Paul Riley picks the month’s best concert and opera highlights in the UK
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra & Chorus
Lighthouse, Poole, 2 February Web: bsolive.com
After a predominantly Russian start to 2022 the orchestra reaches out to Brahms and two works that deserve to be heard live more often: the Hölderlin-setting Schicksalslied and haunting Alto Rhapsody. Schuman’s Manfred Overture establishes the mood, which is lightened by Beethoven’s sunny Symphony No. 8. David Hill conducts, and the mezzo soloist is Hanna Hipp.
Irish National Opera
Linbury Theatre, London,
4-12 February
Web: roh.org.uk
Directed by Adele Thomas and conducted by baroque specialist Peter Whelan, the Irish company follows up its 2019 production of Vivaldi’s Griselda with his 1735 tale of love, intrigue and death: Bajazet. Gianluca Margheri takes with title role, with James Laing as the conquering Tamerlano.
Orchestra of the Swan
Playhouse, Stratford-upon-avon, 8 February
Web: orchestraoftheswan.org Michael Collins forgoes his clarinet to conduct an adroit programme that, John Adams aside, forges an Anglo-french entente cordiale bookended by Vaughan Williams’s Wasps Overture and the G major Piano Concerto by his sometime teacher Ravel – an entente compounded by Thomas Adès’s Three Studies from Couperin. Repeated in Hereford and Cheltenham, the pianist is
Peter Donohoe.
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra & Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, 9 February
Web: glasgowconcerthalls.com United under the baton of Kevin John Edusei, the two Glasgowbased orchestras tackle John Adams’s dream-inspired triptych Harmonielehre. It follows the UK premiere of Canadian conductorcomposer Samy Moussa’s Elysium and, performed by Maria Dueñas, Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1.
Jakub Józef Orli ski
Wigmore Hall, London, 10 February
Web: wigmore-hall.org.uk
As part of his Wigmore Hall residency, the countertenor teams up with Il Pomo d’oro under director Francesco Corti as he takes a swerve into relatively little-known sacred music by the likes of Sciassi, Fux and Perez. Instrumental leavening includes works by Dolar, Galuppi and Brescianello.
Manchester Collective
St George’s, Bristol, 11 February Web: stgeorgesbristol.co.uk Configured in its chamber orchestra incarnation, the Collective ponders mortality through two contrasting works: Busoni’s Berceuse élégiaque, in the arrangement by Schoenberg, and Górecki’s enigmatically titled Kleines Requiem für eine Polka. Separating them is a shaft of wide-eyed optimism: Copland’s Appalachian Spring.
Britten Sinfonia
Saffron Hall, Saffron Walden, 11 February
Web: brittensinfonia.com
The Sinfonia gets in early with 150th-birthday celebrations for Vaughan Williams, whose Oboe Concerto and The Lark Ascending feature Nicholas Daniel and violinist Thomas Gould respectively. Grace Williams, Sibelius, Holst and
Bridge lend marine, pastoral and metropolitan support.
Hard Rain Soloistensemble
Queen’s University, Belfast, 11 February
Web: hardrainensemble.com Northern Ireland’s flagship contemporary music ensemble celebrates the centenary of Xenakis’s birth with three works of the late 1980s and early ’90s, including the solo percussion Rebonds and the multi-instrumental Plektó. Works by Samantha Mccoy and Ailís Ní Ríain feature too (see ‘Backstage with…’ right).
Theatre of Voices
Kings Place, London, 12 February Web: kingsplace.co.uk
Paul Hillier’s renowned Danish ensemble gives the world premiere of a new work by John Luther Adams (see Composer of the Month, p60). A Brief Descent into Deep Time plunges nearly two billion years through the geology of the Grand Canyon. It is paired with Pelle Gudmundsenholmgreen’s Dowland-infused Song and David Lang’s The Little Match Girl Passion.
BBC Philharmonic
Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, 12 February
Web: bridgewater-hall.co.uk
The Ritual Dances from Tippett’s The Midsummer Marriage ensure an ecstatic close to a concert under the orchestra’s chief conductor, Omer Meir Wellber. He opens with Hindemith’s Kammermusik I and gives the UK premiere of Aziza Sadikova’s Marionettes. The soloist in the Schumann Piano Concerto is Elisó Virsaladze.
