Live choice
Paul Riley picks the month’s best concert and opera highlights in the UK
LONDON Strauss’s Salome
London Coliseum, 28 September – 23 October Tel: +44 (0)20 7845 9300 Web: www.eno.org English National Opera’s new production of Strauss’s study in twisted obsession is conducted by Martyn Brabbins. Allison
Cook takes the title role, with Susan Bickley as the scheming Herodias and Michael Colvin as her haplessly besotted husband.
London Piano Festival
Kings Place, 3-7 October
Tel: +44 (0)20 7520 1490
Web: www.kingsplace.co.uk Co-curated by Charles Owen and Katya Apekisheva (see ‘Backstage with…’, right), the London Piano Festival salutes Debussy, explores Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker with pianist Alexandra Dariescu and musters seven pianists including Stephen Kovacevich for a two-piano marathon running through Adès, Stravinsky and Poulenc.
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra
Royal Festival Hall,
8 & 9 October
Tel: +44 (0)20 3879 9555
Web: www.southbankcentre.co.uk Mahler is the connecting link in two concerts conducted by the Gewandhaus’s new kapellmeister Andris Nelsons. The Fifth Symphony crowns the first, preceded by a centenary tribute to Bernd Alois Zimmermann, whose Trumpet Concerto is performed by Håkan Hardenberger. In the second, Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 follows the UK premiere of a work by Andris Dzenitis and a selection of Tchaikovsky opera arias sung by soprano Kristine Opolais.
Il Pomo d’oro Barbican, 26 October
Tel: +44 (0)20 7638 8891
Web: www.barbican.org.uk
The Barbican’s ‘Featured Instrumental Baroque Ensemble’ presents two Handel operas over its four-concert season. In May we’ll enjoy Agrippina with Joyce Didonato, but first up is Serse, featuring countertenor Franco Fagioli as the petulant Persian. Conductor Maxim Emelyanychev also directs his ensemble in concertos by Bach and
Handel the following night at St Giles Cripplegate.
SOUTH Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
The Lighthouse, Poole, 3 October Tel: +44 (0)1202 280000
Web: www.bsolive.com
Now embarking on his tenth season as the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra’s chief conductor, Kirill Karabits celebrates with a bold curtainup: Ligeti’s Lontano plus
Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony. The soloists for the occasion are soprano Lise Lindstrom and mezzo Nadine Weissmann.
Two Moors Festival
All Saints’ Church, Dulverton, 12 & 13 October
Tel: +44 (0)1392 665885
Web: www.twomoorsfestival.co.uk Pianist Yevgeny Sudbin launches this year’s Two Moors Festival with his own transcription of Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Overture plus music by Scarlatti, Scriabin and Prokofiev. The following afternoon he’s joined by cellist Alexander Chaushian for sonatas by Beethoven, Schnittke and Franck.
Oxford Lieder Festival
Oxford, 12-27 October
Tel: +44 (0)1865 591276
Web: www.oxfordlieder.co.uk
‘The Grand Tour – a European Journey in Song’ headlines the direction of travel for an enterprising itinerary encompassing late-night Debussy, Janácˇek’s Diary of One
who Disappeared and a new work by Ryan Wigglesworth. Hopping aboard are singers including Véronique Gens, Carolyn Sampson, Sarah Connolly and Toby Spence.
Keyboard Festival
St George’s, Bristol,
30 October – 7 November
Tel: +44 (0)845 4024001
Web: www.stgeorgesbristol.co.uk Pianist Mitsuko Uchida’s recital on 12 October serves as a distinguished prelude to St George’s inaugural – and agreeably eclectic – Keyboard Festival. Harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani plays Bach and Bryars, there’s Brahms and Beethoven from pianist Paul Lewis; David Owen Norris performs Mozart on Florence Nightingale’s fortepiano; and a slot is reserved for the winner of the 2018 Leeds International Piano Competition.
