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BBC Philharmonic Orchestra – Bluebeard’s Castle – Live Review

Saturday 24 January 2026

Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

*****

An unforgettable exploration of Bartók’s psychodrama

Jennifer Johnston as Judith, Christopher Purves as Duke Bluebeard and conductor Anja Bihlmaier. Image © Chris Payne

It’s unusual for one concert in an orchestra’s season to follow on from the next, unless they are part of a programmed series, such as a festival devoted to the works of one composer. But Saturday night’s concert by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, under conductor Anja Bihlmaier, picked up where last week’s concert left off. That concert ended with John Adams’ City Noir, a depiction of Los Angeles at night. Saturday’s concert began with another description of night, Lili Boulanger’s D’un Soir Triste (On a Sad Evening).

The two works share not just a nocturnal theme but, at times, a cinematic landscape, music that could have come from a film noir. This is made explicit by Adams, but Boulanger died in 1918, before film music, apart from music for silent films, even existed, so the link can only be made in retrospect. The concert ended with another cinematic work with darkness at its heart: Béla Bartók’s one-act opera Bluebeard’s Castle.

Boulanger died at the tender age of 24, and the only surviving manuscript for D’un Soir Triste in the composer’s hand is the original version for violin, cello and piano. The orchestral manuscript is in the hand of Lili’s older sister Nadia, who survived Lili by over 60 years.

The piece began with stark, questioning strings, then a sudden moment of calm with a characterful clarinet solo from John Bradbury, of whom we were to hear much more later. The music was dark and sorrowful, with dense textures, casting us back to John Adams’ shadowy streets and culminating in a dramatic climax that could have come from a film noir. An urgently rhythmic theme on the timpani felt like the hammer-blow of fate from Mahler’s Sixth Symphony. There was a moment of magic with a limpid celesta part and an intense cello solo, with romantic harmonies that melted into an ethereal violin theme, before the fateful theme returned with rasping brass. A hymn-like section led to a lovely harmonic development, and another orchestral climax, the sound bright but somehow underpinned by darkness as the piece reached an uneasy end.

 ‘If I were to name the composer whose works are the most perfect embodiment of the Hungarian spirit, I would answer, Kodály.’

Béla Bartók on his friend and colleague Zoltán Kodály

The second piece, Dances of Galánta by Zoltán Kodály, introduced the concert’s other main theme: Hungarian music. Born only a year apart in the early 1880s, Kodály and his friend Béla Bartók were two of the most important 20th-century Hungarian composers. They both collected folk songs for use in their own music. Kodály spent part of his childhood in Galánta, which was then part of Hungary (now in Slovakia). He grew up listening to dances played by ‘a famous Gypsy band which has since disappeared…their music was the first “orchestral sonority” which came to the ear of a child.’

The Dances celebrate a particular kind of dance, the verbunkos (Werbung, German,  recruiting). Hussars would come on recruiting missions and impress the locals with their dancing, alternating slow and fast dances, to persuade them that being in the army was fun. The music was provided by the Gypsy bands that Kodály referred to in the note that he made in the score. He orchestrated Gypsy dances published in Vienna around 1800, in addition writing a slow introduction, a clarinet cadenza, an andante maestoso and linking material.

Conductor Anja Bihlmaier and members of the BBC Philharmonic © Chris Payne

The piece began with cellos playing in perfect ensemble under Bihlmaier’s precise baton, with swirling upper strings. A solo horn sounded like a military horn, perhaps welcoming us into the Hungarian army. A gorgeous romantic statement of the opening theme led to a clarinet cadenza, played by John Bradbury with his usual flair and panache, with elegant orchestral accompaniment. Waves of joy passed through the orchestra as they played the intricate dances, Bihlmaier now dancing on the podium. The woodwinds excelled themselves, sometimes playing with a subtle lilt, at other times with sparkling jollity. A slower dance was reminiscent of the scenes at the fair in Stravinsky’s ballet Petrushka. There was a sudden pause, a brief moment of stasis, then more superb woodwind solos. The orchestra then scampered to a thrillingly visceral climax, bringing the piece to an end. It was such an exciting performance that we might have been persuaded to join the Hungarian hussars…

The second half featured more music with a Hungarian theme, with a text by Herbert Béla Bauer, who wrote under the pseudonym Béla Balázs. He was born a couple of years after Kodály and Bartók. In 1910, Balázs published a version of Bluebeard’s Castle, pragmatically dedicating it to both composers. Kodály wasn’t interested in adapting the drama, but Bartók happily took the bait and finished his one-act opera in 1911. He entered it in two competitions, but it was rejected each time.

The Bluebeard story dates back centuries. It’s thought that the model for the character may have been the 15th-century French lord, Gilles de Rais. In 1697 the French writer Charles Perrault published a collection of folk tale adaptations, Histoires ou Contes du Temps Passé (Stories or Tales of Times Past), including La Barbe Bleu (Bluebeard). The Belgian playwright Maurice Maeterlinck wrote another version, his 1901 play Ariane et Barbe-bleue (Ariana and Bluebeard). The French composer Paul Dukas turned it into an opera in 1907.

Béla Balázs drew on the work of both Perrault and Maeterlinck in creating his 1910 version. He stressed that his version wasn’t a myth, a fantasy or a horror story, but a psychological drama,

‘My ballad is the is the ‘ballad of inner life.’ Bluebeard’s castle is not a real castle of stone. The castle is his soul. It is lonely, dark and secretive; the castle of closed doors.’

He later added a spoken-word Prologue to Bartók’s opera, which hints that the drama is internal,

‘The curtain of our eyelids is raised
Where is the stage: outside or within?’

On Saturday evening, the Philharmonic Orchestra didn’t perform the Prologue, but they brought out the opera’s psychological nature by placing the two protagonists, Christopher Purves as Bluebeard and Jennifer Johnston as his (fourth) wife, Judith, on either side of the conductor, facing the audience, rather than semi-staging the opera. The text, sung in an English translation by Péter Bartók and Peter Hennings (see below), was projected above the stage, so that we could concentrate on the words. And there was evocative use of lighting to represent the different doors – or aspects of Bluebeard’s personality – which Judith was so keen to open and inspect. The use of lights on each orchestral music stand, coupled with BBC Radio 3’s microphones, created the impression of a recording studio, which suggested that the inner life of the music and text was more important than external gestures.

Purves came on wearing a kilt, presumably in honour of Burns Night the following day. Johnston wore a splendid, glittery black top. Purves sang with immaculate diction and a deep, rich, agile voice. Johnston sang with great expression, illustrating the words with her hands and her voice, which was in turn mellow, animated, forceful and Wagnerian, negotiating Bartók’s angular vocal lines with ease. The orchestra played superbly throughout.

Jennifer Johnston © R T Dunphy
Christopher Purves © Chris Gloag


Péter Bartók and Peter Hennings
I was lucky enough to meet Peter Hennings at the concert, who had worked with Béla Bartók’s son Péter (pictured left) on the English translation of the opera, finessing it to fit the metre. Hennings had flown over from Florida specially for the concert. He told me that the original English translation had been based on the German version of the text, whereas Péter Bartók’s version had used the original Hungarian version. Hennings worked with Péter Bartók for 20 years on editions of his father’s music, which went back to the original manuscripts.

In Balázs’ libretto, translated here into poetic and idiomatic English, Judith has left her family ‘weeping’, to marry Bluebeard, despite rumours about what may have happened to his previous wives. Her relationship with Bluebeard is complex. She constantly asks Bluebeard to allow her to see what is behind each of the seven doors of his castle – or to reveal deeper aspects of his personality – despite his warnings that she won’t like what is revealed. Their relationship is close, perhaps unnaturally so, as if they have become co-dependents.

© Chris Payne
© Chris Payne

The first of seven doors revealed Bluebeard’s torture chamber, with superb orchestration, as the stage was bathed in red light. There was deep irony in Judith’s words, ‘Hideous is your chamber, dearest Bluebeard.’ He constantly asked her if she was frightened, and she replied that she wasn’t; perhaps fascination with his psychological state was what she really felt.

The second door revealed Bluebeard’s armoury, the stage bathed in orange to suggest weapons, illustrated by military brass. The third door was illustrated with yellow light, revealing his treasure, but with a disturbing undertone from a violin duet and, later, shrieking woodwind and ominous brass to depict the blood on the treasure. Lilac-coloured lighting illustrated Bluebeard’s garden behind the fourth door, a mellow horn solo and filigree flutes describing the flowers and blossoms, which were tainted with blood. Bluebeard again begged his bride to love him, but not to ask him any questions.

Organist Ben Collyer. Image © Chris Payne

There was an incredible climax, as the orchestra was joined by organ and offstage brass, when door five was opened to reveal Bluebeard’s vast kingdom. A dazzling white light flooded the stage and the hall, so bright that Judith had to cover her eyes. There was a moment of supreme beauty as Johnston twice sang the single quiet phrase, ‘vast and mighty is your kingdom’, contrasting with Purves’ more impassioned singing. The uncertain orchestral themes illustrated the bloody shadows of the clouds.

Judith recovered from her shock and demanded to see behind the sixth door. Johnston’s voice was incredibly powerful, over the full orchestra. A lake was revealed; was Judith as innocent as she appeared when she asked where the water was from? A sweeping, shimmering orchestral theme accompanied the revelation that the lake was made up of tears; were they from Bluebeard’s previous wives?

The Duke’s previous three wives were revealed behind the seventh door, the orchestra in darkness as Judith was bathed in red (blood?) and Bluebeard in white. Johnston was incredibly moving as she bowed her head self-effacingly when comparing herself to Bluebeard’s previous wives, then cried ‘no more’ as she gripped her top in terror.

