Monthly Archives: October 2020

Immortal by Jessia Duchen

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When Beethoven died in 1827, unsent letters were found addressing his “Immortal Beloved”. Someone was evidently the love of his life but who was she? It’s a question which has intrigued Beethoven scholars for nearly 200 years.

Most people who’ve studied the trail now agree that the most likely candidate is  Josephine Brunsvik or Countess Jozefina Brunsvik de Korompa, later Countess Josephine Deym. This is the theory that music journalist, librettist and author, Jessica Duchen runs with in her entertaining, informative new novel.

Pepi, as she is called here within the family, is a troubled woman as we see through the eyes of her elder sister Therese (Tesi) who narrates the story. It is addressed to a beloved niece and – given that Pepi eventually bears seven children it’s a long time before we realise which one Tesi is addressing. And there’s something faintly operatic about the niece in question when we finally learn where she fits in. Remember that bit in The Marriage of Figaro when a whole number is based on paternity revelations? Well that – but no spoilers here.

There are several great strengths in this convincing story. Duchen gives us a very rounded, human, humane take on Beethoven: principled, difficult, disorganised, slovenly, kind, passionate, deaf and all the rest of it. And you can’t help being moved by Pepi’s predicament, unwise as she often is. I was also fascinated by the vividness of Duchen’s depiction of Vienna and emerged in horror at the realisation of just how dreadful life there would have been during that period of war and uncertainty. And as for all that appallingly uncomfortable travel around Austria and Hungary by coach: you ache in sympathy. Moreover I knew nothing of Tesi, who was a famed education pioneer, presented by Duchen in a neat twist as an unreliable narrator. I really enjoyed the moment at the opening of Fidelio when Tesi gives a spare ticket to a keen but very shy young man she happens on at the entrance. His name turns out to be Franz Schubert.

This speculative novel is a bit slow to get going but once Duchen gets into her stride it’s a real page turner although her music critic credentials sometimes shine too brightly through the narrative. We really don’t need an analytical run down of every piece Beethoven wrote although it does, I suppose, make a point about the taken-for-granted level of musical literacy in early 19th century Europe.

Susan Elkin

OAE now based in a Camden school

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The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (OAE) has a new home. It is now based  at  Acland Burghley comprehensive school  (ABS) in Camden.  Three offices will be adapted for the administration team, alongside a recording studio and library. The Grade II listed school assembly hall will be used as a rehearsal space, with plans to refurbish it under the school’s ‘A Theatre for All’ project, so for the first time, all elements of the OAE will be in the same place: players, staff and library.’

It’s been quite a journey since 1986 when a group of musicians decided to tear up the rule book and reinvent what we mean by “an orchestra” by going back to basics. That means “period instruments” or replicas of them  and they were at the forefront of the original instruments movement which has gained so much momentum in the last 30 years. OAE players switch instruments according to the music they’re playing. This might mean for example, one violin or flute for Bach or Vivaldi and a different one for Brahms or Bruckner and all the challenges of  sheep gut strings and horns without valves. It’s a case of using historical knowledge to make the music sound fresh, immediate and exciting.

William Christie is OAE’s current director although the idea of an omniscient conductor or “maestro” is a concept which developed during the nineteenth century. OAE often plays without a conductor as a lot of their repertoire would have been performed in the eighteenth century and before.

The  new residency – a first for a British orchestra – will allow the OAE’s musicians to live, work and play amongst the students of the school. The move is supported by a leadership grant of £120,000 from The Linbury Trust, one of the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts. It  facilitates the move to the school and underwrites the first three years of education work.

Crispin Woodhead, OAE chief executive explains: “Our accommodation at Kings Place was coming to an agreed end and we needed to find a new home. We already had a strong relationship with many schools in Camden through our education programme and our appeal hit the desk of Kat Miller, director of operations at Acland Burghley School. She was working on ways to expand the school’s revenue from its resources and recognised that their excellent school hall might be somewhere we could rehearse.”

 Nicholas John, Acland Burghley’s Headteacher confirms:  “This partnership is much broader than simply music education.  Its reach will be measurable in other areas including physics and mathematics, and supports our new school mission ‘Creating Excellence Together’. The orchestra will very much be a part of the everyday school community, where students will be offered workshops and assemblies.”

