Choral classics and a new commission from BBC Singers

By Nick Boston, 22 August 2018

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Reviewed at Cadogan Hall, London on 20 August 2018

Bridge, Music when soft voices die

Vaughan Williams, Rest

Holst, Nunc dimittis

Mvula, Love Like A Lion (BBC commission: world première)

Parry, Songs of Farewell

BBC Singers

Sakari Oramo, Conductor

The BBC Singers at full throttle at Milton Court

Nick Boston, 26th February

Powerful Herbert Howells, together with affecting Shaw and engaging MacMillan from the BBC Singers, with the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Sofi Jeannin.

****1

UK premiere of Julia Wolfe’s unEarth impresses on scale, not substance

Susannah Moody, 23rd January

Wolfe's climate-change oratorio, performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, already feels out of date.

**111

Ermonela Jaho gives a tragic twist to Puccini's La rondine

Peter Quantrill, 5th December

A new edition of Puccini's score springs to life in a meticulously prepared Opera Rara concert performance at the Barbican.

****1

ENO, BBC join forces in stunning Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk

Mark Valencia, 1st September

David Pountney's vernacular translation and Ruth Knight's vivid staging lent a thrilling immediacy to Shostakovich's chilling opera.

*****

BBC Symphony and Josep Pons at the Proms: a dextrous dance

Dominic Lowe, 8th August

A programme heavily skewed to the balletic saw the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Josep Pons dispatch difficult passages with ease.

****1

Yunchan Lim plays a starring role in the CBSO’s Prom

Leighton Jones, 1st August

Adams, Rachmaninov and Berio are not three easy bedfellows, however Kazuki Yamada and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra pull these strands together remarkably.

****1

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Nick Boston

Nick has an MA in Music, specialising in performance and repertoire. His particular passions are choral music, chamber music and opera, with a particular interest in early music. He sings in a number of choirs in the south east of England, plays the piano and occasionally dusts off the violin. He writes about music here.

Endings and beginnings: choral classics and a new commission from BBC Singers and Oramo