2009 and 2010’s resolutions

Posted on December 31, 2009 by vhk10

I have to admit that 2009 was a quieter year than I’d have liked on the vocal front. There were some highlights: I revisited Spem in Alium for the first time in a long while, and though between New Year and October I made fewer and shorter Cathedral visits than usual, there were some very worthwhile ones including amongst other things a first opportunity to sing Howells’ canticles in B minor. The year wasn’t devoid of solo opportunities either and I thought I was generally singing well.

I did get opportunities to perform music by all four of the main anniversary composers. It will seems strange turning on the car radio on the way to piano lessons on Thursday afternoons in 2010 and not hearing a Handel opera.

Among the disappointments were being asked to note a concert date in my diary and then not being told I wasn’t needed for it, and the audition which was cancelled the day before it was due to happen because the vacancy had disappeared. I also thought I’d been dropped from a couple of Cathedral-going choirs when messages from them stopped arriving, but I’m happy to say that I was wrong in both cases.

It was a rather better year for concert-going though, particularly with opportunities to hear some of the Philharmonia’s Vienna – City of Dreams series in London, which did not disappoint.

I think 2010 will rather be what I make of it. I can’t see any obvious opportunities to do anything different from what I’ve done in 2009, but you never know what will come up during the year. I have to regard the Bath Festival Chorus as a thing of the past as it hasn’t performed since 2005 (though according to its musical director’s web page it still exists!) Likewise I can’t see myself ever being called up from the dep list for the Lord Mayor’s Chapel unless there is a change of regime there. One thing I can promise is that this blog will continue. I realise that recently my postings has been almost exclusively accounts of performances I’ve been in or attended, and I shall try to introduce a wider variety of musical topics.

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Alex Ross, The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century

Posted on December 22, 2009 by vhk10

Cross-posted from my other public blog, Egg and Dart.

I’m not going to attempt a systematic review, as those can be found elsewhere and in any case I’m unfamiliar with some of the territory Ross covers in his survey of 20th-century classical music.

In the areas I do know about, I found Ross to be accurate and to emphasise more or less what I consider to be important. The index is very thorough in its coverage of persons, including (for example) references to composers’ relatives, though it is less complete when it comes to concepts.

Ross is not ashamed to relate music to composers’ biographies or even to their physical appearance, and the text is full of pertinent anecdotes. Nevertheless, there are detailed descriptions of notable works, more from the earlier part of the century. A website with audio extracts of works referred to in the text can be found here.

One controversial position is that the author is convinced that Sibelius’ 8th symphony was destroyed in a complete or near-complete state, though I believe the evidence for this is unclear.

Although he is English, Ross has worked in New York for some years, and the USA accordingly features prominently. This does not just mean that American composers are dealt with at length; Mahler’s stay in New York is described in detail and one is told a lot about the history of American public-service broadcasting but there is little reference to the BBC, or to British composers other than Benjamin Britten. I don’t necessarily think this bias is a bad thing, as I learnt much about (for example) the origins of American minimalism.

Ross focuses on innovators, at the expense of more conservative composers such as Puccini and Rachmaninov, who tend to get pushed to the sidelines of his narrative, although they’re certainly part of 20th-century classical music history. Perhaps similarly, he can make 20th-century music seem more different from what preceded that it actually is, for example in its degree of political commitment.

Maybe my next reading should be Mann’s Doctor Faustus, which provides a structuring undertext to the whole work.

# ISBN-10: 1841154768
# ISBN-13: 978-1841154763

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Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland

Posted on December 21, 2009 by vhk10

I don’t feel that the Advent/Christmas season has properly started unless I’ve played a CD that I was given a few years ago. It contains Bach’s Advent cantatas BWV36, BWV61 and BWV62 nicely performed by Collegium Vocale Gent and Philippe Herreweghe plus soloists. (Harmonia Mundi HMC901605)

All three cantatas feature the chorale Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland in various arrangements. This isn’t quite the usual four-square Lutheran chorale melody; the flattened seventh three notes in, the non-standard cadence at the end of the second line and the repetition of the first line as the last one betray its ultimate origin in a plainchant melody. One of the points of interest of the CD is following the ways Bach eases over these irregularities, for example by sharpening the seventh or making the penultimate note of the second line an inessential one.

There’s a discussion of the melody with a number of quotations from Bach on the Bach cantatas site. Past visitors to Taizé might associate it with the Lord’s Prayer (in one of Bach’s harmonisations!)

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in the gallery – or not?

