If you’re a fan of the Spanish Renaissance and happen to be in London at the end of June, you won’t want to miss this exciting event! The choir is on Facebook if you want to keep up to date with their activities.
For those who can’t manage, the choir has Crowdfunded enough to make a CD, which will be available – and reviewed in due course on this website – next year.
Jane Austen’s connections with music have been long acknowledged. They are by no means without controversy and apparent contradiction, Austen’s own undoubted life-long interest in music is to a certain extent counterbalanced by her own observations such as implying that while music might be a good thing on its own terms, sitting listening to a concert might perhaps not be. Otherwise Jane’s large collection of music books, many transcriptions written in her own hand, offer an argument that might serve to arrive at a different conclusion.
Such matters were among those explored in a programme mounted to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Austen’s birth in 2025. It is being presented in various venues by The Little Song Party – soprano Penelope Appleyard and the pianist Jonathan Delbridge, who accompanies her on a Broadwood square piano dating from 1814 and which is thus an instrument that Jane Austen could have known. I suppose the correct name for their well-researched programme would be ‘lecture-recital’, but that hardly does justice to the delightfully relaxed ambiance the performers achieved in presenting it as a part of the Newbury Spring Festival at Shaw House in Newbury. The venue in itself made for a highly appropriate setting, being an Elizabethan house built in 1581, but substantially altered during the 18th century by the then owner James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos (he of Handelian fame) and subsequently several James Andrews, the last of whom takes us up to Austen’s day.
The programme juxtaposed introductions and readings with a judicious choice of music that ranged from popular ballads through folk songs and operatic ‘hits’ of the day to themes associated with contemporary films of Austen’s works and in one instance a new work especially commissioned for the concert series. This was ‘Ode to Pity’ by Donna Mckevitt, a rare example of the poetry of the novelist being set to music. Written when she was in her teens, the song captures well the wry sense of humour that would become a hallmark of Austen’s writing. It was well projected by Appleyard, who not only delivered her spoken words with winning natural charm, but whose clear, fresh-sounding soprano is ideal for this type of repertoire. This is not the kind of programme that requires a detailed critique, but it is worth noting that where needed Appleyard added appropriate ornamentation (I thought the principal theme of Gluck’s ‘Che faro’ might have been afforded a little more decoration on its repetition). Delbridge supported the singer throughout with playing of character and sensitivity, providing several solos on his own account. One of the greatest successes of the afternoon was the ‘Storm Rondo’ by Daniel Steibelt, the piece believed by one commentator to be the agitated music played by Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility to cover up her sister Elinor’s secret conversation with Lucy Steele. Delbridge’s fine playing was ideally complemented by Appleyard’s muttered reading of both parts, the dramatization deservedly bringing the house down.
The programme will be given several more times, perhaps most notably at the Jane Austen Festival in Bath in September . If you happen to be in the vicinity don’t miss this enchanting event.
Brian Robins
Given its history of rule by the Bourbons and Napoleon, neither averse to the limelight, it is no surprise that grandiosity plays no small role in French architectural and artistic history. Even so, the Hôtel des Invalides still has the power to overwhelm. It was the inspiration of the most brilliant of all the Bourbons, Louis XIV, who founded Les Invalides for all those that had seen service in his massive and long-time all-conquering army. The huge complex first opened to veterans in 1674, on one site housing a hospice, barracks, convent, hospital and factory. Home to some 4000 boarders in the 17th century, today it still serves its initial function, having needless to say gained additional fame as Napoleon’s burial place.
Among many spectacular aspects, the Grand Salon, the former council room, is especially impressive with its ornamental fireplaces, monumental chandeliers, weaponry, portraits of Napoleon III and Louis XIV and red velvet hangings. All combine to produce the elegant effect of an exceptional room. Today, Les Invalides plays host to a series of concerts, the majority of which are chamber concerts given in the opulent surroundings of the Grand Salon, thus keeping alive the institution’s long association with music, most notably as the venue of the first performance of Berlioz’s Requiem, the Grande Messe de Morts.