Bluebeard declared that his fourth wife was the wife of midnight, as he had found her at that time. Henceforth, all would be darkness. In a stunning coup de théâtre, all the orchestral lights went off, one by one, leaving the stage completely dark. It was a relief after the psychological tension we had experienced when the stage was bathed in warm light, as the performers received their huge and well-deserved applause. It was a privilege to be present at such a special event.

The concert was recorded for broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on Thursday 5 March. It will be available for 30 days after broadcast via BBC Sounds.

Performers

Anja Bihlmaier conductor
Jennifer Johnston mezzo-soprano, Judith
Christopher Purves bass-baritone, Duke Bluebeard

Repertoire

Lili Boulanger D’un Soir Triste
Zoltán Kodály Dances of Galánta
Béla Bartók Bluebeard’s Castle

Sources

Mike Ashman, ‘The Castle is his Soul’ (Sleeve note to Chandos recording, 2006)

Read on…

Anja Bihlmaier at Manchester Classical 2025…

Manchester Classical 2025 Day One – Live Review

City Noir by John Adams…

BBC Philharmonic – John Adams, Beethoven and Ives – Live Review

Bartók’s Divertimento….

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra – Serenade for Strings – Live Review
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BBC Philharmonic – John Adams, Beethoven and Ives – Live Review

Saturday 17 January 2026

Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

****

A serene Beethoven piano and two unresolved American orchestral classics from Ives and Adams

Alim Beisembayev (at the piano), John Storgårds and the BBC Philharmonic. Image credit Chris Payne.

Saturday evening’s concert by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, under their Chief Conductor, John Storgårds, featured two pieces by American composers Charles Ives and John Adams, written a century apart in the early 20th and 21st centuries. They book-ended a piece by Beethoven written in the early part of the 19th century, with the gap between the three works almost exactly 100 years (1805-6; 1908; 2009), providing neat symmetry.

The concert began with The Unanswered Question (1908) by Charles Ives, which he described as a ‘cosmic landscape.’ The piece consists of three layers, beautifully controlled by Storgårds: the opening strings, spellbindingly quiet, representing ‘the Druids Who Know See and Hear Nothing’; a solo trumpet (played here by Tom Fountain) that poses the ‘Perennial Question of Existence’; and a flute quartet that attempts to provide ‘The Invisible Answer.’ The piece ends with the ‘Undisturbed Solitude’ of the Druids, as the Question remains unanswered.

The Unanswered Question by Charles Ives, adapted by Japanese synth pioneer Isao Tomita, from his 1977 album Kosmos

Storgårds barely moved as the bows of the strings seemed suspended in slow motion. The solo trumpeter, Tom Fountain, was almost hidden near the Bridgewater Hall’s organ. The plaintive sound of the trumpet was answered by increasingly discordant flutes, playing a distorted version of the trumpet theme. On a signal from Storgårds, one of the flute quartet conducted her colleagues; one of the remarkable aspects of this piece is that the three groups play in independent tempi. This might have been a spellbinding performance, but unfortunately, our concentration was disrupted by a fourth (unwanted) layer, noisy coughing from the audience.

Alim Beisembayev. Source: alimbeisembayev.co.uk

Like the Ives piece, Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major (1805-6) also poses a question. It begins with a gentle question from the piano, which the orchestra answers quietly, repeating the piano’s opening theme. But as in the Ives, the answer isn’t quite what we expect: the piano opens in the home key of G major, and the orchestra’s response is in the unrelated key of B major. Nevertheless, the relationship between soloist and orchestra is harmonious. There’s no pitched battle here, as there often is between orchestra and soloist in a concerto. The work is frequently characterised by Mozartian calm rather than Beethovenian muscularity and ferocity. It has a valedictory quality, as if marking the fact that this was the last piano concerto the composer could perform in concert due to his increasing deafness.

The soloist on Saturday was Alim Beisembayev, born in Kazakhstan, who won First Prize at The Leeds International Piano Competition in 2021. He joined the BBC New Generation Artists in 2023, and this was his first concert with them as a graduate of the scheme.

Early in the first movement, a placid, running theme on the upper strings was paired with precisely plucked lower strings, which were very clear in the Bridgewater Hall’s superb acoustic. Glorious, sunny orchestral flowering was similar to the calmer Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony written a couple of years later. There was a brief moment of doubt in the lower strings, but this soon resolved as the orchestra repeated the opening theme. Beisembayev replied with filigree decoration, beautifully even, playing with a lovely touch. He entered a mellow dialogue with the orchestra as they passed through a chromatic palette of keys. In the cadenza, he was mesmerising to watch, playing with more passion and emotion than earlier, then with gorgeous, limpid simplicity.

The second movement of the concerto is unusual in that it is more robust than many. Beisembayev began with a perfectly measured performance of the nostalgic opening theme, but there followed a fretful passage, still beautifully controlled. A forlorn, almost apologetic orchestral theme suggested Beethoven’s sorrow at being forced to abandon performing live. In the final movement, which began without a break, the orchestra and soloist entered into a more relaxed, joyful dialogue. Beisembayev held up the orchestra in a moment of stasis while he performed piano pyrotechnics. They joyfully chased each other through the keys. Beisembayev hurried towards a cadenza-like section, then suddenly stopped and restarted – there was light at the end of the metaphorical tunnel. We had reached the sunlit uplands; the ending was ecstatic.


Scarlatti’s Sonata in G Major, Kk. 13, L. 486, from Beisembayev’s 2021 album The Leeds International Piano Competition 2021 – Gold Medal Winner (Parlophone)

Beisembayev’s encore was Scarlatti’s Sonata in G Major, Kk. 13. He played this complex music with great speed and accuracy, bringing out the individual melodic lines superbly, drawing warm applause from the audience

John Adams’ City Noir was named by the late Andrew Clements of The Guardian in 2019 as one of the best classical music works of the 21st Century. Adams was inspired to write the piece by reading the multi-volume Americans and the California Dream by the American historian Kevin Starr. In particular, he was inspired by the volume Embattled Dreams: California in War and Peace, 1940-1950, which describes the case of the gruesome murder of Elizabeth Short, who became known after her death as Black Dahlia. The story goes that she moved to Los Angeles to become an actress, and she may have been called Black Dahlia after the 1946 film noir The Blue Dahlia. Adams was inspired by the ‘sensational journalism’ of 1940s and 50s California, and the ‘dark, eerie chiaroscuro of the Hollywood films’ of that era to write music for an imaginary film noir. He was also inspired to write ‘jazz-inflected symphonic music’, drawing on models such as Darius Milhaud’s La Création du monde written in 1922 – 23 and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue written a year later.

John Storgårds and the BBC Philharmonic. Image credit Chris Payne.

The first movement, ‘The City and its Double’, threw us immediately into the cinematic landscape with full orchestra, uncompromisingly dark, with serpentine themes snaking back on themselves. The work’s jazz credentials were immediately obvious, with drummer Ben Gray providing insistent rhythms. The alto sax soloist Carl Raven was superb throughout the whole piece. The movement depicts a boulevard at night, deserted but with an ominous atmosphere, punctuated by moments of terror. The movement had a late-night feel, with a shimmer suggesting the silver screen. There was bright, cinematic music, troubling and virtuosic, creating a glorious cacophony of joy. Adams is a master of orchestral colours and layers, and Storgårds brought out all the detail of this dense score from the vast orchestra.

From out of the chaos arose the alto sax melody of the second movement, ‘The Song is for You’, fluidly played by Carl Raven. In the middle of the intricate orchestral texture, it was a visceral shock to hear a single held note in the violins, before the texture thickened again. There were further solos: Richard Brown played the trombone idiomatically in the style of the ‘talking solo’ performed by Duke Ellington’s band members Lawrence Brown and Britt Woodman, as the orchestra growled beneath; Carl Raven returned with a short riff, entering into frenzied dialogue with the orchestra, contrasting with the tranquil discussions of orchestra and soloist in the Beethoven piano concerto; Steven Burnard brought a lovely warm tone to a brief viola solo.

John Storgårds and the BBC Philharmonic. Image credit Chris Payne.

The third movement began with sultry woodwind, perfectly depicting a ‘Boulevard Night’, ; in the words of the composer, ‘peopled with strange characters.’ We could feel the heat described in harmonic changes. Trumpeter Tom Fountain, the soloist in the Ives, returned with an increasingly virtuosic solo. Furiously rhythmic chords used the whole orchestra as a percussion instrument, recalling Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, as far away from the elegant control of the Beethoven piece as possible. Raven returned with a sensuous solo, described by Adams as ‘brash and uncouth, perfectly characterised. Febrile jazz drumming from Ben Gray, duetting with percussionist Tim Williams, created joyful syncopations which were amazing to watch, bringing the stunning performance of a difficult piece to an end.

Programme

Charles Ives The Unanswered Question
Ludwig van Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4
John Adams City Noir

Performers

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
Alim Beisembayev piano
John Storgårds conductor

Source

Programme Note on City Noir by John Adams at earbox.com

The concert was recorded for broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 27 January. It will be available for 30 days after broadcast via BBC Sounds.

More by the BBC Philharmonic…

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra – Serenade for Strings – Live Review
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra – Mahler’s ‘Titan’ – Symphony No. 1 – Live Review

More music by John Adams in Manchester…

The Hallé – John Adams Conducts the Chairman Dances – Live Review

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2025 – The Year in Classical Music in Manchester (and London, Leipzig and Southwell) – Live Review

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.“

Manchester Classical 2025 Day One – Live Review
Manchester Classical 2025 Day Two – Live Review

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra

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.

