Manchester was the place to be for superb performances in 2025
The Year in Classical Music
Sometimes going abroad reminds you how good things are at home. In the spring of 2025, I went to the Shostakovich Festival in Leipzig, featuring world-class performers such as the Gewandhausorchester and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. So it was lovely to return home to Manchester to find performers who are just as good.
This post doesn’t pretend to be a ‘best of’ list. There are plenty of those elsewhere. It’s a look back over some of my personal highlights of the year. I have chosen only one concert or opera from each of the performing groups I reviewed in 2025, to celebrate the music of Manchester… and a few other places too.
Manchester Classical
The biennial Manchester Classical Festival is rapidly becoming a fixture in Manchester.
A highlight on Day One was the concert by Riot Ensemble, who have now chosen Manchester as their home base. As they say on their website,
“Why Manchester? Because the classical music scene here is simply electric: welcoming, ambitious, and fiercely creative.“
Under their Chief Conductor, John Storgårds, the BBC Philharmonic has had another excellent year, but I have chosen one of many highlights, the strings of the orchestra in a stunning concert directed from the violin by Leader Zoë Beyers.
Manchester Collective continued to surprise and delight us with their varied and unusual programmes, always performed with passion and deep humanity. The new piece Wintering by Samantha Fernando gave its name to a concert with The Marian Consort at Stoller Hall in November.
Kahchun Wong is quickly becoming established as a fine conductor of the Hallé. At their performance of Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto in November, following a successful tour of China, he made a bold statement of intent,
“After China, we have a new mission: to represent Manchester and this region as cultural ambassadors, with your support”
Opera North
Opera North continue to delight us with their productions at the Lowry. Their production of Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman was another triumph, reviewed here in Leeds.
In October, we welcomed English National Opera to the Lowry in Britten’s Albert Herring, their first fully-staged production here. We look forward to many more productions in the future.
Kantos Chamber Choir provides immersive experiences through its thoughtful programming and staging. One of the highlights of the year was their spellbinding, emotional journey through the Pendle Witch Trials of 1612.
The year ended with a joyful celebration of Christmas in the delightful company of The Apex Singer, a mix of favourites and pieces from their new album Kvällen.
Elsewhere, the Southwell Festival in Nottinghamshire, now in its eleventh year, included another personal highlight, a concert by the Portuguese singer-songwriter Inês Loubet.
Leipzig is one of the most musical cities in the world, home of the Gewandhausorchester and with links to Felix Mendelssohn, Richard Wagner, Robert and Clara Schumann. JS Bach is buried in Thomas Kirche, where he was director of music, so it was profoundly moving to hear his music performed there.
Mahler’s Symphony of a Thousand in St Paul’s Cathedral
When I sang in the Hallé Choir, I was privileged to perform at the opening concert at Bridgewater Hall in 1996. Before we went on stage, conductor Kent Nagano told us that this was a one-off experience – we would probably never get the chance to sing at the opening of a major international concert hall again. So I can imagine how much it meant for members of London’s Bach Choir to sing in the choir’s 150th anniversary concert at St Paul’s Cathedral in October, a concert that will live long in the memory, for performers and audience alike.
Mahler and the Folksong – songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, and traditional folksongs arr. Gemma Bass The Quire, Southwell Minster
This took place in the beautiful and intimate surroundings of the Quire in Southwell Minster. The audience sat in the choir stalls while the musicians performed on the steps to the Chancel. Marcus Farnsworth, Founder and Artistic Director of Southwell Music Festival, and baritone for this recital, introduced us to the eleventh festival, following last year’s triumphant tenth anniversary celebrations. He said he had enjoyed last year’s Bank Holiday Monday concert in the Minster’s Chapter House, with musicians including the mezzo-soprano Judy Louie Brown and the composer and violinist Gemma Bass, so they decided to do something similar this year.
The Quire of Southwell Minster, with the statue of Bishop George Ridding (far right)
Gustav Mahler returned to texts from Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boy’s Magic Horn), an early nineteenth-century collection of German folk poems and songs, on several occasions, including movements of his second, third and fourth symphonies, various song collections, and the song cycle Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer). In her programme note, Gemma Bass described Mahler’s songs as follows:
‘There’s a focus on humanness and nature, both in his subjects and his approach, but there’s also an incredible depth and something bigger being tapped into here – his own genius, perhaps, or his faith – and of course a remarkable command of musical language.’
Farnsworth sang the five Mahler songs in the concert with accompanist Libby Burgess. Both musicians skilfully drew out the subtleties of Mahler’s musical language. They began with Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen(Where the splendid trumpets sound). Farnsworth brought out the tenderness and poignancy of this early morning meeting between a soldier and his lover before he went to war. He was more robust in Revelge (Reveille), with a rich tone and boisterous demeanour, Burgess superbly illustrating the drums played by the jolly soldier as he sang ‘Tralalee, tralalay, tralala.’ But the song had an underlying poignancy, described in the chilling final verse, ‘There in the morning lie their bones/In rank and file like tombstones.’ The Schubert-like folk song Rheinlegendchen (Little Rhine Legend) about unrequited love had a lovely flowing piano part, and there was a glimpse of hope at the end. Farnsworth’s superb word-painting was again evident in Wer hat das Liedlein erdacht? (Who made up this little song?) as he brought out the song’s gentle humour.But the highlight of his contribution was Urlicht(Primordial Light), the fourth movement of Mahler’s Second Symphony. The poem describes returning to God with the hope of resurrection, and as Farnsworth sang it, I noticed a statue of a praying figure with his back to us as if turning to God, George Ridding, first Bishop of Southwell (1884 – 1904). Farnsworth sang from the depths of inward, contemplative stillness. Burgess’s touch on the piano was sublime. The song’s ending was ecstatic, as the protagonist passed into eternal life.
