Monthly Archives: February 2019

Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra

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Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra, Sunday 3 March, 2.45pm, Brighton Dome

Symphonic concerts generally fall into the same pattern – an overture, a concerto, an interval and then a symphony. But when you introduce a theme into the concert, the shape changes completely.

For this our seventh concert in the Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra’s season, conducted by Barry Wordsworth, we have taken the theme of travel and the means to get to those far off exotic destinations. The holiday season is not that far away, so let your local orchestra introduce you to some stunning locations, and conjure up in music the means to get there.

We open with probably the most popular and evocative travel piece written for orchestra, summoning up the wildness of a Scottish coast and sea by a German composer on holiday – Felix Mendelssohn’s Overture to the Hebrides and the particular place he loved to watch the sea – Fingal’s Cave.

Hugo Alfvén was born in 1872 and started out as a virtuoso violinist, but after becoming a composer he stood out as a great advocator of Swedish national romanticism. His rhapsody for orchestra Midsommarvaka is in four sections and depicts a couple wandering alone in the Nordic light of mid-summer with a Swedish folk song band in the background – a fine description of youth, joy and humour wrapped up in melodic and harmonic elegance.

Anatoly Lyadov was a very influential Russian composer. He was a very private man who famously wrote to his great friend Rimsky Korsakov “Give me fairies and dragons, mermaids and goblins and I am thoroughly happy.” His short essay in orchestration, Le Lac Enchanté, shows what a talented composer he was, conjuring up the beauty of an enchanted lake in music.

Arthur Honegger was born in 1882 to Swiss parents and studied in Paris. He, like Dvo?ák, was a great steam train enthusiast, and he wrote his one movement orchestral piece Pacific 231 inspired by a powerful steam engine – the numbers signifying the wheel combination. Honegger said in an interview that his aim was not to imitate the sound of a locomotive, but to convey in musical form a visual impression of the engine quietly at rest, and the sense of exertion as it starts up and speeds off into the night.

Eric Coates (born in 1886) studied at the Royal Academy of Music and was Principal Viola of the Queens Hall Orchestra, playing under many of the great composers of the time including Elgar and Strauss. As a composer he came into his own in the 1920s and ‘30s as a brilliant writer of ‘light classical’ music. The London Suite is typical of his creative writing and consists of three dances: Covent Garden (Tarantella), Westminster (Meditation) and Knightsbridge (March). The latter was for many years the signature tune to In Town Tonight – in fact when it was first broadcast the BBC had over 20,000 phone calls asking the title of the piece!

George Butterworth sadly died in the trenches of the First World War and was a composer who used the folk songs of Sussex, many collected in 1907 along with his friend Ralph Vaughan Williams. The Banks of Green Willow was written in 1913 and depicts a typically English scene. Sir Adrian Boult premiered the work in Liverpool in 1914, his debut as a professional conductor.

We finish this concert of travel, places and scenes with a brilliant fantasy for orchestra written by Tchaikovsky in 1880 after a trip to Rome with his brother. Capriccio Italien is a compositional essay of the sounds, folk tunes and street music of the Italian capital. Opening with a bugle call, inspired by the early-morning sound of the barracks near his hotel, he moves on to a string melody, then recreates the sounds of street music and, after a quick march, we end with an orchestral tarantella.

Tickets (£12.50-£39.50, 50% student/U18 discount, children just £1) from Brighton Dome Ticket Office, (01273) 709709, www.brightondome.org

Discounted parking (just £6 between 1pm and 6pm) is available for BPO concert-goers at NCP Church Street Car Park. Simply park as normal and collect a follow-on ticket at the concert.

 

 

Hastings Philharmonic

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Christ Church, St Leonards, Saturday 23 February 2019

It is not quite Lent but the four Bach Cantatas presented on Saturday work remarkably well as a sequence which both prepares us for the meditative approach to Easter and involves us in the emotional and spiritual conflicts of the journey.

