Musicians of All Saints, St Luke’s, Brighton,

8 November 2014

If the main focus of the concert was to bring us the premiere of Peter Copley’s new Piano Concerto, the first half led us gently towards it. The Musicians of All Saints under Andrew Sherwood opened with Handel’s Concerto Grosso Op6 No1. If the rich acoustic tended to over-romanticise the sound it also gave an extra bloom to the strings which easily filled the building. The solo trio was impressive in the Adagio and there was a lively zeal to the final Allegro.

Mozart’s Divertimento K 138 is an early work which produced both fire and humour in the final Presto.  However the finest moment of the first half came with a deeply felt reading of Grieg’s string arrangement of Last Spring, its gentle melancholy and warmth being splendidly balanced.

The three movements of Peter Copley’s new piano concerto  may last only a little over twenty minutes but the intensity of the writing holds us firmly throughout. The opening Toccata with Interlude is marked presto agitato and tips us headlong into an insistent sycopated rhythm which for most of the time contrasts staccato strings against rolling piano figuration. This suddenly gives way to a beautiful solo line for the first viola, a post-Elgarian figure somewhere between nobility and pain. When the dominant rhythmic urgency returns the piano takes a more lyrical though still powerfully etched position. At the end of the movement a solo violin takes up the viola melody which is cut off suddenly and the piano rounds things off with a deft downward plunge.

The second movement Chacony allows the piano to come more into its own. Where the opening movement had often seemed to absorb the piano into the overall texture, here the piano has more chance to speak for itself, being allowed an extended quasi cadenza which brings together many of the ideas already explored across the first two movements.

The final Fugue and Scherzo opens with the strings alone and it is some time before they are joined by the pianist. There is a sense of joy and almost frenetic energy here, particularly in the piano part which sparkles and scintillates throughout. As the climax approaches the pianist returns to the rolling figures which have become such of part of the composition until a final glissandi hangs in the air above a last pizzicato from the strings. Margaret Fingerhut communicated a sense of delight in the work throughout and her playing had a lightness of touch and joyfulness which was surely intended by the composer.

The sense of enthusiasm and life are evident throughout this new concerto which is to be given a number of performances over the coming months. Hopefully you will get a chance to hear it – the second performance will be on January 29th 2015 7.30pm at Blackheath Concert Halls with Trinity Laban Conservatoire Sinfonia, conducted by Andrew Sherwood with Margaret Fingerhut again as the soloist.

Having Margaret Fingerhut available for the day enabled the Musicians of All Saints to run a master-class in the morning for a number of highly talented if very young pianists. They performed a wide range of works for us, and were then encouraged to look at specific aspects of their preparation. Margaret Fingerhut stressed that practice should be just that – working in specific details, not simply playing pieces through again and again. She encouraged the young players to draw the sound out of the piano through their sense of touch rather than demanding a reaction from it. She reflected on the fact that for pianists, starting to learn is easy as the notes are already there. The problem comes with learning to control touch and nuance, particularly when the right hand seems built the wrong way round for voicing a melodic line. From the quality of playing we heard from these young performers we could easily hear of them again in a few years’ time!

The next concert from the Musicians of All Saints will be given on Saturday 17 January 2015 at All Saints Centre, Lewes. www.mas-lewes.co.uk

 The Dome, Brighton, 2 November 2014

Brighton Festival Chorus joined the Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra for an afternoon of indulgence, with works by Parry, Elgar and Strauss. If the opening Schubert – the Marche Militaire – seemed slightly at odds with the rest of the programme, Barry Wordsworth informed us that, in this 90^th season, they were playing the very first work heard by the orchestra. Its brief briskness proved an apt opening to an afternoon full of romantic delights.

Parry is at his best in choral settings and there are few choral masterpieces to set beside I was glad.  Written for the coronation of Edward VII, it has been heard at every coronation since and is certainly worth a regular hearing. The Festival Chorus rose to the occasion with aplomb and the orchestra brought the dramatic intensity, with brass blazing and organ firing on all cylinders, which the work requires.

Nicholas Daniel was the soloist in Strauss’ Oboe Concerto which formed a more relaxed interlude between the heroic impact of the Parry. The soloist bought a delicate warmth to his playing and Barry Wordsworth etched a sensitive accompaniment. The gentle return in the final movement after the cadenza was particularly effective.

Parry’s Blessed Pair of Sirens opened the second half with a glorious outpouring of melody and finely balanced orchestral playing.

Elgar’s Enigma Variations may be familiar but they are always welcome, particularly in the company of the Parry which set such a fine context for them. Barry Wordsworth takes a direct, unsentimental approach to the whole, allowing the individual variations to build effortlessly to the climax of E.D.U which unfolded with skill and nobility.

The next concert on 7 December also brings us a set of English works. We are doing well this season for home grown composers!

London Coliseum, 29 October 2014

Jonathan Miller’s fluidly naturalistic production of La boheme continues to be a fine showcase for young singers, focusing on individual characters within a convincingly drab 1930s Paris. The quartet at the heart of the story are extremely well balanced. David Butt Philip, making his debut at ENO as Rodolfo, proved to have the heroic top to the voice where it is called for but also the sensitivity and gaucheness in the earlier acts as his relationship with Mimi develops. Angel Blue is an unusual Mimi. Tall and elegant, her voice fills the theatre easily in the first act but she controls it magnificently in the final act to bring us one of the finest death scenes I can recall. She literally slips away as she sinks into the large armchair. It is totally convincing.

