reich, Carlos Simon, Asteryth Sloane, Laura Poe, Elizabeth Kelly and Eric Whitacre each have a premiere or UK premiere. Hans Abrahamsen's Horn Concerto, Julius Eastman’s Symphony No. 2 and Mary Lou Williams’s Zodiac Suite will be performed in the UK for the first time. Sir Mark Elder marks his retirement from the Hallé with a performance of Sir James MacMillan's Timotheus, Bacchus and Cecilia. Other music by contemporary composers featured includes Cheryl Frances-Hoad's Cello Concerto, and pieces by Heiner Goebbels, Missy Mazzoli, Erkki-Sven Tüür.

The First Night includes Clara Schumann's Piano Concerto, with Isata Kanneh-Mason, and later on Benjamin Grosvenor is the soloist in Busoni's gargantuan Piano Concerto and there is more Busoni with his Concert Overture. Other unusual works included Zemlinsky's The Mermaid, Grace William's Concert Overture, Louise Farrenc's Overture No. 1 and Symphony No. 3, a work by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's daughter Avril, music by Grażyna Bacewicz and Augusta Holmes, Josef Suk's mammoth Asrael Symphony performed by the Czech Philharmonic, 

Column inches have already been expanded on this year's collaborations with non-classical performers. Frankly, they make an interesting mix.

• Florence Welch, of indie-rock band Florence + The Machine, makes her BBC Proms debut, and only UK appearance this year, to perform her lauded BRIT Award-winning 2009 album 
• Lungs, with Jules Buckley and his orchestra
• Jordan Rakei makes his BBC Proms debut with Robert Ames and the Royal Northern Sinfonia at the Glasshouse International Centre for Music. Academy Award-winning artist
• Sam Smith makes their BBC Proms debut at the Royal Albert Hall, their only live UK appearance this year, performing their own music in new orchestral arrangements. 
• After the success of the 2023 Northern Soul Prom, this year’s opening weekend will feature the first ever Disco Prom, celebrating disco music of the late 1970s during the era of New York’s Studio 54. 
• Three Proms pay tribute to the work and legacies of iconic musicians:  folk-rock artist Nick Drake, jazz singer Sarah Vaughan and film composer Henry Mancini, each of whom have significant anniversaries this year and whose Proms will feature exciting soloists.
• Tinariwen performs a Late Night Prom, featuring their pioneering mix of traditional Tuareg and African music with Western rock music

Booking opens on 18 May 2024, full details from the BBC website.  

Named for the 1996 Pride party on Clapham Common, Omnibus Theatre's 96 Festival is back for its ninth year and we're presenting 'Out of the Shadows' there

In 1996, the Pride festival took place on Clapham Common and attracted 250,000 to party on the Common. In celebration of this, Omnibus Theatre, Clapham created its 96 Festival, a celebration of queerness and theatre. The festival returns to Omnibus for June with a whole range of acts.

We are pleased to be presenting Out of the Shadows at 96 Festival on 16 June 2024, when Ben Vonberg-Clark (tenor), Jonathan Eyers (baritone) and Nigel Foster (piano) will be performing a programme of my music including the cantatas Out of the Shadows, inspired by reading a history of gay life in the 19th century, and Et expecto, about a desperate search for eternal life, plus love songs setting Black American poet Carl Cook and Michelangelo. 

You can get a taster of the programme with Ben Vonberg-Clark and Nigel Foster on YouTube.

Read all about 96 Festival in the online brochure.

A German in Venice - Schütz alongside music he could have heard in Venice, a wonderfully life-affirming disc

Schütz: A German in Venice - Schütz, Monteverdi, Rossi, Grandi, Cavalli, Sances; David de Winter, The Brook Street Band, FHR;
Reviewed 24 April 2024

A wonderfully engaging and life-affirming disc which mixed Schütz's music with pieces he might have heard whilst he was in Venice in the 1620s

Heinrich Schütz had a huge life, born in 1585, the year that Thomas Tallis died and with Palestrina, Victoria and Guerrero still at the peak of their powers, he died in 1672 not long before the births of Telemann, Bach and Handel. His life encompassed the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), work in Dresden and Copenhagen including writing what might have been Germany's first opera, as well as years of study in Venice.