The joy of these Cantatas is the subtlety of the writing and the constantly changing combinations of voices and instruments. Here Hastings Philharmonic is blessed with admirable Baroque soloists in addition to the solo voices. Gavin Kibble moves effortlessly from solo cello to the richer tones of the solo gamba, often accompanied on the solo lute by Cedric Meyer. When the second half Cantatas call for woodwind, Richard Earle doubled on oboe and recorder, with Martin Clark’s bassoon providing the bass line. Petra Hajduchova moved between harpsichord and organ keyboard – a pity Christ Church does not have a small chamber organ for occasions like this.  These together with a small body of string players created a splendid range of emotional involvement, quite in keeping with the intimacy of the settings.

Vocally, the four Cantatas became more complex as they proceeded. Soprano Lin Westcott was the lone soloist in Nach dir, Herr BWV150, joined by counter-tenor Eric Schlossberg, tenor Kieran White and bass Alexander McMillan in various combinations in the later three. As often happens, Marcio da Silva allowed himself a solo line in the final cantata, Gottes Zeit BWV106, giving us a warmly moving reading of the baritone solo. However this was not an evening for self-indulgence, and the quiet but telling intensity of singing from all soloists was very moving. The Chamber Choir was again seated in a wide horse-shoe, allowing voices to carry with ease and to allow the different musical structures to flow smoothly. That the soloists were a normal part of the choir reflects not only historic praxis but a sense of communal commitment to the presentation. There are no stars here.

Bach’s settings show a very close attention to the texts and it is these that are the primary drivers of the scores. There is never anything extraneous simply for the sake of it. There are occasional developed Hallelujas and a fine double-fugue Amen, but they are kept firmly under control – there is no Handelian, or rather Georgian, indulgence here. The most extrovert moments come in the recognition and delight in the life of the world to come. This may not be very fashionable today but it came across with an emotional truth which was both moving and poignant.

The next concert – a complete contrast – brings us Tchaikovsky, Glass, Grieg and Sibelius at St Mary in the Castle on Friday 15th March.

ENO: The Magic Flute

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Simon McBurney’s ‘life-enhancing’ production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute returns to ENO

Opens Thursday 14 March 

Simon McBurney’s much-loved production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute returns to the London Coliseum for its third run in March. A collaboration with pioneering theatre company Complicite, this unique rendition of Mozart’s great fable combines singers with a troop of actors evoking a magical world populated with monsters and mystery. Live sound effects, animation, live drawing and the ENO Orchestra raised to stage level make this a joyously accessible operatic event.

Simon McBurney is one of world theatre’s most important contemporary figures. Co-founder and Artistic Director of theatre company Complicite, his vast body of work includes A Disappearing Number, The Master and Margarita and for ENO A Dog’s Heart, nominated for an Olivier Award for Best New Opera Production in 2011. His film and television roles include those in Rev, Harry Potter and Mission Impossible, with his ‘astonishing’ (The New York Times) one-man-show The Encounter currently being made into a film.

Rupert Charlesworth takes up his first ENO leading role as Tamino. He was last seen at ENO as Emilio in Partenope in 2017: ‘absolutely dazzles’ (The Arts Desk).

He is joined by soprano Lucy Crowe, who returns to the role of Pamina: ‘London’s best sung Pamina in years’ (The Guardian) that gained her such plaudits for the last run in 2016.  Since then she has given a very well-received Countess in Fiona Shaw’s The Marriage of Figaro in 2018: ‘her sound has such warmth, fullness, and power that it suffuses the whole auditorium with a golden glow’ (The Independent).

Thomas Oliemans takes on another great Mozart comic baritone role as the bumbling birdcatcher Papageno after impressing in the title role of The Marriage of Figaro in 2018. A veteran of this production, he has sung its Papageno at both the Dutch National Opera and the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence: ‘a well-deserved audience darling’ (The New York Times).

German soprano Julia Bauer makes her house debut as the villainous Queen of the Night, having performed it on many occasions in her native Germany, including multiple well- received performances at the Komische Oper Berlin.

Brindley Sherratt sings Sarastro, reprising a role he last sang with the company in 2007. Associated with many ENO roles including Ramfis in Phelim McDermott’s Aida, Creon in Charpentier’s Medea and Pimen in Boris Godunov, he is Artist in Residence and Advisor to the Harewood Artists.