The concert given on 28 April by Christophe Rousset and members of Les Talens Lyriques was on a rather less ambitious scale. Entitled ‘Louis XIV au Crépuscule’(the twilight of Louis XIV) it consisted mainly of chamber works by François Couperin, concentrating particularly on three of the sonates en trio. Of these La Steinkerche was particularly appropriate in the context of Les Invalides, it having been written to celebrate the victory of Louis XIV’s forces over the Dutch in the eponymous battle in 1692, its witty evocation of the sounds of battle well portrayed by Les Talens Lyriques, as was La Superbe (1695) with its alternation of nobility and playfulness. The sonata La Visionnaire post-dates the king’s death in 1715, since it dates from 1726 and it demonstrates how far Couperin had travelled in his desire to unite elements of the French and Italian styles. All this music was played with the faultless command of idiomatic style long a hallmark of Les Talens Lyrique’s performances.
In addition to the instrumental music, the concert included vocal music sung by the exceptionally promising young bass Lysandre Châlon. The possessor of a richly rounded, well-projected bass-baritone, he impressed with his ability to communicate effectively text in cantatas and airs by Couperin and Monteclair’s striking cantata L’enlèvement d’Orithie, which relates the tale of the abduction and rape of the Athenian princess Orithyia by the north wind Boreas.
The combination of concert and introduction to Les Invalides made for an outstanding experience, but a word of caution to anyone who might think of going to a concert there. If you are not fully mobile, there is the walk across the courtyard then a considerable flight of stairs (no lifts in the 17th century) and further long corridor walks before reaching the splendour of the Grand Salon.
Brian Robins
Dunedin Consort, directed by John Butt
The Queens Hall, Edinburgh – 11 April 2025
The regular performance of the Matthew Passion by the Dunedin Consort is an annual event, with performances this year in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Perth. There is a regular clientele, in evidence from the animated exchanges in the bar before and after the performance, who know what they are coming to and appreciate it. And so they should.
John Butt directs his fine performances from the organ of coro 1, with two choirs of single voices, joined this year by a fine treble line from the RNSO Youth Chorus. His two orchestras, the first led by Huw Daniel and the second by Rebecca Livermore, include key players who have this music in their bones such as Katy Bircher, Alexandra Bellamy and Jonathan Manson, whose gamba playing in Komm, süßes Kreuz was out of this world; fluid, responsive to the voice and with that improvisatory abandon that goes with a rock-solid technique. But all the Dunedin players are expert, and with John Butt’s clear though minimal direction play together as one – there is no fussy interference from a conductor trying to show that he’s in charge, so listening and enjoying the responsibility of co-creating this remarkable music feels utterly natural – as was evident in the perfectly balanced Aus liebe, where Butt left the lingering pauses in the hands of the traverso and da caccias with the highly experienced Joanne Lunn.
Such trust among the musicians means that the players can give full attention and support to the singers, each of whom has to have both the vocal skills and the persona to manage their multiple roles and also the musicianship required to sing as a balanced consort. In this performance the singers in choir 1 were outstanding. Led by Hugo Hymas, whose voice is such pleasure to listen to and the clarity of whose diction makes the Evangelist’s part sound so effortless, I was amazed not only at his fluency – most of time (and not just in the Evangelist’s music) he was singing off-copy – but equally at his stamina: the tenor in the first choir has to sing everything in that part – solos, the Evangelist the big choruses and the turba parts as well. The others were of an equally high standard: the alto James Hall was new to me, but a perfect match in the choruses as well as a star soloist in a fluid and lilting Erbarme dich; Joanne Lunn, a seasoned singer of this music with a clean and clear voice is remarkable among international sopranos for her lack of wobble; and Ashley Riches, the bass-baritone is another singer with a dramatic and characterful voice – commanding in the part of Jesus but mellifluous in Mache dich where he was a tremendous match to the warm B flat major of the oboes da caccia, and capable of a fine and resonant low E as the final note in the opening chorus. Given their diverse voices, both the homophonic chorales and the polyphonic lines of the turba interjections were perfectly balanced, and sounded as one.