Gemma Bass said in her programme note that her English folk song arrangements were inspired by the contrast between Mahler’s ‘simplicity and complexity.’ She told the audience that she wanted to bring out Mahlerian contrasts between the personal and the universal, nature and humanity, love and war. Even the building where the concert took place was a mixture of the manmade and the nature carvings of the Minster (such as those celebrated in The Leaves of Southwell project). Bass took songs famously set by Benjamin Britten, Polly Oliver, O Waly Waly and Come you not from Newcastle? plus the traditional Northumbrian song, The Oak and the Ash, and radically transformed them. Mezzo-soprano Judy Louie Brown sang the songs with a warm, generous tone and a gentle, folky inflexion. The string players – Bass herself on violin, Lena Eckels on viola and Nathaniel Boyd on cello – often seemed to provide an ironic commentary on the jolly-sounding folk tunes, in the kind of contrast Mahler would have enjoyed. So Sweet Polly Oliver’s traditional tune was accompanied by violin and viola that sounded like bagpipes and a bell-like drone, perhaps to cast doubt on the female protagonist’s decision to please her lover better, having bravely followed him to war dressed in her dead brother’s clothes. In the bold arrangement of O Waly Waly, the strings darkly enhanced the narrative of unrequited love. Bass also wrote two Mahler-inspired instrumentals. Rosy Dawn, which took its title from the words ‘Die Morgenröt’ from Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen, featured a folky violin tune, soon joined by the viola, over a cello drone. There was a feeling of gently pensive stasis, which shifted like a flowing river, constantly changing but always the same. Three Geese took its title from the ‘drei Gäns’ of Wer hat das Liedlein erdacht? It began in the same contemplative mode as Rosy Dawn but gradually became more folky, jazzy and joyful. It ended with a humorous little squiggle, which made the audience smile. A lovely end to a delightful concert.
Performers Judy Louie Brown mezzo-soprano Marcus Farnsworth baritone Libby Burgess piano Gemma Bass violin Lena Eckels viola Nathaniel Boyd cello
Amongst the displays about the local history of Southwell, this was the first time a Festival main event took place in Southwell Library on the high street, just a short walk from the Minster. The Festival Voices performed a well-chosen mix of songs from musicals, 60s and 70s pop and rock, and music from Gershwin, Flanders and Swann, the Ink Spots, Hoagy Carmichael and Victoria Wood. All were guaranteed to raise smiles of recognition and tapping of toes in the capacity audience.
The concert began with a showcase for the superb a cappella close harmony singing of Festival Voices, including two lovely Beatles covers. Here, There and Everywhere followed the template of the original harmonies, but with added decorations in a Swingle Singers style. Blackbird was part of the concert’s avian theme, which somehow got lost along the way; no matter! The singers mimicked guitars and whistled stylishly. A false ending raised laughter from the audience, and the real ending raised more laughter. In between, there was a stunning rendition of The Ink Spots’ 1940 hit Java Jive. There were vocal sound effects, including drumming, an upright bass and hearty ‘Aahs’ to show how much the singers loved coffee and tea.
Individual singers from within the choir had a chance to shine, too. Chris Webb sang Hippopotamus by Flanders and Swann with operatic aplomb, and the audience gamely covered themselves in metaphorical mud in the choruses. Oliver Hunt sang Bernstein’s On the Town in a poignant rendition, and a passionate Lost in the Stars, acting out the words expressively. Alastair Brookshaw created a Bridge Over Troubled Water, echoing the delicacy of Art Garfunkel’s voice with a liquid legato in a rousing performance. He returned in a fantastic coup de théâtre, dressed as a priest and wishing the house peace as he flew onto the stage in ecclesiastical turmoil. He perfectly illustrated the painful dilemma of the protagonist in Bishop’s Song from Sondheim’s last musical, Here We Are. There was another ecclesiastical protagonist when Carrys Jones, minus the habit of the Mother Abbess, sang an operatic, heartfelt version of Climb Ev’ry Mountain.
There was a piano interlude when the two accompanists, Libby Burgess and Paul Provost, treated us to a selection of four-hand arrangements from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. They played a lilting version of Summertime, a rollicking, jazzy version of It Ain’t Necessarily So, and a short but very sweet I Got Plenty O’ Nuttin. The concert ended with more joyous close harmony frolics from Festival Voices. There was a witty version of Queen’s vaudeville pastiche, Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon, complete with kazoos, honouring the band’s famous ‘No Synthesisers!’ avowal. There was Tin Pan Alley close harmony in Hoagy Carmichael’s Skylark, with excellent solos from the choir. But perhaps the highlight of the whole concert wasVictoria Wood’s wickedly naughty Ballad of Barry and Freda (Let’s Do It), which features the immortal line, ‘Beat me on the bottom with a Woman’s Weekly.’ We felt sorry for poor old Barry being harassed by his wife. The song went down a storm – a fantastic ending to a superb concert. A splendid time was guaranteed for all.
Performers Libby Burgess piano Paul Provost piano Festival Voices – soloists Chris Webb, Oliver Hunt, Alastair Brookshaw, Carrys Jones
Duke Ellington’s ‘Sacred Concert’ The Nave, Southwell Minster
When conductor and Artistic Director Marcus Farnsworth was 12 and studying trumpet, he discovered Simon Rattle’s TheJazz Album, which he recorded in 1987 with London Sinfonietta and others. Farnsworth was fascinated by the final piece on the album, Leonard Bernstein’s Prelude, Fugue and Riffs and always wanted to conduct it. With trumpeter Graham South, he devised a concert which included the Bernstein piece, and his dream was realised – in what he described as ‘a new departure’ for the Festival – an orchestral jazz concert with choir and clarinet and soprano soloists.
South and Farnsworth chose music from Duke Ellington and his long-time collaborator, Billy Strayhorn, to pair with the Bernstein. In his invaluable programme notes, South quoted a comment Bernstein made to Ellington in a TV interview in 1966,
Well maybe that’s really the difference between us – you wrote symphonic jazz, and I wrote jazz symphonies
The musicians were the Manchester-based Cottontail Orchestra, comprised of freelance musicians from various ensembles, including Beats & Pieces Big Band and Manchester Jazz Collective. Appropriately, they began the concert with the Duke Ellington composition Cottontail. This was lively big band jazz, idiomatically played with superbly virtuosic soloists. At one point, a sax quintet stood up to play some gorgeous close harmony, similar to what we had heard in the Festival Cabaret earlier. Strayhorn’s Isfahan showcased the extraordinary talent of alto sax player Emily Burkhardt, whose beautiful tone featured sensuous slides and a melismatic flow, with quivering vibrato and bluesy note bends. A surprise but welcome addition to the programme was Ellington’s Happy-Go-Lucky Local, which has a slightly sleazy and sarcastic sound, describing a local train heaving its way along the track – some material from the much more famous Night Train could also be heard. For Prelude to a Kiss, the band were joined by soprano Clare Wheeler, whose voice was suitably mellow with a touch of the great Ella Fitzgerald. The final Ellington piece in the first half was Kinda Dukish/Rockin’ in Rhythm, with a lovely syncopated piano intro from Adam Fairhall, followed by joyfully intricate big band music. Farnsworth described Prelude, Fugue and Riffs as the ‘meeting point of classical and jazz’, with a prelude for brass and kit, an ‘actual fugue’ for saxophone, and Matt Glendening on solo clarinet in the riffs section. Touches of 20th-century classical music could be heard, such as Stravinsky’s Les noces, which features four pianos. There was an almost avant-garde section, but also some Rhapsody in Blue-style clarinet playing and plenty of stunning big band music. Farnsworth worked very hard, bringing out a superbly life-affirming performance from the players.