Schütz would spent two periods in Venice, 1609 to 1612 when he studied with Giovanni Gabrieli (the only person Schütz ever called his teacher) and secondly from 1628 (after Gabrieli's death) when Schütz was fleeing war-torn Dresden. It is this latter period that tantalises as there is no documentation for Schütz meeting Monteverdi yet one can see parallels and Schütz's music must have had an effect in Venice as his Symphoniae Sacrae I was first published there in 1629.

It is this Venetian Schütz that is the focus of Schütz: A German in Venice from tenor David de Winter and The Brook Street Band on FHR. On the disc, de Winter and the Brook Street Band perform motets by Schütz from Symphoniae Sacrae I (1629) and Symphoniae Sacrae II (1647) alongside music by Monteverdi, Salamone Rossi, Giovanni Felice Sances, Alessandro Grandi, and Francesco Cavalli.

Summer at Snape, Britten Pears Arts' series of events at Snape returns for 2024

Summer at Snape, Britten Pears Arts' series of events at Snape returns for 2024 with 50 events from 26 July to 31 August. 

Visiting orchestras include John Wilson and the Sinfonia of London in Britten and Walton, Simon Over and Southbank Sinfonia in Brahms and Rachmaninoff, Peter Whelan and Irish Baroque Orchestra in a programme of Baroque classics, Antonio Pappano and the London Symphony Orchestra in Elgar and Sibelius, and BBC Concert Orchestra presenting Friday Night is Music Night. 

Visiting artists include violinist Alina Ibragimova and pianist Cédric Tiberghien in Beethoven, Janáček, Enescu, and Barry, pianist Alim Beisembayev - Winner of the Leeds International Piano Competition, soprano Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha and pianist Simon Lepper in Mahler, Wagner, and South African songs, guitarist Milos and pianist Stephen Hough.

Other visitors include the Pasadena Roof Orchestra, the Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain, Black Dyke Band, United Strings of Europe,  Apollo5 and The Gesualdo Six in a programme exploring music of Gesualdo.

Events include Women’s Stories from the Ancient World is a newly devised sequence of words and music curated by soprano Nardus Williams and renowned classicist Mary Beard with lutenist Elizabeth Kenny, I, Clara, presented by pianist Lucy Parham and actor Harriet Walter, an exploration of the remarkable life of Clara Schumann.

Young artists in the series include Suffolk Youth Orchestra in Britten and Rimsky-Korsakov, Aldeburgh Young Musicians, an artist development programme for musicians aged 10-18, Apollo5 leading Explore Your Voice, a workshop offering singers the chance to enhance their vocal capabilities and engage in group singing, VOICEBOX and soprano Juliet Fraser's Unbound project [see my interview with Juliet], Britten Pears Young Artists present their End of Course Recital and Bandstand at The Maltings, hosted on the Henry Moore Lawn, spotlights local talent from across Suffolk programmed by Britten Pears Arts and young creatives.

Full details from Britten Pears Arts website.

Schoenberg: Exploring New Worlds - Lewes Chamber Music Festival 2024

The 13th Lewes Chamber Music Festival takes place from 6 to 8 June 2024 with artistic director Beatrice Philips bringing together 18 of today's most exciting chamber-musicians and soloists to explore the musical ties between Europe and America through celebrating the 150th birthdays of Arnold Schoenberg and Charles Ives, including Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony No. 1 and Ode to Napoleon with actor Samuel West, and rare chamber versions of larger scale works by Richard Strauss and Mahler.

The weekend opens with early piano quartets by Mahler and Richard Strauss along with music by Elliott Carter and Anton Webern's quintet arrangement of Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony No.1, and there is more Schoenberg with a late-night performance of Verklärte Nacht. And the festival will include more Schoenberg along with performances of music by Berg, Zemlinsky, Schulhoff, Korngold, Hindemith, Brahms, Ives, Amy Beach and Gershwin.

A wonderfully ambitious gala concert features Guido Martin-Brandis' arrangement of the magical closing scenes from Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier with singers Hilary Cronin and Elinor Rolfe Johnson and Erwin Stein's chamber arrangement of Mahler's Symphony No. 4 for 12 musicians with Hilary Cronin returning for the soprano solo in the finale.