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra – Serenade for Strings – Live Review

Manchester Collective

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.

Manchester Collective x The Marian Consort: Wintering – Live Review

The Hallé Orchestra

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.

Wagner The Flying Dutchman – Opera North – Live Review

English National Opera

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.

Britten – Albert Herring – English National Opera – Live Review

Kantos Chamber Choir

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.

Kantos Chamber Choir – The Witch Trials – Live Review

The Apex Singers

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.

The Apex Singers – Christmas with the Apex Singers – Live Review

Southwell Music Festival

Elsewhere, the Southwell Festival in Nottinghamshire, now in its eleventh year, included another personal highlight, a concert by the Portuguese singer-songwriter Inês Loubet.

Southwell Festival 2025 Day Three – Festival Jazz – Live Review

Bach in Leipzig

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.

A Visit to Thomas Kirche (St Thomas’s Church) in Leipzig, Home of the Music of JS Bach – Music Across the Generations and Across the Centuries

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.

The Bach Choir and the Philharmonia Orchestra – Mahler Symphony No. 8 – Live Review

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The Apex Singers – Christmas with the Apex Singers – Live Review

The Yard, Manchester

Tuesday 9 December 2025

*****

Christmas magic comes early to Manchester with joyful singing and a party atmosphere

The Apex Singers. Photo Harry Proctor

On another unseasonably warm evening in early December, we packed into one of Manchester’s newest (and warmest!) venues, The Yard in the Cheetham area of Manchester, for a Christmas concert by the Apex Singers.

The support act on Tuesday was Ardú, who describe themselves as ‘Ireland’s premier a cappella vocal band.’ Their name means to raise up, inspire or elevate. Despite having a terrible journey from Dublin via Heathrow, the three women and three men of the band, singing from memory, managed to do just that in a short but compelling set.

All the arrangements were made by their music director, Ciarán Kelly, beginning with a gorgeous, intricate version of O Holy Night. The song Galileo by the Irish singer-songwriter Declan O’Rourke was an attractive ballad with a light tenor solo, the singers swaying gently and smiling at each other. The song ended with a lovely falsetto line, like fine wine.

Longing for home in Ireland inspired a gentle, lilting arrangement of the song Carrickfergus, sung in lovely, pure tones and with a superb blend of voices. The band released it during lockdown, during the ‘Famous Plague’ (as they described it), and their performance at Carrickfergus Castle featured in the Last Night of the Proms in 2021.

In their last song, Fire, the band demonstrated their versatility, singing in a more strident style to suit the nightmare of waiting for Santa to arrive, worrying about the weather. The band sang with urgency and passion, and supreme confidence. After such an excellent but short set and such a stressful journey, it was a relief to hear that the band had another gig booked for the following day, Songs from Ireland – Holiday Edition at The International Anthony Burgess Foundation in Manchester.

As the six members of Ardú left the stage, they were immediately replaced by the eight Apex Singers, although there were often only six singers on stage later in the concert. The Singers performed songs from their new album, Kvällen, which means evening in Swedish, but opened with an older song, Da Ia Da from their previous album Woven. The song was composed by the choir’s Founder and Artistic Director, Ollie Lambert. This was a lovely wordless vocalise (we were told ‘it’s a joy to listen to, but the lyrics need more work’). The piece has an attractive melody, with lovely falling harmonies.

Soprano Lydia Wonham introduced the first piece for Christmas (well, Advent), O Come O Come Emmanuel, which dates back to a Latin version, Veni, veni, Emmanuel, first sung by monks around 1,200 years ago. Apparently, Lambert bought 271 candles from Primark for the music video, but fortunately failed to set fire to the cameraman (no one wants a repeat of the cover of Pink Floyd’s 1975 album Wish You Were Here, in which the late Ronnie Rondell Jr was famously set on fire). The piece began in unison, which soon flowered into close harmony, in a stunning arrangement by Lambert that did catch fire. A Lambert original (the first one he wrote for the Singers) followed. Stopping by the Woods featured a pure-voiced tone from Wonham, a gently syncopated rhythm, and a sweet offbeat solo from George Lowe.

The cover of Kvällen by the Apex Singers

Two tracks from the new album, Kvällen, followed. Suo Gân, a Welsh lullaby, was soporific (in a good way), with beautifully poised singing from alto Issie Turner, who was new to the choir on this tour. The lower voices of the choir took up the tune in barbershop style. In complete contrast, and demonstrating the choir’s versatility, they sang the Croatian song Nevijska Kolenda in an invigorating, robust style led by tenor Douglass Lloyd, depicting a Christmas festival with bonfires (was a pyromaniac theme developing here?).

A feature of the choir is their warm-hearted and witty spoken introductions to the songs, and they were on fire (sorry) on Tuesday. Bass Elliott Maxwell-Hodkinson introduced Ye Banks and Braes, with words by no less a poet than Robert Burns, as a story about an abandoned woman who was ‘really miffed’ about being left literally holding the baby. George told us they believed an Irishman who said Wild Mountain Thyme doesn’t grow in Ireland, only to find out it’s the most prolific wild plant there!

Two highlights in the first half were: a jolly version of It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, with an American-inflected solo by tenor Douglas Lloyd and virtuosic backing vocals; and The Fox with a busy, complex arrangement carried off with supreme aplomb. There were several solos in the latter song, which is over 500 years old; all the choir members felt very comfortable singing them. In the final piece of the half, the Swedish hymn, Ett barn är fött på denna dag, (A Child is Born on this Day) singers from the choral workshop earlier in the day, and members of Ardú, joined the lovely chromatic harmonies, while Lydia Wonham provided a pure coloratura soprano above.

Lydia Wonham, Nia Edwards and Douglas Lloyd. Photo Harry Proctor

The second half began with a very different version of Fairytale of New York, so well known for the distinctive vocals of Shane MacGowan and Kirsty MacColl. It was slightly startling to hear the words ‘You scumbag, you maggot’ sung so beautifully by Issie Turner; the song, in a lovely arrangement by Lambert, sounded more like a Christmas carol despite the brutal nature of the words. Michael Colman asked us if we were having a good time; we replied that we were (it was true). He thought that was ‘frankly excellent news’ (it was).

More lovely songs from the new album followed: the Catalan carol/lullaby El Noi de la Mare (The Child of the Mother), sung in a gentle waltz time. As George sang the simple tune with ardent honesty, they were surrounded by a halo of sound. The French classic Noël Nouvelet featured a jazzy arrangement that evoked Jacques Loussier‘s jazz versions of JS Bach’s music. A false ending drew some premature applause, then a very enthusiastic reaction when we realised it was safe to applaud.

Elliott Maxwell-Hodkinson, Michael Colman, Issie Turner
. Photo Harry Proctor

Another pair of songs from the new album included the Spanish lullaby A la Nanita Nana, with warmly idiomatic singing by alto Nia Edwards. There was a thrilling contrast in The Christmas Goose, a Mancunian folk song with saucy lyrics, featuring a funky bass line and solos throughout the group. Lydia Wonham commented that the song was about going to a pub and ending up with a baby: ‘we’ve all been there.’ Well, quite.

After unusual but exquisite arrangements of White Christmas and Hushabye Mountain, the choir started to get a bit giddy with the joy of singing such complicated versions so well. They decided to take a selfie, inviting us all to squeeze in (we did our best). This was Nia Edwards’ last show, so the choir gave her parting gifts, and a party atmosphere broke out on stage.

The Apex Singers at The Yard. Photo Harry Proctor

We had reached the end of the show with (appropriately) The Parting Glass, which began with a moving, contemplative duet from alto Nia Edwards and soprano Eva Jones. The final words, ‘Good night and joy be to you all’, rang true. The evening ended with an encore, a heartfelt version of Auld Lang Syne, which brought new meaning to the words that are often mumbled and forgotten when sung in other contexts.

So ended another delightful evening with the Apex Singers. It would not be easy to find another ensemble as happy to perform together. Their joyful singing and warmth washed over the audience, embracing us, and they wore their virtuosity very lightly. The atmosphere was relaxed and intimate, and they made very genial hosts. Lambert’s skilful arrangements took us around the world and to different eras, but always with his unique stamp. Christmas came early to Manchester this year.

Performers

Ardú

The Apex Singers:
Lydia Wonham, Eva Jones soprano
Nia Edwards, Issie Turner alto
Douglas Lloyd, Michael Colman tenor
George Lowe, Elliott Maxwell-Hodkinson bass

Ollie Lambert Founder & Artistic Director

This review was updated at 20.57 on 15 December 2025 to correct a few minor factual errors.

Read on…

The Apex Singers – Live Review
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BBC Philharmonic Orchestra – Serenade for Strings – Live Review

Friday 5 December 2025

RNCM, Manchester

*****

The strings of the BBC Philharmonic shine in music by Bartók and Tchaikovsky

The Strings of the BBC Philharmonic directed by Zoë Beyers. Image © Chris Payne/BBC

Last Friday’s concert at the RNCM in Manchester was directed from the violin by the Leader of the BBC Philharmonic, Zoë Beyers, and featured the orchestra’s string section. The first half of the concert was devoted to Béla Bartók’s Divertimento for strings, written in 1939 on the eve of WWII. Beyers pointed out that the piece was influenced by ‘the sentiments of war’. In his programme note, Tim Rutherford-Johnson quoted Bartók’s letter to his elder son Béla Bartók Jr., ‘the newspapers are full of military articles [and] military preparedness.’ A year later, Bartók left his troubled home country of Hungary to settle in New York, where he died an American citizen in 1945.

