Live choice
Paul Riley picks the month’s best concert and opera highlights in the UK
Passiontide at Merton
Merton College, Oxford, 31 March – 2 April
Web: ticketsoxford.com
Merton’s weekend of solo, chamber and choral performances kicks off at Friday lunchtime with violinist Bojan Čičić and organist François Cloete in Biber’s New Testament-inspired Rosary Sonatas. The King’s Singers drop in later that evening for a Passiontide-themed recital, while Saturday brings organist Matthew Owens in the world premiere of Howard Skempton’s Preludes and Fugues Book II.
Easter Festival
St John’s Smith Square, London, 2-7 April
Web: sjss.org.uk
St John’s seasonal celebration includes JS Bach’s St John and
St Matthew passions, the former reuniting Stephen Layton’s choir Polyphony and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. There’s more Bach, too, as the Tenebrae ensemble pairs three of the motets with works by James Macmillan, whose Kiss on Wood, written for violinist Madeleine Mitchell, is included in her recital which opens the six-day festival.
Sinfonia Cymru
Riverfront, Newport, 5 April Web: sinfonia.cymru
When it comes to its Newport lunchtime series, the members of Sinfonia Cymru are not ones for reheating the over-familiar. Slimmed down to just four players, they crown string trios by Jean Françaix and Dobrinka Tabakova with Arensky’s Op. 35 String Quartet – scored, unusually, for violin, viola and two cellos.
Dunedin Consort
Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, 6 April Web: dunedin-consort.org.uk
In the Bach household, Johann Sebastian’s St Matthew Passion was fondly known as the ‘great Passion’ – little wonder, give that it’s scored for two choruses each with its own orchestra, plus a boys’ choir. John Butt conducts his Dunedin forces with Andrew Tortise as the narrating Evangelist.
Snape Easter Weekend
The Maltings, Snape, 7-9 April Web: brittenpearsarts.org
After his solo Bach recital, harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani joins oboist Nicholas Daniel and soprano Anna Davis for a concert including Handel, Elena Langer and a new piece by Michael Berkeley. To end the weekend, Solomon’s Knot perform Bach’s
St Matthew Passion from memory.
IMS Prussia Cove
Community Centre, Marazion, 8 April
Web: i-m-s.org.uk
Launching the Cornish spring tour by participants at the International Musicians’ Seminar, cellist Steven Isserlis leads a concert featuring fellow mentors in works by Boccherini, Garth Knox and György Kurtág, among others. Violinist Arisa Fujita joins the ensemble for Shostakovich’s Piano Trio No. 2.
Ensemble Renard
St Eanswythe’s Church, Folkestone, 13 April
Web: folkestonenewmusic.com
Ahead of appearances at Chipping Campden and Aldeburgh, the wind quintet enlists bass clarinettist Luke English for a programme that pays 80th-birthday tribute to composer John Woolrich with The Iron Cockerel Sings. Works by Birtwistle, Philip Cashian,
Ligeti and Hans Abrahamsen plus Janáček’s Mládí follow. (See ‘Backstage with…’, right).
Sestina
Fisherwick Presbyterian Church, Belfast, 14 April Web: sestinamusic.com
There’s Baroque pomp and circumstance aplenty as Sestina scours the Courts of Europe to unearth music fit for a king – or, in the case of JS Bach’s Cantata BWV 29, a demanding town council. Handel’s Zadok the Priest and Sing unto the Lord square up to Lully’s jubilant Te Deum.
Ludlow English Song Weekend
St Laurence’s Church, Ludlow, 14-16 April ludlowenglishsongweekend.com
Soprano Carolyn Sampson is among the singers Shropshirebound for the annual festival devoted to the joys of English song. Not that interlopers are unwelcome – Fauré, Debussy and Duparc all gild the opening recital, and a piano trio arrangement of Debussy’s La mer lures pianist and artistic director Iain Burnside into non-vocal waters.
Apollo’s Fire
St Martin-in-the-fields, London, 15-17 April
Web: stmartin-in-the-fields.org
Jeannette Sorrell’s Ohio-based period instruments ensemble undertakes a three-concert residency that celebrates Vivaldi and Uccellini before decamping to St Martin’s crypt for a 17thcentury pub crawl imbibing Sephardic love songs and Scottish laments. The final concert explores the Jewish and African diasporas, including music by Monteverdi and Salamone Rossi.