The same, alas, cannot be said for choir 2. A stunningly dramatic performance from the bass, Frederick Long, marks him out as a singer who can do both character and lyricism: whether as Petrus of Pilatus, he sung as a foil to Asley Riches; in the central section of Gerne will ich mich bequemen he presented as a Lieder singer but in the choruses he became a violone providing a secure bottom line to his choro. His Gebt mir was as good as I have heard. The tenor, Matthew McKinney, is promising with a nice easy manner and a voice that only occasionally sounded edgy as it did in the upper reaches of Geduld. The alto, Sarah Anne Champion, is a fine consort singer but has some of the more difficult lines in whole Matthew Passion in the long aria Können Tränen that follows the spikey recitative Erbarm es Gott. She set a splendid tempo, and the aria never dragged as it so easily can. I thought she was a real find for this demanding music.
The choir 2 soprano was Alys Mererid Roberts. This really isn’t music that suits her voice, and I felt for her. Even in the opening chorus, her voice – characterful and spikey, with a tight and incessant vibrato – was cutting through the ensemble, and this lack of blend was even more apparent in Blute nur. In such a small ensemble, every little discrepancy shows, and the tuning of choir 2 – based on such a good bass line – was frequently imperilled. Alys must be fun in the opera parts she is singing, but I don’t think the Matthew Passion shows her at her best.
This illustrates just how important choosing the right singers is. In small period instrument ensembles, where players frequently work together and yesterday’s students become tomorrow’s stars, people know each other well enough, and with instruments we have a pretty good idea of the sounds that work and blend convincingly. With singers, it is different. Unlike instruments, no 18th-century voices survive! Additionally, our conservatoires have few teachers who have the experience in 16th- and 18th-century singing techniques to help aspiring professional singers to learn the distinctive skills they need to sing stylishly with period instruments. So a young solo vocalist, emerging from today’s conservatoire formation as a singer, will not necessarily have the experience of how tuning, blend and even basic voice production that works with period instruments can be learned. What we do know is that in those days voices and instruments were equal partners in creating the polyphonic web of sound that Bach’s music demands.
No-one knows this better than John Butt, combining the inspiring direction of the Dunedin Consort and the playing of keyboard instruments with his role as a teacher and professor at Glasgow, continuing to research and explore how Bach’s music can be unlocked to nourish the soul and extent the horizons of our musical imagination.
David Stancliffe
Director of The Bishop’s Consort
Author of Unpeeling Bach, The Real Press, 2025
Photo © Zani-Casadio
With the onset of the Covid pandemic, the streaming of live opera became an increasingly viable and popular way not only to bring opera to an established audience unable to attend public venues, but also to open up the genre to a new audience. Opera Streaming is the name given to a seasonal programme of opera transmissions that are freely available on YouTube. Based in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy, the project draws on the productions presented in an area rich in historic theatres. Within this comparatively small region, there are no fewer than eight theatres, those of Bologna, Piacenza, Parma, Reggio Emilia, Modena, Ferrara, Ravenna and Rimini. Opera Streaming has no input into the theatre production, streaming solely without interference as an ‘onlooker’. Among the works scheduled for the 2022-23 season were new productions of Verdi’s Rigoletto (from Piacenza), Die Fledermaus, given in Italian (!), and the one to which I was invited, Vivaldi’s Il Tamerlano given in the beautiful mid-19th century theatre in Ravenna on January 14 and 15, on the latter of which the opera was streamed live.