 The school won’t just be OAE’s landlord or physical home, however. The arrangement will offer the opportunity to build on twenty years of work in the borough through OAE’s long-standing partnership with Camden Music.  Having already worked in eighteen of the local primary schools that feed into ABS, the plan is to support music and arts across the school and in the wider community.  This new move underpins the OAE’s core ‘enlightenment’ mission of reaching as wide an audience as possible.

A similar project was undertaken in 2015 in Bremen, Germany. The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie moved into a local comprehensive school in a deprived area and the results were described as “transformational”, with improved academic performance, language skills, mental health and IQ scores; reputational benefits; greater interest in and engagement with music among pupils; strengthened links between school, orchestra and community; and even, according to some of the musicians who took part, an improvement in the Kammerphilharmonie’s playing.

Violinist Margaret Faultless, who leads OAE, said: “As classical musicians, it can often feel as if we exist in a bubble. I think I can speak for the whole Orchestra when I say that we’re all looking forward to this new adventure. We are all used to meeting with people from outside the classical music world of course, but the value of our new project lies in the long-term work we’ll be doing at the school and the relationship that will hopefully develop between the students, their parents and teachers and the orchestra. The members of the Bremen Kammerphilharmonie said their experience actually improved them as an orchestra and I think the same will happen to us over the next five or so years, and it will remind all of us of the reasons we make music, which are sometimes easy to forget, especially in our strange and troubled times.”

SE

Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra: Helen May with the Ivanov & Chen Duo

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Saturday 17th October, Christ Church, St Leonards-on-Sea

One of unexpected snags of the pandemic has been the closure of larger venues. St Mary in the Castle is now closed until April 2021 and the White Rock Theatre is similarly shut. Finding a venue for an orchestral concert, particularly one which has to be socially distanced, is therefore proving to be a problem. Thankfully the same is not true for chamber music, and Christ Church, St Leonards is proving to be a wonderful haven in the midst of cultural turbulence. With the chairs arranged in three wide semi-circles there is no sense of gaps, only of a relaxed space within which to perform.

Last Saturday brought soprano Helen May together with the Ivanov & Chen Duo for an evening of song and arrangements for clarinet and piano. They three musicians came together at the start for Schubert’s glorious setting of Der Hirt auf dem Felsen. This is a ‘scena’ rather than a song as the singer moves from the Shepherd’s delight in the hills and valleys, to the love-sick concern that his sweetheart is so far away before returning to delight in the fact that Spring is on its way. The accompaniment from both clarinet and piano was beautifully balanced to bring out the nuances in Schubert’s delicate scoring.

The Rigoletto Fantasia da Concerto which followed allowed Boyan Ivanov to demonstrate his dexterity on the clarinet with the florid decoration of the melody, before Helen May sang Caro nome from the same opera. The Meditation from Massenet’s Thais is familiar though not in a fine arrangement for clarinet and piano, which allowed Boyan Ivanov to show the gentler side of the instrument. Helen May returned to sing the Jewel Song from Gounod’s Faust. She seemed to be particularly at ease singing in French and this was a spirited way to bring to first half to a close.

After a brief interval – no refreshments and social distanced conversations behind masks – Boyan Ivanov and pianist Lysianne Chen returned to play the Carmen Fantaisie in an arrangement by Sarasate. We got the first half then there was a change to the programme. Marcio da Silva bounded on and sang one of the most engaging versions of the Toreador’s song I can remember. Just gently tongue in cheek, but every word crystal clear with a real sense of drama. Unexpected but very welcome. Helen May followed this with more reflective Song to the Moon from Dvorak’s Russalka, before Lysianne Chen gave us her only solo of the evening, Black Earth by Fazil Say. The opening and closing sections require the performer to recreate the sound of a Turkish baglama – a lute-like instrument – by physically dampening the strings by hand while hitting the keys. It was most effective and a pity the work itself was so short.

The evening concluded with an arrangement of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue which allowed us to hear the wonderful jazz writing in all its glory. The next recital in the series brings the Dumky Trio to Christ Church on Saturday 21st November. Limited seating so book now.

 

Hastings Early Music Festival

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Kino Teatr, St Leonards, Saturday 17 October

The festival may be reduced in size this year because of the ongoing problems with Covid19, but thankfully it has not affected either the quality of the performances Jane Gordon is able to bring to the town or the enthusiasm of the audiences. Where some venues look strained with social distancing, the Kino Teatr simply looked as though it was comfortably full for a matinee.