The final concert features another rare performance, this time of Schoenberg's Ode to Napoleon with actor Samuel West, plus Beethoven's Septet and Charles Ives' Largo for clarinet, piano and violin.

Full details from the festival website.

Enriching, uplifting, entertaining & inclusive: Paradox Orchestra to perform at Sheffield Cathedral in support of the Archer Project

The Paradox Orchestra (Photo: Elizabeth Brown)

The Yorkshire-based Paradox Orchestra, whose founder Michael Sluman I chatted to recently [see my interview 'No boundaries or rules'], is presenting a series of concerts for charitable causes across Yorkshire, including two upcoming concerts in aid of the homeless in Sheffield in the magnificent setting of Sheffield Cathedral. 

The orchestra will perform its 50 Years of Pink Floyd programme at the cathedral on 16 May and their Fleetwood Mac programme on 12 July. The concerts will raise funds and awareness for the Cathedral's Archer Project, which supports the homeless in Sheffield, are part of the cathedral’s commitment to being a ‘place for all’, bringing communities together with shared cultural events.

Michael Sluman, commented: "Classical music is proven to have a profound effect on our wellbeing. We want to ensure the artform is accessible to all, and to remind audiences that we have a shared humanity. We promise a soulful, enriching, uplifting, entertaining and inclusive experience."

There are further performances of the Pink Floyd programme at Selby Abbey on 11 May and Huddersfield Town Hall on 17 May.

Full details of all the orchestra's concerts from EventBrite.

Disruptors: BBC Young Musician Keyboard Category Final winner Ethan Loch joins Manchester Camerata for music by Beethoven and local composer Carmel Smickersgill

Ethan Loch at the BBC Young Musician 2022 Final (Photo: BBC)

For their next performance in Manchester, the Manchester Camerata is changing their base of operations and giving a concert in the Albert Hall on Thursday 2 May 2024. Performing in the round, the orchestra will be conducted by young Irish conductor, Karen Ní Bhroin in Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 and Symphony No. 8, plus a new work by Manchester-based composer Carmel Smickersgill. 

Smickersgill studied composition with Gary Carpenter at the RNCM in Manchester, and is now an associate member of the college, and she has written works for Liverpool Philharmonic's ensemble 10/10,  Laura Bowler, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Das Neue Ensemble, Galvanize Ensemble, and the Equilibrium Quartet.

The soloist in the piano concerto will be Ethan Loch, the 20-year-old pianist who won the BBC Young Musician Keyboard Category Final in 2022. Diagnosed blind since birth, Ethan Loch has had a unique learning curve to master his instrument.

The evening will also include a performance from schools taking part in the orchestra's Create with Camerata programme, where Camerata musicians and a composer teamed up with over 400 pupils from 15 schools across Stafford, Stoke and Telford to write their own music inspired by Roald Dahl’s classic book, Matilda with the results being performed at the Prince of Wales Theatre in Cannock.

Full details from the Manchester Camerata's website.

Attention must be paid: the Engegård Quartet at Conway Hall in Mozart, Bartok, Maja Ratkje, and Fanny Mendelssohn

Fanny Hensel (Mendelssohn) in 1842

Mozart, Bartok, Maja Ratkje, Fanny Mendelssohn; Engegård Quartet; Conway Hall
Reviewed 21 April 2024

Playing of extraordinary vividness and presence by the Norwegian ensemble in a programme moving from Mozart and Fanny Mendelssohn to Bartok and contemporary Norwegian compose Maja Ratkje

The Engegård Quartet (Arvid Engegård, Laura Custodio Sabas, Juliet Jopling, Jan Clemens Carlsen) was at Conway Hall on Sunday 21 April 2024 as part of a UK tour which sees the quartet giving the BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert on 26 April from LSO St Luke's. 