I wrote above ‘Vivaldi’s Il Tamerlano’ but knowledgeable Vivaldians will be aware that is only partially true, since the opera is a pasticcio, one of three operas commissioned by the Accademia Filarmonica of Verona for the Carnaval season of 1735. Vivaldi had been hired as impresario for the season, so his occupation in that capacity probably accounts for the reason he put on a pasticcio, one based on a manuscript of his own, Il Bajazet. From that he took the majority of arias, but added others by Giacomelli (3 arias), Hasse (3) and Riccardo Broschi, the brother of Farinelli, who is represented by two. Vivaldi was therefore left with only recitatives to compose, including several stretches of accompagnato, most notably Bajazet’s spine-chilling denunciation of his daughter Asteria near the end of act 2. Also worth noting as being of exceptional quality is Tamerlano’s ‘Cruda sorte’, taken from Hasse’s Siroe, re di Persia of 1733, although that almost certainly had much to do with the magnificent performance it received at Ravenna. But more on that anon. Tamerlano has a libretto by Agostino Piovane that had already been set by several composers, in particular Handel (1724). It is relatively unusual among Baroque operas in having a straightforward story without subplots. It concerns the relationship between the famous Mongol emperor Timur (Tamerlano), who historically defeated the Turks and captured their Sultan, Bayezid (Bajazet). Although Tamerlano is engaged to Princess Irene, he has fallen in love with Asteria the daughter of Bajazet, who has been promised in marriage to the Greek prince Andronico. The opera revolves largely around the battle of minds between victor and loser, but encompasses the moving and powerful love of a proud father who would rather take his own life, than see his daughter become the wife of his hated enemy Tamerlano.
Ravenna’s production started with two considerable advantages: the first the presence in the orchestra pit of the local home team, the Accademia Bizantina under their director Ottavio Dantone, indisputably for some years Italy’s number one Baroque orchestra, who also made a superlative recording of Il Tamerlano some two years ago with a cast that featured the same principals. This told especially in the Tamerlano of the outstanding Filippo Mineccia, who sang throughout with thrilling power and intensity, and the equally impressive Asteria of Delphine Galou, at once a vulnerable and strong character. As Bajazet the baritone Bruno Taddia was a commanding presence, even if vocally the voice itself sounded more worn than it had done on the recording and was less impressive than that of Gianluca Margheri, who took over for the live streaming. Honours in the roles of Irene and Andronico remain in the hands of the recording artists, Sophie Rennert, whose Irene equalled that of Marie Lys for command of coloratura demanded by the role but excelled it for tonal beauty, while Marina de Liso’s outstanding fluid and gracious Andronico was also preferable to that of sopranist Federico Fiorio, though the latter deserves credit for the trill of the performance (the only one throughout apart from a brief attempt by Galou). Both Giuseppina Bridelli in the theatre and Ariana Vendittelli (on CD) were excellent as Idaspe. However, without undermining some fine singing, the point has to be made that the true stars of the performance were Accademia Bizantina, whose playing under Dantone was simply magnificent.
Rather less than magnificent was the production of Stefano Monti, who also designed the sets and costumes. The basic stage set, which incorporated a fair amount of meaningless or puzzling (take your choice) back projection, was clean and uncluttered, featuring only monumental stone columns and steps on each side of the stage. I claim no expertise on the subject of the garb of Mongol warriors, but quick research courtesy of Google suggests Monti’s are pretty authentic looking. Less authentic for an era where operas were staged with bravura magnificence and brilliance was the drab impression made by the staging, predominated as it was by greys and blacks, with the odd splash of red from time to time. Nevertheless, such caveats pale into insignificance compared with Monti’s greatest blunder. This was the decision to have each character shadowed by what was termed a dancer, but in reality was a twitching, demented marionette whose activity barely ceased. The movement not only conflicted for the majority of the time with the music, but, worse, committed the cardinal Baroque opera crime of detracting attention from a singer’s aria time after time, sufficient indeed to earn several lifetime sentences. If you wish to see for yourself, Opera Streaming’s relay will be available on YouTube for six months at the time of writing (June 2023). You can catch it HERE .
Brian Robins
It was only a fleeting visit. But even a fleeting visit to the Bach Festival in Leipzig is not to be spurned if you’ve not previously visited the city in which the majority of Bach’s greatest sacred works were composed. Their composition of course formed part of his duties as Kantor of the Thomaschule, the choir school that served to provide choristers for Leipzig’s churches, most importantly the Nicolaikirche, at that time the principal town church, and the Thomaskirche.
