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Richard Bratby

~ Classical music writer, critic and consultant

Richard Bratby

Tag Archives: The Arts Desk

April scribblings

29 Friday Apr 2016

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Birmingham Post, English Touring Opera, Gavin Plumley, Gramophone, Johann Strauss, Mozart, Opera North, The Arts Desk, The Spectator, Welsh National Opera

Twenty minutes ago in Lichfield we had a hailstorm. Now it looks like this:017

I’ve given up trying to wrap my head around the seasons because this month it’s been pretty much non-stop scribble scribble scribble, as George III supposedly said to Dr Johnson. I’ve had reviews in The Spectator for Birmingham Conservatoire’s Anglo-French triple-bill and the RAM’s May Night, reviewed a new opera and a Shakespeare celebration for The Birmingham Post and taken the road to Buxton to cover English Touring Opera’s spring season (well, 2/3 of it) for The Arts Desk. Not that I need much excuse to visit Buxton Opera House: this has surely got to be Britain’s best drive to work. Bit of RVW on the stereo: magic.

A515 Buxton

And last night I heard the UK premiere of a masterpiece – also for The Arts Desk.

On top of that, I’ve been working with The Philharmonia, Performances Birmingham, the CBSO and Warwick Arts Centre on their 16-17 season brochures. It’s a privilege to see what’s coming up next season but a couple of things are so exciting that it’s been quite hard to bite my tongue. And programme notes for two great festivals: four heavyweight programmes for Salzburg – any chance to write about Mozart is always a pleasure – and a whole raft of really wonderful English music, including some real favourites of mine, for the Three Choirs (it’s in Gloucester this year, btw).

Those came courtesy of two great colleagues, Gavin Plumley (he’s got a Wigmore Hall debut coming up and knowing the care and expertise he brings to everything he does, it should be superb) and Clare Stevens, who’s currently blogging the story of her grandmother’s experiences in the Easter Rising of 1916: a really remarkable piece of family history. I’ve also written about a couple of fascinating programmes for the Wigmore Hall and the Barbican and an article on Verdi’s Falstaff for the CBSO’s in-house magazine Music Stand. And did you know that Arthur Bliss wrote a Fanfare for the National Fund for Crippling Diseases? Don’t ask…

And that’s not to mention my most exciting project so far for Gramophone: a reassessment of Carlos Kleiber’s classic 1976 recording of Die Fledermaus, co-written (to my astonishment and awe) with one of the greatest living experts on operetta, Andrew Lamb. A huge privilege and actually enormous fun; I think it’s being published in the July edition, though meanwhile Gramophone has been keeping me busy with everything from Johann Strauss and Balfe to Cecil Armstrong Gibbs. Full list here. They know me too well already…

Anyway, tonight it’s Mark Simpson’s new opera Pleasure at Opera North (for The Spectator); the next few weeks of opera-going will take me to Guildford, Cardiff, Wolverhampton and Glasgow, so if I’m quiet again for a bit, my apologies.

What I did in February (bits of it)

02 Wednesday Mar 2016

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Gramophone, Monocle, Programme Notes, Reviews, The Arts Desk, The Birmingham Post, The Spectator

Lichfield Snow

Since I posted at the end of January, I’ve written programme notes on the following works. I’ve also published reviews in Gramophone, The Spectator, The Arts Desk and a few times in The Birmingham Post. And – for reasons that still remain unclear to me – appeared on Monocle Radio. This is why I’ve been a bit remiss with the blog. I’ll try to be better…

Albeniz: Suite Espagnole

Bach: D minor Chaconne

Bartók: Violin Concerto No.1

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No.2

Beethoven: Piano Sonata in D minor (“Tempest”)

Beethoven: Piano Trio Op.70 No.2

Brett Dean: Wolf-Lieder

Bridge: Two Old English Songs

Britten: Frank Bridge Variations

Bruch: Eight Pieces Op.83

Debussy: Images

Delius: The Song of the High Hills

Falla: Fantasia Baetica

Glazunov: Grand Adagio from “Raymonda”