Duke Ellington. Source: Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain
Part two was devoted to Duke Ellington’s Sacred Concert, which has a complicated performance history. The Concert ofSacred Music was premiered sixty years ago, in mid-September 1965,at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco. The Second Sacred Concert was premiered in 1968, and the Third in 1973. Ellington had reused some of his music from previous compositions, and when touring the Concert he was often joined by local choirs, and he adapted music from all three versions to suit their abilities. Farnsworth conducted a fourth version, which he described as ‘the best of all three Sacred Concerts’, produced in 1993 by John Høybye and Peder Pedersen for soprano solo, choir and big band. The version he chose was, in his words, ‘appropriate for the building.’ This was true in a religious sense, but also in an acoustic sense as the Minster’s superb acoustics are clear, warm and generous, ideal for big band jazz and chamber choir.
Farnsworth was right to choose a version of the Concert that emphasised the choir’s contribution. The Festival Voices were ecstatic in the opening Praise God, based on Psalm 150, and when they repeated the words, there was a bluesy big band beneath. In Heaven, they sang like the best of Hollywood choruses. There were moments of sublime beauty when they sang a cappella in Freedom, Come Sunday and Almighty God. There was also the chance for soprano Clare Wheeler to demonstrate her skills, including scatting in The Majesty of God, some avant-garde vocalising in T.G.T.T. (Too Good To Title) and a warm legato in David Danced Before the Lord. The Cottontail Orchestra matched the quality of the choir. Highlights included: Graham South’s trumpet solo in The Shepherd, using his mute to create an earthy, almost feral growling sound; Johnny Hunter’s drum solo at the start of David Danced…; and the tireless playing of bass player Joshua Cavanagh-Brierly throughout. The piece ended with an invitation to Praise God and Dance, an ecstatic hymn to God. Although there was no actual dancing in the audience, our spirits danced as the concert came to a rapturous end.
Performers Clare Wheeler soprano Matthew Glendening clarinet Festival Voices The Cottontail Orchestra Marcus Farnsworth conductor
Repertoire Duke Ellington Cottontail Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington Isfahan Duke Ellington Happy-Go-Lucky Local Duke Ellington Prelude to a Kiss Harry Carney, Irving Mills and Duke Ellington Kinda Dukish/Rockin’ in Rhythm Leonard Bernstein Prelude, Fugue and Riffs
Duke Ellington, arr. John Høybye and Peder Pedersen Sacred Concert
For a review of Day Two of the Festival, click here
Last year marked the 30th anniversary of the death of my father, John Charles Holmes, under whose benign and loving influence I developed a lifelong passion for music. He was the choirmaster and organist of the local church choir. I joined his choir at the age of six and went on to sing with several ensembles, including the choirs of Exeter and Worcester Colleges in Oxford, the BBC Symphony Chorus, the Hallé Choir and the John Powell Singers. Whenever I visit an English cathedral city, I always try to go to choral evensong, which remains part of the great choral tradition that has produced many great classical singers. Although it’s a while since I sang in public, I still appreciate choral music and several highlights of 2024 featured choirs.
I was honoured to be invited to review concerts by the superb Philharmonia Orchestra in London. I enjoyed Elgar’s choral masterpiece, The Dream of Gerontius, with a premiere of a wonderfully evocative new piece, Cusp, by the baritone and composer Roderick Williams, which describes end-of-life experiences in a powerful libretto by Rommi Smith. Another moving libretto, with war poems by Wilfred Owen, featured in another stunning concert by the Philharmonia with The Bach Choir in Britten’s War Requiem. The orchestra joined forces with Garsington Opera for a joyful, semi-staged performance of another Britten piece, his opera A Midsummer Night’s Dream conducted by Douglas Boyd at the BBC Proms.
The Bach Choir and the Philharmonia. Image credit Andy Paradise
David Hill conducted both of the concerts by the Bach Choir. He appeared at Manchester’s Stoller Hall in another guise as conductor of Bach’s Mass in B Minor with the young student forces of Yale Schola Cantorum and Juilliard415, who brought joy and precision to a performance which seemed to reveal Bach’s soul in all its intellectual and spiritual glory. That weekend was very special for music-making in Manchester, as the previous day was the end of an era as Sir Mark Elder ended his tenure as Hallé Music Director, a position he held for nearly a quarter of a century. His final concert included the European premiere of James MacMillan‘s splendid new choral piece Timotheus, Bacchus and Cecilia, a performance of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, and a passionate, moving speech by Sir Mark. He is replaced by new Principal Conductor Kahchun Wong from Singapore, who I have only seen once so far, conducting a lively Rush Hour Concert in October in Tan Dun’s Violin Concerto: Fire Ritual and Stravinsky’s Firebird: Suite. He seems to be a bright prospect with an engaging stage presence.
I made two choral discoveries in Manchester in 2024. Firstly, The Apex Singers, a Manchester-based chamber choir of eight voices, founded and directed by Ollie Lambert, who directs this young choir remotely in his stunning folk song arrangements. Then Kantos Chamber Choir, under their conductor Ellie Slorach, brought Behold The Sea, a bold and innovative programme of maritime music to the Stoller Hall. I also discovered the fascinatingly intense music of Tim Benjamin, whose evocative pieces The Seafarer and The Wanderer were beautifully recorded by Kantos Chamber Choir.
Manchester Collective and SANSARA in Rothko Chapel
There were more fantastic chamber music performances from Manchester Collective, who I have seen perform live probably eight or ten times in the last few years, at all sizes and shapes of venues from Salford’s White Hotel to the RNCM, the Stoller Hall, the Bridgewater Hall and even the Royal Albert Hall. The Collective makes choosing to go to one of their concerts an easy decision, as it’s guaranteed there will be high-quality music-making, inspired programming and fascinating collaborations. I saw them twice in 2024, first in the uplifting Rothko Chapel with SANSARA chamber choir at the Bridgewater Hall, then in Sirocco with the force of nature that is the cellist Abel Selaocoe at the Stoller Hall. Both concerts brought deep, life-affirming joy across time and genres.
