30 May – 2 June 2013

For the first weekend this year which hinted that summer was really here at last, Ludlow seemed the ideal place to be. Not only was it warm with blue skies but Ludlow had everything one could ask of a small English town. Add in days packed with high quality talks and musical events and one was spoilt for choice.

One of the great advantages of a small festival is that, while there are a large number of events packed into the weekend, there is only one major event at any one time, which means that there is a rapid sense of camaraderie among the audience, who keep meeting the same people hour by hour.

The festival is run by the Finzi Friends and al events focus closely on English Song, while showing a surprising range of approaches and interests.

The opening event, on Thursday 30 May, was a talk by John Bridcut at the Assembly Roons – If Love be the Food of Music – considering the importance of relationships in the lives of composers. Though the information itself was not specifically new, the accumulation of evidence made a strong case. Many composers had difficult, not to say torrid, relationships which can be argued to have had an intense impact on their compositions. He considered Vaughan Williams and Delius in some depth, and recent evidence on the impact on Lady Elgar of Edward’s on-going flirtations with younger musicians. If Delius was the most hedonistic, surprisingly, given our current obsession with paedophilia, it was Britten’s innocent relationships with young boys which became all the more challenging. This was followed up later with a re-showing of John Birdcut’s 2004 film Britten’s Children, a highly sensitive account of the composer’s obsession with young boys, but one which goes a very long way to calm any concerns we might still have today about any illegal activities. The lat David Hemmings makes it quite clear. Britten loved boys, but dropped them as soon as they became young men when their voices broke; his only interest seeming to be their music making and innocent fun.  This fascinating, and often quite intense, presentation set the tone for the whole weekend.

Later that afternoon David Hurley from the King’s Singers gave us a very different talk. While claiming to be an overview of four hundred years of English Song, it was in real terms an overview of the King‘s Singers repertoire. None the less interesting for that, is made a sound introduction to their performance in St Lawrence’s church that evening, though that was not before we had enjoyed a communal Shropshire Summer in the Assembly Rooms.

The King’s Singers programme followed its familiar course, opening with some fine renditions of madrigals by Morley and Wilbye, whose Draw on, sweet night was particularly effective. They then moved to five of Seven Poems of Robert Bridges in settings by Gerald Finzi. Though these are not the finest of his song settings they were unusual enough to be worth including in a festival event, and Clear and gentle stream is certainly very moving. Five Nonsense Madrigals by Ligeti proved stimulating and challenging in equal measure, allowing us to indulge ourselves in the gentler tones of Elgar, Stanford and Parry after the interval. Perhaps the most interesting piece of the evening was Britten’s The ballad of Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard. Smuggled in to Oflag VIIB in 1943, it was first performed at Christmas that year in the prison camp. The piano accompaniment rings out like church bells as the tragic tale unfolds. It has the simplicity of Noah or The Golden Vanity¸ and is most effective. As usual, the King’s Singers ended with more popular items, concluding with a barber-shop version of When I fall in love.

Early the next morning, or it certainly felt like it having not left the Britten film until 12.15am, we gathered for a talk by Roderick Swanston on Facing the issue with words – a finely illustrated talk aimed at countering Britten’s accusation that earlier English composers simply could not set words properly. With a fine range of musical illustrations, both recorded and live, he demonstrated the subtlety of many song settings, often comparing two different settings of the same poem. All of this was convey with a fine sense of humour and an ability to talk to us without burying his head in piles of notes. A fine hour and one where we learned much with great ease.

Philip Lancaster not only sings English Song but is heavily involved in research which became evident in his morning recital in St Lawrence. Alongside works by Stanford and Howells we heard unpublished works by Parry and Finzi. Stanford’s  Song of Hope is an extended arioso from Psalm 130 and somewhat dull compared with Parry’s unpublished Soliloquy from Browning’s Saul. If it has a rather ineffectual ending which Parry might have altered, there is a strong narrative line developed and Parry’s usual keen sense of melody. Finzi’s setting of Rossetti’s Before the paling of the stars is even better. It may be a very early work but is so confidently written it surely deserves publication now.

Alex Mason replaced Shaun Ward at short notice as organ accompanist and also soloist. Though the works were all obviously late romantic they did enable us to hear the Snetzler organ which rings confidently from the north aisle. Vaughan Williams Rhosymedre was particularly lovely.

That afternoon we turned to another side of the festival which was the competition for new songs by young composers. The competition had been launched in 2010, when the festival was last held, and drew on the strengths of young composers in both sixth forms and at university.

We heard from six composers – two from sixth form and four from the older age group – with introductions by Julian Philips who had chaired the panel. The conversations with the composers proved fascinating in themselves and gave us a clearer insight into their works. Being a composer himself, Julian Philips was able to reflect upon the subtleties of balancing not only words against music but the complexities of writing for different voices and different singers, encouraging the young composers to work closely with living poets and singers as they developed their art.

Alex Paxton’s setting of Carol Ann Duffy’s Talent was a clear winner. Not only was it subtle and humorous, but was easily assimilated on a first hearing, while holding back nuances which would develop as one got to know it better. Bertie Baigent won the 16-18 category with a setting of Three Coleridge Fragments. My only concern as a member of the audience was the lack of any audience input into the competition, to take account of the impact of the songs on a audience hearing them for the first time. While I could admire the complexity of the writing and the technical accomplishment, I wondered how many of the audience would actually like to attend a whole recital of music as challenging as much of this was?

Unfortunately examining duties of my own took me away from Ludlow at this point. A great pity as there were two more days of concerts, including a talk from Diana McVeagh  and a master-class from John Tomlinson.

It took three years and a large amount of work from a large anumber of people, not the least of whom was Paul Spicer, the Chairman of Finzi Friends, to mount this Festival under increasingly strained financial circumstances. Let us hope that events as important enough as this are allowed to continue and flourish. BH

The shimmering opening to the prelude and the atmospheric front cloth were positive omens for this new Lohengrin; when the swan arrived this all turned to magic. Few productions that I have seen in over fifty years have managed to combine the stark brutality of teutonic warfare with the mystical realm of the grail so successfully. There may have been some minor problems with illness but these can hit any company at any time. To still be such an overwhelming success is heartening. Added to this the startling conclusion came out of the blue. Gottfried, returned long before the state is ready for him, proves to be as arrogant an authoritarian as any before him, and thus all of Lohengrin’s Buddhist-leaning desires go unrequited – to say nothing of the emotional tangles with Elsa.

Anthony McDonald’s set designs did not look promising in the models, but proved highly effective in performance. The late nineteenth century military costumes, the oppressive Protestantism of the chorus, waving their bibles, and the desolation of the building did not prepare us for Thomas Rowlands’ swan drawing Lohengrin’s boat – two radically different worlds crashing into each other. Though Peter Wedd’s knight looked as teutonic as any of the others on stage, with his short blonde hair and military baring, his clothing is revealed as monk-like, and his expectations towards peace and unity. That he fails is as much a result of the society into which he comes as it is Elsa’s for demanding to know his background. The nineteenth century setting helps us to understand the tension in Emma Bell’s Elsa, torn between fairy-tales which come true and a world which does not trust outsiders. If this were just a fairy-tale, it would be Elsa’s fault for giving in too easily, but we are presented with a palpably real world which does not take easily to genius however useful they are on occasions.

Susan Bickley’s Ortrud is alive to all of the nuances of the narrative as they unfold. She may have little to sing in act one but was magnificent in her silence as she manipulates events. It is telling that she is struck down at the end by Gottfried as if he has inherited Lohengrin’s power which overcame her husband. It is difficult not to feel sorry for Telramund, and Claudio Otelli makes much of the nobility of the character as well as his authority. The opening of act two was particularly effective in the shifting power relationship between Ortrud and Telramund.

There was an apology before the start for Matthew Best who had a throat infection. He sang bravely, and we put in the top notes for him where they were missing. What proved more interesting was the unusually hesitant characterisation he gave which I do not think was simply as a result of his vocal problem. He seemed to be showing us a weakened King, who needs an outsider like Lohengrin to galvanise the situation. At the end he is at the mercy of Gottfried – woe unto the country where the king is a child.

Throughout the evening the chorus had sung magnificently, the raised staging helping to project the voices in the outer acts and the close proximity helping in the second. Accuracy and flair were never in doubt.

The orchestra have been on superb form for some time now and this built on their reputation for Wagner in Die Meistersinger two years ago. I have never heard the act three entr’acte, with ten trumpets in the auditorium, so thrillingly played. It was a fitting build into the final scene, where Peter Wedd started In fernem land sitting and speaking quietly to Elsa, becoming gradually more powerful until we were aware of the anger he felt at having to announce who he was.

I do hope that this production will be revived. In a world that is too often at the mercy of directorial ideas which go awry, here is a production which does no disservice to either music or narrative but would allow for differing approaches to any of the lead parts. Let us see it again soon! BH

St George’s Church, Kemptown, 20 May 2013

The Elias String Quartet were effectively in residence for the Brighton Festival, giving three recitals all drawing on the Beethoven Quartets. I caught the final concert, which, like the earlier ones comprised of three contrasting compositions from across Beethoven’s lifetime. At St George’s for this final event they brought us Op18 No5, Op59 No3 Razamovsky and Op131.

The venue was sold out and the audience highly enthusiastic. I say this because I found difficulties with their approach. While there is no doubting the technical skill and versatility of the players, their approach is more than simply spirited. They frequently seem to be attacking the works with such violence that the result is uncomfortable and overtly aggressive. The opening Allegro of Op18 No5 was often frenetic in its created tension and the Menuetto seemed exagerated in its phrasing. The gentler variations in the Andante cantabile worked far better but the movement was still hard driven, before an extrovertly aggressive final Allegro.

I had hoped that this might simply have been their approach to the earlier work. Certainly the atmospheric opening of the Razamovsky was impressive and the following Allegro vivace more civilised. However the Andante was unexpectedly stark and the cello pizzicato passages violent in their attack to the point of discomfort. A modern composer may ask for this level of ugliness but I found it out of place in Beethoven. The Menuetto produced some warmer phrasing with a better internal balance, but the hectic hell-for-leather approach to the Allegro molto did little to bring us to a satisfactory conclusion.

The Op 131 Quartet in C sharp minor suffered in exactly the same way. I can understand that there will be listeners who find this approach challenging and stimulating, but I regret it was not for me. BH