I was there to hear the Rautio Piano Trio playing Mozart and Faure. Mozart’s G major Trio K 564 is a late work, written at the same time as the three last symphonies, though they have little in common. There is a charm and naivety to the Trio which belies Mozart’s emotional state at the time it was written. The dominance of the piano, particularly in the opening movement, gives credence to the idea that the work was adapted from a piano sonata, but it’s none the worse for that. The opening Allegro is lively and, for one who was coming back to live music after seven months, sounded remarkably loud! The theme and variations of the second movement seems to die out suddenly, as if Mozart had had enough of it, before turning to the wonderfully child-like melody of the finale.

The second work was Faure’s D minor Trio Op120. Written when the composer was in his seventies, it is an indulgent work which asks us to trust and literally go with the flow. There is a sense of urgency in the opening movement but it is unclear where it is heading with its constant fluidity and changes of pulse. This restlessness continues in the slow movement which has occasional flowerings of melody, though they don’t last and the darker edges creep back in. The final Presto is skittish and often introspective with many dynamic changes throughout. This may have seemed an odd choice for an early music festival but the contrast with the Mozart was very telling.

The trio ended with a brief but highly evocative Tango to send us on our way. The Rautio Piano Trio – Jane Gordon, violin, Victoria Simonsen, cello and Jan Rautio, piano – record for Resonus Classics www.resonusclassics.com and the Mozart trio is currently available.

Oxford Lieder: From the Pens of Women

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A whole evening of song settings of words by women is an interesting idea – and, as Kitty Whately, explained in the post-concert Q/A –  it evolved from her interest in certain writers and was first performed at Wigmore Hall last year.

Like all this year’s Oxford Lieder concerts, the evening began with a mini-recital by an emerging artist. This time it was bass-baritone Tristan Hambleton with four of Schubert’s 13 songs setting words by women. He found lots of warmth and spark in pieces which deserve to be better known than most of them are.

And so to the wistfulness of Ralph Vaughan-Williams in reflective, late-life mood, setting poems by his wife, Ursula, mostly in minor keys. Whately finds sad passion especially in Menelaus in which the titular king calls for his long lost wife, Helen, and it’s deeply poignant.

Ursula Vaughan Williams, much younger than her husband, was an accomplished poet. All the Future Days is a cycle of ten poems. Whately – who clearly has a very well established rapport with strikingly sensitive pianist, Simon Lepper – gave us Jonathan Dove’s settings of three of them. The emotional immersion in The Siren was particularly notetworthy. Whately is a singer of great versatility.

The second half of the concert used chattier texts – beginning with two poems by Margaret Attwood. Dominick Argento’s setting of Virginia Woolf’s Anxiety is an intense study of stress, based on an extract from her diary with lots of musical acrobatics, powerfully caught by both performers. It’s impossible to listen to without remembering, and reflecting on, Woolf’s eventual suicide. After that the light relief of Juliana Hall’s setting of extracts from Edna St Vincent Millay – especially the one asking for money, sang by Whatley with a big musical smile – was welcome.

The evening ended with Dove’s settings of three poems by Millay which was originally a BBC Radio 3 commission for Whately. She and Lepper took the concert to a real dramatic climax in I too Beneath Your Moon.

An enjoyable concert on the whole although, lovely as the Holywell Music Room is, it’s sad to see it empty of audience. It’s also awkwardly stilted  when at the end of each piece or set the performers simply have to stop. They don’t even smile at each other. There’s none of the sense of excitement and togetherness that an applauding audience brings. And as Hambleton told Petroc Trelawney in the interval talk it’s the audience which actually brings songs to life. Without it there’s s dimension missing.

Susan Elkin

CLASSICAL MUSICIANS NEED YOUR SUPPORT

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OPUS THEATRE are very proud to be supporting Classical Club, an innovate new venture by our Artists in Residence, the renowned London Mozart Players.

In response to the closure of concert halls and nationwide restrictions in audience numbers caused by the pandemic, Classical Club was created to ensure that audiences all over the country (and beyond) can continue to experience the joy and wonder of classical music. Delivered in partnership with Scala Radio, the eight-concert digital series provides an eclectic mix of content from emerging young artists and seasoned virtuosos, offering something for audiences of all ages to enjoy.