Posted on December 15, 2009 by vhk10

I went to hear Bath Minerva Choir conducted by Gavin Carr perform their seasonal concert, An English Christmas, in St Swithin’s Church, Walcot. This was the first time I’d been to a concert in this church (I gather that they have only started to happen recently, after a change of clergy and a refurbishment of the building). It has a pleasant acoustic though not a very resonant one. Performers also included soprano and baritone soloists and members of the Bath Phil (I’m a bit short on details, as the programmes had all gone by the time I arrived).

The concert sold out and by the time I got my ticket from the Bath Festivals box office I was told that it was for a seat in the gallery, and so I could not buy a second ticket for one of the children. (I suppose the parapet in the gallery must be lower at St Swithin’s than in the galleries at Christ Church Bath or St Mary’s Bathwick, where children are permitted). When I arrived though I found that the seats were totally unreserved and we could have both sat in the body of the church. However, I’m not sure our children would have lasted the course as the concert went on for nearly three hours!

The programme included several familiar pieces such as A Ceremony of Carols (in the SATB version), Finzi’s In Terra Pax and Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on Christmas Carols. To give the choir a rest, the strings played Britten’s Simple Symphony. I can never hear the scherzo of this without being reminded of the theme from The Archers. The lengthy slow movement seems slightly out of place and perhaps betrays the work’s origin in some unrelated juvenile pieces. The programme ended with a selection of carol arrangements, including a couple by the conductor’s brother, interspersed with four congregational carols.

I thought this was one of the more successful Christmas concerts I’ve been to. I normally give them a miss because they can get into a muddle about whether they are a concert or a service, or become bogged down if they involve readings, because the readers feel they need to take up a significant amount of time. Despite the length of the programme, this concert seemed to fly by.

Another event to mention: my husband went to a concert performance of Otello with Colin Davis and the LSO at the Barbican, which he enjoyed. I don’t think his opinion varied very much from those of the reviewers, so I’ll post some links here: Independent, Telegraph, Guardian, The Classical Source.

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Te Deum Laudamus

Posted on December 12, 2009 by vhk10

Two settings of this text framed the Chandos Singers’ most recent concert in St. Bartholomew’s, Oldfield Park. We started with Haydn’s Marie-Thérèse setting, which was actually a suggestion of mine when we were looking for a piece to complete the programme. Out of the major anniversary composers this year, Haydn is the one I’d somehow missed performing so far. This particular piece is straightforward enough; I’d never sung it before, but had heard it a few years ago at a May Week concert in Cambridge.

This was followed by the Mass by Joonas Kokkonen, held over from a concert last year. I haven’t sung very much of the late 20th century Baltic repertoire (which is suddenly very trendy), but this seemed to me a characteristic example of it. Frequent changes of time signature kept me on my toes.

In James Durrant’s setting of Hardy’s poem An Anniversary, the choir crooned wordless chords, Delius-style, behind the baritone soloist and piano accompaniment. Despite this, I liked the piece more than I expected to. Maybe it was the tone-row lurking in the bass line of the piano part.

Berlioz’ Fantaisie sur la Tempête de Shakespeare was unknown to me and the sort of piece you have to ham up. I’m not sure where the (Italian) text came from but it didn’t have very much to do with the Bard! On the other hand the music had some characteristic key changes and turns of phrase, which has whetted my appetite for more Berlioz. Watch this space.

The second half consisted of Mendelssohn’s early setting of the Te Deum. I can’t think when I had to sing this many top B’s in an evening, and I have the impression Mendelssohn hadn’t quite understood the range of the voices he was writing for. (The piece also featured the most awkwardly exposed top B flat I’ve come across, and there is stiff competition.) Mendelssohn’s interest in Bach really comes over, with near-quotations from parts of the St Matthew Passion and B minor Mass.

The Chandos Singers were back singing carols beside the Roman Bath a week later. If one wraps up warm this must be a lovely venue to do this in, but I had to quite part way through the rehearsal as I could feel my temperature going up far above normal. I’ll have to hope that the choir gets invited back to sing another year.

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a return to Puccini

Posted on December 10, 2009 by vhk10

The first opera I ever saw was Tosca (in a Glyndebourne touring production in Oxford). Since then I haven’t been to a performance of any opera by Puccini, until WNO’s Butterfly.

This is clearly the year of the monochrome opera, as this is the second one I’ve been to (although this particular production is three decades old, so it’s not that they are suddenly trendy). This production made great use of sliding Japanese screens, – a real gift to set designers for their flexibility and transparency.

Pinkerton (Russell Thomas) seemed a little underpowered at first. Judith Howarth on the other hand seemed if anything a little too forceful overall, although her quiet singing was well controlled. The orchestra under Simon Phillippo played admirably. I’m normally a pretty calm audience member, but I finally had to succumb to Puccini’s all-out assault on the emotions.

