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Providing companion pieces to some of Benjamin Britten's core works has been the challenge for many composers during this centenary year. Michael Zev Gordon was no exception: the daunting nature of the task in hand for him was underlined by a fine performance of Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings, featuring tenor Toby Spence with Richard Watkins's matchless horn solos, in the first...
Large, wealthy and just that little bit smug, Trinity is, along with St John's, the college that other Cambridge colleges seem to love to hate. It is also the home to an exceptionally fine choir. Founded by Richard Marlow in the 1980s, this mixed undergraduate ensemble soon moved on from the role of evensong provider to an acclaimed outfit that tours both in the UK and internationally and records...
Evening of French Music Raises the Temperature in Gloucester
On the evening of what was the hottest day so far in 2013 it was a relief to escape into the cool interior of Gloucester Cathedral for this concert of French music in which the Cheltenham Festival gave pride of place to Francis Poulenc.
To open proceedings David Briggs, Organist Emeritus of Gloucester Cathedral, returned to the...
To recap: there are five extent “versions” of Bach’s St. John Passion. I say this because today’s listening audience doesn’t always get what’s on the inside of the recording package by reading what is on the outside. To complicate things, the version that Layton has chosen follows the Neue Bach-Ausgabe, a respected edition that offers plausible solutions to the problem of this multi-sourced work...
Not short on action, the Old Testament book of Joshua charts the entry of the Israelites into the Promised Land, the razing of Jericho, several massacres and the suspension of time while sun and moon stand motionless so the enemy can be avenged in daylight. (Apparently Nasa, failing to confirm an appropriately timed late bronze age eclipse, has no category to account for divine intervention.)...
The Star of David is everywhere, as a symbol of Jewish unity. The senior Israelite wears a kippah, denoting respect for God’s law. Joshua starts off with a machine gun, the archetypal freedom fighter, and ends in a suit, every bit the modern statesman. There’s only one place this could be – Palestine in the 1940s. An 18th-century oratorio has been turned into a metaphor for the establishment of...