The Sixteen/Christophers - Purcell (Henry and Daniel), 13 January 2025

Wigmore Hall

Purcell: Sound the trumpet, beat the drum, Z335
Daniel Purcell: The Masque of Hymen
Purcell: The Indian Queen, Z630; Catch (To all lovers of music), Z262

This concert from The Sixteen (smaller than sixteen in vocal number, larger in vocal and instrumental number) and Harry Christophers brought Purcell’s The Indian Queen to the Wigmore Hall stage, along with an additional, slightly related act, The Masque of Hymen, by Henry’s brother Daniel; Henry’s 1687 welcome song for James II, Sound the trumpet, beat the drum; and a catch to words by the London music publisher John Carr, interpolated into the principal work on the programme. A full hall greeted these New(ish) Year performances with a warmth in welcome contrast to the temperatures outside. If I should still like at some point to see a (reasonably) faithful staging, with at least some of the play by Dryden and Sir Robert Howard that provides its actual dramatic content – one can dream – this concert performance was certainly preferable to the quagmire of self-indulgence into which Peter Sellars sank Purcell’s semi-opera nine years ago for ENO (and elsewhere).   

As often when I listen to period instruments, it took my ears time to settle. It seemed to take a minute or two for performances to settle too, the opening Symphony first diffident then abrasive, yet counterpoint remained clear and directed. Hand on heart, I should much prefer to hear modern instruments, but there is little point attending something else and moaning about it. Sound the Trumpet offered many vocal virtues, a declamatory opening, assisted by rich continuo (harp included), then fuller orchestra and choir. There was no mistaking the very English, even Anglican, sound, likewise for the tenor and continuo ‘Crown the year, and crown the day’, but the fullness of sonority was impressive for a choir of only nine. The duet ‘Let Caesar and Urania [James and Mary of Modena] live’ possessed the right sort of Purcellian catchiness, and there was a fine sense overall of Restoration grandeur, not least in the choral climax to ‘What greater bliss can Fate bestow’ and the ensuing Chaconne. 

If Daniel Purcell’s contribution was not always at the same level of inspiration – still less that of The Indian Queen proper – it was never less than competent and pleasant to hear, and some parts rather more than that. Catchy rhythms and melody came to the fore in the chorus ‘Come all, and sing great Hymen’s praise,’ and recorders offered welcome timbral variety later on. One soprano – I am not sure of her name – offered quite a spark in Cupid’s ‘The joys of wedlock soon are past’. Her reappearances throughout the concert proved consistent delights. 

The still greater maturity of Henry's final years shone through following the interval. There is surely little doubt that, performance issues aside, The Indian Queen contains some of his finest music; that is certainly once again how it felt here. The catch offered both audience amusement and excellent musical virtues, following instrumental music in which finely sprung rhythms seemed to act as agents of melodic and harmonic invention and its revelation. Each of the musical acts impressed. In the first, the composer’s inimitable combination of rigour and flexibility, so prophetic for twentieth-century admirers, came strongly to the fore in dialogue between the Indian Boy and Girl. The closing duet proved truly beguiling. The hissing of Envy and two followers in Act II, and the darker tones of Ismeron’s recitative in Act III – ‘the best piece of recitative in our language’ (Charles Burney) – offered in tandem with the air ‘By the croaking of the toad’ a panorama of Purcellian invention. Advent of woodwind and the plangent harmonies that introduced the Aerial spirits contributed further to that impression, those spirits themselves (and Christophers) giving a performance both pacy and aethereal. ‘They tell us that you mighty powers above’ in the fourth act proved a highpoint of the evening, as moving as it was mellifluous, whilst the fifth and final act went, if anything further, ranging from choral grandeur to a melancholy that verged upon the tragic. As he has been many times over the past three centuries, the English Orpheus was once again reborn.

LSO/Christophers - Haydn, 3 March 2022

Barbican Hall

The Creation (sung in English)

Lucy Crowe (soprano)

Andrew Staples (tenor)

Roderick Williams (baritone)

London Symphony Chorus (chorus director: Simon Halsey)

London Symphony Orchestra

Harry Christophers (conductor)

Forty years ago to the day, the Barbican Centre opened its doors to the concert-, theatre-, and exhibition-going public. The London Symphony Orchestra and its Music Director Claudio Abbado offered the Overture to Die Meistersinger, Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto (soloist: Vladimir Ashkenazy), Elgar’s Cello Concerto (soloist: Yo-Yo Ma), and Ravel’s La Valse. The current LSO Music Director, Sir Simon Rattle, had chosen his longstanding favourite—and mine—Haydn’s oratorio, The Creation, for this celebratory concert, but alas the aftermath of surgery meant that he ceded his place at a late stage to Harry Christophers. I say ‘alas’ for Rattle’s sake, since he would doubtless have loved to be there, but Christophers directed a collegial, eminently musical account of this most life-affirming of works, dedicated by the orchestra to the people of Ukraine. It will surely have lifted many spirits, at least in London, at so dark and terrifying a time. 