Monostatos is sung by Daniel Norman, who sang the First Jew earlier in the season in Salome. ENO Harewood Artist Rowan Pierce sings Papagena, her second role with the company after a ‘scorching’ (WhatsonStage) performance in Paul Bunyan as Tiny, one she will reprise in May at Alexandra Palace Theatre.

Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic and winner of the Salzburg Festival Young Conductor’s Award Ben Gernon makes his ENO debut. He is one of the youngest conductors to have held a titled position with a BBC orchestra.

The Magic Flute opens Thursday 14 March at 7.30pm for 9 performances: 14, 21, 23, and 28 March and 2, 9 and 11 April at 7.30pm, 16 March at 6.30pm and 6 April at 3pm

500 tickets for £20 or less are available for each performance. Tickets start from £12*.

 

Philharmonia Orchestra

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Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury, 20 February 2019

The now well-established partnership between the Philharmonia and the Marlowe Theatre continues to bring out the best in both. On this occasion the orchestra was in pleasing form and the auditorium full of enthusiastic concert goers – and it always surprises me just how well the Marlowe works accoustically: a rare thing for a multii-purpose performance space.

We began with Bach’s third Orchestral Suite – not a common choice for the overture slot and therefore good to hear.  Some of the openings were ragged (possibly because Philippe Herreweghe’s understated, baton-free conducting style was initially less than incisive) but the sound soon settled. They played the famous second movement with lots of appropriate sustained piano in the upper strings and well controlled underpinning accompaniment in the lower.

Bertrand Chamayou trotted out Mozart’s piano concerto no 23 in A (K488) with assurance although it was a bit odd to see him peering into the music he’d laid flat on top of the strings of the fully open grand he was playing as if he were at a rehearsal. His tender account of the lyrical middle movement was attractive and he played the finale with lots of French insouciance. Lovely work from the bassoons in the allegro assai too.

And so, in a concert, with the rather contrived title Gods and Mortals to the glories of the Jupiter symphony, in which the single flautist did a magnificent job and the whole focus was suddenly much sharper. The orchestra found real warmth of tone in the first movement and give us very clear finale in which the busy string work was delivered with  admirable precision.

Herrewghe had configured the orchestra for this concert with second violins to his right and cellos and violas in front of him half left and half right. As this arrangement usually does, it made the string sound seem more coherent and it was good to be reminded  how well both Bach and Mozart balance their string writing.

Susan Elkin

 

Noteworthy Voices: Music for Epiphanytide

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St Nikolas, Pevensey, Saturday 16 February 2019

It was good to welcome back Noteworthy Voices to Pevensey under their conductor Alexander Eadon. While to most of us Christmas is long gone the church’s calendar extends well into the new year and so it was not stretching things too far to mount a concert of a cappella music focussing on the scores created for the period immediately after Christmas Day.

Their eclectic programme ranged from early fifteenth century settings to the present day and ranged across the world for its sources. They opened with a group of English settings – Richard Rodney Bennett’s Out of your sleep, the quiet beauty of Britten’s A boy was born, the rolling cascades of Wishart’s Alleluya! A new work is come and the poignancy of Chivers Ecce puer.

We were then whisked back to the sixteenth century for Victoria’s wonderful setting of O Magnum Mysterium which was immediately followed by a more recent setting of the same text by Morten Lauridsen with its dense harmonies and superbly low lying ending.

Hymns to the Virgin followed with three modern works by Lennox Berkeley, Chris Chivers and Arvo Part surrounding the anonymous Ther is no rose of such vyrtew for high voices.

After the interval the male voices, positioned deep in the chancel, gave us the chanted phrases for the Magnificat, interspersed with improvisations for organ by Jean Titelouze dating from c1600, and played with convincing simplicty by Alexander Eadon. Mateo Flecha the Elder’s Riu riu chiu could hardly have been more different, coming as it did before Kenneth Leighton’s dark setting of the Coventry Carol. The section concluded with two familiar and beautiful works by Peter Warlock –Bethlehem Down and Benedicamus domino. The coming of the Kings brought the evening to a close with Philip Lawson’s Lullay my liking, the very familiar The three kings  by Cornelius – though on this occasion the solo voice almost disappeared within the enveloping warmth of the chorale – a traditional carol, Sing Lullaby, and finally, Jonathan Dove’s The three kings. This concluding item was somewhat disturbing. After the enthusiasm of so much of the music hailing the birth of Messiah and praising Mary, here was a setting darkly aware of the reality of the future for the family – the move into exile, the loss of status, the prophecy of death. It was a strange ending but none the less moving and effective.

