There comes a stage in every countertenor’s career when he feels himself ready to tackle the exposed repertoire of John Dowland, and hence the need to find himself a talented lutenist.
Founded in 2005, Concerto Stella Matutina hail from the musically rich Vorarlberg region of Austria (home of the Schubertiade). For this evening’s concert, they were represented by two violins, a viola, cello and double bass apiece, a concert organ and percussion, plus their magnificent Baroque brass section – three players with a variety of horns, trumpets, trombones and cornetts.
A near capacity audience gathered at the Wigmore Hall last week to celebrate another English musical anniversary – not the birth of Benjamin Britten one hundred years ago, but that of lutenist and composer John Dowland, some 350 years earlier.
Jordi Savall is well known to early music lovers, championing the revival of the viola da gamba with a wealth of previously unknown material and appearing regularly in the UK both as player and leader of his three ensembles.
Handel, two cracking counter-tenors and Renée Fleming were all the excuses needed for a long-overdue trip to New York to hear Stephen Wadsworth's production of Rodelinda - the very piece which revived interest in Handel's opera following its performance in Göttingen in the 1920s.
