Live events
Paul Riley picks the month’s best concert and opera highlights in the UK
LONDON Christmas Festival
St John’s Smith Square,
8-23 December
Tel: +44 (0)20 7222 1061
Web: www.sjss.org.uk
Bookended by The Cardinall’s Musick and Polyphony’s now-traditional performance of Handel’s Messiah, St John’s Smith Square’s Christmas countdown musters a distinguished line-up including Vox Luminis, the Gabrieli
Consort and The Tallis Scholars. Messiaen’s La nativité du Seigneur, given a lunchtime airing by organist David Titterington, and Charpentier from Solomon’s Knot bestow a little French polish on the festivities.
The Sixteen
Cadogan Hall, 16, 17 December Tel: +44 (0)20 7730 4500
Web: www.cadoganhall.com Director Harry Christophers’s obliging sleigh whisks The Sixteen to Cardiff and Oxford either side of a Cadogan Hall double helping of a typically wide-ranging festive programme. At its heart is Britten’s evocative, harp-gilded A Ceremony of Carols – around which Christophers weaves carols and music by Walton, Holst and Cecilia Mcdowall.
Les Talens Lyriques
Wigmore Hall, 17 December
Tel: +44 (0)20 7935 2141
Web: www.wigmore-hall.org.uk
Like Solomon’s Knot at St John’s Smith Square (see below left), Les Talens Lyriques devotes itself exclusively to Marcantoine Charpentier. Directed by harpsichordist Christophe Rousset, instrumental carols are set alongside Marian motets, with the tender three-part Magnificat rounding things off.
Feinstein Ensemble
Kings Place, 18 December
Tel: +44 (0)20 7520 1490
Web: www.kingsplace.co.uk
In the company of the one-to-a-part London
Bach Singers, flautist Martin Feinstein’s period instrument ensemble returns to Kings Place for Bach’s Christmas Oratorio as part of the venue’s festive celebrations. Stepping out of the chorus, tenor Charles Daniels multi-tasks, also assuming the role of the Evangelist in the cantata sequence, narrating the biblical story from the Nativity through to the Epiphany.
SOUTH
The Carnival Band
St John the Baptist Church, Little Missenden, 13 December
Tel: +44 (0)333 666 3366
Web: www.little-missenden.org From the curtal (a type of bassoon) to Renaissance cittern, and from bagpipes to electric guitars, the eclectic, time-traveling foursome that make up The Carnival
Band serve up a selection of exuberant, millennium-traversing seasonal treats.
Fretwork
Turner Sims, Southampton, 17 December
Tel: +44 (0)23 8059 5151
Web: www.turnersims.co.uk Orbiting the In Nomine settings of Byrd, this Elizabethan Christmas celebration transports viol consort Fretwork and mezzo Helen Charlston – winner of last year’s Handel Singing Competition – to the Court of the Virgin Queen. Festive works by Holbourne, Weelkes and Gibbons are woven throughout.
Oxford Bach Soloists
New College Chapel,
Oxford, 24 December
Tel: +44 (0)1865 279500
Web: www.oxfordbachsoloists.com Oxford Bach Soloists’ ambitious 12-year mission to present all of Bach’s vocal music chronologically and in real time reaches 1723 and the
composer’s first Christmas in Leipzig. Two elaborate festive cantatas plus Preise Jerusalem den Herrn preface the E flat Magnificat complete with its Christmas interpolations. Tom Hammond-davies conducts.
EAST
BBC Concert Orchestra
The Maltings, Snape, 21 December
Tel: +44 (0)1728 687110
Web: www.snapemaltings.co.uk
The overture to Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel joins Malcolm Arnold’s Fantasia on The Holly and the Ivy and Delius’s Sleigh Ride in keeping the yuletide embers glowing en route to Act II of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker. Injecting a visionary aside is Holst’s The Mystic Trumpeter. Barry Wordsworth conducts.