The launch of Classical Club is also an important step forward for the many artists in our industry whose livelihoods have been devastated by COVID. By purchasing a Classical Club Season Pass, you can support our sector in a meaningful way, whilst enjoying world-class music at home

Purchase a Classical Club Season Pass for just £50 before 31 October and you’ll receive:

Acess to Eight Classical Music Concerts
Watch on demand and as often as you like!
Filmed in Unusual & Iconic venues
A Programme for the whole family that includes:
Mozart – Schumann – Stravinsky – Strauss
The Soldier’s Tale – Little Red Riding Hood and much more!

Purchase at www.londonmozartplayers.com/classicalclub

Bach and Britten; Oxford Lieder Festival

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This warm, pleasant concert opened with some external scene- setting camera work to allow us to feel that we were walking into the chapel of Merton College. Of course it would have been nicer to have been there in person but efforts had certainly been made to make us feel as though we really were for this live streamed event.

The programme was a Britten sandwich – Bach’s substantial Ich habe genug and his Der Ewogkeit saphrnes Haus framing six shorter Britten pieces all rooted in Bach.

Ian Bostridge’s mellifluous voice conveyed every ounce of drama and emotion – at times he was almost leaning over his music stand in controlled passion. Thomas Hammond-Davies conducted with his body too – almost a choreographed dance between the two men and definitely a performance which benefited from being seen as well as heard.

The accompaniment was provided – on original instruments – by a string quartet augmented by flute (fabulous playing) and organ, all standing distanced in a semi-circle behind Bostridge. When he sang the final Bach piece at the end of the concert the viola was gone but there was scoring for an oboe – a honey-coloured wooden instrument with a creamy tone. It was shot, with real musical insight too – the bow on the cello and the fingers on the flute at appropriate moments.

The Britten numbers were accompanied by Saskia Giorgini on piano. She had her music on an iPad or similar which she scrolled manually to “turn” her pages. I’ve only seen this once before in performance and then the player operated it with a Bluetooth pedal. Giorgini’s method seemed to work smoothly enough and she’s a sensitive player.

This concert certainly showed Bostridge’s stylistic range. The first Britten piece, My beloved is mine and I am his Op 40 is full of unpredictable intervals and unexpected tonality, but Bostridge, of course, sang it with passion and conviction. The Five Spiritual Songs – Giestliche Lieder – which followed, were fresh and attractive in this performance. Written for Peter Peers, accompanied by the composer in 1969, they are arrangements of Bach. Liebster Herr Jesu was especially lovely in Bostridge’s rendering.

And so to the closing number – funeral music for Christiane Eberhardine, Electress of Saxony and composed by Bach in the Italian style. Bostridge and Hammond-Davies made it into a momentous and moving end to this 50 minute lunch time concert.

Susan Elkin

 

CDs October 2020

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Beethoven: Missa Solemnis
Hofkapelle & Kammerchor Stuttgart, Frieder Bernius
NAXOS NBD 0116V Blu-ray

Frieder Bernius is an idiosyncratic not to say meticulous conductor who prepares his musicians in a way few others I have come across would dare to do. He marks up the scores of each musician and singer individually and even rehearses with individual members of the choir. Internal balance and even the way each vowel is pronounced is crucial to him. The recording comes in two sections. The first, a film by Uli Aumuller, follows this process of preparation, while the second is the recording itself.

Given that there is such attention to detail and the use of original instruments is crucial, the only point at which I began to question the whole undertaking was the editing studio where they were able to nudge phrases, entries, even alter the character of a note to ensure it was exactly what the conductor wanted. This struck me as overkill for a performance which worked perfectly well without it. Live music sometimes has tiny mistakes  and is often the better for it.

FLORENT SCHMITT – MELODIES
SYBILLE DIETHELM, ANNINA HAUG, NINO AURELIO GMUNDER & RENE PERLER, voices
FABIENNE ROMER & EDWARD RUSHTON, piano
RESONUS RES10265 72’33

This is a very rewarding disc, showcasing the diverse output of a composer I was unaware of. The CD consists of 7 sets of short song cycles, 25 songs in total, presented in clear recordings by male and female soloists with piano accompaniment. There is much variety in music and subject matter. Full texts and translations make this a recording to return to and listen in different ways. An interesting and welcome introduction to this project discusses the complexities of assessing the work of someone known to have at least been on friendly terms with Nazis. We need to have these discussions if we are to make sense of much of our artistic heritage and find ways to appreciate and enjoy what is good as well as not shying away from the darker aspects of the circumstances in which they were sometimes created.