First impressions of 21st-century Leipzig to a new visitor are likely to be of a city positively seething with life and energy, not so surprising when one learns it is home to one of the largest student populations in Germany. This bustle and vitality spills over into the annual Bachfest, which far from being restricted to the hallowed ground of the churches in which Bach worked or concert halls includes among nearly 150 events popular concerts that take over the central market square.
This year’s festival was held under the theme ‘Bach – We Are Family’, a motto certainly appropriate for the concert I attended in the Thomaskirche on 11 June. It was given by Les Talens Lyriques under their director Christophe Rousset, with the Vocalconsort Berlin and soloists Rachel Redmond (s), Hagar Sharvit (a), William Knight (t), and Krešimir Stražanac (b-bar). As in Bach’s day, the performers were situated in the unusually spacious organ gallery, doubtless the reason we know Bach favoured the Thomaskirche for larger-scale choral works. The programme was an intriguing one, if curious by modern-day tastes. It took the form of a concert given in Hamburg by C. P. E. Bach in 1786, a concert that would be the last given by Bach’s now 72-year-old son. It appears to have served two purposes, one practical, since it was a charity concert, the other Bach’s desire at the end of his life to promote his own legacy and, unusually for the time, include historical works that served to preserve the heritage of his father and Handel, his father’s great contemporary.
Rousset’s reconstruction made little attempt at pure historical accuracy, not least because he used only the smallish choir possible in the Thomaskirche gallery (three voices per part), when accounts of the Hamburg concert tell us C. P. E employed a large choir that included amateur women singers with Bach’s professional males. Notwithstanding the use of small numbers made the performance of Credo from the B-minor Mass especially interesting to one long ago convinced by the Joshua Rifkin/Andrew Parrott argument in favour of Bach’s use of one-voice-per-part in his choral works. From where I sat in the pews facing the nave near the front of the church contrapuntal sound tended to become confused in quicker music, but sounded much better in slower music and, significantly, at its best with solo passages such as the duet ‘Et in unum’, where the sweetness of the strings was also noteworthy. It would of course be idle to try to draw too many conclusions from such a brief encounter in one place in the Thomaskirche, especially as I’m told there was more wood in the church in Bach’s day; that may well have soaked up more of the resonance. Notwithstanding it made for a fascinating, thought-provoking experience.
Credo, which having been written as part of a work designed for the Catholic court in Dresden could never have been performed in the Thomaskirche in Bach’s day, was in fact the only work of J. S’s to be included, the remainder being devoted to two excerpts from Messiah, ‘I know that my redeemer liveth’ and ‘Hallelujah’, given the context incongruously if very well sung in English. The remainder of the concert featured music by C. P. E himself, most notably in his Magnificat in D, originally composed in 1749 as an informal application to succeed his father as Thomaskantor, but here given in the version adapted for Hamburg that added three trumpets. As my illustration shows,Rousset used players employing ‘holeless’ trumpets and to exciting effect (they can be seen to the far right of the orchestra). The performances by choir and orchestra throughout were excellent, though the solo singing was more variable, the best of it coming from the outstanding young Croatian bass Krešimir Stražanac. But this was not really an occasion for detailed critical analysis, rather for this listener at least an intensely moving opportunity to hear the music of Bach and his most talented son just a few metres from where the remains of the great Kantor now lie at rest after their reburial in the chancel after the Johanniskirche was bombed in World War II.
Brian Robins
PHOTO CREDIT: Christophe Rousset directs Vocalconcert Berlin and Les Talens Lyriques in the Thomaskirche, Leipzig © Bachfest 2022
If you happy to be lucky enough to be a couple of hundred miles south east of Paris from 25-28 August 2022, don’t miss the many early music treats at the 22nd festivals. Curated by “Cité de la voix”, you can hear Handel’s “Esther”, Scarlatti’s “Stabat mater” and Reinoud van Mechelen’s critically acclaimed programme devoted to Rameau’s leading high tenor, Jéliote. Check out the festival HERE.
