Sarah studied Music at Cambridge University, graduating in 2010 and now works for Rhinegold Publishing coordinating their music directories and listings supplements. Sarah is a regular concert- and theatre-goer and appreciates most music – with the exception of heavy metal and Wagner.
The tiny room at the top of Soho members’ club Blacks is not the first venue most directors would choose to stage an opera, but Pop-Up Opera is not an ordinary production company.
It took the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra a little while to settle into tonight’s performance – which was a shame, because Borodin’s overture to Prince Igor can be a fantastic programme opener. A slightly untidy brass chord began the measured introduction, which sadly lacked tension in the build-up to the sudden fanfare and breakneck main theme.
The final concert in this day-long exploration of Japanese music turned out to be a bit of a mixed bag. It is likely that, with the exception of Toru Takemitsu, few average Western audiences would be familiar with the composers featured in this programme.
Even at 9.20 on a cold Thursday evening in January, there were queues out the door to hear the Pegasus Choir’s debut at the Brandenburg Choral Festival. As the sixteenth concert of 66, the performance certainly needed something special to attract the crowds. This was achieved by programming Rachmaninov’s magnificent All-Night Vigil – perhaps one of the most famous settings of the Vespers.
The theme of tonight’s concert, revealed the programme notes, was that of “marking time and preserving timeless values” – Christmas being a season that connects the past with the present.
Tonight’s concert opened with the warm string tones and broad, sweeping phrases of Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen Suite; the UK première of a little-known arrangement by František Jílek.
When we look back to the disease and mistreatment that arrived with the European colonisation of South America, the role of music in the whole affair is not often the first issue that comes to mind.
If anyone in tonight’s audience was hoping for a recital of the Swingle Singers’ greatest classical arrangements from the past 50 years, they would have come away disappointed.
I must admit I had little idea what to expect when faced with the title of this performance. Was I about to hear a rendition of Schubert’s great Lieder in the elaborate style of a synagogue cantor? Not exactly.
