Author: EMR2015

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Recording

Bach: St John Passion

CD cover Bach St John Passion Cantata Collective McGegan

Cantata Collective, Nicholas McGegan
114:41 (2 CDs in a card triptych)
Avie AVIE 2605

This performance of the Johannes-Passion from the Cantata Collective under Nicholas McGegan was recorded live in Berkley in Passiontide 2022, and bears the hallmarks of what to many people is their essential annual Passiontide experience: singing or playing in a live Bach Passion. Throughout its performance history from the year in which it what first written – 1724 – till the final performance in 1749, Bach used the same set of parts – revising them each time. So – apart from the second performance on Good Friday 1725 when, in the year devoted his second, chorale-based, cantata cycle – Bach made a considerable number of changes which he never used again. All subsequent performances were essentially similar and we have no means of knowing whether changes were dictated by constant trial in search of perfection, changes of circumstance, or some other external circumstance as McGegan says in his liner-notes.

The band has two upper strings to a part, so numbers fifteen in all, playing period instruments. The Collective is 12 singers, to which are added six ‘soloists’ with an independent Evangelist and Jesus in addition to those who sing the arias, none of whom – as far as I can judge – takes part in the choruses: in this sense, it is an old-style performance, with McGegan directing from the sparingly used harpsichord.

The Evangelist Thomas Cooley is ideal – nimble, and with a story-teller’s command of the German narrative; the bass who sings Jesus is clearly articulated and the basso continuo when he sings is suitably weighted. The chorus in the turba parts are a bit careful so some of the interchange in the central section before Pilate lack that edge some professional singers can bring to it, but their Lasset uns den nicht zerteilen is splendidly managed, as is the chorale in Mein teurer Heiland.

The aria tempi are moderate, and of the aria singers, the soprano is too wobbly for my taste, as is the chorus member who sings the Maid (and that goes for the top line in the chorus throughout); but the others are splendid – the Arioso Betrachte and the aria Erwege lyric and rhythmic, Eilt is well balanced and the Alto in Es ist Vollbracht sustains his line with the gamba well. The best of the arias is Mein teurer Heiland. Here the lyrical 12/8 cello obbligato is truly matched by the bass, Harrison Hintzsche, whose experience as a consort singer makes him for me the star among the solo singers.

What makes this performance so distinctive is the energy and commitment of the ensemble. We hear not just one more concert performance, but a radiant Good Friday liturgy, where John’s Gospel comes alive. From early times, it has been John’s account of the Passion that has formed the centre-piece of Good Friday’s worship, so underlining the theological truth that in the crucifixion and death of Jesus the work of redemption has been triumphantly concluded and new life has been freely offered. Bach understood this, so immediately after Jesus dies on the cross, a jaunty cello obbligato in 12/8 launches the aria Mein teurer Heiland in D major, the key of trumpets and resurrection. This sense that the crucified Christ reigns from the cross as he inaugurates his new creation pervades the whole of this recording, and McGegan’s infectious energy is almost tangible throughout. As a modern HIP version, it will not please the purists on every page, but as a record of the power of the Johannes-Passion to inspire and move, it scores highly.

David Stancliffe

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Recording

Pachelbel: Organ Works volume 3

Matthew Owens Flentrop Organ of Dunblane Cathedral
77:45
resonus RES10347

The third volume in this complete organ works by Johann Pachelbel (1653- 1706), the well-known organist in the generation before Bach who taught Johann Sebastian’s elder brother Johann Christoph, is of the same high standard as the two earlier volumes. This time the excellent Matthew Owens, a former organ scholar at Queen’s College, Oxford where he recorded his first volume in this series on James Dalton’s famous Frobenius, plays an organ of a similar style – though much larger, and so able to deliver a wider range of registrations in, for example, the Magnificat Fugues and the Aria from Hexachordum Apollonis 1669 (misspelt on p. 3 of the booklet). We continue to have the details of his registration for each track in the liner notes as we had in volume 2, which is a welcome aid to understanding Owens’ interpretation of (especially) the quarti toni Magnificat fugues and the Hexachordium aria and variations.

