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.'

Who needs a baton?

You can listen to our Webern/Haydn/Beethoven concert on BBC Radio 3 this evening at 19.00 GMT. Hilary Finch in today's Times: 'Who needs a baton? Who even needs a conductor? The thought often occurs in performances in which a conductor's ego and body language become a distraction. Or, indeed, in performances in which an orchestra clearly knows what it's playing so intimately that all it needs to do is to listen and re-energise itself. It depends on size and repertoire, of course. But the Britten Sinfonia, led by Jacqueline Shave, showed that it could handle Webern, Haydn and Beethoven convincingly without the pantomime on the podium.

The raison d'être of Imogen Cooper directs Beethoven was the Piano Concerto No 3 in C minor. There were no frilly hand gestures; no lungeing of the body towards the orchestra; no coy nods and winks. What transfixed the audience was the palpable energy that coursed from player to player: from keyboard to leader's bow, from violins to woodwind and brass, and back again.

The organic power and economy of Beethoven's writing felt more dynamic than ever. Cooper's own rhythmic regeneration of theme and counter- theme, her sense of direction, and her ability to let the music yield and breathe, led to a fearless cadenza with a movingly hushed exit. A veiled inwardness hung over the slow movement. And the finale was measured, tense with concentrated energy, and with wonderfully tapered phrases of harp-like passagework.

This was the grand finale of an evening that had begun, courageously, with an impassioned performance of Webern's Five Movements - miniatures of finely-tuned sensibility and raw nerve endings, each one dazzlingly democratic in its re-creation. The presence of a conductor could have added nothing here, and little in Haydn's Symphony No 88.'

Cold weather, warm reception

The weather did not deter a large and enthusiastic audience from attending our concert last night in Norwich: Webern, Haydn and Beethoven's Piano Concerto no. 3 with Imogen Cooper. We entertained our growing band of subscribers during the interval, when they were given a sneak preview of our plans for 2009-10 (our blog fans will have to wait a little longer!).
Tickets for Monday's performance in London can be booked online.

Initiation to Webern

Our latest tour started last night in Cambridge, with Imogen Cooper giving a peerless performance of Beethoven's Piano Concerto no. 3. An anecdote: I was delighted to meet an adult who was at his first ever classical concert and professed zero knowledge about the genre. And which was the piece he enjoyed the most? Webern's Five Movements - brilliant!
We are doing the same programme tonight at the Theatre Royal in Norwich and then on Monday at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London.

Shoe-in at West Road

West Road Concert Hall is, this week, more famous for the shoe-throwing incident during the Chinese Premier's visit to Cambridge on Monday, than the music presented there. Ironically, the Chinese Embassy's advance posse were checking the Hall during our composers' workshop last Saturday morning, during which no shoes were thrown. Oliver Knussen worked with five young composers on pieces they had written for the same line-up as our January lunchtime concerts. The quality of the compositions was very high, so these are names to look out for: Kate Whiteley, Frances Bamber, Joel Rust, Jonathan Coffer and Tom Kimber.

Via Crucis CD

It's a March retail release, but our new recording with Polyphony of Pawel Lukaszewski's 'Via Crucis' is now available on the Hyperion Records website. Having listened to an advance copy I am glad that the impact it made in concert is captured brilliantly: its power is partly through its long, slow build - it is not the kind of piece you dip into. The striking image chosen for the cover is one of the paintings by Jerzy Duda-Gracz for the Stations of the Cross at Jasna Gora, the monastery which is the home of the Black Madonna and has a symbolic role in Poland's history. As Meurig Bowen writes in the CD booklet, 'The journey witnessed in the Via Crucis - the conflict, the suffering, the humiliation, the defiance, the resurrection - can also be seen as a reflection on Polish Catholicism's victory over Communism'. Thus, crucifixion iconography is updated, with the Polish Pope, a concentration camp inmate and the Black Madonna icon itself. An interesting debate about CD covers has started on another blog: On An Overgrown Path. Will this new cover feature?
Our next live concert is in Chelmsford tonight; it was sold-out before the weekend, so do check with the box-office for returns before turning up.