Dear Friends
Welcome to April on Planet Hugill, a month when we focused on Bach and his passions for Easter, as well as enjoying lieder in Leeds and Manchester, plus Jonathan Dove's Flight from Seattle and a film version of George Orwell's 1984. Our record reviews this month include neglected 20th century music from rare Richard Strauss and the piano music of Florence Price to English clarinet concertos and The Turkish Five, and we also celebrate contemporary composers from Jamaica, Australia and the Faroe Islands.
Interviews this month include tenor Ilker Arcayürek on the art of the song recital, pianist Elan Sicroff on the music of Thomas de Hartmann, Toms Ostrovskis on the challenges of creating the Riga Jurmala Academy during lockdown, and conductor George Jackson on Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro with which he opens this year's Opera Holland Park season.
In our column A Life On-Line this month we feature Bach, Haydn, MacMillan, Victoria and Britten for Holy Week, Passions from Wigmore Hall, St John's Smith Square, Battersea Town Hall and Berwaldhallen, Stockholm, Biber's Rosary Sonatas, Bach from Leamington Spa, Australia, Perth and Oxford, Coleridge-Taylor from London, rare Vaughan Williams, unknown Venetians, Welsh language opera, vertical harpsichords in Paris, a debut in Bournemouth, early English at St Martin in the Field, Bach's arrangement of Pergolesi and John Eliot Gardiner on Monteverdi.
▪ New Beginnings indeed: the Royal Northern Sinfonia and its principal conductor designate, Dinis Sousa, launch Sage Gateshead's new live season
▪ Flight at the museum: Seattle Opera's new film imaginatively re-locates Jonathan Dove's opera
▪ A new film inspired by George Orwell's 1984 has Mihkel Kerem's powerful new orchestral score at its heart
| ▪ | New Beginnings indeed: the Royal Northern Sinfonia and its principal conductor designate, Dinis Sousa, launch Sage Gateshead's new live season |
| ▪ | Flight at the museum: Seattle Opera's new film imaginatively re-locates Jonathan Dove's opera |
| ▪ | A new film inspired by George Orwell's 1984 has Mihkel Kerem's powerful new orchestral score at its heart |
Song in Leeds and Manchester
▪ Manchester Song Festival: Kathryn Rudge, Kathrine Broderick, and RNCM Songsters at Stoller Hall
▪ Spring song continues at Leeds Lieder with Fleur Barron, Gerald Finley, Benson Wilson, Sarah Connolly and many more
| ▪ | Spring song continues at Leeds Lieder with Fleur Barron, Gerald Finley, Benson Wilson, Sarah Connolly and many more |
Features and Interviews
▪ Towards Perfection: the idea of an ideal version of an opera has not always played out in history, with composers being surprisingly willing to rewrite works to suit circumstances
▪ Bringing audiences into closer contact with the poetry: tenor Ilker Arcayürek on the art of the song recital and his new disc of Schubert songs
▪ Go, not knowing where: I chat to pianist Elan Sicroff about Russian composer Thomas de Hartmann and the Thomas de Hartmann project
▪ When 2020 forced the cancellation of the first Riga Jurmala Academy in Latvia, it moved its programme of masterclasses on-line: I find out more from director Toms Ostrovskis
▪ The balance between a perfect art form & giving people what they want: conductor George Jackson chats about Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro with which he opens Opera Holland Park's 2021 season
| ▪ | Towards Perfection: the idea of an ideal version of an opera has not always played out in history, with composers being surprisingly willing to rewrite works to suit circumstances |
| ▪ | Bringing audiences into closer contact with the poetry: tenor Ilker Arcayürek on the art of the song recital and his new disc of Schubert songs |
| ▪ | When 2020 forced the cancellation of the first Riga Jurmala Academy in Latvia, it moved its programme of masterclasses on-line: I find out more from director Toms Ostrovskis |
| ▪ | The balance between a perfect art form & giving people what they want: conductor George Jackson chats about Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro with which he opens Opera Holland Park's 2021 season |
Record reviews
▪ Music of sundrie sorts, and to content divers humours: Byrd's 1588 Psalmes, Sonets & songs of sadness and pietie in its first complete recording
▪ Scholarship and enjoyment combine in Il Gusto Barocco's lovely fresh account of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos
▪ Bach's Goldberg Variations in a winning new arrangement for violin, guitar and cello
▪ A disc to enjoy: William Towers and Armonico Consort in Handelian Pyrotechnics
▪ Charmes: an alternative century of song from Olena Tokar and Igor Gryshyn with music by Alma Mahler-Werfel, Clara Schumann, Pauline Viardot-Garcia and Vitezslava Kapralova
▪ Richard Strauss satirising his publisher & exploring exoticism with vertiginously high vocals: Unerhört (Outrageous) from tenor Daniel Behle and pianist Oliver Schnyder
▪ A journey to Anatolia through the ears of The Turkish Five, pioneers of western classical music in Turkey
▪ Fantasie Nègre: The Piano Music of Florence Price
▪ Rediscovered: British Clarinet Concertos by Susan Spain-Dunk, Elizabeth Maconchy, Rudolph Dolmetsch, Peter Wishart from Peter Cigleris, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Ben Palmer
▪ Wild Blue Yonder: new disc of chamber music by Eleanor Alberga
▪ 60th birthday celebration: Faroese composer Sunleif Rasmussen's works for recorder player Michala Petri survyed in this engaging and imaginative disc
▪ Music positively explodes from the disc: Australian group Ensemble Offspring's Offspring Bites 3
▪ Thoughtful and imaginative: The Children's Hour sees baritone Gareth Brymor John and pianist William Vann taking a very adult view of childhood
| ▪ | Scholarship and enjoyment combine in Il Gusto Barocco's lovely fresh account of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos |
| ▪ | Charmes: an alternative century of song from Olena Tokar and Igor Gryshyn with music by Alma Mahler-Werfel, Clara Schumann, Pauline Viardot-Garcia and Vitezslava Kapralova |
| ▪ | Richard Strauss satirising his publisher & exploring exoticism with vertiginously high vocals: Unerhört (Outrageous) from tenor Daniel Behle and pianist Oliver Schnyder |
| ▪ | A journey to Anatolia through the ears of The Turkish Five, pioneers of western classical music in Turkey |
| ▪ | 60th birthday celebration: Faroese composer Sunleif Rasmussen's works for recorder player Michala Petri survyed in this engaging and imaginative disc |
| ▪ | Music positively explodes from the disc: Australian group Ensemble Offspring's Offspring Bites 3 |
| ▪ | Thoughtful and imaginative: The Children's Hour sees baritone Gareth Brymor John and pianist William Vann taking a very adult view of childhood |
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Credits
Our header image this month is Damien Geter (Immigration Officer) and Randall Scotting (Refugee) in Seattle Opera's production of Jonathan Dove's Flight filmed at The Museum of Flight. (Photo Philip Newton)
Click on any of the links to take you through to the relevant story on Planet Hugill.
We look forward to the prospect of live music to come and until then please do stay safe.
Regards
Robert