At Conway Hall, the Norwegian ensemble played a programme that began with Mozart's Quartet No.22 in B♭ "Prussian" K.589 followed by Bartok's Quartet No.3 Sz.85, then A Tale of Lead and Light by contemporary Norwegian composer Maja Ratkje and finally Fanny Mendelssohn's Quartet in E flat. Before the concert, I gave a talk Three Contrasting Composers, exploring Fanny Mendelssohn, Bartok and Maja Ratkje and the background to their works.

Holst 150, complete Shostakovich quartets, Gilbert & Sullivan's The Sorcerer: Lichfield Festival 2024

The Hub at St Mary's - Brodsky Quartet at Lichfield Festival, July 2023 (Photo: Tyler Whiting)

The Lichfield Festival returns for ten days of classical, folk, world, jazz, cabaret and popular music, theatre, dance and the written word from 4 to 14 July 2024. The 2024 festival opens with Rachel Podger (violin) and her ensemble Brecon Baroque in Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons.  

A 150th anniversary celebration of Gustav Holst includes Egdon Heath from the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Ryan Bancroft (along with Brahms and Elgar's Cello Concerto) and the Carice Singers’ Stargazers programme includes Holst's The Evening Watch. And there will be Holst arrangements from BBC Folk Musician of the Year Will Pound and percussionist Delia Stevens. 

Pianist Danny Driver plays two recitals, closing the Festival with candle-lit Bach in the Cathedral.  Other chamber music highlights are the complete Shostakovich quartets from Brodsky Quartet spread over a single weekend, Oz Clarke and Armonico Consort’s light-hearted look at music and wine A Second Sip, and a late night concert by 2024 RPS Instrumental award-winning sitar player Jasdeep Singh Degun.  

Recorder quartet Palisander’s historical concert experience follows the wives of Henry VIII in Divorced, Beheaded, Died, and still in an historical bent, Lesley Smith presents the story of Mary Queen of Scots in full Elizabethan costume, and and The Lord Chamberlain’s Men perform Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the open air, in period costume, with an all-male cast, just as it would have been in Elizabeth I’s day.  

The popular Midlands Choir of the Year returns with the final taking place in the Cathedral.  For younger audiences, Waterperry Opera returns with Peter and The Wolf, and music, art and drama projects on the theme of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons take place with local schools for this year’s Aspire! community and participation programme.

All that, plus 10 young artist concerts and Charles Court Opera’s latest G&S production The Sorcerer, not to mention the Festival Fireworks which are FREE to all at Beacon Park on Friday 12 July, in collaboration with Fuse/Lichfield Arts.

Full details from the festival website.

The Celestial Stranger: new song cycle inspired by Thomas Traherne's recently discovered manuscript

Joana Carneiro & Gavan Ring

Thomas Traherne was a Herefordshire clergyman who died in 1674 aged 38. Known now as a poet to equal his great contemporary religious writers John Donne, George Herbert and Henry Vaughan, his works had been substantially lost and are only recently being rediscovered. His Centuries of Meditation was only rediscovered in 1898, other volumes turned up but the biggest cache of his work was found only as recently as 1997 at Lambeth Palace Library where they were catalogued as anonymous. Amongst these works is a 42-chapter treatise entitled The Kingdom of God which includes The Celestial Stranger, where Traherne imagines a visitor from a distant universe visiting earth and being held in wonder by its riches and beauty.

Musically, Traherne is perhaps best known as the poet for Gerald Finzi's Dies Natalis which draws on three Traherne poems plus text from Centuries of Meditation.

Traherne's The Celestial Stranger is now the inspiration for a song-cycle by composer Stephen McNeff written for tenor Gavan Ring. McNeff describes the cycle as developing "beyond the utopian world as our stranger realises the existence of tyranny and warfare - forcing them to take their leave. An obvious metaphor for what we are doing to the planet, perhaps, but no less relevant of that…". The work is a joint BBC Radio 3 and National Symphony Orchestra (Ireland) commission and the Dublin premiere will be next year.

Stephen McNeff's The Celestial Stranger will be premiered by Gavan Ring and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, conductor Joana Carneiro at Hodinott Hall, Cardiff on 16 May 2024 as part of a concert including Gabriel Fauré's Pelléas et Mélisande (music from the Maurice Maeterlinck that would inspire Debussy's opera), and Arnold Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht. Full details from the BBC website.

