At Lunch on BBC Radio 3

Our most recent At Lunch concert series is being broadcast on BBC Radio 3 this week, starting tomorrow at 13.00. You can listen live or online or via the BBC iPlayer for 7 days after each transmission. Presented by Louise Fryer, there are new works by Charlotte Bray (Tuesday), Ryan Wigglesworth (Wednesday), Richard Harrold (Thursday), and the UK premiere broadcast of a piece by Polish composer Adam Walaciński (Friday).

Court Studies from The Tempest in Poland

If my memory serves me correctly, Richard Harrold's Ink is the 12th Britten Sinfonia commission to receive its world premiere in Krakow as part of our residency here. The snow today did not keep the audience away. It is always hard to judge a piece on a first hearing (and that is one of the advantages of our project, where each commission gives a piece five outings in a week, allowing the performers to really get to grips with it), but the passage I find most appealing is a long solo piano transition section which binds the opening with the concluding sections. Our UK audiences will have a chance to hear the work in Cambridge, London, Birmingham, and Norwich later this week.
Thomas Ades' Court Studies from The Tempest received – I imagine – its Polish premiere: what a rarefied, mysterious (as one would expect from The Tempest) work, with a spine-chilling final section of incredible beauty, fading to a solo violin niente. I’ve heard myself before saying this blog is not a travelogue, but Britten Sinfonia has such a strong link with the musical life of Krakow, a few photos taken during the transition from rehearsal to dinner last night seem appropriate.

Total Eclipse (reprised)

To the Barbican last night to hear Handel's Samson, given by The Sixteen. The undoubted star was Mark Padmore, who opened Britten Sinfonia's season with the Act 1 highlight aria 'Total Eclipse': any nominations for a better tenor in the UK at present? Catherine Wyn-Rogers was Micah (with whom I spent a splendid evening at the Midem Awards last month); other soloists included Roderick Williams and Jonathan Lemalu, both of whom have worked with BS in recent seasons. There is a brilliant clutch of singers now who are as at ease in period performances as with singing with 'modern' bands like Britten Sinfonia.

Thence to Krakow for the premiere of Richard Harrold's Ink. I hope to give a report on that on Sunday: there are chances to hear it in Cambridge, Birmingham, London and Norwich next week.

Ink

Thomas Adès’ Court Studies from his highly-acclaimed and popular opera The Tempest are set alongside the music of the young composer Richard Harrold in our next project which starts in Krakow on Sunday. Pianist Cédric Tiberghien joins Jacqueline Shave, Caroline Dearnley, and Joy Farrall in a programme which also includes Debussy and Fauré. You can read about Cédric on his management's website.

Richard Harrold was born in 1982. He has written of his new work:
'Ink is a neo-baroque study of rhythm and asynchrony. The ensemble is divided into pairs that contribute opposing material to a sparse, linear texture, whose systematic development toys with the sense of ensemble and the nature of the counterpoint. While these rhythmic and thematic conflicts exist within the group, for the most part the players move as one instrumental and sonic entity.'