Anyone who wants to hear how very accomplished Owens’ playing is needs to go no further than track 3, where the very slightly unequal phrasing of the fugue subject gives shape and life with a minimal registration to what appears on the page to be a very simple subject. For the rest, Pachelbel’s 17th-century style (with its less complex choral preludes than Bach’s) is well served by this Flentrop with its large number of richly coloured ranks at both 4’ and 8’ pitch, as is more characteristic of middle and southern Germany. It is tuned however as you might expect in equal temperament, which means that the rarely used tierce ranks (as in track 8) have less ringing bite than if the Dunblane Flentrop had been tuned in a more 17th-century temperament with perfect thirds.

But I enjoyed Owens’ playing, and this series will continue to be an invaluable addition to the Pachelbel archive. We have just learned that the next two volumes are both scheduled to be recorded on the Metzler in Trinity College, Cambridge and I look forward to that greatly.

David Stancliffe

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DVD
DVD cover Mozart Don Giovanni Jarry

Robert Gleadow (bs), Arianna Vendittelli (sop), Florie Valiquette (sop), et al, Ballet, Choeur & Orchestre de l’Opéra Royal de Versailles, conducted by Gaétan Jarry
184:00
Versailles Spectacles CVS115 (DVD & BlueRay)

This video stems from performances of a new production of Don Giovanni given by the Opéra Royal in the ravishing 18th-century court theatre in the palace of Versailles in November 2023. Generously both a DVD and a Blu Ray disc are included in the package; I viewed the DVD. Having been present on the opening night, I’m disappointed that on my admittedly not-wonderful TV, the picture of the stage is considerably darker than it was in the theatre. Of course, much of Don Giovanni takes place at night or least evening so that is to be expected to some extent but this stage picture frequently lacks clarity. The set itself, unchanging but for backdrops that aid in identifying the action as interior or exterior, is a town square in roughly star shape, the buildings including a couple with galleries for such scenes as Giovanni serenading Elvira’s maid. In general, it all works well, though the Commendatore’s statue turning up on Elvira’s doorstep seems a little incongruous.

The delightful multi-hued and busily decorated costumes owe an obvious debt to the commedia dell’arte tradition and interestingly both the Don and Leporello wear near-identical clothing, maybe as a suggestion that the latter is merely a more plebeian copy of his master. The link with commedia dell’arte was also apparent in the direction by Marshall Pynkoski, whose stated intention had been to make the piece fun. And indeed much fun was elicited, notable for the sheer exuberance and dynamism of such numbers as Leporello’s ‘Catalogue’ aria (although would he have behaved toward Elvira with quite that degree of familiarity?) or the finale of Act 1, which also benefitted from the spirited choreography of Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg. Yet paradoxically the scenes that remain lodged in the mind are some of the more dramatic and serious moments. The supper scene, notoriously difficult to bring off convincingly, is outstandingly done, the swirling silvery mists around the magnificently authoritative statue of the Commendatore chilling in effect. Less commendable is the decision to allow the raucous laughter of the Don to have the final word. It contradicts the ultimate message of the opera, articulated in the words of the final ensemble: ‘This is the end that befalls evildoers’.

That the opening scene has a thrilling dramatic verve, can be not least attributed to the strongly projected Donna Anna of Florie Valiquette, who also responded to the recognition that Don Giovanni was her father’s killer with an accompagnato and succeeding aria ‘Or sai chi l’onore’ with real intensity and thrilling tone. In act 2 ‘Non mi dir’ and its preceding accompagnato bring another special moment, an oasis of stillness in the midst of manic activity. The Elvira of Arianna Vendittelli was also a performance of outstanding quality, culminating in a ‘Mi tradi’ that, with its preceding accompagnato brought another scena of interior and touching quality, a revelation of the vulnerability of a woman hopelessly in love.

The performance of Robert Gleadow as the object of that love, his first Don, occasions a more mixed reaction. Characterful and strongly and securely sung, Gleadow’s  Giovanni projects a predator of animal energy. It was much in keeping with the kind of Don most producers tend to encourage these days. Yet it is a creation that not only overlooks the fact that Don Giovanni is a nobleman, not a slob that puts his feet on the table when eating dinner but, equally importantly that Francesco Benucci, the singer for whom Mozart created the role, was renowned for the finesse and grace of his singing and acting. Interestingly, when Don Giovanni was repeated in Vienna (it was of course written for Prague), Benucci sang Leporello; it is easy to imagine Riccardo Novaro’s outstanding Leporello stepping into the Don’s shoes. As indeed also applies to Jean-Gabriel Saint Martin, whose richly rounded Masetto was a revelation, one of the best I have seen. A more general observation regarding the singing is the tasteful and appropriate decoration added. Not the least aspect of the generally favourable impression of the cast was the manner in which it responded to Pynkoski’s long experience as a director who seeks to work with gesture and historically informed theatre, much in evidence in the highly effective groupings of the ensemble numbers – the production of the great act 2 sextet was a special highlight in this respect.