Alexandra Dariescu
Saffron Hall, Saffron Walden, 21, 22 December
Tel: 44 (0)845 548 7650
Web: www.saffronhall.com Romanian pianist Alexandra Dariescu’s The Nutcracker and I (see ‘Backstage with...’, right) features a ballerina, hand-drawn digital animation and, of course, Tchaikovsky’s famous festive score presented in 15 arrangements by the likes of Percy Grainger and Mikhail Pletnev. Three have been specially commissioned from Gavin Sutherland.
MIDLANDS,
NORTH AND WALES York Early Music Christmas Festival
York, 7-14 December
Tel: +44 (0)1904 658338
Web: www.ncem.co.uk
Among other treats, Joglaresa rings in a Celtic Christmas; period wind ensemble Boxwood & Brass lifts the lid on A Georgian Country House Christmas with a selection of quintets, marches, dances and carols; and the Fieri Consort heads for 17th-century Rome, where Kapsberger’s oratorio The Shepherds of Bethlehem once enlivened a Vatican Christmas Eve.
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Hoddinott Hall,
Cardiff, 10 December
Tel: +44 (0)800 052 1812 Web: www.bbc.co.uk/bbcnow The BBC’S Cardiff-based orchestra looks Russia-wards under conductor Gergely Madaras. Together they limber up for the forthcoming festivities, surveying the snowy landscapes of Glazunov’s ‘Winter’ from
The Seasons and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 1, ‘Winter Daydreams’. In between, cellist Anastasia Kobekina plays Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations.
Stile Antico
St Mary’s Church, Warwick, 10 December
Tel: +44 (0)1926 334418
Web: www.leamingtonmusic.org Seasonal villancicos and lively ‘ensaladas’ by Mateo Flecha leaven Stile Antico’s A Spanish Nativity. Alonso Lobo’s Missa Beata Dei Genitrix is garnished with the sumptuous Iberian Renaissance polyphony of Guerrero, Morales, Victoria and Rimonte.
The Society of Strange and Ancient Instruments
University Chapel, Keele, 11 December
Tel: +44 (0)1782 734340
Web: strangeandancient instruments.com
The Norwegian festival of Lussinatten marks the longest night of the year, giving spirits, goblins and trolls permission to run amok until Christmas. In this celebration of it, ancient songs and Hardanger fiddle tunes complement dances from John Playford’s 17th-century collection and music by Purcell as this exotically titled group strives to keep mischief at bay!
Dunedin Consort
Westmorland Hall, Kendal, 14 December
Tel: +44 (0)333 666 4466
Web: www.dunedin-consort.org.uk Fresh from two performances in Bogotá, Colombia, John Butt’s team of 12 singers and small orchestra repeat Handel’s Messiah in Cumbria. Further performances follow in Edinburgh and Glasgow – each with a child-friendly bonus.
SCOTLAND
AND N IRELAND Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Usher Hall, Edinburgh, 6 December
Tel: +44 (0)131 228 1155
Web: www.rsno.org.uk
‘The Nutcracker and The Mouse King’ unites the music of
Tchaikovsky and the words of ETA Hoffmann in a brand new concert version of the Christmas classic, narrated by actor Alan Cumming. Conceived and conducted by John Maurceri, it caps a fairy-tale-themed evening featuring ‘The Dance of the Tumblers’ from Tchaikovsky’s The Snow Maiden, as well as a suite from The Sleeping Beauty and excerpts from Prokofiev’s Cinderella.
The Merry Opera Company
Portico of Ards, Portaferry, 7 December
Tel: +44 (0)28 4272 8808
Web: www.porticoards.com
Those seeking a traditional account of Handel’s Messiah need look no further than Ruben Jais’s appearances with the Ulster Orchestra in Belfast. For something a little more leftfield, however, the company dedicated to making opera accessible brings a staged version by John Ramster to County Down. The adaptation tells the story of 12 strangers struggling to make sense of the world, turning to faith for an answer. The conductor is Rebecca Taylor.