Midlands Classical Music Making

  Norman Stinchcombe reviews the latest classical CDs Heggie, ‘Intelligence’: Brugger, Barton, Bridges, Houston Grand Opera / Ryan (Houston Grand Opera 2 CDs) ★★★★ The American composer Jake Heggie relishes challenging subjects when he writes operas. His enormously successful ‘Dead Man Walking’ which has r eceived  more than  60 productions on five continents since its premiere in 2000,  was about the real-life relationship between a multiple murderer awaiting execution on death row and the nun who becomes his regular visitor. In ‘Intelligence’, premiered in 2023 by  Houston Grand Opera  in a production featured on this recording, Heggie goes back to the American Civil War and the action focuses on two women  Elizabeth Van Lew,  white and wealthy, a nd Mary Jane Bowser, a  b lack woman born  a slave. The connection is that both are believed to have become spies for  the Union  side planning to abolish slavery. The few facts kno...

  PETROC TRELAWNY’S CLASSICAL MUSIC PUZZLE BOOK (Ivy Press) Following on from the well-deserved success of his lyrical “Trelawny’s Cornwall”, the popular BBC music broadcaster Petroc Trelawny has now set us all a challenge with his “Petroc Trelawny’s Classical Music Puzzle Book”. This is a beautiful publication from Ivy Press, the left -hand pages each devoted to composers ranging from Hildegard of Bingen coming through 900 years until the present day, and there are five sections: vocal, stage, orchestral, concertos, instrumental. Each tells of a particular work, accompanied by fascinating visuals which are certainly not the usual suspects. On each facing page is a puzzle connected with the composer in question. Truth to tell, some of the puzzles are less musical, more logical (the compilers are expert puzzle-setters Dr Gareth Moore and Laura Jayne Ayres), but they certainly offer plenty of rewarding absorption. I have enjoyed reviewing this lovely book, which has the bonus...

  Norman Stinchcombe reviews the latest classical CDs Ysaÿe:  Sonatas for Solo Violin, Roman Simovic (LSO Live CD & SACD)  ★★★★★ T he Belgian violinist and composer  Eugène Ysaÿe  (1858-1931) was nicknamed “The King of the Violin” for his amazing  virtuoso  technique and  refinement  as a chamber musician and founder of the lauded Quatuor Ysaÿe. He composed too but none of his eight concertos were published in his lifetime. He  wrote  one undoubted masterpiece,  a set of  Six Sonatas for Solo Violin of 1924 inspired by hearing the great Joseph Szigeti play Bach’s solo sonatas and partitas. Ysaÿe’ s set pays homage to them but he never indulges in pastiche and mock-baroque,   and uses the musical language of his own time. He does allow himself a moment of whimsy in the opening of Sonata No.2 which has a direct quote from the Prelude of Bach’s Partita in E minor, as if the soloist were overheard practising before be...

                               MY FAIR LADY                                                           CHANDOS CHSA 5358(2) This, the latest in John Wilson’s exhilarating sequence of totally complete musicals with the Sinfonia of London, is another absolute joy, though with one minor caveat. We have here every scrap of material created by Lerner and Loewe, My Fair Lady’s creators, and that provides the only tiny problem. Shows in public presentation often cut segues and links, sometimes just for reasons of timing. These of course don’t apply in CD recordings, but s...

  DAVID TAYLOE and DYLAN PEREZ Red House, Aldeburgh (August 1) A recital of English song, accompanied on Benjamin Britten’s own piano in the library of his Red House, so full of resonances, promised a mouthwatering experience, and in many respects it was. But Britten himself proved only a fleeting presence in this hour-long programme promoted by Summer at Snape 2025. Had we heard more of him it might have enlivened a somewhat samey atmosphere created by many of the offerings. The emerging young American tenor David Tayloe has an attractive voice, creamy and appealing, and in the opening three Purcell items, realisations by Britten and Thomas Ades, he displayed an appropriate alto-like timbre. “Hark the Ech’ing Air” was a mite too hectic in its delivery, but pianist Dylan Perez brought crisp, harpsichord-like articulation to Britten’s accompaniment. Then began a lengthy sequence overladen with the melancholy which pervades so much song-writing by English composers of the fir...