Let us hope Noteworthy Voices return again soon.

 

Matt Geer: Organ Concert

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St John the Evangelist, Hollington, Saturday 16 February 2019

Organist Matt Geer opened the new season of musical events at St John’s with a concert entirely devoted to transcriptions of popular works. A rousing Fanfare for the Common Man led into movements from Grieg’s Holberg Suite before the haunting beauty of Satie’s Trois Gymnopedie. The slow, almost languorous, pace was entirely in keeping with the delicacy of the writing.

The two pieces from Saint-Saens’ Le carnaval des animaux came as a complete contrast with the weighty L’elephant and the more serene Le cygnet.  Two familiar pieces by Elgar were likewise carefully contrasted with the Mendelssohnian textures of his Cantique and the triumphalism of the Imperial March.

As with the earlier Satie, Debussy’s La fille aux cheveux de lin was originally written for piano but its brief life here was effective before the more extrovert attack of Philip Glass’ Mad Rush. Although written for the piano – and there are a number of versions available on YouTube – this works remarkably well on the organ and never seemed like a transcription. The melodic development mirrors the opening scenes from his opera Akhnaten which is currently in repertoire at ENO.

The final section returned to Grieg with four items from Peer Gynt ending, inevitably, with In the Hall of the Mountain King.

A good sized audience greeted the performance with enthusiasm and the retiring collection was to be split between Water Aid and the church’s building programme.

The next concert is on St George’s Day, 23 April, at 3.00pm when there will be a recital by two professional harpists – possibly a first for Hastings?

Bizet: Carmen

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Kings’s Head Theatre, 13 February 2019

This is Bizet’s Carmen as you’ve never seen it before. Reworked for 2019 Britain, it opens in an NHS hospital. And it’s a bijoux version simply pared down to a 90 minute three hander love (or something) triangle. Musically, under the charismatic direction of Juliane Gallant from piano, it’s spikily strong and the new translation by Mary Franklin, who also directs, and Ashley Pearson is very funny.

What an inspired idea to have mobile phones playing Carmen tunes and blending them in. At one point the radio is playing in a bar and the presenter is announcing and playing extracts from Carmen. Dan D’Souza, a deliciously gravelly baritone as Escamillio, becomes a posturing football star (“Can I get a cup of coffee, ‘cause I’m not really fit to drive my maserati”) who sings the Toreador song badly in a karaoke bar as a way of showing off to Carmen.  When Carmen is singing the Habenera, Jose bounces a rubber ball in perfect rhythm to provide a gentle percussive underpinning. The whole piece is a light, witty enjoyable concept and full of imaginative ideas until, of course, the last five minutes because, as well all know, it can’t end happily.

Ellie Edmonds (alternating at other performances with Jane Monari as Carmen) has a rich warm singing voice which she uses crisply. She sails adeptly through all the big numbers and acts convincingly which is especially important in the intimate space of the King’s Head. The absurd hip-hop dance she does to Bizet’s music at the beginning of Act II is a moment to treasure too.

Roger Patterson sang Jose on press night – the role is shared with Mike Bradley – and brings a great deal of appropriate tenor angst and passion to it. He is compelling, first as a disillusioned NHS nurse coming to the end of his shift, then as a young man in love, changed after three months in prison and eventually as a thwarted, angry man.

This is a feminist take on Carmen. Written and directed by an all-female team it presents Carmen not as a femme fatale but rather as unfortunate, very plausible, young woman who makes a few fatally bad choices. I rather like that angle.

Susan Elkin

ENO: The Merry Widow

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English National Opera presents a sparkling new production of the 20th century’s most popular operetta

One of the most successful musical comedies in history returns to the London Coliseum stage in March, in a brand new version fizzing with wit and invention. Old Vic Associate Director Max Webster makes his ENO debut with the company’s first new staging in more than a decade of the beloved 1905 Viennese operetta. The original libretto that has delighted audiences across the world for more than century is given a new English translation by dramatist April de Angelis and lyricist Richard Thomas.