Haydn: Fantasia in C

Holst: Song of the Night

Honegger: Pacific 231

Lalo: Symphonie Espagnole

Mendelssohn: Violin Sonata in F (1838)

Oliver Knussen: Ophelia Dances

Rodgers and Hammerstein Gala

Rodrigo: Fantasia para un gentilhombre

Scarlatti: Five Sonatas

Schubert: Rosamunde incidental music

Schubert: Four Moments Musicaux

Schumann: Marchenerzahlungen

Sibelius: Symphony No.5

Sibelius: The Swan of Tuonela

Sibelius: Violin Sonatina

Stravinsky: Four Norwegian Moods

Symphonic Disco Spectacular

Vaughan Williams: A Pastoral Symphony

Vaughan Williams: Linden Lea

Vaughan Williams: Symphony No.4

Vaughan Williams: Tallis Fantasia

Walton: Richard III – Prelude

Waxman: Carmen Fantasy

 

So that was January…

31 Sunday Jan 2016

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CBSO, Grieg, Halle, Liverpool Philharmonic, The Arts Desk, The Spectator, Wigmore Hall

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Bit of a jolt to notice the date – and I realise I’ve been rather quiet on here this month. It’s not that I haven’t been up to anything; it’s that I’ve had my hands gratifyingly full – this is peak season for copywriting and some of my best clients have been launching some very exciting projects, which tends to keep me busy.

My pre-Christmas review of the Royal Opera’s Eugene Onegin appeared in The Spectator a couple of weeks back, and next week I’ll be reviewing Mozart revivals at Opera North and English National Opera. I wrote a piece for The Arts Desk on the CBSO’s thinly-veiled public audition of Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla; whether or not (as many audience members and all the critics in Birmingham are hoping) they offer her the vacant music-directorship (and the CBSO players have strong opinions of their own, often far-removed from what audiences and critics think), I’m in no doubt that she’s a hugely impressive and serious artist, with musicality just streaming out of her fingertips.

Omer Meir Wellber seems to be regarded as another front-runner: he’s a strikingly intelligent artist with something powerful to say (qualities not always valued in the UK), and would also be a fascinating appointment. At least that’s how it sounds from the stalls. The players may feel differently, and if we suddenly heard that either Nicholas Collon or Andrew Gourlay was the anointed one; well, that’d be no bad thing either. But a lot of the rumours that are floating around are transparently nonsense (when dealing with Birmingham, you can generally discount any speculation that originates in London): we’ll just have to wait and see.

Meanwhile, I’ve been delighted to acquire some new clients since the New Year: including the Halle, the Yehudi Menuhin International Violin Competition and Gramophone – hugely excited to be working for them.  I’ve also been working on sleeve notes for Warner Classics’ next Rattle / CBSO box set – an enjoyable pretext to catch up with my old colleague Peter Donohoe, who always has something thought-provoking to say. I popped up to Liverpool and saw the astonishing backstage transformation of my favourite concert hall in the world, the beautiful Philharmonic Hall. I wrote a concert script for Margherita Taylor – fun job. And there was a substantial programme note for a major concert at the Wigmore Hall – something to really get my teeth into.

And purely for pleasure, we took in the live New York Met cinema relays of The Pearl Fishers and Turandot (eye-popping) – the baristas at the Tamworth Odeon branch of Costa are starting to recognise us – and drove over to Sheffield for the last night of The Crucible’s production of Show Boat, a musical I’ve wanted to see on stage for a very long time.

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Seems a very long time since we were in Bergen for new year, clambering around Grieg’s house at Troldhaugen – closed and completely deserted, and somehow all the more magical for it – on a clear but icy Norwegian morning. By pure coincidence, I was writing about Grieg’s C minor Violin Sonata as soon as I returned. He’s a composer I can’t help loving, and the more I listen, the more fascinated – and moved – I am by his music. I’d like to have the chance to write more about him – anyone..?
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One concert, two write-ups

21 Monday Dec 2015

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Birmingham Post, Christmas, Ex Cathedra, Reviews, The Arts Desk

Ex Cathedra candlelight by Neil Pugh 2

I’ve got two new reviews up today, both of the same concert. I knew that the annual Christmas Music by Candlelight concerts in Birmingham’s Georgian St Paul’s Church would be worth the effort: our Lichfield neighbour Jeffrey Skidmore never fails to come up with a programme that offers more than enough to write about, even with two completely different reviews to fill. So here’s the short review I wrote for the general readership of The Birmingham Post, and the more extended piece for the The Arts Desk.

