Monthly Archives: October 2017

The International Interview Concerts at St Paul’s, Worthing

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DUO Arnicans – Arta Arnicane (piano) Florian Arnicans (cello)

Recording artistes from Zurich with CD albums together and solo on the Solo Musica label (Sony) and Arcodiva:

“Special affinity . . . powerfully attractive”  –  Music Web International
“superb partnership” –  Pizzicato
“Brilliant! What I call a discovery!”  –  Vienna Zietung

St Paul’s Cafe, Worthing BN11 1EE 
01903 368967                                                             
Thursday 2nd November 2017
Doors at 7.00pm; Starts at 7.30pm

Tickets:                                                                                                                               £13 Adult; £11 WSS members; £5 Students; £1 Up-to-18; Unreserved seating

http://www.seetickets.com/event/the-duo-arnicans-interview-concert/st-pauls/1136699

https://stpaulsworthing.co.uk/events/

Arta’s website (also containing DUO Arnicans): https://www.artaarnicane.com

Florian’s website: https://www.florianarnicans.com

So what’s an Interview Concert? It’s a compelling, affordable, intimate and social experience:

  • Audience ‘In the Round’ –  close-up and connecting
  • Seating unreserved –  buy, then choose where to sit – no ‘expensive’ seats
  • Interviews with the artistes –  get to know them, and the music played
  • Audience questions –  you can have your question asked, too
  • Cafe open –  tasty St Paul’s fare on sale before, in the interval, at the end
  • CDs on sale – solo piano or duo; take some DUO Arnicans music home with you
  • Meet the musicians afterwards –  interaction, reciprocation

It’s another return with her husband to Worthing for popular Arta Arnicane (Latvia), winner of the 2010 Sussex International Piano Competition (SIPC) and subsequent concerto appearances with Worthing Symphony Orchestra, a solo Interview Concert in 2012 and a concert together during the 2013 SIPC, when Arta was a guest juror in the competition.

It will be a second visit here for Florian Arnicans (Germany) and with him this Interview Concert showcases the cello’s distinctive, stirring and enveloping ability to sing like a human voice. If you’ve not experienced it before, this evening will unveil to you to this beautiful instrumental combination.

The cello will team up with the piano’s ability in the hands of Arta to sing back and combine, to make music to stay with you long after you’ve been at this concert. Their programme of solos and duos is subtitled with the Latin American name for song, Canción, and will be an example of Arta’s special artistry in creating imaginative and rewarding programmes.

Both will be interviewed and already Worthing audiences know and revere Arta’s powers of happy verbal communication. We’ll be hearing Florian in conversation for the first time. Married with one son, they are based in Zurich, Switzerland. They play St Paul’s after a lunchtime concert appearance at the London School of Economics & Political Science.

Their ‘Programme Canción’: “The Cello Sings”

Johann Sebastian Bach  –  Arioso (melodious and vocal)
Franz Schubert  –  Ständchen (serenade)
Felix Mendelssohn  –  Lied ohne Worte Op.109 (Song without Words)
Antonin Dvorak  –  Melodie
Pablo Casals  – Song of the Birds
Maurice Ravel  –  Pièce en forme de Habanera (sultry Spanish dance)
 Josef Suk  –  Serenade

(interval)

Johannes Brahms  –  Sonata for Cello and Piano in F major Op 99

  • Allegro vivace (quick; animated, lively)
  • Adagio affettuoso (slow; but warm-hearted and affectionately)
  • Allegro passionate (quick; passionately)
  • Allegro molto (very quick)
In 2013, Arta and Florian delighted the audience with Brahms’ first cello sonata. Here now comes the equally superb second. Brahms could play both instruments!

 

Hastings Philharmonic

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St Mary in the Castle, Hastings, Friday 13 October 2017

Marcio da Silva has planned a challenging and highly exciting season for Hastings Philharmonic and if this opening Beethoven concert is to set the standard for the year it will be a wonderful experience for all concerned.

There was a time when all-Beethoven concerts were a familiar feature for concert goers, but that is no longer the case and so the opening programme proved to be exhilarating in its range as well as the quality of its musicianship.

The Coriolan Overture had a brooding, dark quality, the lower instruments powerfully focused allowing solos lines to sing easily above but with no loss of weight. The few moments of light which Beethoven allows flowed effortlessly but the sense of anger and stress within the score was never far away. The cello lines at the close captured the sense of loss with real pathos.