This operetta enjoyed unprecedented popularity and was performed an estimated half a million times across the world in its first 60 years. It acted as the bridge that would lead from opera to the rise of 20th century musical theatre. The story of the wealthy widow Hanna Glawari and her pursuit by men trying to keep her wealth in their bankrupt Balkan nation forms a classic romantic comedy, containing some of the most beloved music in opera including the Merry Widow Waltz and the ‘Vilja Song’.

Max Webster is Associate Director at the Old Vic, where his 2015 production of The Lorax garnered universal acclaim (‘the best family show since Matilda’ – 5*, The Guardian). His theatrical style with its ‘singular sense of the carnivalesque’ (WhatsonStage) is now brought to bear on the ENO comic opera tradition that brought Cal McCrystal’s standing-room-only Iolanthe to the Coliseum in 2018.

Hanna is sung by Sarah Tynan, one of the sopranos most associated with ENO, in her second lead role of the season after 2018’s rapturously received Lucia in Lucia di Lammemoor (‘exquisite’ – The Daily Telegraph). In 2017 her Rosina in The Barber of Seville (‘impeccable’– The Independent) and the title role of Partenope (‘dazzling’ – WhatsOnStage) showed her comic abilities to great effect. An alumna of the ENO Harewood Artist programme, she is fast becoming acknowledged as one of the UK’s leading sopranos.

Nathan Gunn makes his ENO debut as Hanna’s former lover Danilo. One of America’s most in-demand baritones, he has ‘everything that today’s opera fans look for in a singer: a beautiful voice, first-class acting and a great sense of humour’ (Bachtrack). He previously sang the role with the Metropolitan Opera, New York in 2014, opposite Renée Fleming.

ENO house favourite Andrew Shore sings the scheming diplomat Baron Zeta, adding another great buffo role to his ENO roster that has included hilarious turns as The Lord Chancellor in 2018’s Iolanthe (‘patter-perfect’ – WhatsonStage), Major-General Stanley in 2015’s The Pirates of Penzance, many Bartolos in The Barber of Seville, and more than thirty other productions.

Nicholas Lester returns to the ENO stage following a successful run as Marcello in La bohème (‘oozes vocal charm’ – The Guardian) to sing the Vicomte Cascada, while Jamie MacDougall sings Raoul.

Estonian conductor Kristiina Poska makes her ENO debut with this production, as well as her debut with a UK opera company. She is known on the continent for her distinguished career at the Komische Oper Berlin where she was First Kapellmeister from 2011 to 2016, winning the Deutscher Dirigentenpreis in 2013. From the 2019/20 season she will be the Music Director at Theater Basel.

 

Set design is by Ben Stones, who previously designed Max Webster’s Twelfth Night at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in 2014. This marks his operatic debut after designs for productions at the National, Young Vic, Almeida and Bush theatres as well as Burberry fashion shows.

Costume design is by Esther Bialas, whose designs were last seen at ENO for La traviata in 2018. She is known on the continent for her extensive work at Komische Oper Berlin with Barrie Kosky. Lighting design is by Bruno Poet, whose ENO work includes Akhnaten, Satyagraha and Aida.

 

BATTLE CHORAL SOCIETY

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BATTLE CHORAL SOCIETY

DIRECTOR OF MUSIC – JOHN LANGRIDGE
PRESENTS
HANDEL’S MESSIAH
ST MARY’S CHURCH, BATTLE SATURDAY 6TH APRIL AT 7.30 PM

Battle Choral Society will be performing the glorious Messiah
in St Mary’s Church, Upper Lake, Battle TN33 0AN.

With professional orchestra and soloists:
Caroline Foulkes (Soprano), Emily Steventon (Mezzo Soprano),
Gary Marriott (Tenor) and Michael White (Baritone).

Tickets at £15 each (under-18s free) are available from
Raggs Boutique, 20 High Street, Battle,
The Crafty Norman, 9 High Street, Battle,
Holden & Co Solicitors, Robertson Street, Hastings:
(01424) 722422 for credit/debit card bookings.
Tickets also available on the door.

WE LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU!