Brighton Early Music Festival needs your help for 'Gaia - 3 Intermedi for a Living Planet'

Following on from its great success with 'Free Ruggiero', a crowdfunding campaign which helped bring Francesca Caccini's opera, ‘La Liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola di Alcina’ to last year's Brighton Early Music Festival, the festival are now seeking support for a new ambitious multi-media project to be staged in November.

Gaia will be a modern take on the 16th century intermedi, major music and drama spectacular shows with special theatrical effects.  For this extravaganza, BREMF are bringing together music and drama from the 16th and 17th centuries with film, projections, lighting effects, mime, yoga and dance to tell the story of our Earth and how humans have perceived it through the ages.

Directed by Deborah Roberts, the production will include music from Antoine Brumel’s earth-shattering ‘Earthquake’ Mass and from Monteverdi’s Orfeo, as well as pastoral madrigals and motets celebrating the Queen of Heaven. As well as professional performers such as the English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble, the project will also involve singers from the BREMF Consort of Voices, the Lacock Scholars and the BREMF Community Choir.

You can see more about the project in the video below, and by visiting the Gaia Crowdfunding page here. They have already reached half way to their target of £5000, but every pledge will help bring this ambitious project closure to fruition.  Supporters will receive a range of rewards, so do help out if you can.

Visit BREMF to read more about this year's festival, and go to the crowdfunding page here.

Tenderness and passion from Stile Antico and Fretwork - Proms Chamber Music 5

Stile Antico
© Marco Borggreve

BBC Proms Chamber Music 5

Fretwork
Stile Antico

15 August 2016

Cadogan Hall, London

★★★★★



Read my full review on Bachtrack here.

© Fretwork

'This promised to be a special occasion, and it certainly did not disappoint'.

'A beautifully pure performance by tenor Benedict Hymas'.

Fretwork: 
'Richly warm tones and delicately precise articulation'.

'Stile Antico’s diction was impeccable ..., and their communication with each other and with the audience brought the text to life with great energy'.








Thomas Morley: It was a lover and his lasse (arr. Andrew Griffiths)

William Byrd: O Lord, make thy servant
                      Why doe I use my paper, inck and pen?

Huw Watkins (b. 1976): The Phoenix & the Turtle

William Byrd: Fantasia a 5, 'Two parts in one in the fourth above'

Thomas Tomkins: Be strong and of a good courage

Robert Ramsey: Sleep, fleshly birth

William Byrd: Browning a 5, 'The leaves be green'

Robert Johnson: Full fathom five (arr. Andrew Griffiths)

Nico Muhly (b. 1981): Gentle sleep

Orlando Gibbons: In nomine a 5 No. 1 in D minor

John Wilbye: Draw on, sweet night

Encore:
Orlando Gibbons: The Silver Swan

Webern, Brahms and a Watkins première from Søndergård and BBC NOW - Prom 37

© BBC/Mark Allan

BBC Prom 37

Paul Watkins (cello)

Thomas Søndergård (conductor)

BBC National Orchestra of Wales

12 August 2016

Royal Albert Hall, London

★★★

Walton: Partita

Huw Watkins: Cello Concerto

Webern: Passacaglia, Op. 1

Brahms: Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98

Watkins: 
'Moments of real beauty here, and this is definitely a work that would merit a second hearing in a more favourable acoustic'.

'It certainly exploited Paul Watkins’ consistently warm tone well, and this was an engaging performance of a promising addition to the concerto repertoire'.

Webern:
'A taught and arresting performance'.

Brahms:
'Fine playing from the BBCNOW, with sweet string tone and incisive woodwind playing throughout'.

'An unexpectedly controlled affair'...(with)...'little space for indulgence'.

Read my full review on Bachtrack here.