I spent the August Bank Holiday weekend in the charming market town Southwell in the heart of Nottinghamshire, enjoying the delights of the tenth annual Southwell Music Festival directed by the indefatigable baritone and conductor Marcus Farnsworth. There was supreme artistry in all the concerts, not least from the artist in residence, Mark Padmore, whose word painting in his Recital of English Song with pianist Libby Burgess was astonishing. There was new music from Martin Bussey and Gemma Bass and a world premiere of With What Sudden Joy by Cheryl Frances-Hoad, with a text compiled by the poet Kate Wakeling from words of local people in Southwell about the power and effect of music.
The BBC Philharmonic Orchestra were on excellent form as well in 2024. Early in the year, under conductor Nicholas Kraemer they were joined by Manchester Chamber Choir in a moving and dramatic interpretation of Bach’s St John Passion, 300 years after the first performance. In the Proms the orchestra under John Storgårds (Chief Conductor) played a searing version of Shostakovich’s fourth symphony, and Cassandra Miller‘s viola concerto I cannot love without trembling with Lawrence Power a remarkable soloist. The next evening, they performed Messiaen’s remarkable Turangalîla-Symphonie with pianist an Steven Osborne an energetic and compelling piano soloist. Osborne was stunning in another Messiaen work, Des canyons aux étoiles… with conductor Ludovic Morlot and outstanding solo contributions from Martin Owen (horn), Paul Patrick (xylorimba) and Tim Williams (glockenspiel) in a concert that also featured a lively wind machine and an instrument invented by the composer himself, the geophone.
The BBC Philharmonic also shone in two themed concerts. In Mischief and Magic, the orchestra under John Storgårds played one of the best live performances of Stravinsky’s Petrushka I have ever heard, and veteran Swedish trumpeter Håkan Hardenberger brought incredible virtuosity and great charm to Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto and Betsy Jolas’ Onze Lieder, and a warm arrangement of Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides, Now. In A Hero’s Life the orchestra under Alpesh Chauhan celebrated the human spirit with: Richard Strauss’ description of a heroic life; Alban Gerhardt‘s fiercely dedicated performance of Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 2; and the UK premiere of This Moment by Anna Clyne, inspired by Buddhist writings and Mozart.
Peter Kirk as Lysander, Siân Griffiths as Hermia, Camilla Harris as Helena and James Newby as Demetrius in Opera North’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. Photo credit: Richard H Smith
Not content with one production of Britten’s opera A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the year brought a second one, this time a fully-staged version by Opera North. It was fascinating to compare the production with the Garsington/Philharmonia version a month earlier at the Proms. The most striking difference was the role of Oberon, played in Leeds by countertenor James Laing. He played the character in the more imperious style of James Bowman in Peter Hall’s Glyndebourne production from the early 1980s, rather than the more troubled, argumentative character played by Iestyn Davies in the Garsington version. Opera North also revived Mozart’s Magic Flute, starring Emyr Wyn Jones as a very human Papageno. The lovely, warm rich tones of his voice matched the warmth of his personality.
Musical polymath Nitin Sawhney – producer, performer, and composer – joined the Hallé Orchestra for The Hallé and Nitin Sawhney in Concert. Last year wasn’t a good year for Sawhney – in early March, he announced that ‘out of nowhere’ he had suffered a heart attack.
ComposerNitin Sawhney in conversation with broadcaster Nikki Bedi. Image credit: Hallé/David Hughes
Sawhney turned this experience into a new work for orchestra, Heart Suite. In this highly descriptive and powerful new piece, Sawhney drew on his vast experience as a film composer, taking us on a vivid, moving and immersive journey. On a personal note, I hope you will forgive me for quoting his lovely response on the new social network Bluesky to my review of the concert:
Finally,I would like to thank all my readers for sharing my musical journey in 2024. I hope you will join me again for more adventures in 2025.
09.00 Chapter House, Southwell Minster Gemma Bass (violin), Graham South (trumpet, flugelhorn), Judy Louie Brown (mezzo soprano), Marcus Farnsworth (baritone)
The stalls and canopies of the Chapter House of Southwell Minster. Source Wikimedia Commons
At 9.00 on a quiet Bank Holiday Monday, a small crowd of musical pilgrims journeyed to the Chapter House of Southwell Minster to hear an intimate concert by the indefatigable Marcus Farnsworth and three of his musical friends. As the sun illuminated the ornate stonework of the early 14th architectural marvel that is the Chapter House, the capacity audience inhabited the edges of the room while the musicians sat in the middle, facing each other like members of a string quartet. The concert featured five traditional English folk songs, sung fairly ‘straight’ by Farnsworth, whose baritone was gorgeously rich and deep. He was sometimes joined by Scottish mezzo soprano Judy Louie Brown, who brought a dignity, purity and smiling serenity to duets with Farnsworth.
Around the two singers, musicians Graham South and Gemma Bass (whose music we heard in Cathedrals of Sound last Friday) wove beguiling spells of improvisation, drawing from jazz, blues, the avant-garde, folk and minimalism. The concert began with Lemady, a song from Norfolk, which included the apt line, ‘early in the morning at the break of day.’ Offstage, Bass played folk tunes while South played soft-grained flugel-horn, almost like a human voice, with virtuosic, jazzy runs. Bass provided the folky melody to the Becks and Brooks, which takes words from the nature writer Robert Macfarlane, while Farnsworth and Brown sang a close-harmony duet. The two singers and violinist sparkled in this jaunty, syncopated song. An audience member muttered ‘wow!’ at the end. Well, quite.
The entrance to the Chapter House. Image from Southwell Minster’s The Leaves of Southwell project
The Trees They Grow So High was a showcase for South, with stunning trumpet playing, at times florid, declamatory, bluesy, mellow, jazzy and keening. It was also a reminder that even great musicians are human – Bass smilingly improvised while South left the stage, and he candidly revealed afterwards that he forgotten his music. The song ended badly for the protagonist (as they often do), ‘my love is dead’, while South blew hollow notes down his trumpet and Bass played spooky high notes, a spine-chilling moment. TheYoung and Single Sailor was another vocal duet, arranged by Bass with a minimalist, looping violin motif. The four performers merged, become a single musical entity, relaxed and smiling, communicating their joy in shared music making. Farnsworth said the Festival has created this kind of musical collaboration – both Bass and South have worked with him at the Festival for around the full decade it has existed. The concert ended with a very witty arrangement of The Lincolnshire Poacher, with violin and trumpet providing a syncopated, avant-garde but jolly accompaniment, sometimes wandering off completely from Farnsworth’s resolute singing of the tune. A joyful ending to a superb concert and indeed to the Festival itself.