 

FRANCIS POTT – AT FIRST LIGHT; WORD
JOSEPH SPOONER, Cello.   CHRISTIAN WILSON, Organ
COMMOTIO    MATTHEW BERRY, Conductor
NAXOS 8.573976.  79’26

Here are two new major works by Francis Pott in premiere recordings. The pairing makes for a very satisfying programme. At first light (2018) was commissioned as a memorial. It combines sung texts from a variety of sources – Christian and Jewish as well as words by Wendell Berry & Kahil Gilbran. Alongside the choir is the wordless but lyrical cello. Word (2012) was commissioned as part of the Merton Choirbook Project and is intended to “enable contemplation of the Gospel ‘s significance in our postmodern cultural epoch”. As in the previous CD the text of the booklet is well worth reading in order to more fully understand the thought behind the work. Texts here are from the prologue to John’s gospel together with poems by RS Thomas. The organ also plays a significant part.

 

JOHANNES DE CLEVE – MISSA REX BABYLONIS & OTHER WORKS
CINQUECENTO Renaissance Vokal
HYPERION CDA68241 71’06

This disc presents Franco-Flemish music of the late 16th Century. The major work is complemented by the motet Rex Babylonis composed by Jacobus Vaet and published in 1568, from which Johannes de Cleve constructed his mass. Alongside this music are further shorter works by de Cleve. This recording gives a wonderful insight into the musical world of the chapels of the Habsburg chapels.

 

GIROLAMO BARBIERI – ORGAN WORKS
MARCO MOLASCHI, Angelo Amati organ(1843),
Chiesa di San Bassiano, Pizzighettone (Cremona)
TACTUS TC 800201 73’45

This is a very entertaining CD, perhaps not to everyone’s taste but featuring Marco Molaschi giving a very good account of Barbieri’s organ music. Writing during the 19th Century this music clearly reflects the influence of his interest in music for the theatre as well as for the church. The historic organ adds to the flavour of this recording.

 

LEONE SINIGAGLIA, KURT SONNENFELD, ALDO FINZI, VITO LEVI – WORKS FROM “DEGENERATE MUSIC”
ROBERTO FABBRCIANI, GIACOBBE STEVANATO, DAVIDE CASALI
ORCHESTRA ABIMA, CIVICA ORHESTRA DI FIATI “G.VERDI”
TACTUS TC 900005 67’23

One of the many cultural tragedies of the rise of Nazism in the early 20th Century was the persecution of composers whose race or religion, ideas or philosophies did not fit with the leadership’s objectives. Restrictions and particular burdens were placed upon them. Works were suppressed and, in many cases, destroyed. Despite this, human resilience often triumphed, creativity flourished and many works were hidden, preserved and passed on. Releases such as this are to be encouraged and welcomed as a means of bringing this music to a wider audience and making the story of this human tragedy known. The orchestral music of the four composers represented here clearly show that this music was anything but degenerate.

SP 12/10/20

 

J S Bach; Goldberg Variations
Pavel Kolesnokov, piano
HYPERION CDA 68338

The Goldberg Variations work well on the piano and are here given a sympathetic and warm rendition by Pavel Kolesnikov.  The story behind the recording is as interesting as the disc itself. The work was not in the pianists repertoire until he was asked if he would perform it for a ballet version choreographed by Anne Teresa De Keersmacker – which needless to say he did. If this gives the rhythms an extra edge, we know why.

 

John Rutter: Anthems, Hymns & Gloria for Brass Band
Black Dyke Mills Band, Sheffield Philharmonic Choir, Nicholas Childs, Darius Battiwalla
NAXOS 8.574130

This is a very enjoyable arrangement of familiar works by John Rutter. The only dip comes with the Gloria which is an early work and does not have the spiritual and emotional integrity of the later hymns.

 

Piano Quintets by Frederic D’Erlanger and Thomas Dunhill
Goldner String Quartet, Piers Lane, piano
HYPERION CDA 68296

As so often with new releases, I knew nothing of either of these composers or their works before the cd arrived on my desk. The music is immediately engaging in a late romantic and at times comfortably English sense. Worth exploring.