It is sad to have to report that amidst this truly excellent performance a large fly lurked in the ointment. In his fine book on the birth of conducting, Peter Holman has convincingly argued that the piano never superseded the harpsichord as a continuo instrument, yet opera conductors continue to employ it. Yet rarely can the piano have been put to such damaging use as it is here, where trite teashop tinkling pervades not only recitatives but at times also the orchestral texture, most ludicrously in the Don’s canzonetta, ‘Deh, vieni’, where what is supposed to be his mandolin accompaniment enters into a forlorn duel with the fortepiano.

Notwithstanding this blot on the performance, this was a splendid achievement all round, thoroughly enjoyable and insightful. Although not always in full agreement with Pynkoski’s work, I do admire without reservation the rare integrity he brings to all he does. This Don Giovanni is no exception.

Brian Robins

Categories
Recording

JS Bach & JC Bach: Motets

CD cover Solomon's Knot Bach motets

Solomon’s Knot
Prospero PROSP0073

This recording of the Bach Motets (BWV 225-230) also includes Ich lasse dich nicht (BWV 1164 – or Anhang 159) and four by Johann Christoph Bach: Lieber herr Gott, Der Gerechte, ob er gleich, Fürchte dich nicht and Herr, nun lässet du deinen Diener in Friede fahren. These motets from the Alt-Bachisches Archiv, known to have been performed by Johann Sebastian in the last decade of his life, are performed at A=440 with a higher pitched organ, while the motets by Johann Sebastian are sung at A=415 with a slightly more substantial instrument and occasionally a large violone.

These performances are committed, with Solomon’s Knot’s characteristic off-copy style of singing, meaning that their ensemble is faultless. Their admirers will love these readings recorded in the generous acoustic of the Bachkirche in Arnstadt. There are no instrumental doublings such as Johann Sebastian provided for the funeral motet Der Geist hilft (BWV 226). Lobet den Herrn (BWV 230) is sung with the voice parts doubled, and the liner-notes refer to the possibility that the genesis of this motet (whose authenticity has sometimes been questioned and the only one where a basso continuo line is absolutely essential) may be a movement from an early cantata, re-purposed for this new use. For the rest, all is much as you would expect.

But not everyone will be content with some of the individualistic mannerisms of each singer. The continuing tradition of formation in boys’ choirs in Germany like the Thomanerchor and the Tölzer Knabenchor ensures a seamless unanimity of sound which few mixed groups of professional singers can emulate. While the two sopranos of Solomon’s Knot give their parts a controlled and pure line in Johann Christoph’s Fürchte dich nicht, in Johann Sebastian’s more complex setting they, with most noticeably the tenors, revert to the ‘one-size-fits-all’ type of voice as their fall-back mode. Notes tied over the bar-line are given a push rather than being left to float in the air, and the squeezing of long notes in a 20th-century manner give a very different overall sound to that produced by groups like Vox Luminis. Listen to the first soprano and the tenor in the Aria section of BWV 225, Singet dem Herrn, for example. Sometimes their obvious enjoyment of this great music unfetters the soloistic inner self that lurks beneath the corporate discipline demanded of all consort singers, as in bars 29ff of BWV 228, Fürchte dich nicht. BWV 229, Komm, Jesu, komm seems to fare a little better than Singet dem Herrn in this respect, perhaps because the singers are in more reflective mode. Perhaps the best performance is in Jesu, meine Freude (BWV 227) where the OVPP lines and the robust organ playing combine to give both a sense of the inherent drama and also a more convincing ensemble.

This is classic singing by highly disciplined professional singers at the top of their game. Whether you think it is a suitable vehicle for the closely wrought, highly ornamented and imitative style of Johan Sebastian’s concerto-style writing in the motets is a different question. For me, the high quality of Solomon’s Knot’s musicianship does not outweigh my sense that this style of singing often fails to deliver the clarity and unanimity of vocal sound that Bach’s intricate and instrumental style of polyphonic writing demands.