7.30 pm The Nave Southwell Minster Alison Rose (soprano), Susan Bickley (mezzo soprano), Mark Padmore (tenor), Frederick Long (bass-baritone), Festival Voices, Festival Sinfonia, Marcus Farnsworth (conductor)
This was a special concert, celebrating ten successful years of the Southwell Music Festival. Before the concert began in a packed Nave, the Dean of Southwell, Nicola Sullivan, said a prayer for the gift of music, highly appropriate as the meaning music was the subject of the first piece. The Festival commissioned a substantial work of around 20 minutes for soprano soloist, choir and orchestra, from the English composer Cheryl Frances-Hoad. Festival Director and conductor Marcus Farnsworth briefly interviewed the composer, who admitted that writing about what music means was ‘terrifying’. The new piece, With What Sudden Joy, is a setting of a text by the poet Kate Wakeling, collated entirely from the words of local people in Southwell in workshops about the power and effect of music. In her programme note, Wakeling said she found these conversations,
“terrifically rich and unexpectedly affecting. They were playful, moving, inventive and uplifting. [We] explored how music connects to ideas of memory and community, how music and silence interact, and how music can, by turns offer us solace and spark a sense of celebration.”
Frances-Hoad revealed that the words were so moving she sometimes found herself ‘weeping at the piano.’ In her programme note she said the words were, ‘specifically tied to Southwell, and yet so universal.’
The soprano solo part, superbly performed here by Alison Rose, was often florid and complex, whereas the choral parts were much simpler, making the work suitable for a choral society to perform with a professional soloist. In his programme note Farnsworth said he has performed in many premieres that have never seen the light of day since, ‘for no good reason.’ His aim here was to commission a new work that, ‘had the potential to become part of the repertoire’, and Frances-Hoad’s has written a piece which deserves to achieve that; accessible, attractive and profound. Eavesdropping amongst the audience at the interval, the consensus was that it was highly successful.
The first movement, aptly named ‘In the Beginning’, began with a sense of expectation from the strings. Rose sang intricate lines at first but also duetted with the choir as they described powerfully resonant shared memories, including the poignant recollection of a grandmother with dementia who could, ‘still remember every note’ of shared songs,
“Everything else had gone but we sat and sang together
I thought: this is what music is
These are sounds that travel us back”
Composer Cheryl Frances-Hoad
The second movement, ‘A Bright Connection’, began with hymn-like chords from the Festival Voices as Rose’s lyrical, golden soprano voice soared above. In a moment of magic at the end, there was a series of invigorating key changes demonstrating the power of music. The central movement, ‘I drove to my Father’s House’ was profoundly moving, about a woman who very suddenly lost her father and was unable to grieve until she went to his house and played his records for, ‘perhaps three solid days…I cried without stopping.’ The fourth movement, ‘Also Silence’ was a chance for individual soloists from the choir to shine, with reassuring chords at the start and gorgeous chromatic harmonies at the end, a statement of the importance of silence in music but also a practical demonstration of how music can move us. The final movement, ‘With What Sudden Joy’ had a title that sounded like a poem by a Romantic poet like Wordsworth or Coleridge. It expressed the sheer, visceral joy of music-making, with dancing, syncopated rhythms and a soprano part that floated stratospherically above. As the closing words stated, ‘a celebration must have music’, and Frances-Hoad’s new work perfectly suited the celebration of 10 years of the Festival.
From a brand new piece to a choral classic written over two hundred years ago, Mozart’s Requiem, which remained unfinished at the composer’s death in 1791. As Libby Burgess said in her programme note, when he died Mozart had written the opening ‘Requiem Aeternam’ and had sketched out choral parts, bass lines and some orchestral parts for the next six movements from the ‘Kyrie’ to ‘Confutatis’. It’s tempting to view the rest of the piece, completed by Franz Süssmayr as a bit of a disappointment, but as Burgess says,
“…history owes Süssmayr a debt of gratitude for completing the work at all. Incomplete, it would probably not have seen the light of day – and we would never have had the experience of knowing it.”
Whatever your views are on Süssmayr’s completion of the work, Farnsworth and his festival forces didn’t allow the energy to drop at any point, even when Süssmayr took over from Mozart. This was a lively, energetic performance informed by the best period instrument practices, fast but always precise even in passages which lesser choirs find hard to negotiate such as the ‘Osanna in Excelsis.’ Farnsworth often brought out instrumental details that are obscured in other performances, and beautifully controlled the dynamics of the richly operatic voices of the choir. There was a fine quartet of soloists with Alison Rose who we heard in the first half, the distinguished mezzo soprano Susan Bickley, the Festival’s Artist in Residence the tenor Mark Padmore, and the young bass-baritone Frederick Long. There were some lovely individual moments from the soloists, and some excellent duets and quartets. The concert ended with the ‘Lux Aeterna’, featuring a fantastic fugue on the words ‘cum sanctis tuis’. There was a huge cheer from the audience, a fitting celebration of ten years of music making in Southwell, with hopefully many more years to come.
Festival Director Marcus Farnsworth announced this concert, saying it was a ‘great privilege’ to introduce Mark Padmore, the Festival’s Artist in Residence, and pianist Libby Burgess, in a recital of English Song. It was also a privilege for the audience to be present at such a wonderful concert, probably the highlight of a festival of many highlights. Padmore said that the poetry was ‘equal to the music’, and his word painting throughout was sublime. There was also equality between voice and piano. Burgess’ playing was beautifully shaped and controlled, characterful, sensitive and expressive. The gentle smile she gave Padmore at the end of a gorgeous rendition of Butterworth’s Loveliest of Trees said it all.
We began with Stanford’s La Belle Dame Sans Merci with words by Keats. Padmore acted out the words, not only through clear diction but with his whole body, expressing the varied emotions of the song from melancholy to happiness. Then came a series of eight songs, all from the 20th century except Hoopoe written in 2007 by Sally Beamish. Padmore advised us to search for an image of, ‘this wonderful bird’ if we weren’t familiar with it.
The song’s text is Jila Peacock’s translation of a Persian poem by the 14th Iranian poet Hafez about the Hoopoe, a magical bird in Middle Eastern mythology, the messenger between King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Padmore sang the bird’s name in a light-voiced and humorous tone, like a bird call. But there was drama too, with an anguished vocal line and discordant piano, a stunning climax, the range of colours in the song matching the vivid plumage of the bird itself. Another highlight of many in this sequence was The Seal Man, set by Rebecca Clarke to words by John Masefield. The poem is about a selkie, a mythical creature that shifts between human and seal forms, which lures a woman into the sea where she drowns. Padmore was completely immersed in the tragic story. Burgess played gorgeously ambiguous chords under the unsettling lines, ‘she went out into the moonlight to him.’ Padmore whispered the final words. ‘She was drowned, drowned’ while the piano part sank down in sorrow.