Paul Watkins

CD Reviews - August 2016

Having recorded four volumes of British Works for cello and piano, the brothers Paul Watkins and Huw Watkins (cello and piano respectively) have turned their attention to American works for the same forces. Their disc includes works by five American composers (incidentally, three of whom were gay), and the works span forty or so years of the twentieth century.  The earliest work is by Samuel Barber (1910-1981), his Sonata Op. 6.  Barber composed the work after playing Beethoven & Brahms’ cello sonatas in Italy with Domenico Menotti, the brother of Gian Carlo Menotti, Barber’s subsequent life partner.  It is a strongly romantic work, with clear influence of Brahms, and perhaps without the individuality of his mature output.  However, Barber cuts through the lush lyricism of the Adagio with a central scherzo-like Presto, and the Watkins brothers handle this contrast expertly.  Similarly, the impassioned finale is controlled with frequent tempo changes, which can threaten the work’s coherency, but not so here.  Next up are Three Meditations by Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990), arranged by the composer from his monumental and highly controversial Mass from 1971, a musical theatre piece which intersperses settings of Latin mass movements with contrasting sections in English, drawing on several choirs, a rock band and a marching band.  Not particularly well received at the time, it still divides opinion on whether its mash-up of genres works or not.  Even in these three short Meditations, Bernstein combines earnest, almost yearning writing, and glassy harmonics for the cello in the first, spiky chromaticisms drawing on a theme from Beethoven’s Ninth Sypmphony in the second, with an unexectedly bouncy, folk dance (with Huw Watkins adding bongos rather than Bernstein’s instructions for using the piano lid for percussive effect) in the final Meditation.  A somewhat bizarre mixture of styles, Paul and Huw nevertheless make a convincing case for the work, particularly in the complex second Meditation.  Elliott Carter (1908-2012) was an incredibly prolific composer, particularly in his latter years, before his death at the age of 103.  His Sonata for Cello and Piano dates from 1948, and marks a shift in Carter’s output from a more popular neoclassicism to the beginnings of his exploration of what he called ‘temporal modulation’, where the relationship of pulse lengths become a key structural element of composition.  Once again here, the Watkins duo navigate this with expert precision, and their commanding performance here is the stand out moment of the disc.  Huw then gets a rest as Paul performs George Crumb’s (b.1929) Sonata for Solo Cello.  Composed in 1955, he dedicated the work to his mother, an accomplished cellist.  Drawing on baroque traditions in its Fantasia and Toccata outer movements, there are also strong influences of Bartók evident here.  Paul Watkins is particularly impressive in the rapid Toccata, with its almost perpetual motion throughout.  The brothers join for the final piece, the Waltz and Celebration from Aaron Copland’s (1900-1990) Billy the Kid, arranged by the composer for cello and piano.  I am not a fan of Copland in his faux-folksy mode, and after the intensity and complexity of some of the other works on the disc, these two short, rather light movements feel a little out of place, but they receive articulate and sensitive attention here.  Overall, very strong performances, and a fascinating survey of such varied composers, despite being broad contemporaries.

Various. 2015. American Works for Cello and Piano. Paul Watkins, Huw Watkins. Compact Disc. Chandos CHAN 10881.