Among many accolades, Kenny Broberg won at Hastings and has an impressive list of international orchestras with whom he has worked. He certainly seemed very much at ease with Hastings Philharmonic for Beethoven’s Emperor concerto, relishing the close rapport between himself and the players as well as the very close proximity of the audience. It must be rare to find himself surrounded by people, the piano being situated in the centre of the concert hall, rather than at one end.

The immediacy paid off with a virtuoso performance of exceptional dynamic range. The near thwacked scale runs in the first movement melted into the gentlest of touches, and there was an improvisatory feel to much of his playing which communicated a sense of living creativity rather than regurgitation of a familiar war horse.

The second movement was particularly impressive with a sense of the romantic movement hovering over the development of his musical line. Carried away, there were times when Kenny Broberg seemed to want to sing along with his own playing and had to hold himself back.

The finale had an immediate sense of joy and life, which radiated from the soloist and players to the whole hall. We were lucky to get an encore – a brief Chopin Mazurka – which was a gem and left us wanting more.

Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony can often seem over-played but with young musicians of this quality it sparkled into life and made a strong impact throughout. My only minor complaint is that I would have liked the repeats left in – given the quality we were experiencing – but maybe last trains come before longer works! The angst of the opening movement seemed to spill over into the Andante con moto and it took time for it to be absorbed into the more meditative structure.

I can’t recall being so aware before of what Beethoven does in the last movement. Adding in the trombones and double bassoon at the bass end, and the piccolo at the top, suddenly opens a new window to the dynamics of the piece and the weight of the earlier movements is transformed as it expands our aural response.

With such a close rapport between audience and performers this scoring was immediately obvious and highly effective.

Marcio da Silva introduced the season before the concert started and if this evening has been a precursor then we are in for a wonderful year. The next concert is on Saturday 4th November with works by Elgar, Holst, Britten and Mozart. info@hastingsphilharmonic.com

Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra

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Brighton Dome, 8 October, 2017

Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto is a bit out of fashion – apart from, maybe, at Raymond Gubbay concerts. I haven’t heard a live performance for several years but it’s a gorgeous old warhorse and it was a real treat to hear it in the opening concert of Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra’s 93rd season.

And what a performance from young Romanian soloist, Alexandra Dariescu who sat at the centre of it like a full-skirted silver fairy. She worked her way colourfully though all those contrasts in the first movement from lyrical to passionate and from thunderous to whispering. She and conductor, Barry Wordsworth achieved a delightful balance in the mini-duets in the second movement with flute, oboe, cello and horn. The elegant delicacy in Dariescu’s playing is quite special.

The concerto was the substantial meat in the sandwich which gave us Schumann’s overture Genoveva (yes, new to me too and, I gather to most of the orchestra) at the beginning and Brahms’s third symphony at the end.

The nicely played Schumann included a long – very Schumannesque – slow introduction with lush strings before dancing away into a syncopated fortissimo section with nifty work from lower strings and some tuneful interjections and fanfares from brass and woodwind all leading to a satisfyingly resounding conclusion.

Wordsworth and the BPO gave us an enjoyable, workmanlike account of the Brahms. Especially noteworthy were the lovely brass and woodwind solos and the cello led 3/4 melody at the opening of the third movement.

Sue Elkin

Bexhill Choral Society

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St Augustine’s Church, Bexhill on Sea, Saturday 7 October 2017

A Baroque evening, moving from London to Venice with delights from Purcell to Vivaldi. If the most polished part of the evening came from the instrumentalists rather than the choir it may have been a result of the long summer break rather than any lack of musicality. Albinoni’s Double Oboe Concerto with Ruth Elias and Susan Hutton as soloists was polished and pleasing throughout, forming a suitable point of repose between Monteverdi’s Beatus Vir and Vivaldi’s Magnificat RV610.

Both of these larger choral works had a good sense of pace and the collective impact was secure.

In the first half the opening scene from Purcell’s The Fairy Queen allowed Peter Grevatt to combine his acting skills as a convincing drunk with his familiar rich baritone. This was equally impressive in his brief scene from Dido and Aeneas which brought some bright choral singing and fine solo work. Lucy Ashton – moving from Paris to Carthage – was artfully seductive as Belinda; Judith Buckle was a richly voiced Sorceress and Susannah Appleyard a moving Dido for the final lament. The choir were at their best in Purcell’s brief upbeat choruses but had some difficulty maintaining the line in the two anthems. Rejoice in the Lord Always was aided by sound solo work and some fine string playing. While some of the more reflective moments of Jehova, quam multi sunt hostes mei were pleasingly together, many of the entries appeared to be simply under-rehearsed. The men have certainly sounded much stronger in recent concerts. A pity – for the choir have an excellent history of well-focused performances and I am sure will impress us again at Christmas when they return for their Carol Concert at St Augustine’s on Saturday 9 December.

 

ENO: The Barber of Seville

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London Coliseum, Thursday 5 October 2017

Thirty years old, and it looks as fresh as the first day it was staged, such is the marvel of Jonathan Miller’s The Barber of Seville. Much of this is due to the approach which keeps the work strictly within its historical framework and allows the singers the do what they do best – sing for us.

The evening is certainly not without its genuinely comic moments, but it is the singers, who really understand the characters, being encouraged to explore Rossini’s masterpiece for themselves that carries the evening. Many of them are familiar to us having been in the previous revival in 2015, most notably Morgan Pearse as Figaro. His sense of confidence and the bravura he brings to the music sweep all before him. Alan Opie, Miller’s original Figaro thirty years ago, returns as Dr Bartolo, and brings an unexpected depth of character as well as a finely nuanced musical performance.

Eleazar Rodriguez returns as Almaviva, more confident now than he seemed two years ago, and the top of the voice in splendid form.

The real newcomer to this production is Sarah Tynan as Rosina, though she is no stranger to ENO. Her sense of humour and the fluid coloratura made for a captivating performance throughout.

In the pit Hilary Griffiths was making his ENO debut, but the sparkle he achieved from the orchestra makes one hope he will return soon.

There must be a limit to how many more times this production will be revived but for the moment it does not seem to be anywhere near the end of its working life.

Merry Opera: Verdi Requiem

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St James’s, Piccadilly and touring

It is often said that his Requiem is Verdi’s greatest opera and it certainly isn’t short of musical drama. So it’s an interesting idea for an opera company to “stage” it as opposed to singing it from the front in a choral group. Stage director John Ramster (who also directs the company’s well established staged Messiah) sends his performers all over the church busily acting out their individual dramas and chalking key words such as “light”, “guilt” and “sorry” on boards.

Accompaniment on organ by Richard Leach works pretty well although, of course, one misses the bass drum and the brass in Tuba Mirum.

The cast consists of eleven young opera singers plus bass, Matthew Quirk an ex-businessman who founded and runs Merry Opera Company. Each ensemble member has worked out his or her back story and each is, in some way, coming to terms with the inevitability (or imminence?) of death. Of course the audience isn’t privy to the details of these personal stories and what we see is a great deal of facial horror, awe, despair along with much gesturing, some of it quite neatly choreographed.

Much of this, especially the constant movement of people amongst and around the audience, is off-puttingly distracting, but there are two massive upsides which make this performance a pretty riveting experience.

First every single note sung by anyone is deliberately sung to someone else – another performer, an audience member or some sort of unseen presence. It means that there is far more passion and intensity in the singing than I have ever heard in a conventional concert performance. And it’s very much an ensemble piece because the solos and chorus parts are split among all 12 performers – that’s what you can do (musical director: Mark Austin – who conducts from a side aisle) if you have a complete team of accomplished solo-standard voices.

Second, because the singers are often dotted around the church in various configurations each audience member is inside the sound. When you can hear the tenor line in the Dies Irae being sung only a few feet away from you or the alto part of the silky Lacrymosa from just along the pew you’re sitting in, you hear the music – however well you think you know it – from a completely fresh perspective.

Almost all the singers in this group are good – and it can’t be easy to keep everything together when your amorphous groupings are so disparate. There is especially fine work from Laura Wolk-Lewanowicz who is an absolutely stonking soprano and from Emma Stannard who has a beautifully modulated mezzo voice.

It’s well worth catching:

Sat 7 October, University Church of St Mary, Oxford

Sat 14 October. St John the Baptist, Penshurst, Kent

Thurs 19 October, St James’s Piccadilly

Sat 21 October, St Peter’s, Broadstairs, Kent

Sun 29 October, Our Lady of the Star of the Sea, Lowestoft.

 

Joglaresa

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Celebrating their 25th anniversary, early music ensemble, Joglaresa, directed by Belinda Sykes, release Sing We Yule on 1st December 2017.