Beyers pointed out another possible influence on the work, Bartók’s poor early health (see below). She said the composer wrote music from a very young age; he didn’t speak until he was four. He was treated with arsenic for a troubling rash which he developed following the smallpox vaccine. His mother, a pianist, communicated with him by playing dance tunes to him on the piano, which made him smile. So the music he wrote in the Divertimento (traditionally a form of attractive, light, entertaining music, as in Mozart’s Divertimenti) was coloured by his outbursts of ‘anger and frustration… about his very tortured childhood’ as much as by ‘unrest in Europe.’ It was up to us to decide what influenced the composer.

Bartók’s Early Health

According to the composer’s elder son, the young Bartók had the smallpox vaccination at the age of three months, after which he developed a skin condition called exanthema:
‘The permanent itchiness, the people shocked with the sight of the spots, and the many medical treatments without any result made him a reticent child... the disease came to an end when he was five years old because of a new treatment, the use of arsenics.‘

Source: Béla Bartók’s Diseases (1981)

Image: Bartók at 18 (Wikimedia Commons)

Bartók’s Divertimento draws not only on Mozart’s model but also on an earlier one, the Baroque concerto grosso. This musical form uses a small group of solo strings and contrasts them with a larger string orchestra. On Friday, the soloists sat in a semi-circle in the middle of the orchestra. All the soloists played superbly, and it was fascinating to hear the contrast in intensity between the smaller and larger groups. The acoustics of the RNCM Concert Hall were ideal for this concert, warm, intimate and precise.

The Divertimento began with a robust, folky melody that suddenly twisted, was joyfully restated, then gave way to a gentle, dancing melody that fell over itself. A typically Bartókian repeated high note was followed by pensive chords, then a rhapsodic, twisty folk dance. A mini-fugue featured a lovely solo cello. There was a hint of darkness as the music reached an anguished climax, the strings playing with a beautiful sense of controlled passion. Fragments of melody were passed across the strings, and the movement ended with a return of the joyful dance.

The second movement was much darker, with haunting, eerie night music. A long, slow, anxious melody on violins suggested the eve of war. This was a spine-chilling moment, as the strings played as one. A sudden climax fell away just as quickly as it appeared. A rhythmic two-note figure had an urgent, compelling sense of unease. With a visceral shock, the music dropped into a different key. With mounting terror, the violins crept gradually upwards, then the music fell away into the depths. There was a brief vision of a new, meditative vista from the solo strings, before a moment of concentrated terror, with oscillating, shimmering strings that grew to an anguished climax. The music relaxed into a concordant chord, interrupted by screaming violins, before a brief, pensive ending.

After the tension of the second movement, the third and final one was a welcome release. It began with a fierce peasant dance, then a theme that teemed across the orchestra. They played vigorous unison sections with fierce rhythms as strings snapped aggressively against fingerboards with intense joy. A highlight was a virtuosic, folky solo from Zoë Beyers. There was a moment of sardonic humour when a short pizzicato section inexplicably burst in. The movement then rushed towards a joyful end. Beyers beamed, and there were smiles from other players. They had clearly been enjoying themselves.

The Strings of the BBC Philharmonic directed by Zoë Beyers. Image © Chris Payne/BBC

The concert restarted after the interval with the orchestra already on stage, waiting for the audience as we dashed to our seats. Beyers decided that the second-half piece, Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings, needed no introduction. Sitting on a slightly raised platform so the other players could see her, she was a benign and enthusiastic director from the violin, the first among equals.

In his programme note, Edward Bhesania wrote that, despite his personal crises, Tchaikovsky wrote the Serenade without any commission or programmatic theme: ‘just a sheer delight in music for its own sake.’ He wrote, ‘I composed [it] from real conviction.. it’s a heartfelt piece and so, I dare to think, is not lacking in real qualities.’

Tchaikovsky was too modest about the piece’s qualities. Even the simple upward scale that began the first movement was imbued with rich melody. The orchestra’s playing was warm-hearted in the romantic melodies and precise in the running semi-quavers that started to dominate the movement. There was a moment of joy as a theme scattered like a golden fountain, then ran like a limpid stream with sweeping gestures around it. Pizzicato notes in the lower strings were played in perfect time. The performers brought out the complexity of the orchestral writing as the lines interweaved. There was an incredible sense of flow and momentum, as they played like soloists, but completely together.

The second movement was a short, elegant waltz played with vigour and poise. The melody had a little catch in it, like a Schubert song or a Mozart aria. The orchestra’s playing was gorgeous in this charming, delicate vignette.

The elegiac third movement took us into a magical new world. The slow climbing scale of the first movement became tender and nostalgic. Tchaikovsky demonstrated his mastery of melody with a delicate dance that pulled at the heartstrings. The tune then passed into the minor, showing his mastery of harmonic development as well. The violas played the long melody, with lovely, delicate ornamentation. The lower strings shone in a contemplative section, and there was a spellbinding moment of quiet on the upper strings. Played with stunning control, there was a gentle re-statement of the opening theme, valedictory now.

In the fourth movement, the music grew out of nothing, a simple folk song after the complexity of the earlier movements, with a lovely counter-melody. Another jolly folk tune burst in, played joyfully, followed by a lilting theme on the lower strings that passed to the upper strings. It was fascinating to watch all the bows moving in unison in the music’s grand gestures. The orchestra played with dynamic energy throughout, and the internal pulse remained firm even as the music became more complex. The movement ended with a triumphant scamper. Beyers saluted the orchestra and tried to persuade them to stand, but they refused, preferring to applaud her!

This was the first of a new collaboration between the orchestra and the RNCM. If future concerts are as good as this one we will be in for a treat.

The Strings of the BBC Philharmonic. Image © Chris Payne/BBC

Programme

Béla Bartók Divertimento
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Serenade for Strings

Performers

Strings of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
Zoë Beyers director

Sources

Programme notes by Tim Rutherford-Johnson and Edward Bhesania
Bartók, Béla, Béla Bartók’s Diseases (Studia Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, vol. 23, no. 1/4, 1981, pp. 427–41. JSTOR)

This concert is part of the new series: BBC Philharmonic Orchestra at the RNCM

Read on…

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra – Mahler’s ‘Titan’ – Symphony No. 1 – Live Review
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra – Fountain of Youth – Live Review
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra – Mahler Symphony No. 3 ‘The Voice of Nature’ – Live Review
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra – Mahler Symphony No. 9 – Live Review
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The Hallé – Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto – Live Review

Sunday 30 November 2025

Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

*****

Manchester’s oldest orchestra become the city/region’s newest cultural ambassadors

Akiko Suwanai, Kahchun Wong and members of The Hallé. Credit: Alex Burns/The Hallé

At the beginning of the second half of Sunday afternoon’s concert, Kahchun Wong, Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor to the Hallé, announced that he and the orchestra had just returned from a trip to China, during which they performed seven concerts in nine days. Amusingly, in his enthusiasm to tell us about this significant cultural event in the orchestra’s long history, he couldn’t remember how long he had been with the orchestra – was it 18 or 24 months? (this is his second season). He also struggled to remember how long the orchestra had been running, eventually choosing 167 years (he was right).

“After China, we have a new mission: to represent Manchester and this region as cultural ambassadors, with your support”

Kahchun Wong, Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor to the Hallé 

Wong said the orchestra had acted as cultural ambassadors, adding the Hallé’s name to a prestigious list that included the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic and the Staatskapelle Dresden. His orchestra had given ‘everything possible’ on the tour, which he found ‘moving and touching.’ As a result, he had found a new mission. He said when he came to the Hallé, he hadn’t wanted to change anything, but he now wanted ‘to represent Manchester and this region as cultural ambassadors, with your support.’ The audience applauded loudly to signify their agreement.

Football fans will know that after trips to Europe, players often suffer a metaphorical hangover on their return to domestic football a few days later. There was no sign of an orchestral hangover on Sunday, even though the orchestra, conductor and violin soloist Akiko Suwanai had played the same programme not only in China but also in Manchester on Thursday and Sheffield on Saturday. If anything, their shared travels invigorated them, perhaps because they had bonded over a significant experience.

The concert took us on a cultural tour of Europe, starting with Verdi in Italy, then Russian music written by Tchaikovsky on Lake Geneva in Switzerland, returning to Italy via the German composer Felix Mendelssohn. The concert began with a passionate performance of Verdi’s Overture to his 1862 opera La forza del destino (The Force of Destiny). This began with six repeated brass chords that represent Fate, with a counter-theme on swirling strings. There were smiles of recognition in the audience when a flute and oboe theme was introduced, which the French film composer Claude Petit adopted for the films Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources in 1986.

Conductor Kahchun Wong beautifully controlled the orchestral textures and dynamics, with dramatic use of his left hand in this most dramatic of overtures. There was Verdian warmth in the operatic theme on the upper strings, and a nagging note of doubt from the brass. Another melody appeared, with ravishing harps, restless strings and stabbing brass. Wong drew rich colours from the brass, and the upper strings played an urgent theme with perfect ensemble. There was well-deserved separate applause for oboist Stéphane Rancourt, and the harpists Marie Leenhardt and Jess Hughes.

Akiko Suwanai, Kahchun Wong and members of The Hallé. Credit: Alex Burns/The Hallé

The Japanese violinist Akiko Suwanai, wearing a long, flowing red gown, joined the orchestra for Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto. There was evident musical chemistry between her and Wong; they often stood facing each other during the solo passages: Suwanai angling the body of her violin towards the audience to direct the sound like a grand piano with its lid raised; Wong lightly keeping time for the orchestra with his right hand.