A few years ago I reviewed an excellent disc of mezzo-soprano Clare McCaldin singing works written for her by Stephen McNeff (b.1951), and she has returned to disc with a collection exploring the theme of female ‘madness’, entitled ‘Notes from the Asylum’.  McNeff’s and McCaldin’s working relationship has continued, and in 2013 McNeff wrote his opera in six songs for mezzo-soprano and piano, Vivienne, which McCaldin performed with pianist Libby Burgess.  The work explores the life of Vivienne Haigh-Wood, who married T. S. Eliot in 1915.  The relationship was difficult to say the least, and after Eliot decided on a separation, effectively then shunning her from his life, Vivienne’s mental and physical health finally led to her brother having her committed to an asylum in 1938, where she remained until her death in 1947, never visited by Eliot. McNeff’s six songs, using texts by Andy Rashleigh, move from Vivienne in the asylum remembering her life before her relationship with Eliot, through the turbulence of their relationship, as well as her affair with Bertrand Russell, leaving Vivienne at the end imagining Eliot visiting her and coming back to her.  McNeff writes strikingly nostalgic music, perfectly evoking a sense of the time, particularly in the spoken lines of Bertie, à la Walton’s Façade.  Yet there is a highly individual voice here too, particularly in the sense of disintegration McNeff creates in the final song, Belladonna, as the voice is left increasingly alone.  As is often the case when performers have premiered a work of this nature, McCaldin has clearly inhabited the world of Vivienne, and her performance communicates a strong sense of truth and honesty, throughout the highly virtuosic demands put on her, with real extremes of range and dynamics.  A real tour de force.  Vivienne actually closes the disc, and before this McCaldin moves through a good three centuries of repertoire exploring her theme and how composers, mostly but not quite all male, have portrayed in their music women with perceived madness.  Useful sleeve notes by Paul Conway discuss the prurient 17^th century obsession with mental illness, and how this was reflected in the popularity of the Restoration ‘mad’ songs, of which Purcell’s ‘Mad Bess’ is a prime example, describing ‘poor senseless Bess’, presumably as a result of lost or unrequited love.  Here, it is performed in the arrangement made by Benjamin Britten (1913-1976), which adds a harder edge to the song, and McCaldin matches this accompaniment with a fuller sound than might be expected in Purcell.  Two sets of songs by Brahms (1833-1897) and Hugo Wolf (1860-1903) (who also ended his life in an asylum) are preceeded by a brief song by Harriet Abrams (1758-1821), ‘Crazy Jane’, a rather quaint setting of a text more anguished than the music might suggest, once again reflecting the image of a woman driven mad by the falseness of men.  Brahms’ Ophelia Lieder draw on texts from Ophelia’s ‘mad scene’ in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and despite their brevity, Brahms packs an emotional punch, particularly in the final song of the set, ‘Und kommt er nicht mehr züruck?’ (‘And will he not come again?’).  Wolf set many poems by Eduard Mörike, and here McCaldin sings five, all sung from the perspective of an Ophelia-like character, Agnes.  The harmonic language is denser and more dramatic here than the Brahms songs, with strong touches of Wagner.  McCaldin’s full tone is well suited to these affecting songs, and the emotional climax of ‘Wo find ich Trost’ (‘Where shall I find comfort?’) is particularly powerful.  Jumping forward to 1971, McCaldin and Burgess are joined by clarinettist Catriona Scott for American composer Ned Rorem’s (b.1923) Ariel, Five Poems of Sylvia Plath. These are highly virtuosic settings, for all three perfomers, which capture the sense of anger and turbulence of the poetry, written shortly before her suicide at the age of 30.  The Hanging Man has a particularly challenging cadenza for clarinet, and Lady Lazarus pushes the bounds of technique for the singer, ending ‘with a loud gasp’. This is a powerful disc, and McCaldin demonstrates the wide range and adaptability of her voice across such a broad range of repertoire, but it is in Vivienne that her dramatic abililties are most impressively in evidence.  Libby Burgess (piano) also deserves praise, showing great command throughout the wide-ranging repertoire. 

Various. 2016. Notes from the Asylum. Clare McCaldin, Libby Burgess. Compact Disc. Champs Hill Records. CHRCD111.

(Edited versions of these reviews first appeared in GScene, August 2016)

A fitting cabaret to celebrate Erik Satie's 150th birthday - Proms Chamber Music 3

Alistair McGowan (© BBC/Chris Christodoulou)

BBC Proms Chamber Music 3

'A Satie Cabaret'

Alistair McGowan (actor)
Alexandre Tharaud (piano)
Jean Delescluse (tenor)

Monday 1 August 2016

Cadogan Hall, London

★★★★

Alexandre Tharaud & Jean Delescluse
(© BBC/Chris Christodoulou)

'McGowan gave a convincing performance as Satie' .... 'with strong characterisation and excellent comic timing'.

'Delescluse’s renditions of Satie’s songs were great fun and full of high camp, with faultless diction and quick fire delivery'.

Tharaud played with great sensitivity and stillness of tone', .... 'the sadness exuded from Tharaud’s sensitive touch'.

Read my full review on Bachtrack here.

Satie:

Trois sonneries de la Rose+Croix – No. 3: Air du grand prieur

Premiere pensée Rose+Croix

Le veuf

Trois melodies:

1. La statue de bronze

2. Daphénéo

3. Le chapelier

La diva de l’Empire

Ludions:

1. Air du rat

3. La grenouille américaine

4. Air du poète

5. Chanson du chat

Embryons desséchés:

1. d’holothurie

2. d’edriophthalma

3. de podophthalma

Allons-y Chochotte

Gnossienne No.1

Gymnopédie No.1

Readings:

Mémoires d’un amnésique:

‘L’origine des Satie’

‘Ce que je suis’

‘Parfait entourage’

‘La journée du musicien’

'Musique d’ameublement'

'La musique et les animaux'