 

On 1st December, London-based early music ensemble, Joglaresa, directed by Carnegie Hall soloist Belinda Sykes, release Sing We Yule, their new album of medieval, folk, and contemporary song featuring guest soloist Dame Emma Kirkby. The sixth studio work by the ensemble, the disc celebrates the group’s 25th anniversary and 25 years of Belinda’s career as one of Britain’s most imaginative performers of medieval song. Sykes’ critically acclaimed approach to early music includes a unique penchant for improvisation, which constantly re-draws the distinction between composer and performer. Among the 21 tracks of Medieval, Renaissance and traditional Yuletide song are some of Joglaresa’s trademark genre- defying approach to traditional repertoire: a mash-up of medieval motet Ave Rosa, 80s band Dead Or Alive, and American rapper Flo Rida (although with words in Latin); an old-timey hoedown take on Ding Dong Merrily; a Pythonesque ‘Killer Rabbit’ instrumental complete with knife percussion. Highlighting Joglaresa’s trademark genredefying approach to traditional repertoire, Sing We Yule also features a mash-up of medieval motet Ave Rosa, 80s band Dead Or Alive, and American rapper Flo Rida (although with words in Latin).

Joglaresa tour Sing We Yule with dates on:

23 November – Andover

5 December – Chipping Sodbury

9 December – Hemel Hempstead

11 December – York

12 December – Skipton

14 December – Nottingham

16 December – Cutty Sark, London (Official CD Launch Concert)

19 December – Cockermouth

 

Tosca

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The Kings Head Theatre,  2 October 2017

Puccini’s 1887 masterpiece was, of course, meant for the big stage, initially at Theatre de la Porte at St Martin in Paris but, 140 years later, it really does work in an intimate, almost televisual space too.

The Kings Head theatre, Islington, London’s first modern times pub theatre and open since 1970, accommodates this bijoux, two hour, four hander version very naturally. We – just over a hundred of us – are seated in the round and some of the action spills into the audience space. The rough brick walls and subterranean atmosphere (although actually the venue’s at street level) intensifies the drama. This production, which sets the action in Paris under the Nazis, is in very accessible, modern English by Becca Marriott who sings Tosca and Adam Spreadbury Maher who also directs.

There is top notch work from Michael Georgiou as Scarpia (role sharing with Przemyslaw Baranek at other performances). He is depicted as a plain clothes, senior Nazi. He is good looking, reasonable, plausible and ruthless – with a fine baritone voice – as he sends Cavaradain, also known as Marius, to torture and tries to trick Tosca into having sex with him.  In the act 2 scene in which she sings Vissi d’arte (with terrific passion and beautiful vocal control), translated here as “Love and music are all I live for”, he circles her, touching and tasting her. It’s rivetingly revolting and theatrically very effective. Georgiou is an actor who can communicate simply by twitching his lips.

Becca Marriott has an intensely expressive face and brings real depth to the hapless Tosca. Roger Paterson (role sharing with Martin Lindau) finds plenty of range in the tenor Marius although I found his voice practical and accurate rather than attractive. Thomas Isherwood, on the other hand, as Jacob Cohen and as Scarpia’s side kick (the only role which is not shared) has a splendid bass voice which resonates with great power in this tiny space – especially when he’s in duet with Georgiou. He too is a strong actor, particularly as the terrified Cohen.

All in all it’s a well thought out, scaled down take on a familiar piece. And it’s fascinating to hear Pucinni’s big score successfully arranged for a three piece orchestra: piano, clarinet/bass clarinet and cello. Between them these three instruments catch every musical nuance.

This Tosca is part of an opera tradition at The Kings Head although, in a sense, it will be the last because Kings Head Theatre is moving out of the pub into nearby purpose built premises next year. Meanwhile its 2016 production of La Boheme is to be revived at Trafalgar Studios from 6 December 2017 to 6 January 2018.

Richard Jones’s acclaimed production of Rodelinda returns to ENO, conducted by Christian Curnyn

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Opens Thursday 26 October at 7pm at the London Coliseum (6 performances)

Hailed as ‘inspired’ (The Evening Standard) and ‘outstanding’ (The Observer) at its premiere, Olivier Award-winning director Richard Jones’s ingenious production of Handel’s Rodelinda returns to the London Coliseum in October. Among the returning faces are soprano Rebecca Evans in the title role and baroque specialist Christian Curnyn as conductor, along with ENO favourite Susan Bickley.

One of Handel’s great operatic masterpieces, Nicola Francesco Haym’s libretto follows the travails of the queen Rodelinda and her fidelity to her husband Bertarido, presumed dead but returned to his kingdom in disguise. Jones’s production sets Handel’s bitter political drama in Fascist Italy, infusing it with the aesthetic of the surveillance state and authoritarian menace.