Patricia Kopatchinskaja
Barbican, London, 16 April Web: barbican.org.uk
The violinist bids farewell to her Barbican ‘Artist Spotlight’ in the company of Ensemble Resonanz and soprano Anna Prohaska. From Hildegard von Bingen and Walther von der Vogelweide to György Kurtág and Crumb, ‘Maria Mater Meretrix’ surveys nearly 1,000 years of music inspired by the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalen.
Royal Opera House
Covent Garden, London, 17 April – 4 May
Web: roh.org.uk
Directed for its UK premiere by Simon Stone, Kaija Saariaho’s Innocence examines the fall-out, ten years down the line, from a mass killing. Markus Nykänen is the bridegroom harbouring a dark secret; Lilian Farahani is his bride. Susanna Mälkki conducts.
The Sixteen
Hereford Cathedral, 19 April Web: thesixteen.com
From Truro to Edinburgh, Llandaff to Cambridge, Byrd’s 400th anniversary has not escaped the attention of The Sixteen’s annual Choral Pilgrimage. Under Harry Christophers, six choice masterpieces including Ne irascaris/civitas sancti tui and Vigilate are leavened with de Monte, Clemens non Papa and two specially commissioned pieces by Dobrinka Tabakova.
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
City Halls, Glasgow, 20 April Web: glasgowconcerthalls.com
Hogmanay and Burns Night might be over, but the saltire flutters proudly over the orchestra’s ‘Sound of Scotland’ concert conducted by Martyn Brabbins. New works by James Macmillan and Brabbins himself are spliced with Judith Weir’s Heroic Stroke of the Bow, Iain Hamilton’s Bookof-genesis-inspired Clarinet Concerto and the Creation Symphony by William Wallace. The clarinettist is Robert Plane.
English National Opera
Coliseum, London, from 20 April Web: eno.org
A tale of race and conflicted loyalties featuring bass-baritone Michael Sumuel and tenor Zwakele Tshabalala as the father and son, Jeanine Tesori’s 2019 opera Blue is directed by Tinuke Craig and conducted by Matthew Kofi Waldren.
Ulster Orchestra
Ulster Hall, Belfast, 21 April Web: ulsterorchestra.org.uk
Conductor-clarinettist Michael Collins multi-tasks in Judith Bingham’s Clarinet Concerto (which Collins premiered last summer) and Lutosławski’s
Dance Preludes. They’re framed by Ginastera’s Variaciones Concertantes and a suite from
Falla’s El Amor Brujo.
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Brangwyn Hall, Swansea, 21 April
Web: bbc.co.uk/now
The orchestra is living the American dream, what with atmospheric Ives and Harmonielehre, John Adams’s fantasy-filled 1985 love letter to tonality. They’re separated by Szymanowski’s Violin Concerto
No. 1, with Bomsori Kim as soloist. Ryan Bancroft conducts.
JACK Quartet
Wigmore Hall, London, 22 April Web: wigmore-hall.org.uk
Proud champions of contemporary music, the American JACK Quartet doesn’t let the grass grow under its feet. A three-concert marathon is slotted into a single day, with the central concert devoted solely to US composer Catherine Lamb’s divisio spiralis. Seventieth-birthday nods to John Zorn illuminate the flanking programmes, which include works by Helmut Lachenmann and Erin Gee.
Ruby Hughes
LSO St Luke’s, London, 27 April Web: lso.co.uk
The Mediterranean Baroque informs Radio 3’s current lunchtime series at LSO St Luke’s. Soprano Ruby Hughes teams up with lutenist Sergio Bucheli for a dive into Dowland and Barbara Strozzi, as well as one of the earliest sources for the Latinamerican baroque: the Peruvian Codex Zuola.
Quatuor Mosaïques
Sage Gateshead, 29 April Web: sagegateshead.com
It’s hard to believe that one of the most influential of period instrument string quartets turns 35 this year. An offshoot of Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s Concentus Musicus Wien, the Mosaïques preface Haydn’s evergreen ‘Sunrise’ Quartet with one by his short-lived contemporary, Hyacinthe Jadin. They end with the last of Schumann’s Op. 41 set.