David Stancliffe

Categories
Recording

Bach sous les tilleuls

CD cover Bach sous les tilleuls

Loris Barrucand, Clément Geoffroy harpsichords
53:00
Encelade ECL2303

What music was performed under the lime trees in the Zimmermann café gardens on Wednesday 17th June 1733, when the flier for the concert by Bach’s Collegium in Leipzig advertised a new harpsichord of a kind never heard before? With this question, the two harpsichordists Loris Barrucand et Clément Geoffroy devise a programme of transcriptions for their two Goujon-based instruments – one by Émile Jobin (1983) and the other by Jean-François Chaudeurge (2014). They introduce us to their transcriptions of two of Bach’s Vivaldi-based concerti for organ, BWV 593 & 596, and end with BWV 1060, taking their model 1061 which survives in two versions – one for just two harpsichords – from which they derive the licence to make this simple version of the triple concerto in A minor (BWV 1044). 

The rest of their programme offers us some chorale preludes – Nun komm der Heiden Heiland (BWV 659), Wachet auf (from BWV 140, but one of the six Schübler Preludes, BWV 645), a transcription of the Sonatina that opens BWV 106, the Pedal-Exercitium (BWV 598) and the great Passacaglia in C minor (BWV 582) which may have been conceived for a pedal harpsichord.  

The latter is the most successful version on the disc to my mind: the clarity of the fugal writing, the echo effects and the nimble arpeggio work all score well on this pair of full-blooded harpsichords. The Pedal-Exercitium is a reminder of how strong the bass resonance of the harpsichord is; but the treble can sing too, as the other chorale preludes and the slow movements show. The playing is neat and controlled, and I am glad they chose to record their disc in the spacious acoustic of a chapel rather than outside under the lime trees of Leipzig! 

What are we to make of these versions? While not autographs by Johann Sebastian himself, they continue his practice of repurposing and adapting which is well-documented in his own re-scoring of Vivaldi’s work and his remaking of several concerti for single instruments in their presumed Köthen originals for harpsichord when he took over to the Collegium in Leipzig in 1729. One of the few bonuses of the Covid lockdown that imposed such restraints on large-scale music-making was to spur musicians into activities like this: we have a welter of chamber music versions of larger scale works, and more CDs of the Sei Soli than we could dream of, as musicians re-discovered their instruments and explored new acoustics that helped us appreciate again how essentially polyphonic Bach’s compositions are – even when they are scored for a single line like BWV 598, the Pedal-Exercitium. 

So this disc is to be welcomed, not only for its musicianship, but for its reminder of the extraordinary multi-layered sound world in which Bach composed, adapted and re-purposed his music. 

David Stancliffe

Categories
Recording

Meetings with Bach

CD cover Meetings with Bach

Emelie Roos recorder, Dohyo Sol lute
proprius PRCD2098

This is another CD that has its genesis in the Covid-19 lockdown, when musicians were constrained in their performance possibilities. It drove this pair – lutenist Dohyo Sol and recorder player Emelie Roos – outside, where they (like the harpsichordists Loris Barrucand and Clément Geoffrey in BACH SOUS LES TILLEULS which I reviewed earlier) imagined the sonorities available in the Bach household when Wilhelm Friedmann invited the lutenist Silvius Leopold Weiss to stay in 1739. They imagine that this was when Johann Sebastian improvised a free upper part to Weiss’s A major Suite for lute that was catalogued as BWV 1025.

Bach’s reported practice when playing basso continuo of improvising an additional fugal or canonic line rather than playing a conventional harmonic chord sequence is illustrated in Richard Stone’s arrangement of the 5th organ trio sonata in C (BWV 529) for his chamber ensemble, Tempesta del Mare, where Stone departs from a strict transcription of that trio sonata by introducing a fourth part for a viola, largely in canonic imitation, to supplement Bach’s three original voices. Bach’s ability to hear the implied harmonic structure of a particular melodic line is revealed by his pupil J. F. Agricola’s comment that Johann Sebastian would sometimes play one of the suites or partitas he had written for a solo instrument on a keyboard, filling out the implied harmonies:

“   …their author often played them on the clavichord himself and added as much harmony to them as he deemed necessary. In doing so he recognized the necessity of resonant harmony which in this kind of composition he could not otherwise attain.   ”

Such implied harmonies were occasionally actually written out by Bach, as in the Lute suite BWV 995 that is based on BWV 1011 (the ‘Cello Suite No. 5 in C minor) or the opening sinfonia to cantata BWV 29 which is based on BWV 1006.i (the Violin Partita 3 in E major).