Jennifer Holloway’s Musetta is vibrant without going over the top, her waltz song in act two emerging naturally from the action rather than being a set-piece. This also allows us to focus on the jealousy of George von Bergen’s Marcello, whose strength grows as the evening progresses.

All of the smaller parts are cast from strength and it was a pity that the speed of the production did not allow us to applaud Barnaby Rea for the farewell to his coat.

The chorus may only come into their own in act two but they do so with real enthusiasm and frequent nuances which enhance the visual impact. It is telling that no matter how complex the action we always focus on the most important characters on stage without them being overtly highlighted. The same is true of act three which is re-thought in terms of a side street in early morning but all of the activity flows from the text and never crosses the emotional intensity of the score.

Gianluca Marciano seems to have a natural feeling for the pulse of the score and his tempi and balance within the pit were always convincing.

If there is any tendency to think oh, another revival of boheme then think again, for everything about the evening validates the decision to do so.

This autumn’s Festival runs for three weeks with performances every day. As a consequence this review can only give a taste of what was on offer, but it does focus on the key feature of the 2014 festival – The Schubert Project – a performance of every song written by the composer within a single Festival. No mean feat in itself and a tribute to the organisers, in particular Sholto Kynoch who seems to have been at everything even if he was not actually performing.

I spent most of two days in the middle of the festival, arriving on Thursday 16 October in time for the lunchtime recital at the Holywell Music Room which was given over to songs dedicated to Therese Grob, Schubert’s first great love. The songs were shared between soprano, Raphaela Papadakis and baritone, Martin Haessler with Sholto Kynoch at the piano. For a collection dedicated to a loved one there are some very dark songs here, though the baritone’s Zufriedenheit Lied and Mailied provided some relief, and the radiant Litanei auf das fest aller seelen for soprano brought the recital to a fine climax. The recital itself was a very relaxed occasion, enabling minor slips to be easily encompassed and forgiven.

Only a brief respite for lunch before joining the afternoon master-class at St Columba’s URC Church on Winterreise given by Sarah Walker. During the morning she had worked on the first twelve songs and now moved to the second part of the cycle. There were to have been three different singers and accompanists giving us four songs each but as one had had to drop out one pair returned for the final four songs. Sarah Walker’s deep understanding of the cycle and her gentle humour carried us through the emotional turmoil of the songs and the immense challenges they bring for a young singer.  She stressed the need to be aware of the connections between the songs, allowing the former to influence the opening of the next. As an example she drew attention to the bleakness of the ending of Einsamkeit which must spill over into any enthusiasm the singer might want to bring to Die Post. She warned against becoming too excited, stressing that less is more in almost every case when approaching the cycle as a whole.

By a sound piece of planning, Ian Bostridge sang Winterreise that evening in the Holywell Music Room accompanied by Thomas Ades. The singer’s platform manner is challenging throughout; he seems ill at ease, ungainly, frequently turns away from the audience or clutches the piano as if his life depended upon it. There is real pain and anger as the cycle proceeds, a bitterness which never degenerates into self-pity but is none the less terrifying to behold. Unlike some approaches there is no hint here of madness or despair. The singer is open to all that life can throw at him and the only tiny crumb of comfort comes in the last two lines when he asks to share his grief with the hurdy-gurdy man. It is a masterly rendition, made all the more so by the succinct and always subtle accompaniment of Thomas Ades. There will always be room for many ways to present this cycle, but there can surely be few today which are as moving or as powerful.

The following Saturday I attended the second lecture recital given by Graham Johnson in the Jacqueline du Pre Music Building which focused on Schubert’s compositions in 1816 and 1817. There were full musical examples from Raphaela Papadakis, Robin Tritschler, Robert Murray and Benjamin Appl, including lengthy extracts from Ossian set as chamber operas intended for solo voice. These were split across the soloists to give a more focused dramatic impact and it would be fascinating to see them staged or filmed. Schubert’s sense of drama is finely developed here and his flowing arioso style closer to early Wagner than the more obvious Italian models he was used to.

Graham Johnson stressed the ever expanding nature of research, noting that even today changes are being made to accepted texts and the singers gave us the most recent scholarly versions known. He traced the move that Schubert was able to make from his own home to stay, on invitation, with the Schobers and the devastating impact of having to return home at the end of 1817. We were encouraged to hear the impact these moves had upon his compositions during the two years and the range of poets from whom he drew. Towards the end of the time his work with the singer Vogel moved his settings into more classical territory as these appealed to the singer. However there is still a propensity to create music which is underpinned by dance rhythms and these shine through.  Graham Johnson drew our attention to the setting of Atys which speaks of a young man out of his comfort zone, and compared this to the Miller in the song cycle, stressing that the Miller is as much an outsider, an inadequate, as Attis himself. While many of the songs we heard were rare, the afternoon ended with An die Musik, preparing those of us able to stay on, for the evening Schubertiad.

Details of events still to be held – www.oxfordlieder.co.uk