Padmore introduced Britten’s Winter Words by referring back to the ‘extraordinary’ performance of Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge in the Strings in the Nave concert the previous evening. He also provided pointers to Britten’s setting of the words by Thomas Hardy, including onomatopoeic effects such as a train whistle and leaves on an autumn day. He asked Burgess to play the hymn tune MountEphraim, the Choirmaster’s favourite tune in The Choirmaster’s Burial, to show us how it is interweaved with Britten’s piano part. When he performed the complete piece, Padmore acted out the humour, to chuckles from the audience, playing the part of the lazy vicar who prefers to have a spoken funeral service for the choirmaster rather than having musicians playing the hymn tune. Another vivid characterisation was in the lovely vignette, At the Railway Station, Upway, in which Padmore played the part of a convict talking to a boy with a violin. There was a twinkle in his eye at the end of the song. Padmore brought all the poems to life, creating a gripping and emotionally draining experience. The encore, introduced by Burgess, was Down by the Salley Gardens, not in the version the audience might have expected but by Rebecca Clarke, whose music we had heard earlier. After the emotional depth of the earlier songs it was a joy to hear this simple folk song in a lilting version with a light-voiced Padmore and sparkling piano from Burgess.
Beethoven Live and Late
Festival Chamber Soloists 9.45 pm The Crossing, Southwell Minster
Some of the greatest masterpieces of western art music were never heard live by their composers. Bach never heard a complete performance of his B Minor Mass – it wasn’t premiered in full until after his death. Beethoven never heard his Late String Quartets (numbers 12 – 17) as he was profoundly deaf by the time he wrote them. So these profound works of art only existed in their composers’ imaginations.
Southwell Minster, 9.30 pm Saturday 24 August 2024
It takes a special performance to realise these works. Ideally, they should speak directly to the audience, so the music appears to emanate from the imagination, exactly as the composers experienced them. The heart of Southwell Minster was an perfect place for Saturday night’s performance of Beethoven’s Quartet No. 15 in A minor (Opus 132). As Festival Director Marcus Farnworth explained, a religious setting was appropriate for a piece that includes a central movement titled Heiliger Dankgesang eines Genesenen an die Gottheit, a sacred song thanking God for Beethoven’s recovery from serious illness. But the setting was appropriate for other reasons too; the performers were powerfully illuminated while the audience on three sides were in almost complete darkness. Looking across to the audience on the other side, all that could be seen were pale, ghostly faces, as if this were a recreation of a concert from 1825 when the piece was written and the audience members had passed away long ago. The grave tolling of the Minster bell between the first and second movements of the Quartet was another reminder of the passing of time, and perhaps also that Beethoven was in fact near his death only two years later. The rapt concentration of the incredibly attentive audience in a packed house increased the effect of this being a cerebral rather than a corporeal performance.
All this would have been for nothing if the Festival Chamber Soloists hadn’t been up to the task of delivering a superb performance in a setting that was both intimate and austere. Fortunately, they were. Jamie Campbell (Associate Director of the Festival) was a sweet-toned First Violinist with immaculate tuning, equally matched by Alessandro Ruisi on Second Violin. The Viola of Lena Eckels was rich, warm-toned and precise. Nathaniel Boyd on Cello was subtle and agile, light-toned when required but passionate at times, attacking the strings with his bow. Together, they had a stunning level of ensemble, with breath-taking levels of concentration. The timeless nature of the performance – and the music – was accentuated by the pillars and arches that soared high above the audience from centuries before. As Libby Burgess said in her programme note,
“In many ways [Beethoven] was breaking with the norms and logic of the Viennese Classical tradition and reaching for something more poetic.”
And in the third movement in particular the music felt both modern and timeless, perhaps partly because, as Burgess says, Beethoven had by now, ‘retreated into an inner world.’ In this performance, it felt as if we had entered this private world, at least for a short time.
Martin Bussey & Anthony Pinching on ‘A Brother Abroad’
Martin Bussey (composer) and Anthony Pinching (librettist) 3.00 pm The Marquee, Palace Gardens
Composer and conductor Martin Bussey
Prof Anthony Pinching is the Director of Pinner Music Festival and a former clinical immunologist and academic. He wrote the libretto for A Brother Abroad for the composer and conductor Martin Bussey. The piece was commissioned for the 700th anniversary of the consecration of Pinner Parish Church in Middlesex. It was premiered at Pinner Music Festival in 2021 and performed at Ludlow English Song Weekend in 2022.
In a very interesting discussion, Pinching introduced Bussey as a son of Pinner. He said he commissioned him to write a piece about Peter of Bologna, Bishop of Corbavia (Krbava) in Croatia, a 14th century Franciscan Bishop whose colourful life led him across Europe. He settled in England as a Suffragan Bishop for five dioceses from 1318 to his death in 1332, and consecrated Pinner Parish Church in 1321, near the Archbishop of Canterbury’s hunting grounds.
Pinching’s libretto recounts Peter’s journey from his ‘simple room’ at Greyfriars to Pinner (then known as Pynnore), where he was greeted by bells and cheering crowds. As he travels, Peter recalls his journey to the ‘far North’ where he was part of a failed papal mission to broker peace between King Edward I and Robert the Bruce, and being attacked by a band of ‘shavaldours’ (brigands) on the way. Despite the violence he suffered, and his nostalgia for his home in ‘La Rossa’ (Bologna), he settled in England. He describes his deep devotion for ‘Brother Francis’, and the rites and rituals that inspire him, contrasting with the distracted figure of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was more interested in royal politics than ‘the way of Christ.’
Bussey explained that A Brother Abroad is part of a triptych of recent music theatre pieces, along with Mary’s Hand (2018) and Timeless Figure (2020), each written for a different combination of solo voice and three instrumentalists – in this case baritone, flute/piccolo, French horn and percussion. He was given free rein by Pincher to do what he wanted with the text, but the two worked closely together and he described Pincher as, ‘a sensitive librettist.’ Bussey felt that the spiritual aspect of the libretto was crucial, but he decided not to write the solo baritone part in plainsong, an interesting contrast with two recent works by the composer Tim Benjamin The Seafarer and The Wanderer, settings of early English poems. He admitted that it was ‘an enormous task’ for the soloist to sing such a long libretto, but fortunately the Festival’s Director and main baritone soloist Marcus Farnsworth, a ‘musical dynamo’, was up to the task. He fondly recalled first meeting Marcus, when the latter was 16, while he was teaching at Chetham’s School in Manchester. Bussey concluded by explaining that (like any sensible composer) he had recycled some of his material for use in works we were about to hear, using some of the themes from A Brother Abroad. La Rossa for solo flute evokes Peter’s memories of his native Bologna, and The Rites Observed for solo horn describes ‘the noble side of Peter.’