The public premiere of The Creation boasted on orchestra of 120, though a chorus of only 60. Here, I think, the numbers were more or less reversed, the chorus somewhat more than the number of Haydn’s players, the orchestra not even a handful more than the number of Haydn’s singers. There is no need to get hung up on such things; it was a different occasion, in a different occasion, for different ears, and so on. But it was gratifying at least to have what would once have been a standard Haydn-Mozart string section (12.12.10.7.5), perhaps increased for a large-scale work such as this, rather than something more parsimonious. There was plenty of mystery and potentiality to the ‘Representation of Chaos’, that extraordinary clarinet solo and woodwind writing more generally relished to the full, the pathos of the final descending flute line pointing to ethical and aesthetic imperatives to create. 

The simple, straightforward effectiveness of ‘and there was Light!’, Haydn’s greatest coup de théâtre, was heightened by the committed weight and clarity of the London Symphony Chorus, here as elsewhere on typically excellent form. For if there were times when I missed the sheer variety of scale (with no larger orchestra) the late Sir Colin Davis brought to this work, there were exceptions, especially on the choral side, the choral section ‘And to the ethereal vaults resound’ a little later on a case in point. There was, moreover, a fine edge, rhythmic and harmonic, to the orchestral playing for ‘endless night’ when, a little before, Uriel told of Hell’s spirits’ fate. The combination of orchestra and chorus was throughout excellent, the contrapuntal clarity of ‘The heavens are telling’ at times revelatory. Haydn’s pictorial instrumental imagery was given its delightful due throughout. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly given his experience in such repertoire, Christophers showed himself particularly alert to Haydn’s neo-Handelian turns, for instance in Raphael’s ‘Rolling in foaming billows’. A wonderful brace of oboes (Olivier Stankewicz and Rosie Jenkins) had me think of Bach, though I think that was more coincidence than direct influence. Here and elsewhere, Roderick Williams was a vivid, highly engaging narrator. Lucy Crowe was more inclined to ornament, sometimes further than one might expect, yet always with sound, stylish reason. Her despatch of Haydn’s coloratura, for instance in ‘With verdure clad’, spun from finest Egyptian cotton, was matched by beautifully centred intonation (and indeed by choral agility in ‘Awake the harp, the lyre awake!’) Her aria, ‘On mighty pens uplifted’ was simply outstanding, ‘cooing’ first coy, then ornamented and joined by LSO woodwind in a flourish of birdsong to have Messiaen eat his heart out. Andrew Staples also offered a communicative, sincere performance, very much in the ‘English tenor’ tradition. 

When all three soloists came together, with or without chorus, they complemented each other well—and, crucially, listened to one another and to their fellow musicians, unselfishly moderated by Christophers as conductor. The trio and chorus ‘Most beautiful appear … The Lord is great’ offered a case in point, though I wondered whether its choral close were just a little too bonny and blithe, lacking in the grandeur both Haydn and Handel deserve yet today all too rarely receive. Similarly, the tempo of the ‘Hymn’ in Part Three suggested a brisk jog around the Garden of Eden rather than the anticipated leisurely stroll. Those three flutes, though, who announced Uriel’s preceding accompagnato, made it abundantly clear why no one would ever wish to leave. Williams and Crowe offered an excellent balance between the knowing and the innocent as Adam and Eve.

Hearing the original English of the bilingual libretto by Gottfried van Swieten sometimes brought me, accustomed to hearing the work in German, a few surprises. (I know the English text well, yet I do not think I have ever heard it performed in concert.) Not only were there obvious differences in phrasing, but shifts in practical meaning too, for instance when ‘bespeak’ (Uriel’s aria, no.24) rather than ‘ihm Liebe’ was repeated. There was no denying, though, the sheer goodness of this work, something we need just as strongly as the war-torn Europe for which it was composed. Let us allow Haydn the last word. In 1801, a Bohemian schoolteacher, Charles Ockl, wrote to him, requesting support after unexpected opposition from the Prague consistory to Ockl’s plans to perform The Creation in church. Haydn replied:

… it was with considerable astonishment that I read of the[se] curious happenings, which … considering the age in which we live, reflect but little credit on the intelligence and emotions of those responsible.

The story of the Creation has always been regarded as most sublime, and as one which inspires the utmost awe in mankind. To accompany this great occurrence with suitable music could certainly produce no other effect than to heighten these sacred emotions in the heart of the listener, and to put him in a frame of mind in which he is most susceptible to the kindness and omnipotence of the Creator. – And this exultation of the most sacred emotions is supposed to constitute desecration of a church?

… it is not unlikely that the listeners went away from my Oratorio with their hearts far more uplifted than after hearing … sermons. No church has ever been desecrated by my Creation; on the contrary: the adoration and worship of the Creator, which it inspires, can be more ardently and intimately felt by playing it in such a sacred edifice. 

Perhaps we can say something similar today for the Barbican and other concert halls. In any case, happy fortieth birthday.