EAST Britten Weekend
The Maltings, Snape, 19-21 October
Tel: +44 (0)1728 687110
Web: www.snapemaltings.co.uk Youthful Korngold and the European premiere of John Woolrich’s Badinerie from A Book of Inventions are stitched into a weekend exploring Britten’s complete string quartets in performances by the Doric Quartet. The valedictory No. 3 is played twice, the first time with an adaptation for two actors of a story by Henry James.
Academy of Ancient Music
West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge, 21 October
Tel: +44 (0)1223 357851
Web: www.aam.co.uk
The BBC Singers (under newly appointed chief conductor
Sofi Jeannin) and the period instruments of The Academy of Ancient Music team up for a sacred-meets-secular evening of French Baroquerie. Motets by Lully and Rameau are supplemented by excerpts from the latter’s operas, including Les Indes galantes and Castor et Pollux.
MIDLANDS,
NORTH AND WALES City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Symphony Hall, Birmingham, 10 October
Tel: +44 (0)121 780 3333
Web: www.thsh.co.uk Kazuki Yamada’s debut concert as the CBSO’S new principal guest conductor dances the night away with Ravel’s La
Valse and Valses nobles et sentimentales, not to mention the Symphonic Dances from Bernstein’s West Side Story. Away from the dance floor, Baiba Skride is the soloist in Korngold’s film-music inflected Violin Concerto.
Janácˇek’s Glagolitic Mass
Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, 11 October
Tel: +44 (0)161 907 9000
Web: www.bridgewater-hall.co.uk Janácˇek’s opulent setting of the Old Church Slavonic Mass returns the Hallé’s erstwhile assistant conductor Edward Gardner to Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall, where he heads a team including soprano Sara Jakubiak and tenor
Stuart Skelton. It’s prefaced by Strauss’s Nietzschean tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra.
Brecon Baroque Festival
Brecon, 19-22 October
Tel: +44 (0)1874 611622
Web: breconbaroquefestival.com ‘Angels and Archangels’ furnish the theme hovering over the 2018 edition of violinist Rachel Podger’s festival, swelled by VOCES8 and The Society of Strange and Ancient Instruments among others. Bach’s Magnificat and a Baroque tea dance to Corelli and Handel on the triple harp: heavenly!
Ligeti Quartet
Leadmill, Sheffield, 31 October Tel: +44 (0)114 249 6000
Web: www.musicintheround.co.uk The Ligetis weave two late 20th-century classics – George Crumb’s Black Angels and Steve Reich’s Different Trains – into an invigorating survey including works by John Zorn, Tanya Tagaq and John Adams.
SCOTLAND
AND N IRELAND Ulster Orchestra
Ulster Hall, Belfast, 5 October Tel: +44 (0)28 9033 4455
Web: www.ulsterorchestra.org.uk Steven Osborne is the soloist as the limpid opening of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto
No. 4 counters the excitability of Rossini’s William Tell Overture in a programme capped by Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 4. Andrew Litton conducts.
Cumnock Tryst
Cumnock Old Church, 6 October Tel: +44 (0)141 332 5057
Web: www.thecumnocktryst.com The centrepiece of this year’s Ayrshire ‘tryst’ is the premiere of a new oratorio by festival director James Macmillan. Written to mark the centenary of the Armistice, All the Hills and Vales sets poems by Charles Hamilton Sorley, killed in action in 1915. Tenor Ian Bostridge, the Festival Chorus and assorted ensembles are directed by Macmillan and Eamonn Dougan.
Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Usher Hall, Edinburgh, 19 October
Tel: +44 (0)131 228 1155
Web: www.rsno.org.uk
After a Mahlerian start to its season, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra succumbs to a little Spanish sun as conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto pairs Falla’s The Three-cornered Hat and Ravel’s Boléro. The Scottish premiere of Gabriela Ortiz’s Hominum adds Mexico to the Hispanic mix.