This implies that the six partitas and sonatas for solo violin and the six ‘cello suites, although composed for a single instrument, are conceived primarily as compositions of a polyphonic nature, with the fugal and imitative lines being implied or suggested rather than being fully written out. This is what this duo accept as the basis of their versions, giving us a lute version of BWV 1008.

It is interesting to see these principles of implied polyphonic structures being worked out in the solo flute sonata by C.P.E. Bach – here transposed from A minor to C minor to suit the recorder. As in the lute transcription of BWV 1008, the dexterity of the players is in no doubt. We have an extended essay in “less is more” and are challenged again to take acoustics seriously as part of how we ‘hear’ the complex polyphonic structures of the 18th-century sound world in the years before every note and marking was written down in the definitive scores of printed editions. It also challenges our preconceived notions about the part that improvisation played in the music of Bach and his contemporaries as it grew beyond the improvised ‘divisions’ expected of cornetto players who were the predecessors of the violinists for whom Vivaldi wrote his concertos.

This is another CD that makes the case for enlarging our horizons as to what constitutes HIP.

David Stancliffe  

Categories
Recording

Bach: Partitas

CD cover Bach Partitas re-imagined Pinnock

re-imagined for small orchestra by Thomas Oehler
Royal Academy of Music Soloists Enseble with guests from The Glenn Gould School, directed by Trevor Pinnock
69:47
Linn CKD 730

Under the heading of Re-imagining Bach comes a project spearheaded by the Principal of the Royal Academy of Music, Jonathan Freeman-Attwood, who produced this CD for Linn with the RAM’s crack chamber orchestra in 2003. He got the harpsichordist Trevor Pinnock to direct the players in a version of the Partitas orchestrated for a small chamber orchestra of 44331 strings plus flute, oboe, cor anglais and bassoon by Thomas Oehler, following Pinnock’s masterly direction of a similar group performing Józef Koffler’s orchestral version of the Goldberg Variations.

As a preparation for the project, the group met with Pinnock to read through Oehler’s score and to hear Pinnock play and expound the music on the harpsichord. A month later, they were ready to perform and record the score in Snape Maltings, with Freeman-Attwood producing.

Unlike some of the versions of – for example – The Art of Fugue, scored by the Netherlands All-of-Bach group under Shunske Sato for a variety of period instruments and voices, this performance not only scores harpsichord music for orchestra, but uses modern rather than period instruments, so readers beware!

But – unlike many of the versions of Bach played by the long-suffering Petroc Trelawny on Radio 3’s “Bach before 7”, where listeners seem to want to hear their Bach played on almost anything except what it was actually written for – here there is much to be learned about the process of re-imagining. Two-part textures ‘are split between different instruments and surrounded by a wash of expanded harmonies’ (Pinnock) and ‘the range of orchestral colours and textures . . . did not emerge from a pre-conceived subjective idea born in the mind of a self-calculating composer, but from what the original score suggested’ (Oehler).

I recommend listening both to this CD and to the All-of-Bach The Art of Fugue online, and pondering what the experience brings: the traffic is not all one-way!

David Stancliffe

Categories
Recording

Bach: Concertos & Suite for recorder and strings

CD cover Bach Hugo Reyne Les Musiciens du Soleil

Hugo Reyne and Les Musiciens du Soleil
73:00
HugoVox 004

The experienced recorder player Hugo Reyne now lives in Les Sables d’Olone, where with his like-minded players who form Les Musiciens du Soleil, he has set up a festival and his own label, HugoVox. After a lifetime of pursuing French music of the Baroque – 11 Lully albums and 4 Rameau as a start – this CD is devoted to Bach, and he has reimagined three concertos and the Second Suite for recorder – using the two Altblockflöte that Bach wrote for in F and G.