In her early, short cadenza, Suwanai played with a rich, expressive tone, with an almost cello-like lower register, beautiful legato and a lyrical top register. A cheerful orchestral melody burst out, which then descended into fragments of doubt. The violin picked up the melody, with a yearning version of the orchestral theme, with fiercely passionate double-stopping. The orchestra retorted with a militaristic version of their theme, building to a huge climax.

‘Soon vulgarity gains the upper hand and dominates until the end of the first movement. The violin is no longer played but yanked about, beaten black and blue.’

Eduard Hanslick on the premiere of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in 1881

When the piece was premiered in 1881, the Austrian critic Eduard Hanslick famously wrote that ‘soon vulgarity gains the upper hand and dominates until the end of the first movement. The violin is no longer played but yanked about, beaten black and blue.’ His opinion seems absurd today, but perhaps he had in mind the remarkable central cadenza in the first movement. In his programme note, Anthony Bateman listed the violin techniques as glissandos, double stops, trills, vertiginous leaps and harmonics. On Sunday, the violin’s exquisite top notes seemed to be in a brutal battle with the lower notes. Suwanai’s playing was astonishing. If this had been a jazz concert, the audience would have applauded her immediately after this virtuosic display, but Sunday’s audience waited until the end of the movement.

“The whole movement was magical, with romantic Russian melodies and gorgeous string playing.”

The second movement began with a woodwind chorale, which could have come from Dvořák’s New World Symphony, written 10 years later. Here, as throughout the concert, the woodwind playing was delightful. The whole movement was magical, with romantic Russian melodies and gorgeous string playing. If there had been any sense of conflict between the orchestral and solo violin parts, that had all been forgotten. The movement ended with Suwanai standing in silence.

The third movement burst in without a pause. There was another violin cadenza, and a Cossack dance, which the orchestra joined in joyful dialogue. A study gypsy dance got faster and faster, with an orchestral drone that suggested bagpipes. There was a romantic theme on solo violin, slow and slightly mournful, which came to a moment of stasis before the lively opening theme returned. Wong’s conducting was very precise as the violins played superb pizzicato. Suwanai played with virtuosic energy as she flew through several key changes. The woodwind joined a merry dance with the horns, and there was a sweet restatement of the main theme on solo violin. Suwanai played a long, quietly ecstatic line, with judicious orchestral accompaniment. There was a massive climax as soloist and orchestra scampered together towards an invigorating finale. Without a pause, the audience applauded enthusiastically at the end. Suwanai played an encore, The Gigue from JS Bach’s Partita No. 3 for Solo Violin, with great ease and facility, prompting indulgent smiles from the audience.

Kahchun Wong and members of The Hallé. Credit: Alex Burns/The Hallé

Felix Mendelssohn completed his Symphony No. 4, known as the ‘Italian Symphony’, in the early 1830s, after he had been on a European Grand Tour. He wrote to his sister, the composer and pianist Fanny Mendelssohn, from Rome in February 1831,

‘The Italian Symphony makes rapid progress; it will be the most amusing piece I have yet composed, particularly the last movement.’

Kahchun Wong described it as a piece full of sunshine. In the first movement, he brought out the orchestral detail with vigorous but polished playing. The orchestra danced relentlessly; as Robert Philip has written, ‘Mendelssohn’s model was surely Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony (that ‘apotheosis of the dance.’ The music burst into a lively fugue, which was enthusiastically shared across the orchestra. There was a moment of relative calm with an oboe solo, followed by an expansive restatement of the opening theme. The woodwind played with gorgeous precision in the staccato section, and there were lovely legato lines in the next section.

“The orchestra’s playing under Wong’s calm, subtle leadership was beautifully poised, as he drew every detail out of the music.“

The second movement is marked ‘Andante con moto’, Italian for ‘at a moderate walking pace’. This musical marking couldn’t be more apt, as the movement describes a slow, solemn procession, inspired by a religious procession the composer had seen in Italy. Robert Philip also suggests that it was inspired by the sublime slow movement of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. The orchestra’s playing under Wong’s calm, subtle leadership was beautifully poised, as he drew every detail out of the music.

Wong wove the unfolding narrative of the third movement beautifully. According to Bateman, Mendelssohn was inspired by Goethe’s poem Lili’s Park, in which the fairy Lili, ‘magically entices a huge bear.’ A horn fanfare, characterfully played by two horns and two bassoons, was reminiscent of the hunting horns in Mahler symphonies, several of which have been played at the Bridgewater Hall recently; the difference being that a single movement of a Mahler symphony can last up to half an hour (this can be a good thing), whereas Mendelssohn squeezed his whole Italian Grand Tour into 30 minutes.

The final movement was a Saltarello, a rustic Italian dance. Under Wong’s baton it was fiercely rhythmic, the orchestra almost falling over itself in carefully controlled anarchy. The orchestra fizzed with dynamic energy even in the quiet sections. At the end, Wong singled out the woodwind for special applause, and then other sections too. Wong gave a cheery wave as he left the stage.

After such a stunning performance, we look forward to seeing much more of the Hallé’s new cultural ambassadors soon, all over the world but also back home in Manchester.

Kahchun Wong and The Hallé. Credit: Alex Burns/The Hallé

Repertoire

Verdi The Force of Destiny: Overture
Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto
Mendelssohn Symphony No.4, ‘Italian’

Performers

The Hallé 
Kahchun Wong conductor
Akiko Suwanai violin

Sources

Programme notes by Anthony Bateman
Robert Philip, The Classical Music Lover’s Companion to Orchestral Music (Yale University Press 2020) 

Read on…

The Hallé – John Adams Conducts the Chairman Dances – Live Review
Manchester Classical 2025 Day Two – Live Review
The Hallé and Nitin Sawhney in Concert – Live Review
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Manchester Collective x The Marian Consort: Wintering – Live Review

Thursday 27 November 2025

Stoller Hall, Manchester

****

Samantha Fernando’s new piece Wintering celebrates winter’s withdrawal from daily life

Wintering with Samantha Fernando © Mike Skelton

On an unseasonably warm winter’s night, Manchester Collective returned to their home city for the second leg of their Wintering tour. The ensemble’s co-artistic director, Jasmin Kent Rodgman, introduced the concert. She said that the Collective is a ‘shapeshifting ensemble’, tonight made up of a string quartet and a vocal quartet from the Marian Consort. This is what makes Manchester Collective unique: every concert features different and unusual music, there are varied and unusual ensembles, and the music-making is always of the highest quality. They have built up a level of trust with their audiences that means we will follow them, whatever they do.

‘Rather than resist fallow seasons of the year and our lives, we embrace them… we allow ourselves to rest and reflect.’

Jasmin Kent Rodgman

The title Wintering comes from the book by Katherine May, which inspired a new piece by Samantha Fernando. As Rodman said, ‘Rather than resist fallow seasons of the year and our lives, we embrace them… we allow ourselves to rest and reflect.’

Much of the music in the concert was notable for its reflective quality, and for the space between notes. (I like to scribble my thoughts during live performances for later use in writing these posts; I often had to stop writing last night during the intense silence of the pauses in the music). As Miles Davis said, the space between the notes is often as important as the notes themselves: ‘it’s not the notes you play, it’s the notes you don’t play.’

Manchester Collective and the Marian Consort. Image © Chris Payne

The concert began with excerpts from Prophetiae Sibyllarum by the sixteenth-century composer Orlande de Lassus. We heard more excerpts in the second half of the concert. The 12 motets set texts known as the Sibylline Oracles or Prophecies. The Sybils were pagan prophets or oracles who predicted the coming of Christ. Rory McCleery, founder and director of the Marian Consort, explained that, on the face of it, these pieces have little to do with winter, but that they are ‘seasonal prophecies’ that explore the coming of Jesus through his mother, Mary, and her state of mind.

McCleery also drew our attention to the ‘bold, pioneering, incredibly chromatic music’ of Lassus, and referenced the similarly chromatic music of other sixteenth-century composers like Cipriano de Rore and Vicente Lusitano, who has been described as the first published Black composer. The Italian composer Carlo Gesualdo also springs to mind.

The opening Prologue, the most chromatic section of all, was peppered with remarkable key changes. In 1574, Adrien le Roy, music publisher to King Charles IX of France, wrote to the composer to say that the King was ‘so ravished by it that I cannot describe it.’ This was our first chance to hear the four voices of the Consort singing a capella. Soprano Caroline Halls sang with a lovely, pure tone. Rory McCleery had a gorgeously fruity, powerful counter tenor voice. Will Wright sang with an ardent, lyrical tenor. Bass Jon Stainsby sang with a rich, warm tone. All four were excellent, both as solo singers and in ensemble. Their tuning was impeccable in the intricate Lassus pieces. The strings of the Collective played with minimal vibrato, suiting the Early Music style.

Rodgman introduced David Lang’s the national anthems as part of the concert’s self-reflective theme, describing not the pomp we might expect but pride in our community and also fear and uncertainty. Lang wrote that his original plan was to take ‘just one hopeful sentence’ from each of the world’s national anthems to create a larger text, but was shocked to find in almost every anthem there was,

‘A bloody, war-like, tragic core, in which we cover up our deep fears of losing our freedoms with waves of aggression and bravado’.