Opera as it ought to be: Mozart's Don Giovanni from Hurn Court Opera

Mozart: Don Giovanni - Hurn Court Opera (Photo: Patrick Frost, BlackStar Pictures)

Mozart: Don Giovanni: Sam Young, Samuel Lom, Lizzie Rydeer, Daniel Gray Bell, Hanna O'Brien, Harrison Chéné-Gration, Tilly Goodwin, William Stevens, dir: Joy Robinson, cond: Lynton Atkinson; Hurn Court Opera at Theatre Royal, Winchester
Reviewed by James McConnachie, 11 April 2024

A dedicated group of vastly talented singers – young singers – riding on the delight of an audience that was evidently as full of newbies as buffs

Even lifelong opera-lovers can sometimes feel dispirited. Opera survives on the support and generosity and love of a generation born within 20 years of the war – but anyone looking around them in the stalls, or the grand tier, or the balcony or, frankly, even the amphitheatre of the Royal Opera House might be forgiven for wondering where the next generation is going to come from. Is it economics that is keeping out the young and even the middle-aged? Is it the repertoire? The ambience? Or, worse, is it that younger people just don’t like the music?

I hope not, though it is fashionable to denigrate, or just ignore, supposedly ‘elite’ forms of art. And sometimes opera really does not help itself, with its persistent black-tie conventions and champagne-swilling intervals. Country house opera, in particular, can make you feel as if you’re not really part of it unless you’ve dropped a quarter of a million in patronage and packed the right sort of picnic.

All of which partly explains why Hurn Court Opera’s performance of Don Giovanni was the most uplifting, inspiring and enjoyable night at the opera I’ve had in years. Hurn Court Opera presented Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Theatre Royal, Winchester on 11 April 2024 with Sam Young as Don Giovanni, Samuel Lom as Leporello, Lizzie Ryder as Donna Anna, Daniel Gray Bell as Don Ottavio, Hannah O’Brien as Donna Elvira, Harrison Chéné-Gration as Masetto, Tilly Goodwin as Zerlina, and William Stevens as the Commendatore, conducted by Lynton Atkinson and directed by Joy Robinson.

This was opera as it ought to be: a dedicated group of vastly talented singers – young singers – riding on the delight of an audience that was evidently as full of newbies as buffs, and was conspicuously short on the Bollinger-and-banking crowd.

Mozart: Don Giovanni - Hurn Court Opera (Photo: Patrick Frost, BlackStar Pictures)

A Leeds Songbook and a showcase performance: Leeds Lieder Young Artists 2024

Leeds Lieder Young Artists 2024 at Howard Assembly Room

Composers & Poets Forum Showcase: A Leeds Songbook; Leeds Lieder Festival at Leeds Minster
Reviewed 17 April 2024

Young Artists Showcase: Leeds Lieder Festival at Howard Assembly Room
Reviewed 19 April 2024

First a programme of specially written new song and then a chance to shine in their chosen repertoire, and for us to experience some fine young voices and performers really stretching themselves.

Leeds Lieder Festival certainly keeps its Young Artists busy. They arrived in Leeds on Sunday not only have they been taking part in masterclasses and a final showcase performance at Opera North's Howard Assembly Room on 19 April 2024 when each duo performed their own selection of songs, but on 17 April 2024 at Leeds Minster they presented this year's instalment of A Leeds Songbook.

The Composers & Poets Forum Showcase at Leeds Minster on 17 April featured ten new songs by student composers collaborating with local poets to create ten further contributions to A Leeds Songbook. Each song was written for the Young Artist duo that performed it. Before each song, the poet read their words to give us more of an idea of content.

