A poignantly beautiful opening to Valletta's festival

By Katy Wright, 10 January 2015

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Reviewed at St Nicholas (All Souls) Church, Valletta on 10 January 2015

Banaster, Hymnus exultet caelum à 3

Sturton, Gaude Virgo Mater Christi à 6

White, Magnificat

White, Lamentations, for five voices

Nederlands Kamerkoor

Paul van Nevel, Conductor

Through the looking glass: Amsterdam Sinfonietta are a class act

Clare Varney, 12th May

Candida Thompson’s performance of Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel with understated beauty, immaculate phrasing and restrained emotion, steals the show.

****1

Sublime singing in Scenes from Goethe's Faust

Jenny Camilleri, 6th December

Soloists and choir, headed by a spellbinding Christian Gerhaher, brought real lustre to Schumann’s treatment of Goethe’s magnum opus.

****1

Parallel symmetries and random synchronicities at Festival d’Aix

Pwyll ap Sion, 13th July

In his 2016 opera Blank Out, Dutch composer Michel van der Aa has managed to create a new kind of operatic ‘reality’ that resonates powerfully with today’s Zeitgeist. Highly recommended.

*****

Buoyant Brahms’ First from the RCO under Iván Fischer

Jenny Camilleri, 6th April

Bach’s Magnificat featured superlative solos from both singers and musicians, but the RCO and Iván Fischer reached a higher plane in a beautifully crafted and optimistic Brahms’ First Symphony.

****1

Fabulous soloists in the RCO’s St John Passion

Jenny Camilleri, 27th March

Superlative vocal and instrumental soloists, led by Michael Schade as a vividly intense Evangelist, impress in Bach’s St John Passion at the Concertgebouw.

****1

Calefax and Nederlands Kamerkoor join forces in theatrical concert

Thea Derks, 3rd April

In “Far from Home” reed quintet Calefax and the Nederlands Kamerkoor performed music around the theme of loneliness, loss and exile.

***11

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Katy Wright

As News Editor at Rhinegold, Katy contributes news pieces and longer features to publications including Classical Music, Music Teacher and International Piano (both digital and print editions). She writes on a freelance basis for publications including Sinfini Music and TEMPO.

A poignantly beautiful opening to the third Valletta International Baroque Festival