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.

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.