A day at Leeds Lieder Festival: Fauré, Boulanger, Mahler and more

Gabriel Fauré by John Singer Sargent, 1889

Lecture recital: Gabriel Fauré and his mélodies; Graham Johnson, Sarah Fox, Florian Störtz; Leeds Lieder Festival at The Venue, Leeds Conservatoire
Gabriel Fauré, Lili Boulanger, Mahler, Roger Quilter, Muriel Herbert; James Gilchrist, Anna Tilbrook; Leeds Lieder Festival at The Venue, Leeds Conservatoire
Reviewed 18 April 2024

A day of French song with a focus on Fauré, with Graham Johnson making us love the composer's late period, and James Gilchrist in fine form, from elegant Fauré to perfumed Boulanger, Mahler in comic mode and Roger Quilter with his heart on his sleeve

Thursday 18 April was A Day of French Song at Leeds Lieder Festival. In the morning the festival's Young Artists had a public masterclass with soprano Dame Felicity Lott concentrating on French repertoire, then at lunchtime pianist Graham Johnson was joined by soprano Sarah Fox and baritone Florian Störtz for a lecture recital on Gabriel Fauré and his mélodies, and Johnson went on join the Young Artists for a further masterclass in the afternoon. The evening recital was given by tenor James Gilchrist and pianist Anna Tilbrook with songs by Fauré and Lili Boulanger alongside those of Mahler, Roger Quilter and Muriel Herbert. Though it was perhaps unfortunate that Johnson and Gilchrist's choice of Fauré songs overlapped rather. Impressively, the whole day was live-streamed and is available to view on the festival's YouTube channel.

For the lunchtime lecture recital in The Venue, Leeds Conservatoire's handsome recital hall, Graham Johnson took an historical approach to Fauré and his mélodies (109 of them, written between 1861 and 1921), beginning with his first surviving song and working through to his last song cycle, dividing the composer's output into periods each illustrated with songs from Sarah Fox and Florian Störtz. But Johnson also explained why the songs were like they are, what makes Fauré so distinctive. Johnson deftly interwove speech and song, moving from piano to lectern and back, and his delivery was impressively succinct yet engaging and informative, with a nice ear for a well-turned, memorable phrase. By the end we felt we understood Fauré's song output a lot more and wanted to explore further, particularly the late period about which Johnson was passionate.

Engaging the audience: James Newby and Joseph Middleton in a folk-inspired programme at a cool Leeds café/bar

Leeds Lieder 2024 - Joseph Middleton, James Newby - Through the Noise at Hyde Park Book Club

Matyas Seiber, John Jacob Niles, Thomas Traill, Joseph Suder, Percy Grainger, Vaughan Williams, Britten, Ravel: Cinq Mélodies populaires grecques, Mahler: Lieder eines Fahrenden Gesellen; James Newby, Joseph Middleton; Leeds Lieder & Through the Noise at Hyde Park Book Club
17 April 2024

A new collaboration sees Leeds Lieder at a cool café/bar with an engaging and beautifully sung programme of songs inspired by folk-music

A former fuel storage tank is not the usual venue for a song recital, but Hyde Park Book Club is no usual venue and last night's recital there (17 April 2024) by baritone James Newby and pianist Joseph Middleton was a collaboration between Leeds Lieder (of which Middleton is the artistic director) and Through the Noise, the organisation that promotes its concerts, noisenights, via a distinctive crowdfunding model. The recital was all of folk-inspired music, from Matyas Seiber, John Jacob Niles, Thomas Traill, Joseph Suder, Percy Grainger, Vaughan Williams and Britten, plus Ravel's Cinq Mélodies populaires grecques and Mahler's Lieder eines Fahrenden Gesellen.

The room was small, and needed discreet amplification to provide the right sort of acoustic, but this was sensitively and naturally done. There was a magnificent grand piano, lent for the occasion and not what you usually expect to find in the basement of a café/bar! Hyde Park Book Club is a café, bar and venue based in a former petrol station, hence the former fuel storage tank. A friendly and casual upstairs bar provided refreshment and sustenance before the event and somewhere to chat to the performers afterwards.

Leeds Lieder 2024 - James Newby - Through the Noise at Hyde Park Book Club
(Photo: Tom Arber)

The event was sold out, so there was a packed, standing audience. Sight-lines were at a premium but I am assured that even from the back the sound was good and throughout the evening James Newby's diction was superb, we heard every word and if you are doing a programme inspired by folk-music then you need that. Newby built on the casual atmosphere, chatting to the audience in a way that was informative, yet entertainingly self-deprecating; I have never heard the word 'wanky' used as an adjective (to describe his explanation of the raison d'etre of the programme) on the concert platform before!