He starts with BWV 1056 which has come down to us in a version in F minor for harpsichord, whose original form may well have been an oboe concerto from the Köthen period. He finds close similarities with Vivaldi’s recorder concerto in C minor (RV 441), and transposes it into C minor. For the second, he explores the recorder in G in an adaptation of BWV 1053, the harpsichord concerto in E transposed into C: he notes that the material was also used by Bach in cantatas 169 and 49. For the third, he steps beyond versions of harpsichord concertos to an adaption of Cantata BWV 209, Non sa che sia dolore, whose sinfonia and two arias, scored for traverso, soprano and strings are adapted for recorder and transposed up a tone into C. For the most part, the leading violin takes the vocal line in the two arias (Nos. 3 & 5), leaving the accompanying strings as they are. This reveals one of the potential weaknesses of the CD: while the viola and ‘cello/bass lines use single strings, there are three first and two second violins, so the texture is not quite as transparent as it might be with single strings all through.

There are fewer problems with the Second Suite, again transposed up a semitone into C. The French style of notes inégales is delightful in the Rondeau and Saraband, and if the 16′ bass is sometimes heavier than I would have liked, that is surely a matter of taste. He finishes the disc with a favourite encore, the Larghetto from BWV 1055, the harpsichord concerto in A.

I enjoyed the musicianship of the players and of Hugo Reyne in particular. The recorder can sometimes sound rather inflexible when compared to the traverso, but not here: it is flexible and melodically fluent in such capable hands. And his touch for how to repurpose music that has come down to us in its latest recension as harpsichord concertos, probably for the Collegium concerts in the Zimmerman Café, with shadowy pre-echoes of earlier versions seems entirely plausible. Bach reused his material in exactly this way and we should beware of thinking that the most recent version is automatically the best or most ‘finished’.

The pre-existence of trio sonata material that later found its way into concertos, organ works and many of the arias in cantatas that have come to be regarded as ‘solos’ with accompaniment should alert us to the great wealth of material which Bach was in the habit of repurposing himself when an opportunity arose.

David Stancliffe

Categories
Recording

Horn Concertos

CD cover Horn Concertos L'arpa festante Rien Voskuilen

Stephan Katte, Sebastian Fischer, L’arpa festante, directed by Rien Voskuilen
69:24
cpo 555 667-2

This is an excellent compendium of mostly double horn works, not all of which can be defined as concerti, with technically four sinfonias, including Bach’s recycling of the third Brandenburg as the introduction to BWV174. The Hoffmann work has just one horn set against oboes, strings and continuo. The two Fasch concertos (FWV LD:16 and LD:18) top and tail the whole recording, musical bookends if you will. This CD would make for a super concert programme, especially the admirable Fasch works exuding that kind of flair found in those Vivaldian pieces con molti stromenti, undoubtedly their models, with that impetus and style found in other works aimed for Dresden’s well-honed orchestra under Pisendel. The hornists here impress with both their clear articulation and fine delivery. They are technically outstanding, too, especially in the Heinichen (Seibel 209) played without stopped notes! Of course, this piece and many others by this composer were first brought wider notice by Reinhard Goebel & Co. in the 1990s in his seminal series for Archiv. One of the movements (“La Chasse”) here was appropriated by G. P. Telemann for the final Abzug-Satz  from his famous “Alster-echo” Suite (TWV55:F11) of around 1725.It is a slight shame they didn’t tackle a Telemann piece say, TWV 52:Es1 or one of the F-major double horn concertos. That said, the Hoffmann, Graupner, Stoelzel and Fasch make for a most entertaining listen, with each composer bringing their individual  style and skills in writing for this instrumentation. There are definite hunting themes along with the ducal links; if I am brutally honest, the Bach is perhaps a touch over-familiar, yet very well played. The ensemble hold their own with some lovely jaunty episodes and during the slower movements achieve that lovely Baroque introspective wistfulness.

The two horn players often sail above this keenly responsive ensemble with an unforced panache and “réjouissance” to paraphrase the Heinchen. The recorded sound is well-balanced and never offensively plush, the great cpo quality is always maintained and delivers an enjoyably euphonic exposition of this repertoire; some familiar, some new, all engaging! Warmly recommended.

David Bellinger

Categories
Festival-conference

Ambronay 2024

One of the staples of the European music festival scene, this year’s Festival d’Ambronay runs from 13 September to 6 October. The focus is on the human voice and programmes (which include several from eeemerging scheme that provides opportunities for new performers) range from madrigals to operas, and from solo recitals to full-scale choral works. Everyone at Early Music Review recommends you attend if you can! The full schedule is HERE.