Handel
graham.rickson
Ravel: The Complete Works with Piano François-Xavier Poizat, Philharmonia/Simone Menezes et al(Aparté)Ravel was by no means a prolific composer but, including absolutely everything in his catalogue that includes piano, François-Xavier Poizat’s collection stretches to six CDs. Even as someone pretty familiar with Ravel there was lots here I was finding for the first time, alongside much-loved favourites like Le Tombeau de Couperin and Valses Nobles et Sentimentales.Lots of Ravel’s orchestral pieces (including the two just mentioned) started out as piano pieces which he later orchestrated Read more ...
Rachel Halliburton
The Wild Arts Ensemble was founded by Orlando Jopling in 2022 to create a dynamic, pared-back style of performance in which, as he put it, the “costumes, set and props… can be packed up into a couple of suitcases that we can take with us on the train”.Part of the aim, as with an increasing number of ensembles these days, is to tour in a way that’s more environmentally sustainable, but it’s also resulted in fresh and vivid re-readings of classics that are igniting enthusiasm around the country.This production of the Messiah is currently the jewel in their crown, a supple, energetic Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
When does a concert become a ceremony? You generally visit the Barbican for art rather than ritual. Yet, during the Academy of Ancient Music’s performance last night, the bulk of a packed house still stood up for the “Hallelujah” that closes the second part of Handel’s Messiah.This charming, or plain odd, British folk-tradition supposedly derives from George II having done the same in 1743 – although there’s no evidence that the monarch ever rose to the occasion. In any case, it indicates that many of those who rightly love Messiah still treat it as much more than an especially fine Baroque Read more ...
Rachel Halliburton
Last time I saw the lovelorn Cyclops from Handel’s richly turbulent cantata, Aci, Galatea e Polifemo, he was in a warehouse at Trinity Buoy Wharf earlier this year, posturing moodily as an Italian film director. The London Handel Festival’s specially commissioned Aci by the River seemed to have found the ideal form in which to explore this tale of thwarted desire for modern audiences; a dark tale of #MeToo woe in an alienated urban setting.Yet the ebullient, passionate performance delivered by La Nuova Musica at the Wigmore Hall last night proved that when it comes down to it, there’s simply Read more ...
David Nice
The Proms’ Indian summer of big visiting orchestras is over – and what a parade it’s been – but renewal hit on the last Saturday before the Last Night with a rainbow of choral concerts, from the 26 voices of The Sixteen (yes, counter-intuitive, I know) and the 33 of the Jason Max Ferdinand Singers to 250 from six choirs as crisp as a small ensemble under John Butt in a Messiah with a difference.Parry’s “I Was Glad” made sense as the beginning of the end, in a good way (though with some rather bizarre organ stops pulled out by Simon Johnson). It was always the choice for my church choir’s last Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
The Academy of Ancient Music, which celebrates its “golden anniversary” this season, got going just as Handel’s operas began to leave the library at last and reclaim the stage. There they continue to flourish, dazzle and move – which makes any concert performance of them a slightly bittersweet pleasure.At the Barbican, the AAM’s Orlando boasted sumptuous luxury casting, headed by countertenor Iestyn Davies as the love-maddened warrior, and adorned by four other hugely gifted singers along with the savoury period sounds produced by director-harpsichordist Laurence Cummings and his crew. Read more ...
David Nice
How much better can a classic get? Sebastian Scotney more or less asked the same question on theartsdesk the last time Giulio Cesare returned in triumph to Glyndebourne. I never saw David McVicar’s justly famous production of what has to be Handel’s most consistently inspired opera live before, but I wonder if every single number can ever have been applauded, as it was last night.Less than a month ago, Ireland’s Blackwater Valley Opera Festival also flourished a Cesare, a much more heavily cut version but strongly cast and just about as good as it could be on a limited budget and rehearsal Read more ...
David Nice
Recreating Handel’s Egypt with a first-rate cast on the summer opera scene could have been the exclusive domain of Glyndebourne, bringing back its revival of David McVicar’s celebrated Giulio Cesare in July. Yet over the Irish sea, in the grounds of a castle with exquisite gardens above the lushly wooded valley of the river Blackwater, they’ve pulled it off. This is a singular triumph of which Caesar would be proud.Modest budgeting means a spare but effective and unfussy production from Tom Creed which brings out the best in everyone, and the Irish Baroque Orchestra under Nicholas McGegan, no Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
“Site-specific” performance locations rarely come more atmospheric, or evocative, than this one. Beyond the East India Dock basin, with the hedgehog-backed dome of the O2 looming just across the Thames on a gusty spring evening, a cavernous “chain store” abuts the Trinity Buoy Lighthouse. For the London Handel Festival, director Jack Furness transforms this haunting (and haunted) chunk of early-Victorian dockland architecture into the studios of “Cyclops Pictures”. Here the renowned (if moody) auteur Paolo Polifemo will rehearse and shoot a film based on Ovid’s story (from the Metamorphoses) Read more ...
Peter Whelan
There's something undeniable about the way music can weave itself into the fabric of our lives, shaping our passions and leaving an indelible mark on our journeys. For me, this magic has been particularly intertwined with the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra. My first encounter with them, back in 1992, wasn't live in a concert hall, but rather through the flickering screen of a television.A Proms performance of Handel's monumental oratorio Israel in Egypt had captivated me so completely that I, a wide-eyed teenager, felt compelled to record it onto a VHS tape. I watched it on repeat, immersing Read more ...
David Nice
“Spring Awakenings” promised as the theme of this year’s London Handel Festival began with a big if messy vernal bouquet of “Alleluia"s and “God Save the King”s. Esther, Handel's first London oratorio, seemed like an appropriately jubilant way to celebrate Laurence Cummings' 25th and final year as festival director.That meant cramming more than 60 musicians in to the east end of the not exactly commodious St George’s Hanover Square, and some curious balances for many of us in the packed church. I got an earful of the four oboes, with attendant squeaks from time to time, and their pulsing Read more ...
Laurence Cummings
At the time of writing, rehearsals are well under way for the London Handel Festival 2024. It’s a big year for me as it’s my 25th and final year as Musical Director.Though preparations are keeping me very busy, I have found the odd quiet moment to reflect on the last 25 years. In fact it was 31 years ago that Denys Darlow first asked me to play in the LHF. He was organist of St George’s Hanover Square, and he loved to perform and record Bach Cantatas for BBC Radio 3, until one day a member of the public came up to him and said “You’ve got a bit of a cheek, performing Bach’s music in Handel’s Read more ...