Medieval Masters
Emma Halnan (flute), George Strivens (French horn), Stephen Burke (percussion), Marcus Farnsworth (baritone), Martin Bussey (conductor), Festival Voices 4.00 pm The Crossing, Southwell Minster
Marcus Farnsworth, Festival Director and baritone soloist, introduced this concert as being, ‘from very early music to very new music’ – from 14th century French composer Guillaume de Machaut, and 12th century German composer Hildegard von Bingen to new music by Martin Bussey.
The concert began with the secular polyphony of Machaut’s Dame, de qui toute ma joie vient (Lady, source of all my joy) a chanson for four voices. A small group from the Festival Voices, singing without a conductor, gave a performance that was a little tentative but lively and spirited. Bussey’s two solo instrumental pieces then formed a triptych with Hildegard von Bingen’s O Ignis Spiritus (O Fire of the Spirit) for female voices. The Rites Observed for solo horn was superbly played by George Strivens as his mellow tone resonated around the Minster. A declamatory theme, taken from opening of A Brother Abroad,representing the start of Peter’s journey, was followed by faster, more discursive returns to the same theme. The musical language was austere and modernist, but also timeless. Somehow the act of removing and replacing the French horn’s mute became part of the ritual that the music describes. There was a coup de théâtre when, without a break, an offstage female choir sang the Hildegard piece. The evocate single vocal line, sung with excellent ensemble, was joined by the sound of wind from outside the Minster, and trees swaying through the stained glass window; the centuries rolled back, creating a spiritual experience for some audience members who sat with eyes closed. The Hildegard piece dovetailed beautifully into Bussey’s La Rossa for solo flute, written sometimes with a questing feel, sometimes florid, sometimes flowing and almost Debussy-esque. Emma Halnan shaped the melodic lines beautifully. There was another, serendipitous, moment of theatre when the sun shone through the Minster windows, apt as the piece describes Peter’s memories of sunnier climes in Bologna.
The main piece, A Brother Abroad featured Farnsworth as baritone soloist with the three other musicians. There was no libretto in the Festival programme book, but Farnsworth’s diction was so clear that it was easy to follow the story, particularly after the illuminating pre-concert talk. As Bussey said, this is essentially a piece of music theatre – although without the melodrama of pieces like Peter Maxwell Davies’ wonderfully dramatic Eight Songs for a Mad King. Farnsworth was suitably theatrical in his delivery, drawing on his operatic experience, a majestic and compelling presence as Bishop Peter whose arrival in 14th century ‘Pynnore’ was an important public event. The piece began with an offstage horn, declaiming the start of Peter’s journey. As Peter described the ‘tasks to be done’ heavy drums, dramatic horn lines and intricate flute parts evoked the enormity of his task. The ‘rites to be observed’ were reflected by tubular bells, played by Stephen Burke. Farnworth inhabited his role with dignity and a sense of devotion in the climactic passage describing his religious work, and was suitably animated in his disgust at the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Machiavellian machinations. The excitement of Peter’s entry into Pynnore was onomatopoeically illustrated by ornate piccolo lines representing the crowd, intense runs from the horn representing the post horn announcing his arrival, and tubular bells representing the church bells ringing. But there was simpler music at the end, as Peter described a ‘procession around the church’, the blessing and the final the prayer for peace, a contemplative conclusion to a highly effective work.
Strings in the Nave
7.00 pm The Nave, Southwell Minster Mark Padmore (tenor), Festival Sinfonia Strings, Jamie Campbell (director), Marcus Farnsworth (conductor)
Festival Director Marcus Farnsworth began this concert amusingly by showing the audience, airline style, where the emergency exits were, before introducing the Festival’s Artist in Residence, tenor Mark Padmore and the Festival Sinfonia Strings, several of whom had just taken part in the Aurora Orchestra’s Prom in which they played Beethoven’s ninth symphony from memory. The Sinfonia Strings demonstrated their virtuosity, playing without a conductor for most of the concert, instead being directed from the violin by Jamie Campbell, who also led the Festival Chamber Soloists in more Beethoven on Saturday evening.
The evening began with Farnsworth conducting Dies Natalis by British composer Gerald Finzi, with words by the 17th century English poet, cleric and theologian Thomas Traherne. The opening instrumental movement was a superb illustration of the joys to come. The upper strings were sweet toned with a beautifully mellow sound, with rich lower strings that were powerfully resonant in the generous acoustic of the Minster Nave. Tenor Mark Padmore joined in the second movement, acting out the words in a gorgeously plangent tone. There was a moment of sublime beauty in the passage beginning, ‘The corn was orient…’; a thrilling climax at ‘…almost mad with ecstasy’; and a moving sotto voce passage at the end when, ‘Everything was at rest.’ In the third movement, ‘The Rapture’, Padmore was immersed in the music, bringing out joy and passion, while the strings were beautifully controlled, dancing and elegant. Padmore’s voice was delightfully burnished in the fourth movement ‘Wonder’, with gently contemplative singing on the line, ‘O how divine, how soft, how sweet, how fair!’ His final contribution to the concert was in the fourth movement, ‘The Salutation’, engaging the audience with the angular beauty of the vocal line.
A series of companion pieces followed, firstly Two Canons by the 17th century English composer Matthew Locke, originally written for viol consort. Reduced forces played the first canon with little vibrato, bringing out the clarity of the lines. In the second canon, they drew austere beauty from the music with mournful clarity, with a spellbinding mini-fugue, and an enchanting moment of near-silence. This was followed by Hymn (after Byrd), by the contemporary British composer Edmund Finnis, an arrangement for string ensemble of the fourth movement of his First String Quartet, which was inspired by William Byrd’s setting of the 5th century hymn Christe, qui lux es et dies (Christ, who art light and day). Finnis describes the hymn as an, ‘ancient melody…a prayer for Light within the darkness of the night.’ His piece began with hymn-like chords, like Byrd’s 16th century piece but with subtle dissonances, as if the music were seen, ‘through a glass darkly.’ There were moments of delicate wonder and beauty, played with lovely ensemble. In one moving passage, the music came out of silence, and at the end the piece was reduced to a single note. A stunning performance.