For obvious reasons, St John’s Smith Square is an ideal venue for a festival of sacred music for Holy Week. This Easter Festival, which took place between 10 and 17 April, featured a broad mix of repertoire from across the centuries, the concert on 14 April with the vocal ensemble Sansara and Fretwork illustrating the eclectic nature of the festival by including works by the Tudor composer Robert White and Arvo Pärt. Unsurprisingly early music was well represented, with concerts including Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater (Anna Devin and Hugh Cutting), Handel and Vivaldi (his Stabat mater, RV621 with Hilary Cronin and Cutting again, the former a Handel Festival prize winner, the latter a Ferrier award winner). Perhaps the most ambitious event was the candlelit late-night concerts by Sansara of Gesualdo’s tormented Tenebrae Responsories, given in a candlelit liturgical context over three nights. More traditional Easter fare featured in a Bach St John Passion (Polyphony and OAE under Stephen Layton), before the festival was brought to a conclusion by the Belgian-based ensemble Vox Luminus, under the unobtrusive direction of bass Lionel Meunier.
It was this concert that we were able to attend along with an audience that was disappointingly sparse given Vox Luminus’s present eminence among vocal ensembles. I suppose Westminster is perhaps not a place of choice for many potential concert-goers to be on an Easter Sunday afternoon. Sadly, too, the level of Schütz’s box-office appeal in this country is far from commensurate with his greatness as a composer, so that his profoundly affecting Musicalische Exequien was the centrepiece of the concert may also have proved a deterrent. A German requiem, the work was commissioned from Schütz for his own funeral obsequies by a German nobleman. In this performance, it was given within the context of a funeral, including the opening chorale ‘Mit Fried und Freud’ that accompanied the funeral procession into the church, and to conclude the exquisite German setting of the ‘Nunc dimittis’, which employs evocative in lontano effects, here most atmospherically brought off. It was an award-winning recording of the work in 2012 that first brought Vox Luminus to wide notice. With its alternation of tutti ensemble movements and Favoriten passages for one or more soloists, the Musicalische Exequien is ideally suited to the strengths of Vox Luminus, which over the years have cultivated the individuality of the singers, all of whom are required to undertake solo parts, within integrated ensemble singing in which the personality of each singer remains paramount. At St John’s, ensemble was further tested by a visitation to Vox Luminus of the Covid curse, necessitating several late replacements. It barely showed, the rare odd slip being of the kind that can occur at any time. Far more importantly, with the slight caveat that the ensemble’s principal soprano slightly tended to dominate the texture in ripieno passages, this was overall a deeply sensitive and moving performance that so obviously came from the heart.
Much the same can be said of the two Bach cantatas that made up the programme. Both ‘Christ lag in Todes Banden’, BWV4 and the so-called ‘Actus Tragicus’ (‘Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit’), BWV106 are among the earliest cantatas Bach wrote and works that owe more to 17th-century predecessors such as Schütz and Buxtehude than the more modern type of Italianate cantata adopted by Bach in his later Leipzig cantatas. BWV106 is a funeral cantata probably composed during Bach’s brief Mühlhausen period (1707-08) for obsequies the details of which are unknown. Scored for minimal forces – SATB ‘choir’ – here of course rightly single voices per part – with solo interjections and just pairs of recorders (instruments associated with death during this period) and viola da gambas, and continuo. More consolatory than dramatic, the performance achieved a wonderfully intimate and inward-looking perspective on death, particularly touching in the exchange between the bass and the alto soloist’s chorale that immediately precedes the final chorale.
BWV4 could not have been a more appropriate choice to round off the programme, it being a cantata for Easter Sunday, the exact year of composition also not established, though it probably dates from his Weimar period (1708-13). It is cast in the form of a set of chorale variations, the melody retained throughout the seven verses which are varied both melodically and in their scoring and vocal disposition. Meunier here went with a larger-scale reading, employing three voices per part, doubtless so as to include all his performers, which caught the vibrant celebratory nature of the cantata effectively. This richly rewarding concert was rounded off by an encore in the shape of Buxtehude’s cantata, termed ‘aria’ in manuscript sources, ‘Jesu meines Lebens Leben’, BuxWV62, which is set over an ostinato bass. The timeline between Schütz and Bach was thus neatly bridged.