I was sat towards the back of the stalls and had been warned about not being able to see the surtitles. In fact I could, though a rather taller member of the audience in the row behind me couldn’t, so height does play a part here.

Reviews of the production in the Independent and the Guardian. But note that some of the cast and the conductor changed between Cardiff and Bristol. A more local review of the Bristol cast can be found in Suit Yourself.

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some plans for 2010

Posted on November 23, 2009 by vhk10

We have now sorted out a weekend visit for the Cathedral Chamber Choir in 2010. Over the Low Sunday weekend we will be at Sherborne Abbey. Their bell-ringers seem to move in as soon as the Abbey choir takes a break, but the Abbey is generous in the amount of music it allows visiting choirs to perform. Sometimes in the past we have gone to a major parish church and found they only wanted two movements of a Mass setting, or none at all!

I am trying to find a weekend venue in 2011 while there is still choice, and have written to St Edmundsbury Cathedral.

Looking more locally, I received an invitation to sing Berlioz’ Grande Messe des Morts with the Frome Festival Chorus in February and as this work rarely comes round (though there has been talk of doing it round here ever since Mahler 8 in 2000) I am going to seize the chance this time. There is also an invitation to join the Chantry Singers for what will be their final Bach Festival in October 2010; I have expressed an interest in this, and will wait and hope that they are not already oversubscribed with sopranos. [Nov 29th: I’ve been told that at present they have enough sopranos, don’t know about vacancies for other voices]

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Bath Mozartfest 2009

Posted on November 21, 2009 by vhk10

Between us we attended four concerts at this year’s Bath Mozartfest. There were quite a few others we might have gone to, including Mozart’s Requiem in Bath Abbey, which some people I know were singing in and which caused me to regret the demises both of Richard Hickox and of the Bath Festival Chorus.

First up was the Takács Quartet on Saturday morning playing three Beethoven quartets: Op. 18 no. 1, Op 74 (the Harp) and Op. 131. This was a demanding programme for a morning concert, but I’m told the performances were very good, and notable for their clarity.

On Sunday evening other family members heard Viktoria Mullova playing Bach both solo and with Ottavio Dantone on the harpsichord. The concert started late and it took her a while to really appear comfortable, so the performances improved as the concert went on. (This was also the opinion of the reviewer in the Guardian.)

My first concert was on Wednesday in the Guildhall, with Bath resident Tim Hugh performing music for cello accompanied by Alasdair Beatson. ‘Accompanied’ is not really the right word when it came to Beethoven’s variations on Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen, because the piano has the upper hand much of the time, especially at the start. This was followed by Mendelssohn’s first cello sonata, Op. 45 and Schumann’s 5 Stücke im Volkston, Op. 102, both of which were new to me. I could see why I hadn’t come across them before as while they were pleasant enough to listen to, they weren’t all that memorable (so maybe I have heard them and forgotten about them). As at the Prom I went to, we had an encore by Shostakovich, and we felt that we’d rather have heard the whole of the sonata from which it was taken. I don’t think I’ve been to a concert of this kind before where the instrumentalist and the pianist introduced different items.

Finally we went to hear Pierre-Laurent Aimard in the Assembly rooms. I don’t think I’ve heard him play in Bath before so this was an especially welcome opportunity; many performers at the Mozartfest, such as the Tacács, Felicity Lott and the Nash Ensemble, are regulars here. This recital began with Mozart’s sonata in D K284, which overstayed its welcome somewhat, as all repeats were put in! I sensed that the programme was chosen to show Aimard’s skills at rippling semiquavers, as these appeared to effect in the remaining pieces, Beethoven’s sonata in E Op 14 no. 1, Miroirs by Ravel and Chopin’s Berceuse and B flat minor scherzo. These were poised and carefully structured performances. They can be heard at lunchtimes 24-27 November on Radio 3 (and presumably for a week after that on Listen Again). For an encore he played Messiaen’s ‘La Colombe’.

The Mozartfest of course also provided opportunities to sample Mozartkugels and other similar confections (there’s a chocolate truffle we haven’t encountered before). My daughter and I recommend the recently installed hand dryers in the ladies’ at the Assembly Rooms for an interesting tactile experience.

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carillons

Posted on November 13, 2009 by vhk10

Our half-term excursion to the Netherlands didn’t include any musical performances, but I did notice one musical aspect of Dutch life; the carillon melodies played by church clocks. In town centres you never seemed to be very far from a bell-tower which chimed out an elaborate and lengthy tune to announce the fact that it was, say, a quarter to two. There was a particularly fine example near the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam.