The final work was Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, written by Benjamin Britten when he was still in his early twenties, and directed here by Jamie Campbell. In his programme note, Campbell described the work as,
‘….an epic, virtuoso work…I find [it] both thrilling and profound.. [it] demonstrates the dazzling compositional skill the young Britten already had.
Campbell and his players -some not much older than Britten when he wrote the work – embraced the works’ virtuosity, with precision of ensemble throughout in an invigorating, gripping performance, bringing out the diverse nature of each of the variations. There was growling darkness in the ‘Adagio’, jolly, shimmering strings in the ‘March’, and soaring strings in ‘Romance’. The ‘Aria’ brought out the exaggerated melodrama and operatic feel of the piece, raising laughter in the audience. The ‘Bourrée classique’ brought out the four-square dance rhythms, with a virtuosic solo from Campbell, and there was a fiercely intense ‘Weiner Waltzer’, revealing the sarcastic humour of the variation. A dizzyingly exciting ‘Moto Perpetuo’ led to the ‘Funeral March’, and between the movements the Minster bell rang, propitiously in the right key. The ‘Funeral March’ was intensely moving, and there was a moment of profound stasis in ‘Chant’. The concert ended superbly with the joyful intensity of the final fugue, with a subdued, magical ending followed by a final swell of strings.
Cathedrals of Sound
Festival Voices, Marcus Farnsworth (conductor) 9.15 pm The Nave, Southwell Minster
Conductor and Festival Director Marcus Farnsworth introduced this late-night concert by saying, ‘what a great privilege it is to stand before singers of this calibre.’ He was right. Throughout this excellent concert, the young singers of the Festival Voices excelled, with beautifully balanced dynamics, a warm sound with rich vibrato, and visceral power when necessary, with great control under Farnsworth’s precise conducting.
One of the joys of the Festival programming was the pairing of old and new music, as in Medieval Masters (see above), and the Tenth Anniversary concert (day three) when a new work by Cheryl Frances-Hoad was paired with Mozart’s Requiem. Cathedrals of Sound celebrated the Austrian composer Anton Bruckner, who was born 200 years ago. The concert’s title was taken from a description of Bruckner’s symphonies as ‘cathedrals of sound’, but the concert was based around five of his motets. Farnsworth explained that the motets showed Bruckner looking backwards and forwards at the same time in his musical style, and the programme reflected this, casting his works in a new light, looking back to the style of Bach and Byrd, and forward to the work of contemporary composers.
The concert began with a sequence of five different reflections on the Ave Maria theme, written in praise of the Virgin Mary. Bruckner’s Ave Maria,with its complex block harmonies, contrasted with the contrapuntal glories of Byrd’s polyphony in Alleluia, Ave Maria, both works juxtaposed with the surprising simplicity of Stravinsky’s Ave Maria. There was a gorgeous flowering of words ‘Virga Jesse’ in the Bruckner motet of the same name. Finally, there was another Ave Maria, by the composer Sarah Cattley, a commentary on Bruckner’s style with dense harmonies that sometimes sounded like Bruckner but with added harmonic clashes, and at other times more modern, with clouds of sound surrounding the words ‘Nunc et in Ora.’
The second sequence sandwiched Bruckner’s Christus Factus Est between two remarkable pieces by composer Gemma Bass, who is also a violinist with several performing groups in Manchester, and who performed in Surround Sounds No.3 (day four). Farnsworth confessed this was the first time the Choir had tackled improvised music, and it worked extremely well here. Bass has written a suite of five compositions, including Missing Pieces – Two, Three which leaves gaps for improvisation. The Choir inserted parts of Christus FactusEst into the gaps, based on instructions Bass provided. Pairs of singers decided their own timing from pre-determined notes while the rest of the choir contributed harmonies from Bruckner, a ‘sonic exploration’, effectively a joint creation between Bass and the Choir. More and more pairs of voices joined in at different speeds, an invigorating babel of sounds, reminiscent of the free-form ‘pleni sunt caeli’ section in the ‘Sanctus’ from Britten’s War Requiem. There were some terrifying dissonances as a cry of anguish led to the complex harmonies of the Bruckner motet, which describes Christ’s death on the cross. Gemma Bass’ piece returned with another heart-rending wail of anguish that illuminated the pain of the Bruckner piece. A stunning sequence of music.
After the relative simplicity of Bruckner’s miniature choral gem, Locus Iste, there was yet more inspired intervention from a contemporary composer, Roderick Williams’ take on Byrd’s Ave Verum Corpus. After the original, we heard Williams’ Ave Verum CorpusRe-imagined, with great slabs of music frozen in time, as if the Byrd piece had been beamed to other galaxies and back again in fragments and clusters. There were snatches of Bruckner-style chords and a plangent tenor solo. There were hints of Messiaen’s early choral piece O sacrum convivium! and Williams’ highly imaginative work ended with a lovely, dissonant ‘Amen’. But the last word was left to the mighty Bruckner – as Farnsworth said, he had ‘left the best to last’ with Os Justi. Farnsworth said he intended to give us, ‘something to think about’, and in this compelling programme he certainly did so.
Southwell Minster, where most of the events take place
Southwell is a market town in the heart of Nottinghamshire, with a grade I listed cathedral, Southwell Minster. For the last ten years, the town has been the home of Southwell Music Festival, founded by the Artistic Director, Marcus Farnsworth.
Farnsworth was born and raised in Southwell and was a chorister at the Minster. He went to Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester and sang in the cathedral choir there. He studied at the University of Manchester and the Royal Academy of Music. He is now Head of Vocal and Choral Studies at Chetham’s, an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music, and Musical Director of Southwell Choral Society. He has performed regularly in recital, as a principal artist with opera companies across Europe and North America, and with major orchestras and early music ensembles in the UK.
The Music Festival draws young professional musicians from major UK and European orchestras and ensembles, and singers who perform with professional choirs and as soloists. Many of them return to the Festival every year, and new ones come each year as well. Farnsworth conducts some of the concerts, and is sometimes a baritone soloist. The Festival Sinfonia Strings are led and directed by the violinist Jamie Campbell, Principal 2nd violin with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the Aurora Orchestra. This year’s Artist in Residence was the distinguished tenor Mark Padmore. The Festival also featured new and specially commissioned music from, amongst others, Martin Bussey, Edmund Finnis, Sarah Cattley, Gemma Bass, Roderick Williams, Sally Beamish and Cheryl Frances-Hoad.
Follow the links below for day by day reviews of a selection of events from the Festival:
