Live choice
Paul Riley picks the month’s best concert and opera highlights in the UK
András Schiff and Quatuor Mosaïques
Wigmore Hall, London, 28 February – 4 March
Web: wigmore-hall.org.uk
Haydn is an underrated composer, reckons pianist András Schiff, who puts his stamina on the line to spearhead a five-concert Haydnfest that explores the piano sonatas and trios, string quartets (Opp. 20 and 76) and the English Canzonettas – the latter shared between soprano Louise Alder and tenor Kieran Carrel.
Britten Sinfonia
Milton Court, London, 4 March Web: brittensinfonia.com
Later in the month, Britten Sinfonia returns to Milton Court with tenor Ian Bostridge and conductor James Macmillan for a folk-inspired programme. But first, under Jonathan Bloxham, the urban experience links Brett Dean’s Pastoral Symphony, Steve Reich’s New York-indebted City Life and the premiere of a new piece by Dobrinka Tabakova.
New Generations Artists’ Weekend
Britten Studio, Snape Maltings, 5, 6 March
Web: brittenpearsarts.org Culminating in Chausson’s smouldering Concert for violin, piano and string quartet, the current crop of BBC New Generation Artists – including the Mona Quartet, Mithras Trio, pianist Tom Borrow and soprano Ema Nikolovska – is put through its paces across four concerts.
Welsh National Opera
Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff, from 5 March
Web: wno.org.uk
Some two decades after its first airing, Katie Mitchell’s searing production of Janácek’s Jenu˚fa is revived under Welsh National Opera’s music director Tomásˇ Hanus, a conductor born in the composer’s adopted home city and with the music in his blood.
Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh,
6, 10, 17 March
Web: sco.org.uk
Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto masterminds three ear-opening concerts. The first is bookended by composers Nico Muhly and Steve Reich; the second pairs Beethoven’s Romance No. 1 and Pe¯teris Vasks’s Distant
Light Violin Concerto; and the third lives the American dream alongside Stravinsky, Copland and the UK premiere of Muhly’s Violin Concerto, Shrink.
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
Royal Festival Hall, London, 8 March
Web: southbankcentre.co.uk
The period instrument orchestra doesn’t just bring ‘enlightenment’ to the 18th century. It has also ventured through Schumann and Liszt to Wagner and Schoenberg, and now hunts out Mahler as part of its ‘Wilderness Pleases’ season. Ádám Fischer conducts Symphony No. 4, the Adagietto from the Fifth Symphony and three songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn. The soprano is Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha.
Gweneth-ann Rand
Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, 10 March
Web: kettlesyard.co.uk
Joined by pianist Simon Lepper, the soprano scales early Schoenberg and late Richard Strauss – the Vier Lieder, Op. 2 and the elegiac Four Last Songs respectively. Interleaved are songs by George Crumb and Florence Price.
Sounds of Now
Theatre Deli, Sheffield,
11 March
Web: musicintheround.co.uk Guitarist Tom Mckinney curates a new contemporary music strand for Sheffield-based Music in the Round. Singer Elaine Mitchener and Apartment House set the ball rolling with a lively line-up bookended by Christian Wolff and Charles Mingus’s String Quartet No. 1.
Les Arts Florissants
Saffron Hall, Saffron Walden, 13 March
Web: saffronhall.com
With a repeat at London’s Barbican the following night, director William Christie and his Baroque specialists tackle Handel’s pastoral ode L’allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, a reworking of Milton with a dash of Jennens. The soloists are Rachel Redmond, James Way and Sreten Manojlovic.
Czech Philharmonic Orchestra
Barbican, London,
15, 16 March
Web: barbican.org.uk
Stravinsky’s Concerto for Piano and Winds aside (soloist Yuja Wang), conductor Semyon Bychkov mines a rich seam of Czech nationalism over his orchestra’s two-concert residency. Stravinsky shares the first evening with Smetana’s cycle Ma Vlást; the second pairs Dvoˇrák’s Symphony No. 8 with Janácˇek’s mighty Glagolitic Mass.
Scottish Opera
Concert Hall, Perth, 18 March Web: scottishopera.org.uk
Hot on the heels of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Edinburgh at the start of the month, Scottish Opera heads north for a Pushkin-inspired double bill that contrasts Rachmaninov’s The Miserly Knight with Stravinsky’s Mavra, a witty tale of thwarted love. The conductor is Stuart Stratford.
Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, 16-18 March
Web: southbankcentre.co.uk
After nearly half a century of concert-giving, the American quartet is calling it a day in 2023. It’s not going quietly, though. A complete London Shostakovich cycle is in prospect, with all 15 quartets presented chronologically over five concerts. The first instalment will reach No. 9.
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
City Halls, Glasgow, 17 March Web: glasgowconcerthalls.com
It was only to be expected that a concert billed as ‘Volkov in Venice’ would scarcely be awash with Vivaldi – principal guest conductor Ilan Volkov is renowned for enterprising and unusual programming.
So, framed by Rameau and Haydn, Bruno Maderna’s Venetian Journal and orchestrations of Frescobaldi are the headline works. (See ‘Backstage with…’, right).
Royal Opera
Covent Garden, London,
17-31 March
Web: roh.org.uk
After the success of her 2019 Billy Budd, Deborah Warner is becoming the Royal Opera’s go-to director for Britten. Now she squares up to his first operatic triumph: Peter Grimes. Allan Clayton is the eponymous fisherman, and a strong cast also includes Bryn Terfel, Maria Bengtsson and John Tomlinson. Mark Elder conducts.
Ulster Orchestra
Ulster Hall, Belfast, 18 March Web: ulsterorchestra.org.uk
He might be better known as a fortepianist, but back in 2016 Ronald Brautigam commissioned Sally Beamish’s Piano Concerto: Hill Stanzas, a work suffused with the spirit of the Cairngorms. He partners it with Mozart’s piano concerto swansong: K595. Meanwhile, Sibelius’s Symphony No. 3 wraps up an evening conducted by Jac van Steen.
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
Hall for Cornwall, Truro, 18 March
Web: hallforcornwall.co.uk Cornwall’s pre-eminent arts venue reopened last year after a major refurbishment, and the long-awaited return of conductor Kirill Karabits and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra opens with, appropriately, Beethoven’s Consecration of the House Overture and Bax’s Tintagel.
Also included are Sibelius’s Symphony No. 3 and a new work by Carmen Ho.
Dunedin Consort
Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh, 18 March
Web: dunedin-consort.org.uk Celebrating its quarter-century, the Dunedin Consort blows out the birthday candles in style with two of Purcell’s odes: Welcome to all the pleasures and Why, why are all the muses mute?. The muses couldn’t be less mute, however, as director John Butt adds Handel, Corelli and Blow to a party that spills over into Glasgow the following night.
BBC Philharmonic
Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, 19 March
Web: bridgewater-hall.co.uk
The collaborative Manchester celebration of Vaughan
Williams’s 150th anniversary continues apace, as the Hallé Choir teams up with the BBC Philharmonic under Andrew Davis for the Whitman-setting Toward the Unknown Region. A potent musical portrait is completed by Job: A Masque for Dancing and Symphony No. 4.
Gonzaga Band
St Mary’s Collegiate Church, Warwick, 22 March
Web: leamingtonmusic.org Leamington Music began the year in Venice. Now the focus shifts to Milan, where The Gonzaga Band takes the musical temperature of the city around 1600 – a time when virtuoso violin playing and singing flourished under the watchful eye of Cima, Bovicelli and Caterina Assandra.
Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir
Kings Place, London, 26 March Web: kingsplace.co.uk
Four of Estonia’s leading choral composers are featured as, under Tönu Kaljuste, the country’s world-renowned choir is mindful of its 40th anniversary. Music by Cyrillus Kreek and Toivo Tulev is woven around Arvo Pärt and works by Veljo Tormis that include the elemental Curse upon Iron.