  GWYN WILLIAMS BURSARY CONCERT                                                           St Andrew’s Church Wilmcote (20.7.25) Wilmcote’s St Andrew’s, a beautiful jewel of a church, was packed to the rafters for a fascinating concert on Sunday evening which included two-and-a-half world premieres (read on). The occasion was the latest fund-raising concert in aid of the Gwyn Williams Bursary. Gwyn played in the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, where he was Sir Simon Rattle’s principal viola, for 30 years, and the Bursary was founded by his widow, Stephannie <SIC> in order to assist young string players. After a year making donations to the CBSO Youth Orchestra and inaugurating two Gwy...

                               THE BARBER OF SEVILLE                              Longborough Festival Opera (July13)   One of the many heartening elements of this joyous production is the fact that the cast was so youthful, many of them making their Longborough debuts. The future looks set fair. This was the final performance in a run which had begun early in June, insterspersed with Pelleas et Melisande , but there was no sense of end-of-term undisciplined high jinks. No, this was a grippingly tight presentation from a superbly well-drilled company, unfolding with unstoppable momentum under the fluent conducting of the batonless Elaine Kelly. Underlying everything was the deft playing of th...

                                             RODGERS AND HAMMERSTEIN                              John Wilson and the Sinfonia of London at Symphony Hall ***** It is a long time since I have been in a Symphony Hall packed to the rafters, with such an atmosphere of expectation, and an audience agog and appreciative of every note. And what engendered all this? The eagerly-awaited appearance of John Wilson and his remarkable Sinfonia of London in a Rodgers and Hammerstein programme, hot on the heels of their CD releases of ultra-complete performances of that more than talented duo’s Oklahoma! and Carousel. Wilson, now mended from a serious ...

                               ELGAR: SYMPHONY NO.1, IN THE SOUTH                              English Symphony Orchestra, Kenneth Woods                              ESO Records   Even before we begin to listen to this well-intentioned release there is a problem.  Why on earth put the Overture at the end, when listeners might well wish just to sit and ponder the peroration of the Symphony, perhaps while savouring the informative and indeed moving insert-notes? So I shall impose my own playing order, and review Elgar’s In the South Overture first. Th...

  Norman Stinchcombe reviews the latest classical CD releases Strauss, ‘Salome’: Byström, Dalayman, Reuter, Siegel, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra / Gardner (Naxos 2CDs & SACDs) ★★★★ The raison d'etre of Strauss’s once scandalous opera is Salome’s dance of the seven veils. The first question about any opera production is will or won’t the soprano take off her clothes? This 2022 Edinburgh International Festival production was a concert performance and the only naked thing in Salome’s dance was the stage. The music had to do all the work and this performance under Edward Gardner, with the Bergen orchestra at the top of their game, reveals how exciting, disturbing and revealing just the notes can be. Gardner also has a fine cast at his disposal with Malin Byström, world’s reigning Salome, in mesmerising form, salacious, seductive and deadly with a convincingly young-sounding voice. There’s a noble Jochanaan from Johan Reuter and the malicious parents, Herodias (Katarina Dalayman) a...

  JOHN WILSON CONDUCTS RODGERS AND HAMMERSTEIN AT SYMPHONY HALL                                            By Christopher Morley Anyone who loves the classic stage musicals will have been delighted at the recent CD releases on the Chandos label from John Wilson, conducting the Sinfonia of London in ultra-complete versions of two of the world’s greatest shows, Oklahoma! and Carousel, by Rodgers and Hammerstein Now he and his wonderful orchestra, plus a glittering lineup of soloists, are preparing to bring an evening of those great creators to Symphony Hall. When I speak to him he is recovering from breaking his left arm whilst cycling (stick to the car, I always say), but it will all be all right on the night. I ask him how he would describe the greatness of Richard Ro...