He wrote five pieces, which are a meditation on our insecurity about freedom. Last night we heard two of the pieces, our land our peace, which contains the deeply ironic line ‘we fight for our peace’, and later fame & glory, which contains the brutal line, ‘we will die before we are made slaves.’ In the first piece, the words, sung in unison at first, were split up with complete silence in the gaps. Jagged, impassioned harmonies were then offset against the solo bass. The strings were eerie and intense, at times icy, which suited the winter theme. The second piece featured a superb extended solo from Rory McCleery. The piece ended with anxious harmonics from the upper string and chattering viola.

Manchester Collective. Image © Chris Payne

The central point of the concert was Samantha Fernando’s Wintering, which was commissioned by Wigmore Hall in London and premiered there on 22 November. Fernando introduced her new work from the stage, saying that it felt unusual to be with people when she spent most of her time as a composer on her own. She chose chamber instrumentation as it felt intimate, but also to allow the singers’ words to cut through. At times, voices were treated as instruments or provided sound effects.

This remarkable piece began with eerie wind noises from the singers, and lovely, ambiguous wordless chords, discordant yet optimistic. Soprano Caroline Halls joined with a wordless, lamenting folk tune; other singers provided evocative vocal slides. Icy, spellbinding string chords described a bright but bitter winter landscape as the voices came into focus on the word ‘cold’. Fernando’s striking harmonies were full of deliciously painful false relations, a technique often heard in Renaissance polyphony, such as the Lassus pieces.

The most powerful and innovative of the six movements was the fourth, To Do: Do Less, which deservedly drew its own applause. The composer’s instructions in the score summed it up well,

This movement consists of a guided meditation (sung) and an internal monologue (spoken soprano)

Halls was perfect for the role of internal monologue, fretting about everyday concerns such as work meetings, a dental appointment, buying a birthday present, collecting a prescription, finding a babysitter and World Book Day costumes. There was a stunning moment in Fernando’s piece when the soprano suddenly joined the other singers on the words ‘back to the breath’; the meditation had briefly succeeded. Anyone who has tried to meditate will understand exactly the brutal battle to concentrate that Fernando describes here. Her tonal but often discordant language, evident throughout the work, perfectly expressed this inner conflict.

After the interval, there was a palette cleanser, a selection of movements from Jonathan Dove’s lively Out of Time for string quartet. This was a chance for the Manchester Collective quartet to shine, which they duly did. The Collective’s irrepressible co-founder, Rakhi Singh, was absent last night, but her colleagues performed with the brio, passion and precision that have become the Collective’s trademark. First violinist Sara Wolstenholme explained that this energetic and vibrant piece summed up the personality and the life-changing energy of the husband of the woman [Mrs Elizabeth Allsebrook], who commissioned it to celebrate the life of her late husband. Some moments recalled the music of John Adams, whose music was recently celebrated by The Collective in their Shaker Loops concert. The first movement was lively and spiky, the second was flowing and joyful, quietly ecstatic. The third began with a fizzing explosion and a bubbling theme as the music almost fell over itself with excitement.

The concert ended with a superb reworking of Andrzej Panufnik’s Song to the Virgin Mary, described by Rodgman at the start of the concert as expressing the composer’s ‘yearning for the religious folksong’ of his home in Poland. Panufnik wrote that he was inspired by memories of ‘the naive beauty of the religious folk art of Poland’, and by ‘the moving and powerful mediaeval Latin text of an anonymous Polish poet.’ The work takes a melodic theme, based on the pentatonic scale, which Panufnik described as ‘closely related to Polish folk music.’ The theme appears in all 12 keys as it passes through the voices.

Panufnik wrote two versions, the first for a cappella choir in 1964 and the second for string sextet (1987). The Collective drew on elements from both versions to create an extraordinary new hybrid that, in Wolstenholme’s words, was not how the composer envisaged it. In this context, the work felt like a continuation of the chromaticism and false relations we heard in the Lassus pieces earlier. Sometimes it was hard to tell which were voices and which were strings as they entwined each other. Beginning in near darkness with a solo soprano voice, the music gradually gained intensity, until by the end the performers were bathed in glowing light.

The Wintering Tour continues in Liverpool on 29 November, York on 3 December and Bristol on 5 December

Repertoire

Orlando di Lassus selections from Prophetiae Sibyllarum Motets
David Lang the national anthems, i. & iii
Samantha Fernando Wintering (new commission)
Jonathan Dove Out of Time, III–V.
Andrzej Panufnik Song to the Virgin Mary

Performers

MANCHESTER COLLECTIVE
Sara Wolstenholme Violin
Lily Whitehurst Violin
Alex Mitchell Viola
Peggy Nolan Cello

THE MARIAN CONSORT
Caroline Halls Soprano
Rory McCleery Alto
Will Wright Tenor
Jon Stainsby Bass

Read on…

Manchester Collective – Shaker Loops – Live Review
Manchester Classical 2025 Day Two – Live Review
Manchester Collective, Clark and Melanie Lane – REFRACTIONS – Live Review
Manchester Collective – Sirocco – Live Review
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Kantos Chamber Choir – The Witch Trials – Live Review

Friday 14 November 2025

RNCM, Manchester

*****

A spellbinding and emotional journey through a historical travesty of justice

The Pendle Witch trials of 1612 have left a deep scar in our collective memory in the North of England, just as several centuries later, the Moors Murders have left a deep scar in our communal psyche. It’s easy to convince ourselves that the hanging of eight women and two men in Lancashire at the start of the seventeenth century is no longer relevant in our supposedly sophisticated times. On Friday, Kantos Chamber Choir convinced us that the Witch Trials are not only relevant today but also offer lessons about human nature. The American composer John Adams, in his rewriting of the story of Scheherazade, drew contemporary parallels to the ongoing oppression of women at a recent Hallé concert in Manchester. Writing in The Guardian on the 400th Anniversary of the Witch Trials, Martin Wainwright described ‘the timeless scapegoating, misogyny and cynical authority’ of a trial in which the two judges used ‘to further their careers’ and the government used ‘to crack down on opposition at a turbulent time.’ Carol Ann Duffy, Poet Laureate in 2012, whose poem about the Witch Trials we heard at the end of the concert, said at the time,

‘I was struck by the echoes of under-privilege and hostility to the poor, the outside, the desperate, which are audible still.’

Those echoes could still be heard in last Friday’s concert. Kantos Chamber Choir devised the programme for performance at Pendle Heritage Centre, and later performed it in Pendle Castle, where the Witch Trials took place. The concert combined dramatic movement with music from around the time of the Trials and contemporary music, and texts from the Trials. This created a spellbinding and profoundly moving narrative, performed as a continuous sequence without applause.

Illustration from William Harrison Ainsworth’s novel The Lancashire Witches (1849)

The concert began unexpectedly, breaking into our mundane world. We heard the plainchant Requiem Aeternam coming from offstage as the choir processed on, a prayer for peace for those who were condemned to death at the Trials. There was a beautiful cacophony of sounds as the singers spread into the audience. The babel of voices created a mesmerising effect.

Above a long drone, there was a spellbinding moment as gorgeous solo soprano voices intoned Hildegard von Bingen’s Quia Ergo Femina, a celebration of the Virgin Mary, but also of ‘womankind’s nature and beauty.’ A list of the accused, mostly women, was chanted by choir members as they patrolled the stage.

Another prayer for mercy was an early highlight. Allegri’s Miserere, beautifully controlled by Ellie Slorach’s calm and precise conducting. The offstage choir featured Eleonore Cockerham, who sang the spine-chilling top C perfectly. The main choir sang with rich, warm voices, impeccable tuning and excellent ensemble in the plainsong passages.

Gesualdo’s astonishingly chromatic O Vos Omnes was bookended by accounts of the alleged witchcraft of ‘Old Demdike’ (Elizabeth Southerns). The text, from the Biblical Book of Lamentations, could refer to the profound sorrow the accused felt upon being condemned to death. But the composer was also notorious for murdering his first wife and her lover, for which he wasn’t punished, in another travesty of justice. In a further twist, his second wife ordered two of Gesualdo’s lovers to be tried for witchcraft.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog
Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
Macbeth Act IV Scene i

Image: Macbeth, Banquo and the witches on the heath by Henry Fuseli

A new commission, Double, Double, Toil and Trouble by Anna Disley-Simpson, a setting of the witches’ spell from Shakespeare’s Macbeth (written only a few years before the Pendle Witch Trials) brought a note of humour to the proceedings. Disley-Simpson said it was fun to set words like ‘eye of newt and toe of frog.’ She described the piece as ‘a twisted and urgent nursery rhyme.’ The choir had fun as they perfectly negotiated the syncopated, bouncing rhythms of the multiple vocal lines. Further spoken words about the trial of ‘Old Chattox’ surrounded Ellie Slorach’s imaginative reworking of Barbara Strozzi’s Che si può fare. Her arrangement retained the melody soaring above contemporary vocal techniques such as ‘repeated fast exhale and inhale’ to illustrate the poet’s suffering and difficulty breathing. The piece blossomed into a moment of sheer invigorating joy as the singers allowed their vibrato to be more expansive, followed by a gorgeous, contemplative ending as the poet contemplated death.

Two of the alleged witches, Anne Whittle (Chattox) and her daughter Anne Redferne. Illustration from William Harrison Ainsworth’s 1849 novel The Lancashire Witches

The climax of the trial narrative came with The Verdict, delivered by the men of the choir. Ironically, the voices speaking in unison sounded like the congregation praying together in church. But this text, delivered with some urgency, condemned the accused to execution by hanging, with another call for mercy: ‘may God have mercy on your souls.’ After the emotional wrench of the verdict, the gently anguished polyphony of Palestrina’s Sicut Cervus (Like as the hart desireth the water-brooks, from Psalm 42) was a welcome palette-cleanser.