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Jeffrey Skidmore – photograph by Adrian Burrows

As ever, I could easily have written another 1000 words for both – and that’s without describing the delicious mulled wine that we were kindly offered by the retired Ex Cath veteran who shared our pew!

On the Road

23 Monday Nov 2015

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Amati Magazine, Birmingham Post, Glyndebourne, Opera North, The Arts Desk, The Spectator, Welsh National Opera

Milton Keynes

Oh b*gger, that’s Christmas and it’s coming straight at us.

November was looking quiet; then a couple of emails and suddenly I haven’t blogged for over a fortnight. In the last 9 days I’ve somehow found myself seeing four different operas in three different cities, playing Rachmaninoff’s The Isle of the Dead and squeezing in a bit of contemporary music too. Here’s what I’ve been up to when not at my desk:

– Visits to the Royal College of Music, Birmingham Conservatoire and Guildhall School of Music and Drama for my ongoing Amati Magazine survey of string departments at the UK’s music colleges. The RCM article is here.
– Glyndebourne on Tour‘s Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail at Milton Keynes (review forthcoming in The Spectator)
– Birmingham Contemporary Music Group for The Birmingham Post and The Arts Desk (plus the discovery that the composer Patrick Brennan is a really impressive new voice)
– Welsh National Opera’s I Puritani for The Birmingham Post
– Opera North’s Jenufa in Nottingham (also for The Spectator – watch this space!)
– Welsh National Opera’s Sweeney Todd for (I thought) the Birmingham Post, though it actually appeared in the Mail. And my feature-length preview of the same show popped up there too.
– and then playing the cello badly in a programme of Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev and Elgar with my old friends at the Wrexham Symphony Orchestra. At last my arm is complete again!

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WNO’s Sweeney Todd: I could murder a pie

Plus I’ve been writing about James Bond for the CBSO, Ligeti for the Barber Institute, and some fun seasonal programmes for West End International and the RLPO; not to mention some exciting projects with the LPO, RPO and Ulster Orchestra, including an enjoyable chance to spend some quality time with Johan Wagenaar’s wonderful Cyrano de Bergerac overture (give it a try).

Anyway, that’s why I’ve been quiet.  Then I looked up and…it’s basically one month to Christmas. Oh, b*gger.

 

 

 

 

 

 

English Touring Opera in Malvern

26 Monday Oct 2015

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Elgar, English Touring Opera, Malvern, The Arts Desk, The Tales of Hoffmann

I made three trips to Malvern on successive days last week, to cover English Touring Opera’s delicious all-French autumn programme in its entirety. I’m glad I did, mostly because their new production of The Tales of Hoffmann (I’m a massive sucker for operetta composers going “straight”) was an absolute zinger. My review of The Tales of Hoffmann and Massenet’s Werther is here, and of Pelleas et Melisande, here.

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But also because as the afternoon sun vanished over Herefordshire it lit up the Malvern Hills like a beacon, and I was able to make a very long-planned trip to the grave of Sir Edward Elgar, his wife Alice and his daughter Carice. It’s clear that there’s a fairly regular stream of visitors, which, in a small way, is a happy thought. He’s where he wanted to be – and people still care.

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Quote of the Week

03 Saturday Oct 2015

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Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Harry Kessler, Richard Strauss, Salome, The Arts Desk

Zinger here from the diaries of Count Harry Kessler – 6 September 1915:


The man without leisure as the greatest obstacle to culture. The man (be he a staff officer, stockbroker, industrialist, scholar) whose profession leaves no time for him to be alone with himself, and so becomes a man without a soul or a heart. This type is seizing exclusive control of the world for itself. Precisely his competence makes him dangerous.