 

The Sixteen - Brahms, Schumann, and Clara Schumann, 16 March 2012

Hall One, Kings Place

Schumann – Spanische Liebeslieder, op.138, nos 4 and 9
Clara Schumann – Romance in E-flat minor, op.11 no.1
Brahms – Zigeunerlieder, op.103
Schumann – Liebesfrühling, op.37: ‘So wahr die Sonne scheiner’
Schumann – Vier Duette, op.78: ‘Tanzlied’
Schumann – Fantasiestücke, op.12, nos 2 and 3
Brahms – Neues Liebeslieder, op.65

Members of The Sixteen:
Julie Cooper, Charlotte Mobbs (soprano)
Alexandra Gibson, Martha McLorinan (alto)
Jeremy Budd, Mark Dobell (tenor)
Alex Ashworth, Eamonn Dougan (bass)

Christopher Glynn, John Reid (piano)
Harry Christophers (conductor)

Having ‘unwrapped’ Beethoven, Chopin, and Mozart, Kings Place in 2012 is mounting a year-long series, ‘Brahms Unwrapped’. This was the second of two contributions from The Sixteen, or rather members thereof, ‘The Eight’, Brahms’s Zigeunerlieder and Neue Liebeslieder accompanied by vocal and piano works by Robert and Clara Schumann. It made for a relatively short programme, but there are worse things than that.

Two songs from Schumann’s 1849 Spanische Liebeslieder opened the programme. ‘Bedeckt mich mit Blumen’, for two sopranos, made for a slightly staid opening, but ‘Blaue Augen hat das Mädchen’, for tenor and bass, proved livelier, the captivation exerted by the girl’s blue eyes for the two protagonists readily apparent. I am sorry to say that I have never heard, or indeed played, a piece by Clara Schumann I have wished to re-encounter, and this piano Romance, op.11 no.1, offered not exception. It was actually a better piece than many I have heard from her, but it proved four-square, repetitious, and unadventurous harmonically, never rising above the generically Romantic: pleasant enough, if you like that sort of thing. Alas, I cannot report on the respective contributions of the two pianists, or indeed of particular singers, by name, since the programme gave no indication as to which was which, or to who was performing what.

The Zigeunerlieder opened in rather peculiar fashion, one of the two tenors – I shall call him Tenor I – sounding closer in style to Weill than to Brahms; it worked surprisingly well, but I could not help but wonder whether it were intended. More troublingly, however, Harry Christophers, who now joined the ensemble to conduct, drove the music hard. I am not convinced that it needs a conductor; this evening’s experience suggests otherwise. It tends to flow more easily, to sound more ‘natural’ in expression, without. ‘Lieber Gott, du weißt, wie oft bereut ich hab’ benefited from commendable attention to detail, yet, like so many of the songs, sounded over-determined. ‘Kommt dir manchmal in den Sinn’ relaxed somewhat, however, and was all the better for it, permitting one to relish Brahms’s harmonies and their implications. Likewise, there was a nice sense of sad mystery to ‘Horch, der Wind klagt in den Zweigen traurig sacht,’ though there was some especially ropy singing from Tenor II here. Tenor I sounded strained in the closing ‘Rote Abendwolken ziehn am Firmament’; indeed, I was taken aback throughout at the problems both tenors experienced.

Schumann’s ‘So wahr die Sonne scheiner,’ a Rückert setting for alto and bass duet, sounded rather lovely: modest, but heartfelt, a welcome change from the over-determination of the conducted works. ‘Tanzlied,’ for soprano and tenor, benefited from a winning lilt to the waltz and its progress; the soprano shone, but the tenor again proved a bit of a trial. Two of Schumann’s Fantasiestücke followed, given by whichever was the pianist who had not performed the piece by Clara. ‘Aufschwung’ was dextrous, though it sounded closer to Mendelssohn than to a progenitor of Brahms. The performance was not especially probing, but pleasant enough, if short-breathed; it stopped very abruptly. ‘Warum?’ exhibited a fine piano touch, though it was perhaps unduly insistent.

The Neue Liebeslieder are of course for piano duet; the new piano texture was both welcome in itself and well navigated by the pianists, richer without ever becoming occluded. As for the vocal performances, much the same could be said as for the Zigeunerlieder. Christophers needed to calm down, and really had no business in part-conducting a piece such as ‘An jeder Hand die Finger’, for soprano solo (rather good, if somewhat bright in tone for Brahms). At least he desisted for most of the other solo songs. Even, though, where a piece went less hell for leather, for instance in ‘Finstere Schatten der Nacht’, it tended to emerge too moulded, audibly as well as visually. ‘Weiche Gräser im Revier’ was marred by Tenor II, ‘Ich kose süß mit der und der’ by Tenor I, who offered charmless, often out-of-tune, bellowing. A pity, given the quality of much of the rest of the singing. ‘Am Donaustrande, da steht ein Haus,’ from the op.52 Liebeslieder-Walzer, was a winning encore, more gemütlich than pretty much anything that had gone before. On the whole, however, the evening lacked Viennese charm and idiom; instead, we were left with an impression that Evensong had preceded the performances. To have had the singers stand around the piano, without conductor, might well have offered a better starting-point.