Strictly speaking I suppose a carillon requires a player, and there aren’t many British examples, though I have heard the one at Newcastle. (For a list see this page [link broken – info on a successor site if one exists would be welcome]. They seem to be a Scottish speciality). Otherwise one has to make do with bells which can be programmed to play a tune. Bath Abbey sometimes plays one of a small repertoire of hymn tunes on the hour (if you go on a tower tour you can see the mechanism which does this). Holy Name Church in Manchester (where I occasionally used to sing) had a rather more impressive range, often appropriate to the season. When I was serenaded by Llanfair one Ascension Day, I wondered whether the chimes were driven by a complex program which knew about Sunday Letters, Golden Numbers, epacts and the rest in order to deal with moveable feasts; but I later learned that the clergy could set a particular tune manually.

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plainchant in Winchester

Posted on November 10, 2009 by vhk10

The weekend after Salisbury I was in Winchester Cathedral with the Erleigh Cantors.

I don’t know whether this was a deliberate choice, but several pieces we sang were used or were inspired by plainchant. These included Naylor’s Evening Canticles in A, Bairstow’s Blessed City, heavenly Salem and Wood’s communion setting in the Phrygian Mode. A possible side effect was that the weekend was rather less strenuous than a Cathedral weekend with four services usually is.

The main new piece for me was Howells’ Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis in B minor, which has been on my wishlist for some time. It’s more melismatic (in terms of number of notes per syllable) than some of his other settings, though again not hugely demanding vocally; the treble line only goes once above F sharp.

We also sang some early music: O clap your hands by Gibbons and the Ave Maria by Robert Parsons, who is something of a one-work composer (more pieces by him are extant, but I’ve never sung any of them). Also Sumsion’s Te Deum in G. Our responses were by Anthony Piccolo – notable for overlapping versicle and response, using a soloist other than the cantor and some unexpectedly quiet moments (e.g. at ‘because there is none other that fighteth for us…’). Our Communion motet was Leighton’s tricky Drop, drop, slow tears. So we were kept pretty busy, though I always feel short-changed if I sing a Cathedral evensong with less than 20 verses of psalmody, especially at a Cathedral where they normally do more.

There was clearly once competition among bishops of Winchester as to who could have the most ostentatious monument. One had a plaque with a large profile of himself placed in the nave (directly in my line of view on Sunday morning – I could have wished this particular Bishop had been better looking). A cenotaph to another fills much of the South Transept, where our weekend ended with tea provided after Sunday evensong.

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follow the Vann

Posted on October 27, 2009 by vhk10

I rejoined the Peterborough Chamber Choir after a gap of a couple of years for a weekend in Salisbury Cathedral.

We began with a Weelkes evensong which paired his Short Service with Alleluia, I heard a voice.

I have the impression that Matins has been downgraded at Salisbury since my last visit (when I sang Elgar’s Te Deum at the service). We sang at just one Sunday morning service, a Eucharist with ordination. Salisbury has experimentally introduced a nave altar, but I gather that no really satisfactory place has been found to put the choir at services where it is used. We were on benches facing westwards just inside the quire area. Our communion was Stanley Vann’s ‘St. Paul’s’ setting. This setting seems to have fallen out of the repertoire everywhere which is a shame as there are some lovely moments such as the start of the Sanctus (though the first soprano part is high). The anthem O God which hast prepared by Edwards, was also new to me (another piece with a Peterborough connexion?)

At evensong we paired Victoria’s Magnificat on the First tone (which I’d sung with this choir before) with his setting of Lauda Sion Salvatorem. As before, I pondered on the fact that you are much more likely to hear performances of the music of this Spanish composer in his country’s old enemy, England (and usually in Protestant churches!) than in his native land. The Magnificat is an especially fine piece with a gradual increase of urgency and intensity as it proceeds. Lauda Sion Salvatorem is more bouncy and antiphonal. The Victoria Magnificat was paired with the Nunc from Gibbons’ Short Service.

The music for this weekend showed that the Renaissance period isn’t the easy option it sometimes seems. Both Weelkes’ Alleluia and the Victoria Magnificat are demanding pieces which lie high (at least in the keys in which we sang them).

A write-up of a weekend in Winchester Cathedral will follow soon.

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another memorial service at Merton

Posted on October 16, 2009 by vhk10

I wrote earlier in the year about a memorial service I went to in Oxford. I was back again on Saturday for another such service, this time commemorating a contemporary and friend of mine who died before his time.

We kept the music simple; I and another friend sang the top two parts of Mozart’s Ave Verum as a duet, and there were also songs by Gounod and organ music by Bach. We were accompanied by the current organ scholar; earlier, I had heard the college choir singing at the end of an open rehearsal they were giving.

There were about a tenth of the number at the other service, but somehow both congregations seemed to be the right size for the chapel.

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