 

Domenico Scarlatti: Complete Keyboard Sonatas Vol25
Pascal Pascaleff, piano
NAXOS 8.574146

Can you have too much of a good thing? Volume 25 of Scarlatti’s Keyboard Sonatas and there seems no end to the series. Engaging as the recording is, one would need to be a real enthusiast to differentiate between them. I assume there is a market here, if only for those who want complete sets of everything.

 

Sibelius: Kullervo
Minnesota Orchestra, YL Male Voice Choir, Lilli Paasikivi, Tommi Hakala, Osmo Vanska
BIS 2236

Having heard Osmo Vanska conduct Sibelius in Lahti some years ago during one of the Lahti Organ Festivals I was convinced then that he is one of our finest interpreters of the composer, and so it proves here. Drawing on Finnish singers and the Minnesota Orchestra this is a spirited recording made during live performances which helps to give is a strongly dramatic edge.

 

Franz Lehar: Cloclo
Lehar Festival Bad Ischl, Marius Burkert
CPO 777 708-2

Foer those of us besotted by The Merry Widow this recording has a lot going for it. Though relatively unknown, Cloclo has a generous amount of memorable melodies and Lehar seems deliberately to return to a lighter more engaging approach. A rarity but one which might be due for revival.

 

Shostakovich: Symphony No5
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Mariss Jansons
BR KLASSIK 900191

This is part of an ongoing series and very welcome it is. After the disastrous reception given to Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk Shostakovich needed a success, and this was it. For all its dark corners the work is deliberately accessible and so it proves to be in Mariss Jansons finely honed approach.

 

Richard Strauss: Tanzsuite; Divertimento
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Jun Markl
NAXOS 8.574217

Two suites based on works by Couperin. Strauss was commissioned to write a ballet score for the Vienna State Opera in 1919 and these divertimenti are drawn from the full score. Charming and undemanding, they are finely played by the New Zealand forces under Jun Markl.

 

Malcom Arnold: The Dancing Master
BBC Concert Orchestra, John Andrews
RESONUS RES 10269

Not a work I had come across before, the opera was written in 1952 for television but considered too sexually explicit and so never performed at the time. It is difficult to see quite why today, and the music comes across with freshness and spirit. The score ranges from the sentimental to the acerbic, and all the better for it.

 

John Tavener: No Longer Mourn For Me
Steven Isserlis, cello, Philharmonia Orchestra, Omer Meir Wellber
HYPERION CDA 68246

I found much of this hard going. The opening and closing pieces, arranged by Steven Isserlis for eight cellos are easily accessible and engaging but the three central works are far more challenging and may upset the balance of the arrangements in the outer movements.

Mendelssohn and the Jewish Enlightenment: Oxford lieder Festival 2020

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All credit to Oxford Lieder Festival and its director, Sholto Kynoch. The Song Connections series is informative and intelligent without being heavy or dry.

Mendelssohn’s grandfather, Moses Mendelssohn, was an 18th century philosopher. Under the tolerant polices of Frederick the Great in Prussia he became a leading Enlightenment thinker who wanted Jewish people to be fully assimilated into the community, their talents recognised and valued. Soon there were schools for both boys and girls, mixed marriages and conversions. We learn all this from Philip Ross Bullock in Oxford, Avi Lifshitz at the Jewish Museum in Berlin and  Martin Holmes at the Bodleian Library.

Short talks are interspersed with some very fine renderings of Mendelssohn songs by Magnus Walker, tenor, and Gus Tredwell, piano. Working in a mahogany panelled room at the Bodleian and surrounded by portraits of academics, they work sensitively together. The high spot in their mini-recital is Glosse in which they find anger and despair along with delicate lyricism. Walker has an impressively rich tone and I really liked the musical rapport between the two of them.

Of Moses’s six children, only two remained in the Jewish faith. Two converted to Catholicism and two – one of who was Felix’s father, Abraham – became protestants. Felix and his siblings were all baptised and his wife Cecile Jeanrennud was the daughter of a protestant pastor. Thus the composer – who famously revived Bach’s strongly Lutheran St Matthew Passion (Berlin 1829) – looked both ways, culturally because he also had his grandfather’s writings translated.