Lancaster Castle Well Tower, also known as the Witches Tower. It is said to have held the Pendle witches before their trial. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Camden Reeves’ Spells, Remedies and Potions, three motets for sopranos, was written in 2017. Reeves wrote his own texts, based on the fifteenth-century Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of Witches) by Henricus Institor (the German clergyman Heinrich Kramer). This text suggested the use of torture to extract confessions from ‘witches’, and was partly responsible for the instigation of the witch trials. Reeves described the book as,

‘a sobering lesson from history: a mirror to our own actions in the present day that reflects our cruelty back to us in all its ugliness.’

The first two motets aptly fitted Reeves’ description of them as ‘Black Sabbath and Metallica, but for sopranos.’ The late Ozzy Osbourne would have been proud. Repeated vocal riffs and angular lines twisting round each other, sounding like heavy metal. In the final motet, the singers turned to face the soprano soloist Eleonore Cockerham as she sang a long, slow melody from the back of the stage. Her voice was now viscerally operatic, a complete contrast with the pure tone she brought to the Allegri Miserere earlier. The piece ended with some lovely, scrunchy harmonies reminiscent of the French composer Francis Poulenc.

‘A sobering lesson from history.’ The fifteenth-century Malleus Maleficarum. Source: Wikimedia Commons

The concert ended with Carol Ann Duffy’s poem, which ended with the words,

Away from Castle, Jury, Judge, huge crowd, rough rope, short drop, no grave
Only future tourists who might grieve.

We were the grieving tourists witnessing the death of the ‘witches.’ Conductor Ellie Slorach said in an interview for the RNCM that she wanted to,

‘…send them off in peace; it’s almost like an apology, an acknowledgement of the fact that they were obviously so mistreated.’

The plainchant In Paradisum, with multilayered voices as in the opening Requiem Aeternam, provided hope of paradise for those who had been hanged. The women of the choir left the stage, each with a male hand on their shoulder as if being led to their death, or perhaps escorted into paradise. They left the hall as they sang, creating a magical effect like the end of Gustav Holst’s Neptune at the end of his Planets suite. We heard a single, poignant ‘Amen’ from outside the hall; a stunning ending to a superb concert.

Members of Kantos Chamber Choir with Conductor Ellis Slorach. Source: kantoschamberchoir.com

The programme is being recorded for release on Delphian Records.

Sources

Digital Programme Notes provided by Kantos Chamber Choir
Martin Wainwright, Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy on the Pendle witches (The Guardian 15 August 2012)
Sarah Walters, Interview with Ellie Slorach (The RNCM Blog 3 July 2025)

Read on…

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Off the Beaten Track #10: The Seafarer by Tim Benjamin
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BBC Philharmonic Orchestra – Mahler’s ‘Titan’ – Symphony No. 1 – Live Review

Saturday 8 November 2025

Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

****

Elena Schwarz conducts nature-themed Debussy and Mahler, with the Manchester premiere of Dani Howard’s trombone concerto

The BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor Elena Schwarz and trombonist Peter Moore. Photo © Chris Payne

Saturday’s concert at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester was an exploration of the power of nature, in two great ‘symphonic’ works by Debussy and Mahler, bookending a rare beast, a trombone concerto.

Nature bared its teeth in the opening piece, which was La Mer (The Sea) by Claude Debussy, premiered in Paris in 1905. He began working on it in 1903 in Bichain in Burgundy, central France, well away from the sea. He wrote to the composer André Messager, telling him he was working on the new piece,

‘You’re unaware, maybe, that I was intended for the noble career of a sailor and have only deviated from that path thanks to the quirks of fate. Even so, I’ve retained a sincere devotion to the sea.’

He finished the work in 1905 while staying at the Grand Hotel in Eastbourne. But he didn’t draw inspiration from the sea views there. The composer wrote to his publisher, Jacques Durand, ‘It’s a charming, peaceful spot. The sea unfurls itself with an utterly British correctness.’ He was inspired instead by the sea as depicted by JMW Turner in his seascapes. Turner was sometimes in dispute with what he saw as ‘British correctness’, as portrayed in his sometimes uneasy relationship with the Royal Academy of Arts in Mike Leigh’s 2014 film Mr Turner.

Debussy was also inspired by The Great Wave off Kanagawa by the Japanese Artist Hokusai. He used a reproduction of that print on the cover of the original score. This famous image is stylised but not Impressionistic. In her programme note, Caroline Rae points out that Debussy ‘compared his vibrant orchestration with the paintings of Les Fauves (‘The Wild Beasts’), ‘famed in Paris at the time for their dramatic use of colour.’

The Great Wave off Kanagawa by the Japanese Artist Hokusai. Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art via Wikimedia Commons

On Saturday, the wild beast of the sea was unleashed by the BBC Philharmonic under conductor Elena Schwarz. Her conducting revealed the central paradox of this piece, which Robert Philip describes in his excellent book The Classical Music Lover’s Companion to Orchestral Music,

‘It’s easy to forget that such a well-known orchestral masterpiece, on first hearing, may seem formless, a succession of washes of sound, or a sort of ‘stream of consciousness.’’

This is the effect that Debussy presumably wanted to achieve – the rawness of nature exhibited in the terrible beauty of the sea. As Philps points out,

‘There is nothing vague or haphazard about [Debussy’s] compositional methods. The whole work is carefully structured using a small number of motifs that recur and are transformed.’

Schwarz’s conducting was very precise and measured, superbly controlling the apparent turbulence of the orchestral writing. The opening movement, De L’aube à Midi Sur la Mer (From Dawn to Midday on the Sea) began in a mood of intense quiet, with glittering, shimmering sounds describing the breaking of dawn. There was a beautiful patchwork of orchestral colour, as the sea ceaselessly ebbed and flowed. There were lovely solos from Victoria Daniel (flute), leader Zoë Beyers (violin) and Henrietta Cooke (cor anglais).

In the second movement, Jeux de Vagues (Games of Waves), Schwarz brought out great detail in Debussy’s orchestral colours, such as the glockenspiel played by Paul Patrick at the beginning and end of the movement. She captured the playful joy of the waves, and there was a lovely moment when the precision of the brass was offset against sweeping strings.

The final movement, Dialogue du Vent et de la Mer (Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea, illustrated the sea in all its moods. It began with the ominous rumble of lower strings and percussion, anxious upper strings and roaring brass. A lovely woodwind melody reached for light and hope. Lurching waves in the upper strings were offset against the lower strings, leading to a climax that brought to mind a similar climax in Paul Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, written only a few years earlier, so memorably brought to life in Disney’s Fantasia in 1940. There was a moment of calm with a lovely violin melody, disrupted by sudden danger from the cellos. A yearning, simple melody led to a joyful climax. The sea felt powerful but no longer dangerous. Playful pizzicato on cellos was offset against shimmering brass, before the piece reached a final, stunning climax.

Dani Howard. Source: danihoward.com

Dani Howard wrote her Trombone Concerto in 2021 for Peter Moore (Saturday’s soloist) and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. The COVID pandemic hadn’t struck when the orchestra commissioned the work. By the time Howard began writing, the world was in lockdown, and only key workers were allowed out. The concerto is partly Howard’s tribute to those workers. As Timmy Fisher says in his programme note

‘The everyday heroics of bus drivers and refuse workers were suddenly getting the recognition they deserved. Howard’s concerto is a celebration of these people, and their resolve during the pandemic provides its emotional arc.’

The concerto began with bustling violas in the early Minimalist style of the American composer John Adams, evoking the everyday lives of those workers. The trombone entered with an insouciant four-note theme, which appeared again at the start of the second movement. Howard’s initial instruction to the trombonist is to ‘play as if you are totally oblivious to your surroundings.’ The first movement is titled ‘Realisation’, and it was fascinating to hear the moment when the trombone came into synch with the orchestra, as if suddenly realising the role the key workers had in the pandemic and wondering how to contribute. Moore played with a warm tone and evocative slides. Sometimes his playing was virtuosic, but at other times his instrument was part of the orchestral texture rather than showy. At the end of the movement, there was the first concerto-like moment when the trombone played a lyrical tune accompanied by slow orchestral chords suspended beneath.

The highlight of the concerto was the second movement, ‘Rumination’, in which the solo trombone ruminated on ‘the seed of an idea’ introduced in the first movement. Moore, using that rich tone that we associate with the North’s finest brass bands, was echoed by two muted trombones in the orchestra. A brass band chorale gradually joined, and in this moment of contemplation, it felt as if we were suspended outside time. An eternal melody wound its way gradually from one part of the orchestra to another, with slow-moving blocks of colour. Flourishes from the flutes could have come from La Mer, making this a good companion piece to the earlier piece. Finally, there was a minor explosion from the orchestra, as if a moment of resolution had finally been reached.

The final movement, ‘Illumination’, was written to be ‘as explosively positive as possible.’ It began with more Minimalism from the strings and an angular trombone part. Moore played a stunningly virtuosic passage – his playing had been superb throughout the concerto. After an ecstatic orchestral passage, the piece reached a climactic end. The orchestra smiled and clapped in acknowledgement of Moore’s magnificent playing, and Schwarz picked out the trombonists and brass section for separate applause. There were more smiles from composer Dani Howard as she came on stage to receive her applause.

The BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor Elena Schwarz and trombonist Peter Moore. Photo © Chris Payne

The second half marked a return to the nature theme, in the form of Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, the ‘Titan’. It began with string harmonics and woodwind, creating a sense of stasis followed by expectation as nature came to life, marked by Mahler in the score ‘Wie ein Naturlaut’ (Like a sound of nature). Birdsong was created by a solo clarinet (John Bradbury) as a cuckoo and an oboe (Jennifer Galloway) as a chaffinch. Four offstage trumpets created the sound of hunting horns. Mahler cleverly used the cuckoo’s call to form the opening notes of his song Ging heut’ Morgen über’s Feld from his earlier song cycle Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer). As Jo Kirkbride astutely pointed out in her programme note, this was ‘ Mahler’s first gesture towards incorporating song within the symphony.’ The song is the happiest in the cycle, describing the protagonist walking across the fields, singing about how lovely the world is. There were two joyful climaxes, then we returned to the shimmering strings of the opening, with more birdcalls: a moment of quiet joy beautifully shaped by the orchestra under Schwarz. A melody in the cellos, joyful at first, turned darker, but the birds continued singing valiantly. The danger passed, and with a sudden key change, we moved to a rustic, pastoral passage, then a serenely lilting melody. The orchestra reached a glowing climax, excellently played. The movement’s witty false ending elicited a few wry smiles from the audience.

The second movement was a robust country dance of the type that Mahler often brought into his later symphonies. Schwarz became more animated as she conducted the symphony, dancing lightly on her podium, enjoying the repeated melody. There was a slight note of sarcasm from the brass, and the writing became more sophisticated as we passed through the keys. A highlight was the perfectly controlled lower strings. A tentative horn theme led to an elegant trio, beautifully poised.

The Huntsman’s Funeral by Moritz von Schwind, 1850 (Public domain)

The third movement began with a minor-key version of Frère Jacques (Brother John), known to Mahler as Bruder Martin (Brother Martin). This reminded me of the great comedian Bill Bailey’s witty, sarcastic turning of the theme for Match of the Day and the American National Anthem into minor-key laments.  Mahler said the inspiration for the movement came from an illustration in the children’s book ‘The Huntsman’s Funeral.’ We were back in nature again, this time with a sardonic twist. Various forest animals carried the coffin in Moritz von Schwind’s 1850 woodcut. This time, the cuckoo turned his song into Die zwei blauen Augen (my love’s two blue eyes) from Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen. The song has a bitter-sweet quality, with its constant switching between major and minor in the melody, recalling the minor-key transposition of Frère Jacques. Schwarz controlled this section beautifully. The funeral procession returned, darker and more sardonic than before, burying the Frère Jacques tune.

The fourth movement burst in with an anguished climax. The brass was stunning here, providing a visceral thrill. This movement was a showpiece for the orchestra, who played with passion, precision and conviction throughout. It was also a tribute to Mahler’s skills as a composer: despite various revisions and the fact that this was his first symphony, this movement utterly convinces. A confident march with swirling strings was punctured by a little, sarcastic descending theme that kept recurring. A never-ending string melody was decorated by the lovely solo horn played by Mihajlo Bulajic. The anguish of the start returned, with sarcastic trumpets; there was a touch of Wagner in the brass here. An ecstatic climax faded away, giving way to another long-limbed melody on the strings, beautifully played with a sense of inevitability. The cellos took over the melody. In a later symphony, Mahler could have used this to provide a glimpse of heaven, but here it represented a return to the calm of nature. The orchestra reached a sunny climax, all anguish finally gone, then fell away again. A niggling, slightly angry theme on the violas prompted a return to the opening march, now more optimistic. The hunting horns returned, and the orchestra’s struggle felt vindicated. Schwarz leapt on her podium, sharing the pure joy of the end. As directed by Mahler, several brass players stood to deliver a golden theme. We suddenly reached the sunlit uplands, with a huge final flourish. There was massive, and well-deserved applause. Schwarz highlighted individual soloists, all of whom were excellent. Ronan Dunne, the double-bass soloist, gave a lovely little twirl on his bass. Schwarz brought the whole orchestra to its feet, ending a fine performance.

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
Peter Moore trombone
Elena Schwarz conductor

Repertoire

Debussy La Mer
Dani Howard Trombone Concerto
Mahler Symphony No. 1

Sources

Robert Philip, The Classical Music Lover’s Companion to Orchestral Music (Yale University Press, 2018)
Dani Howard and Timmy Fisher: Sleeve Notes to Dani Howard Orchestral Works (Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra)
Programme notes by Caroline Rae, Timmy Fisher and Jo Kirkbride

Broadcast

The concert concert will be broadcast on In Concert on BBC Radio 3 on 18 November and will be available for 30 days after broadcast via BBC Sounds

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The Divine Comedy – Live Review

Friday 25 October 2025

Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

A magical musical journey from sorrow to joy

*****

A recording of the English composer Edward Elgar’s ‘Nimrod’ from his Enigma Variations (1899) introduced Friday night’s concert. This felt appropriate in Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall, which has often hosted orchestral concerts that have included Elgar’s masterpiece. There’s a quintessentially English melancholy about much of Elgar’s music, and the music of Neil Hannon, leader of the Divine Comedy (although he was born in Northern Ireland).

There’s also something of the English wit of playwright, singer and songwriter Noël Coward in Hannon’s songs. Coward would undoubtedly have appreciated the sartorial elegance of Hannon’s guitar roadie, ‘Alistair’, who was impeccably dressed in a jacket and white turtle neck sweater rather than the traditional long black shorts and black top commonly sported by a guitar tech.

Hannon came on sporting a natty black fedora and a black suit, and his band were similarly attired but without the headwear. The hall was packed, and the adoring audience hung on Hannon’s every wry witticism. Hannon’s rich baritone was warm and inviting, and his manner was easy and relaxed. One suspects he may have done this before.

He was joined by an excellent band – two keyboard players, lead and bass guitar, violin, and drums. The band provided gorgeous, multi-layered backing vocals and was equally at home playing rock music, sophisticated lounge jazz, and French-style chansons (with accordion but Anglophone lyrics).

The nearly two-hour set included 24 songs, demonstrating the range and variety of Hannon’s songwriting. The set was beautifully structured, flowing from one song to the next to create an engaging musical journey.

The concert began with the thoughtful Achilles, which ends with a meditation on mortality about a man of 53, the same age as Hannon when he wrote the song, whose ‘mind was turning/To thoughts of mortality.’ An early highlight was another song about death, the extraordinarily poignant The Last Time I Saw the Old Man, about the final physical and mental deterioration of Hannon’s late father, Neil Hannon, Bishop of Clogher in County Tyrone. The song ends with the moving words,

As we left, the sun was setting on the land
The last time I saw the old man

Hannon sang this beautiful, moving song with his back to us, and raised his hat at the end, as if in silent tribute to his father.

A lighter sequence of songs followed, the best of which was a lovely version of I Want You, with a gorgeous piano introduction, an evocative additional violin part, and jazzy drumming. Hannon brought out the melancholy minor key of the chorus of this song, which is from the new album Rainy Sunny Afternoon. Hannon’s storytelling, present in most of his songs, came to the fore in Norman and Norma, which tells the story of a couple who got married in Cromer in Norfolk in 1983. This also illustrated Hannon’s skilful and witty wordplay. Perhaps only Coward would have dared rhyme ‘Chroma’ with ‘pneumonia.’

There was more overt humour in the staging of Our Mutual Friend. Hannon came into the audience and, on the words about sitting on ‘our friend’s settee’, sat in a vacant seat. A woman returning from the bar wondered whether she should give him one of the drinks she had bought. As the characters in the song ‘sank down to the floor’, Hannon sank down to the floor at the front of the Stalls, and lay there while the band entertained us with an instrumental break. Hannon acted out waking up the next day and stumbling out to the bathroom as he regained the stage to huge applause.

There were some punk stylings in Generation Sex and At the Indie Disco, Hannon swinging his hips and almost knocking his knees together like an early Elvis Costello. The lounge jazz theme returned in Neapolitan Girl, a dark tale of a post-war woman  whose ‘innocence can be restored/With a visit to the Professore.’ The story’s darkness was belied by the sophisticated music, including a deliciously off-beat rhythm with which the audience gamely (and accurately… this was after a Divine Comedy audience…) clapped along. We stayed in lounge jazz mood with Hannon’s ‘favourite part of the show.’ During an extended version of the new song Mar-a-Lago, with its elegant samba beat, Alistair brought on a drinks trolley. Hannon introduced each member of the band and prepared their favourite tipple for each of them. We stayed with the theme of cocktail parties with A Lady of a Certain Age, who ‘sipped Camparis…. At Noël’s parties.’ Another rhyme of which Coward would have been proud.

Freedom Road (played for the first time on this tour), The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, and In Pursuit of Happiness provided a triptych of tristesse (with apologies to Neil and Noël). But Hannon has also written danceable songs, or to use the technical term, bangers. The audience leapt to its collective feet for five floor fillers, starting with Absent Friends and ending with the exuberant fan favourite National Express. As the song says, everyone sang ‘Ba-ba-ba-da.’

The encore began with a couple of songs Hannon said were ‘not up-tempo but swayable.’ There was a gentle version of Songs of Love, with warm backing vocals and lovely harmonies. Hannon threatened to ‘leave for other places’, but the audience wouldn’t let him go yet. He obliged with Invisible Thread, which could have described the invisible but unbreakable link between Hannon and his adoring audience.

There will always be
An invisible thread
Between you and me

After this song ended quietly, the final encore was the anthemic Tonight We Fly. And with that, we flew home on the wings of song, this joyful concert still resonating in our ears.