Salome - BSO - Kim Begley (left), Lise Lindstrom (right), photo Kevin Clifford copyright BSO

Photo by Kevin Clifford, (c) BSO

In other news…reviewed Richard Strauss’s Salome last night, in a brave concert performance by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. There really shouldn’t have been any empty seats in Symphony Hall. My review is here.

Full Ahead

25 Friday Sep 2015

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Amati Magazine, Birmingham Post, Carl Nielsen, CBSO, Christopher Morley, Cristian Macelaru, Royal Academy of Music, Royal Danish Orchestra, Simon Trpceski, The Arts Desk

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After 20 years in the business, you’d think I’d be used to it – but the new season has kicked in with a vengeance, and suddenly I haven’t a spare moment. That meant two separate reviews last week of the Birmingham concert by my charming hosts in Denmark back in June – Birmingham Post here and The Arts Desk here, and this week, yesterday’s season opener by my old colleagues at the CBSO.

Simon Trpceski was the soloist, and he was as glorious as we’ve come to expect.  But we’re well into the post-Nelsons interregnum in Birmingham now and the conductor – Cristian Macelaru – was new both to me and to Brum. I have to say, I liked him. OK, I wasn’t picking up “music director” vibes from the friends I spoke to in the orchestra, but I think everyone was still pretty impressed. Review here.

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And on Wednesday, I made my first ever visit to the Royal Academy of Music in connection with an exciting new project I’m working on for The Amati Magazine. Watch this space for more details of that, but meanwhile, I had no idea that the Academy itself was such a shrine to musical history. It’s got a lovely little public museum (why did no-one ever tell me about this before?): Mendelssohn’s letters, Maxwell Davies and Michael Kamen manuscripts, Ligeti and Tavener autographs – plus the manuscript score of The Mikado.

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And the college building itself is a real treasure house of music-related paintings and sculpture. They’ve got the stone composers’ busts rescued from the rubble of Queen’s Hall when it was bombed. They’ve got paintings of the Griller Quartet and Harrison Birtwistle.

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They’ve even got John (or “Giovanni” as he was then) Barbirolli’s baby-violin and waistcoat. And a whole room devoted to the saucy bedroom exploits of Harriet Cohen and Arnold Bax. OK, not quite. But apparently there’s a Chagall in there. I’m determined to get back in there some time soon, purely to have a proper look.

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Meanwhile: my Birmingham Post boss, mentor and colleague Chris Morley – the Midlands’ pre-eminent music critic for well over 30 years – has taken the plunge and joined Twitter.  Follow him on @cfmorley47

Presteigne Festival

02 Wednesday Sep 2015

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Birmingham Post, Charlotte Bray, David Matthews, George Vass, Presteigne Festival, Stephen Johnson, Symphony Hall, The Arts Desk

For me, the last weekend of August has traditionally been the time when I take a deep gulp, and look straight into the oncoming headlights of the new concert season. This is it, the party’s over – no sleep till Christmas and a range of mountains to climb first. This year is different: it’s an inexpressible relief, and genuinely inspiring, to be standing on the brink of a new season, and to think of all the fantastic concerts to go to, and the seriously exciting writing projects I’ve got ahead.

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And there could have been no nicer way to say farewell to the summer Festival season than with two visits deep into the Welsh Borders, for the Presteigne Festival. Presteigne is one of those small Marches towns that, deprived of its railway half a century ago, has cheerfully reasserted itself. Like Ludlow to the east and Hay on Wye a couple of valleys to the south, it’s acquired a remarkable subculture of resident artists, foodies, craftspeople and writers determined to make the place thrive. Quirky little bookshops, creaky old coaching inns, artisan bakers, new-age bead shops and family butchers, all clustered round a couple of streets and set against rolling hills. It’s the kind of place that makes you wish you owned a muddy Labrador.

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It’s also got an arts festival with serious ambition. The Festival is chamber-scale – the size of St Andrew’s Church puts a natural ceiling on what can be done. But under George Vass’s artistic direction, there’s no ceiling on the quality of the artists who perform, or the Festival’s commitment to contemporary music. Presteigne has quietly become the pre-eminent showcase for a certain kind of British new music which, if you wanted to label it (and there’s nothing dogmatic about Vass’s approach) might be called post-post-war: composers of the quality of David Matthews (who was in the audience last night), Cecilia MacDowall, Robin Holloway, Anthony Payne, Michael Berkeley (who lives just over the hill in Knighton) and the late John McCabe, to whose memory last night’s concert was dedicated. My review of that concert will appear in The Birmingham Post shortly.

