Performances to Stream September 2-3, 2023
This Labor Day weekend greets us with performances from Grafenegg, London, Kiel, Utrecht, and Berlin in an all-festival weekend from around Europe.
Felix Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream from the Grafenegg Festival on Ö1
While we generally think of Mendelssohn as the composer responsible for reviving the Baroque traditions of music in Europe during the height of the Romantic Era, he also contributed to musical development within the Romantic Era, as well. This work would be part of that canon within his catalog of compositions. Mendelssohn composed an overture for the play when he was 17 years of age, and it was praised by none other than George Grove of Grove’s Dictionary of Music fame. In 1842 he revisited the subject when he further composed incidental music for the play; naturally, he included the overture from 16 years earlier. This incidental music contains one of the most well-recognized pieces of music in the entire world: Mendelssohn’s Wedding March.
The soloists for this work are soprano Nikola Hillebrand and mezzo-soprano Patricia Nolz. Yutaka Sado conducts the Tonkünstler-Orchester in this opening performance from 2023’s Grafenegg Festival from August 11, 2023. This concert also featured Richard Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche, Op. 28. This performance is scheduled to air at 1:00 PM GMT on Saturday, September 2, 2023, on Ö1’s Apropos Klassik. It will be available for future listening following the initial broadcast.
Claudio Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea from the Tivoli Vredenburg on NPO Radio 4 Klassiek
Known as the composer who propelled the art form of Italian opera to its height as the Baroque Era dawned in the wake of Renaissance Era traditions in music, Monteverdi composed this opera in his last year of life. Though many of his works are lost to us today, this opera is one of the most famous examples of Baroque Italian opera in the repertoire and has withstood the test of time for 380 years since it was initially composed. The plot of this opera centers around a philandering Nero, Emperor of Rome, and his mistress Poppea. Nero’s wife Ottavia tries to have Poppea’s former lover kill the new mistress to force Nero’s attentions back to her, but this scheme is unsuccessful. In the end Poppea is placed upon the throne as Empress in Ottavia’s stead.
This performance stars Catherine Trottmann as Poppea, Ray Chenez as Nerone, Victoire Bunel as Ottavio, Paul-Antoine Benos-Djian as Ottone, Adrien Mathonat as Seneca, Paul Figuier as Arnalta / Voedster / Friend 1, Maïlys de Villoutreys as Fortuna / Drusilla, Camille Poul as Amor / Valetto, Sébastien Monti as Lucano / Soldier 1 / Friend 2, Thibault Givaja as Liberto / Soldier 2, and Yannis François as Friend 3. Damien Guillon conducts Le Banquet Céleste from the harpsichord in this live performance from the 2023 Festival Oude Musiek Utrecht. This performance is scheduled for broadcast on Saturday, September 2, 2023, at 5:00 PM GMT on NPO Radio 4 Klassiek’s Zomeravondconcert. This performance will be available for streaming following its initial airing.
The Mozartists in Concert from the Kiel Petruskirche on NDR Kultur
From the recently-concluded Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, we are greeted with a concert of works from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Thomas Arne, Johann Christian Bach, William Bates, Samuel Arnold, Egidio Duni, and Carl Friedrich Abel. The soloists are soprano Alexandra Lowe, tenor Benjamin Hulett, harpsichordist Steven Devine. The Mozartists are led by Ian Page in this performance from July 23, 2023. The program included Mozart’s Symphony No. 1 in E flat major, KV 16, Arne’s Thou, like the glorious sun (No. 19) from Artaxerxes, J.C. Bach’s Harpsichord Concerto Op. 1 No. 6 and Cara, la dolce fiamma from Adriano in Siria, Mozart’s Va, dal furor portata, KV 21, Arne’s The Guardian Outwitted Overture, Bates’s In this I fear my latest breath from Pharnaces, Arnold’s Hist, hist, I hear my mother call from The Maid of the Mill, Arne’s When from beauty sweetly blooming from The Guardian Outwitted, Duni’s To speak my mind from The Maid of the Mill, Anonymous’s Patty of the Mill, and Abel’s Symphony in E-flat Major, Op. 7, No. 6.
This performance is scheduled to air on NDR Kultur on Sunday, September 3, 2023, at 9:00 AM GMT. The concert should be available for further listening following the broadcast.
Hector Berlioz’s Les Troyens from the Royal Albert Hall on BBC Radio 3
In this operatic epic from the height of the Romantic Era, Berlioz delivers an opera to live up to the pages of Virgil’s The Aeneid. The opera was composed within two years with Berlioz crafting both score and libretto for the work. It was a massive undertaking to produce, and in its early days it was staged in halves on alternating evenings. Eventually, common cuts would shorten the performance, but it remains an impressive work to stage in any opera house’s season even today. The opera covers the events from the arrival of the Trojan Horse outside the walls of Troy to Dido’s suicide as Aeneas leaves Carthage in pursuit of his destiny on Roman shores. Notably, this opera faded into obscurity a few decades after its first productions and was not revisited fully until a 1970 recording for Philips under Sir Colin Davis coinciding with a production at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden following renewed interest in the work from partial performances in the 1950’s and '60’s.
In this performance for the 2023 BBC Proms the cast of characters are Laurence Kilsby as Iopas & Hylas, Rebecca Evans as Hècube, Alex Rosen as Hector/Sentinelle II, Alice Coote as Cassandra, Michael Spyres as Aeneas, Paula Murrihy as Dido, Lionel Lhote as Coroebus, Adèle Charvet as Ascanius, William Thomas as Narbal, Ashley Riches as Panthus, and Beth Taylor as Anna. The Monteverdi Choir and Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique are conducted by Dinis Sousa, who replaces the disgraced Sir John Eliot Gardiner after a recent instance in which the latter slapped and punched a young bass in the face for exiting from the wrong side of the podium following a performance of this very work in France. While publicists are busy ascribing the outburst to perhaps a “change in medication” after Gardiner’s public apology statement and withdrawal from his conducting engagements for the remainder of the year, this sort of behavior from Gardiner is well-known among musicians who perform with him. Classical Music Weekly outright condemns this unprofessional behavior and hopes Mr. Gardiner is held to account for his absurd, violent actions.
Gustav Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde from the Berliner Philharmonie on Deustchlandfunk Kultur
Mahler’s penultimate completed symphonic work, Das Lied von der Erde was composed following the dismal year of 1907 for the composer. He lost his job, his eldest daughter perished at a young age from scarlet fever, and Mahler was diagnosed with a heart defect. He completed the work in 1909, but he did not live long enough to hear or see it performed. His friend conductor Bruno Walter led the premiere in 1911 in Munich. The symphony is written for two voices, an alto and tenor, in song with an orchestra. Mahler borrowed the text from Hans Bethge’s collection of poetry entitled Die chinesische Flöte, which has been published in 1907, as well. Six of Bethge’s poems were used for the score; they are Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde; Der Einsame im Herbst; Von der Jugend; Von der Schönheit; Der Trunkene im Frühling; and Der Abschied.
Mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill and tenor Allan Clayton are the soloists in this performance from the Musikfest Berlin on August 30, 2023. Robin Ticciati conducts the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. This performance is scheduled to air on Sunday, September 3, 2023, at 6:00 PM GMT on Deutschlandfunk Kultur. It will be available for listening following the broadcast.