Most of Mendelssohn’s musical manuscripts are in Berlin but much of his other writing and drawing is in the Bodleian thanks to Oxford resident Margaret Dineke who inherited the archive from a friend who’d known the composer. It was eventually bequeathed to the Bodleian by her sister in 1973. Loveliest of the collection is an album of music, painting and writing Mendelssohn assembled as a honeymoon gift for his wife. As one viewer dubbed it in the Q&A which followed the event: “the nineteenth century equivalent of a mix tape.”

Susan Elkin

Brighton Early Music Festival 2020

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Watch all events on www.youtube.com/user/brightonemf

Friday 23 October, 7pm (available until Friday 30 October)
POCKET-SIZED CLASSICS
Pocket Sinfonia
Mendelssohn Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Beethoven Symphony No. 6, The Pastoral

Newly commissioned animation and film of the natural world accompanies two of the most-loved classics of all times, both arranged and reduced to chamber proportions.

Saturday 24 October, 10.30am (available until Saturday 31 October)
BIRDS, BUGS & OTHER BEASTS – A MUSICAL MENAGERIE
Spiritato with Delyth Taylor – puppeteer

Family programme including music by Heinrich Biber: puppets made from recycled materials meet in the woods.

 

Saturday 24 October, 7pm (available until Saturday 31 October)
ARCADIAN WILDERNESS
Ensemble Augelletti

Comprising musicians, poets and philosophers, the Accademia degli Arcadi was formed in Rome in 1690. Members sought inspiration from pastoral scenes set in Arcadia – an ancient, mythical space of unspoilt wilderness where the inhabitants lived in harmony with their natural surroundings.

This programme is set in the exquisite 15th-century barn of Sullington Manor Farm, and the pastoral landscape of rural Sussex.

 

Sunday 25 October, 3pm (available until Sunday 1 November)
CONNECTIONS
Dirk & Adam Campbell

New and traditional music combining string and wind instruments from Africa and Asia presented and performed by father and son duo Dirk and Adam Campbell.

Sunday 25 October, 7pm (available until Sunday 1 November)
BREMF LIVE! SHOWCASE

Four selected alumni ensembles from our young artist programme BREMF Live! who have progressed particularly well – featuring film footage from their original BREMF Live! showcase in addition to some new material showing more recent activity.

Friday 30 October, 7pm  (available until Friday 6 November)
INTRODUCING THE TRUMPET MARINE
The Society of Strange and Ancient Instruments

Meet the trumpet marine, a towering, single-stringed instrument with a host of resonating or sympathetic strings.  It was a trumpet-substitute for nuns and an unusual vehicle for virtuosic musical display in the late 17th century, falling out of circulation in the late 18th century and rarely seen or heard since then, despite its magnificent sound and appearance.

 

Saturday 31 October, 3pm (available until Saturday 7 November)
BIRD CHARMER
James Duncan from Sussex Wildlife Trust with Piers Adams recorders

During this COVID-19 spring, the reduction in traffic noise made more people aware of the beauty of birdsong. Yet in earlier times, birdsong was the ongoing soundtrack of everyday life, and musicians were deeply aware of its rich complexity. Recorder virtuoso Piers Adams plays some of the music composed in imitation of birds.

 

Saturday 31 October, 7pm  (available until Saturday 7 November)
REBELLION!
Joglaresa

We live in an age of protest and rebellion: against environmental damage and climate change, against war and injustice, and over religious and racial difference. But they certainly had their share of rebellion in medieval times: against the Crusades, corrupt leaders, religion and even sexual norms. Joglaresa perform medieval protest songs with some contemporary flavours and vivid animation.

 

Sunday 1 November, 3pm (available until Sunday 8 November)
SWEET AYRES OF ARCADIA
Musicke in the Ayre

Wilton, near Salisbury, was home to Mary Herbert, sister to the Elizabethan poet, Sir Philip Sidney. The house and gardens provided the inspiration for his major pastoral poem, The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia.

This programme, filmed in the ‘Arcadian’ pastoral landscape of the Sussex Downs and the house and gardens of St Mary’s House, Bramber, reflects on the beauty of nature as a metaphor for love, beauty and constancy.

Sunday 1 November, 7pm  (available until Sunday 8 November)
THE FOUR FACES OF GAIA, A celebration of the earth
Various artists

BREMF’s flagship multi-media production for 2020, reimagined for the digital space.

Four regions of the earth: Africa, India, the Middle East and Europe; and the four elements: Earth, Air, Fire and Water combine in a celebration of music and dance in honour of the planet that sustains us.