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As I said, though, there’s no dogmatism about Presteigne: the Festival opened last Thursday with a strikingly contrasted double bill of chamber operas by Thomas Hyde and the superb Charlotte Bray, one of the boldest and most original voices on the current scene. My review for The Arts Desk is here. The point is, that in this tiny Marches town, these concerts – all of which contained new music, and many of which featured substantial premieres – played to a full house (well, church). And that both before and after the concerts, audience members could be heard praising, abusing, discussing and enthusing over these works in pubs and restaurants around the town. (Oh, and no-one clapped between movements either).

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That’s the nice thing about Presteigne: the town’s small enough and the atmosphere is so welcoming that as an audience member, even for one night, you feel like you’re taking part. I was delighted to see some dear colleagues there –  Clare and David Stevens, who live in Presteigne and seem to turn their home into a hotel for itinerant musicians during the Festival, and Stephen Johnson (who lives near Hereford), with the terrific news that one of his orchestral works is to be played at Symphony Hall next spring. I’d wondered about the Presteigne Festival for years; now I’ve finally made it down the valley and across the border, I have a feeling I’ll be going again.

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Lobster, chips and G&S

17 Monday Aug 2015

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Amati Magazine, BBC Proms, Edinburgh Festival, Gilbert and Sullivan, Glazunov, Jamie Phillips, LPO, Mahler, RLPO, The Arts Desk, The Spectator, Vaughan Williams

By mid-August, concert life in the UK has narrowed down to two basic locations: the Edinburgh Festival, and the Royal Albert Hall. Having already been to the Proms, I wasn’t planning on going to Edinburgh until ten days ago and out of the blue I received a review commission that…well, let’s just say I couldn’t refuse. Watch this space for more details.

A lot’s changed in Edinburgh since I last went to the Festival in 2004. The new trams, whatever their troubled history, are a huge asset to the city, and very handy indeed when sky-high August hotel prices have driven you out to the wilds of Haymarket. But it’s still just as hard to find somewhere decent to eat when you’ve emerged from a show that finishes at 10.30pm – and at my advanced age, my preferred Edinburgh late-night snack of deep-fried white pudding is no longer an option. Nor too is lobster and chips, at least not every day. Sadly…

Street Food, Edinburgh Festival style.

Street Food, Edinburgh Festival style.

And the place is still as maddening and exhilarating as ever in Festival season. I was delighted to bump into my colleague Anna Picard for the first time in person (rather than on Twitter) and I managed to duck out of the mayhem of the Royal Mile for a couple of hours for an afternoon catch-up and pint with a particularly brilliant conductor friend – bringing the Halle Youth Orchestra to town as part of a summer tour.

At the Edinburgh Festival, even the graffiti is meta.

At the Edinburgh Festival, even the graffiti is meta.

Anyhow – watch this space for my Edinburgh report. Meanwhile, we headed up the road again to beautiful Buxton to raid Scrivener’s bookshop (surely the only second-hand bookshop in the UK equipped with a fully-functioning harmonium) and see HMS Pinafore – it being a basic maxim of mine never to miss a chance to see G&S done professionally. Happily, at The Arts Desk, I have an editor who understands exactly where I’m coming from.

Scrivener's bookshop, Buxton.

I’ve also been writing about Berio’s Folk Songs and Vaughan Williams’ Eighth Symphony for the RLPO, and interviewing Vladimir Jurowski about Mahler for the LPO’s in-house magazine – always an astonishingly insightful and provocative (in the best possible way) interviewee. Oh and my official birthday tribute to my beloved Alexander Glazunov has gone live on The Amati Magazine – a bit of self-indulgence, very generously indulged by my terrific editor Jessica Duchen. Next stop: Rachmaninoff, Martinu and Rebecca Clarke!

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