Returning to the title role which she sang to ‘just about perfection’ (The Daily Telegraph) in the original run, Welsh soprano Rebecca Evans further adds to her reputation as one the country’s great Handelians. Notable roles with the company include Romilda in 2002’s Xerxes and the Governess in David McVicar’s 2009 production of The Turn of the Screw.

Countertenor Tim Mead who sings the role of her husband Bertarido, was last seen at ENO as a ‘radiant’ (Gramophone), ‘ethereal voiced’ (Sunday Times) Voice of Apollo in 2013’s Death in Venice. His performance in Rodelinda follows a run of acclaimed international Handel roles including Goffredo in 2014’s Glyndebourne Rinaldo, Arsamene in Theater an der Wien’s 2015 Xerxes and earlier in 2017 Athamas for the Handel and Haydn Society’s Semele in Boston.

Rising Spanish tenor Juan Sancho makes his ENO debut as the villainous Grimoaldo, who attempts to usurp Bertarido’s throne. An accomplished international interpreter of Handel, his solo concert at the June 2017 Halle Handel Festival was ‘greeted with great enthusiasm’ (Bachtrack).

ENO favourite Susan Bickley returns to sing the rightful king’s sister, Eduige. Seen earlier this year at ENO in the premiere of Ryan Wigglesworth’s The Winter’s Tale, Sue also created roles in two recent ENO commissions;  the Mother in Tansy Davies’s award-winning Between Worlds and Jocasta in the world premiere of Julian Anderson’s Thebans in 2014.

Neal Davies, who also performed in the world premiere of The Winter’s Tale, sings Garibaldo. A regular singer with English National Opera, Davies’s performance in Xerxes (2014) was described as ‘so ballsy … that one wished the composer had given [him] more opportunities to strut [his] stuff’ (The Daily Telegraph). Countertenor Christopher Lowrey completes the singing cast, making his ENO debut as Unulfo. Actor Matt Casey reprises his silent role as Flavio from the original run.

Conductor Christian Curnyn is well known as one of the UK’s foremost baroque  interpreters: ’Find anything exciting happening in period opera in the UK and Curnyn will be involved’ (The Spectator). He founded the Early Opera Company in 1994 in order to champion the relevance of baroque opera, and has won great acclaim for his recordings and performances in the area since, including his ‘terrific ensemble playing’ (The Independent) for the five-star Partenope at ENO in March 2017.

Richard Jones has a long creative relationship with ENO.  He won the 2015 Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera for his much-lauded The Mastersingers of Nuremburg,  The Girl of the Golden West  and Rodelinda. The revival is directed by Donna Stirrup, a frequent ENO staff director who also directed last season’s revival of Tosca.

Rodelinda opens on Thursday 26 October at 7pm at the London Coliseum for 6 performances: 01, 03, 09 and 15 November at 7pm and 11 November at 6pm.

Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra at Brighton Dome

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First concert of the new season this Sunday 8 October, 2.45pm

The nights are drawing in, and the children are back at school, but whilst for some this heralds the onset of the winter months, the Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra is looking forward to their new season of Sunday afternoon concerts at Brighton Dome. The season opener on Sunday 8th October features works by the greatest masters of Romanticism – Schumann, Tchaikovsky & Brahms. The orchestra, under Conductor Laureate Barry Wordsworth, is joined by exciting young Romanian pianist Alexandra Dariescu playing Tchaikovsky’s popular Piano Concerto No.1, a wonderful piece full of intense melody, surging power and quiet introspection.

Alexandra was recently named as “one of 30 pianists under 30 destined for a spectacular career” by International Piano Magazine and her most recent CD is of this piano concerto and well worth a listen. Alexandra is also a keen cyclist and in June she completed the London to Brighton Bike Ride on a custom built bicycle made for two. She will be arriving by train for the concert though!

The programme also includes Brahms’ lyrical Symphony No.3 which charts a musical journey from turbulence to tranquillity and has a reputation as one of his most artistically perfect works. And the concert opens with Schumann’s dramatic overture to the opera Genoveva, which is full of themes of betrayal and reconciliation in music of exquisite tenderness and high drama, inspired by a medieval German legend and heavily influenced by Wagner.

Tickets from £12-£38 are available from Brighton Dome Ticket Office in Church Street, (01273) 709709 or online: www.brightondome.org.  Discounted parking is available at NCP Church Street Car Park.