Gabrieli Consort & Players
Durham Cathedral, 12 February Web: gabrieli.com
Fruit of the Gabrielis’ enterprising ‘Roar’ programme inspiring youth choirs across the region, some 200 young singers join the Consort, Players and soloists
under director Paul Mccreesh for a performance of Haydn’s oratorio The Creation.
Academy of Ancient Music
West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge, 16 February
Web: aam.co.uk
Laurence Cummings and his colleagues hitch a lift with the first Master of the King’s Music Nicholas Lanier on his 1625 journey from the Court of Charles I to Venice by way of Antwerp and Milan. Music by Sweelinck, Dowland and Lanier himself is woven around Monteverdi, including Lamento d’arianna and Tirsi e Clori.
Budapest Festival Orchestra
Royal Festival Hall, London,
17, 18 February
Web: southbankcentre.co.uk Stravinsky is front and centre in two concerts by conductor Iván Fischer and his Budapest forces. In the first, Patricia Kopatchinskaja is the soloist in the Violin Concerto, which nestles between the ballets Jeu de Cartes and Petrushka. The second prefaces the Rite of Spring with the Concerto in D for strings and Capriccio for piano and orchestra.
Psappha
Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, 17 February
Web: psappha.com
Over its 30-year existence, Psappha has commissioned works by over 500 composers, and this anniversary season adds 14 world premieres to the tally. One of the most recent – Simon Holt’s The Sower – sits alongside Harrison Birtwistle, Joanna Ward and Three Études for piano and flowerpots by Ninfea Cruttwell-reade.
Bachfest
Bath, 17-19 February
Web: bathbachfest.co.uk
Framed by Arcangelo and the Academy of Ancient Music, Bath Bachfest delves into three of his greatest motets in the company of Tenebrae. Elsewhere, Chinese traditional music meets Bach in a lunchtime concert by guitarist Xuefei Yang, and a late-morning encounter reunites recorder player Michala Petri and harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani.
London Symphony Orchestra
Barbican, London, 17, 23, 24 February Web: barbican.org.uk
Soprano-conductor Barbara Hannigan is becoming something of an LSO fixture and returns for three concerts. Poulenc’s ‘telephone opera’ La voix humaine features singly and in a pairing with Strauss’s Metamorphosen, while the first concert proposes a lively compilation of Copland, Offenbach and Weill.
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
St David’s Hall, Cardiff, 17 February
Web: stdavidshallcardiff.co.uk Conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto is living the multifarious American dream as the Mexican voices of Silvestre Revueltas and Carlos Chávez complement Copland’s Symphony No. 3 (symphonic home to the Fanfare for the Common Man) and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, in which Daniel Ciobanu is the piano soloist.
English National Opera
Coliseum, London,
18 February – 1 March
Web: eno.org
Janácˇek’s The Cunning Little Vixen receives a new production from English National Opera’s erstwhile Studio Live director Jamie Manton. Sally Matthews is vixen Sharp Ears, with Pumeza Matshikiza as the fox and Lester Lynch as the Forrester. Martyn Brabbins conducts.
Scottish Opera
Theatre Royal, Glasgow,
22-26 February
Web: scottishopera.org.uk
Summer might still be some way off, but Scottish Opera is champing at the bit! Conducted by Stuart Stratford and staged by Dominic Hill, Britten’s enchanted and enchanting A Midsummer Night’s Dream casts its spell. Heading the cast as Oberon and Tytania are Lawrence Zazzo and Catriona Hewitson.
Tamara Stefanovich
Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, 27 February
Web: southbankcentre.co.uk
Across three recitals performed in a single day, the indefatigable pianist squares up to 20 sonatas spanning the 18th to 20th centuries. The roll call is nothing if not eclectic. With Scarlatti and Soler threaded throughout, Stefanovich steers clear of the usual suspects to embrace, among others, Roslavets, Eisler, Busoni and Ustvolskaya.