Brian Robins
If you are lucky enough to be in or near Lyon on 21 March, you shouldn’t miss the first performance in modern times of an oratorio by Luigi Mancia, who was maestro di cappella in Mantua at the end of the 17th century. If you like to find out more about its re-discovery in an anonymous manuscript in Lyon’s municipal library and hear extracts (including an amazing aria accompanied by three concertante cellos!) follow this link (in French!) The performance is expected to last one and three-quarter hours, not including the interval. Tickets are available here.
Iestyn Davies (countertenor) and Elizabeth Kenny (lute) – Dowland
Richard Gowers (organ) – Handel, Tomkins, Byrd and Tallis
Friday 18 September 2020
Founded by the British cellist Guy Johnson nine years ago, the Hatfield House Chamber Music Festival was one of the relatively few events in Britain to have survived this most catastrophic of years for music making, albeit by adapting itself to the prevailing conditions. Four concerts were filmed and presented before members of the owner Lord Salisbury’s family for relay on YouTube on Friday evenings during September. They were given in several of Hatfield House’s historic and spectacular rooms, the one reviewed here taking place in the magnificent Long Gallery (pictured above) and the Armoury, the home of a historic organ built in 1609.
I have to confess to being no great enthusiast for filmed concerts (or opera for that matter), but the close links between the Cecils (the family name of Lord Salisbury) and John Dowland made the gorgeous setting unusually appropriate and fascinating. It was to the courtier Sir Robert Cecil (from 1605 the 1st Earl of Salisbury) that Dowland wrote a famous letter, a mea culpa in which he tried to excuse himself from having become involved with Roman Catholic plotters in Florence on his aborted trip to Rome. Today the letter is housed in the archives of Hatfield House, allowing Iestyn Davies to take a break from the concert (one advantage of filming) to examine it, a touching moment.
In a trailer both Davies and Elizabeth Kenny spoke of how they had found that the historic associations added a dimension to their performances, feeling that the music resounded sympathetically from their surroundings. Certainly, the acoustic of the Long Gallery was lively, giving both voice and lute ample, rounded sonority. The concert included five of Dowland’s best-known songs and a pair of galliards, those dedicated to the King of Denmark and Lady Rich, for solo lute. Given the well-established qualities of both performers, the performances were never likely to be less than highly satisfying, expectations more than fulfilled. The sweetness and beauty of Davies’ countertenor is never in doubt and here he searched beneath the surface of the texts in a way that to my mind he does not always achieve. Reservations largely concerned the slow tempos at which he took the darkest numbers, including ‘Flow my tears’ and ‘In darkness let me dwell’, which for me resulted in both taking on a measure of 21st-century sentimentality that missed on the ambiguous aspects of Dowland’s attachment to the doleful. But the beautiful messa di voce which the concluding line of each verse of ‘Flow my tears’ ended was something to treasure. Otherwise, it might have been good to have had more varied embellishment in strophic songs, particularly one with as many verses as ‘Come again sweet love’, though Davies caught its light-hearted mood to perfection.
The second part of the concert moved to the Armoury for a short recital given by Richard Gowers on the 1609 organ supplied by John Haan, a Dutchman. One of the few organs from the period to survive, it also retains the beautiful decorations by Rowland Bucket, the artist responsible for many of the interior decorations of Hatfield House. The most substantial piece Gowers played was the second of Handel’s Six Fugues, while he also included the same composer’s mimetic voluntary known as ‘Flight of Angels’, Thomas Tomkins’ odd Voluntary in D and brief works by Byrd and Tallis. The organ has an extraordinarily translucent sound, yet also an agreeable mellowness. The playing was fluent, if not without the odd mishap.
Brian Robins