Music
More than a yard of tickets to the Proms!
Well that was an extraordinary recital, I’ve never been to anything like it. Firstly the restored cathedral looks fantastic inside, the masonry is clean and white, the rose stained-glass windows newly bright too. The huge space of one of the tallest of the Gothic cathedrals seems both enhanced but also relatable somehow: it doesn’t recede in to the dim distance like I think it used to, the bright stone and new lighting imposes on you.
I haven’t heard this organ since I passed through Paris on my way back from Lausanne before I went to university, when fortuitously the organ was being played. I’ve never quite forgotten the impact of this big instrument in a magnificent Gothic cathedral with the reverberations being as much a part of the music as the notes.
Read more: Yves Castagnet at the organ of the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris
One of a regular series of recitals at Notre-Dame du Mont, Marseille. The current instrument was built to the French Romantic style and installed by Alexandre Ducroquet in 1847; this was following harsh criticism of the previous Instrument by Frédéric Chopin, who played at the funeral of a friend. Today’s organist, Vincent Boccamaiello (standing on the right of my photo), is of a Marseille family of distinguished organists. His improvisation started the recital in a restrained mode, using reed stops with a full and rounded tone but much brighter than an English instrument. The following Ritournelle contrasted sharply, his registration using the stunning festive stops of this French instrument. The organist’s assistant was busy though the selection of Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie working a lot of the instruments capabilities, including a selection of 16’ bass pedal stops.
Read more: Vincent Boccamaiello at the organ of Notre-Dame du Mont, Marseille
Queen Victoria would almost certainly not have been amused by her loyal citizens but we, the 2025 London audience, enjoyed a top class performance of ENO’s production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Pirates of Penzance” at the London Coliseum.
Period costumes but a minimal set, abstracted to the essentials necessary to support the absurd storyline, gives the production the flexibility to tell truths though serious and comic moments, ridiculing “duty” in particular but taking in family succession, loyalty to the Crown, women’s rights and ageism etc. along the way.
Read more: The Pirates of Penzance - ENO at the London Coliseum
Sir Simon Rattle (conductor), Barbara Hannigan (soprano), George Benjamin (composer), London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican Hall, London
Boulez’ almost infamous piece Éclat started the LSO’s programme at the Barbican. A touchstone work, “difficult” at first hearing but staking the claim for music as exploration in sound for the rest of the second half of the twentieth century. Seeing Simon Rattle conducting made clear the grammar which is there in the sound but is clarified seeing the music in performance. An educational privilege I think, to hear and see this piece laid clear like this.
Read more: Boulez, Benjamin and Brahms 4 at the Barbican Hall, London
A hurdy gurdy is front and centre of the interesting array of instruments for December’s Keswick Music Society concert. The group PIVA The Renaissance Collective played music and songs from Tudor and Elizabethan times celebrating the Yuletide season. The programme started with a lively fanfare of some raw and unfamiliar sounds but the old tune we know well, In Dulci Jubilo.
We heard music played on recorders, shawns, crumhorns, border bagpipes and a hurdy gurdy, all reproduction instruments. There was a full audience despite the storm raging outside. The well-crafted singing of Jude Rees invigorated the historic tunes although it was hard to imagine a bawdy Tudor pub atmosphere with Winter Warmer ales on every table.
The Parish Church of St John, Keswick, has a very serious tree this Christmas; I wonder how they got it through the door!
