NOT AT ALL BADKE

I was expecting to be harried and heckled by the Hindemithian hordes when I arrived at Keele University last night.
You may remember that I was highly critical last week of one of his works, which didn’t have a single right note in it. It was a sort of anti-music. Don’t get me wrong; the Galliard Ensemble played it brilliantly and I suspect the effect was exactly what Hindemith intended.
This week’s Keele Challenge was Bartok’s third string quartet, written just five years after the Hindemith in 1927.
Now I have a lot of Bartok in my record collection, and wouldn’t be without the Concerto for Orchestra or Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta.
But this quartet is highly condensed Bartok, and the language is not at all easy on the ear. It has a savagery and abruptness, and a lot of discords.
The Badke Quartet absolutely nailed it, playing with a fierce precision. Their cellist, Jonathan Byers, told us how important the Bartok was for players, as vital to the development of the form as Haydn or Beethoven.
And I’m absolutely not arguing for Smooth Classics, of which I can bear 15 minutes at most.
There are times, particularly in a morning, when I am prepared for the mental equivalent of going to the gym.
But just as I make a vow to get to grips with music like this, I hear the rest of the wonderful sounds in last night’s Badke Quartet concert and think; why bother?
They opened with the first of the six quartets which make up Haydn’s Opus 76. Personally, I’m in love with number two, but number one will do, even though it doesn’t have a nickname (four out of the six do -- they’re that popular.) This is Haydn at the height of his powers, the grand old man finally recognised properly for his genius (at least in England) and able to write anything from a heart-breaking melody to a gimmicky false ending.
And how the Badke Quartet (http://www.badkequartet.co.uk/) can play it. Listen to the sweet chording of that great long tune in the second movement, and then the wicked crossfire of the final one. They get Haydn’s daft wit, too, in the always-but-never-ending final movement of the fifth quartet they played as an encore. They gave it character and expression -- without ever being over-romantic.
And then that French masterpiece, Ravel‘s great string quartet homage to Debussy. I am instantly transported to a Parisian boulevard. In the second movement, which involves a lot of pizzicato, they even manage to make their rare eighteenth-century violins -- borrowed from the Royal Academy of Music collection -- sound like guitars.
The strange thing is that though the Badke quartet, named after first violin Heather Badke, was formed in 2002 and is now hailed as one of the best in Britain, I can’t find any discs by them. I suppose it made this chance to hear them even more special.
The Hindemith hordes never turned up, which either means no one care what I write, or everyone agrees with me. You may not be surprised to learn that I choose to consider the latter as the truth.

NEXT Keele concerts end their season next Wednesday with a special festive occasion, the National Youth Jazz Orchestra’s Big Band Christmas. It’ll be very popular so book now. Keele Concerts then take a rest until January 20.
Tonight, Thursday, one of the greatest modern pianists, Stephen Hough, is at the Forum Theatre in Hanley. I understand it’s practically sold out, and I’m not one bit surprised.

BLOWN AWAY BY THE WINDS

It was a night of things never heard or seen before. The Chancellor’s building at Keele University was festooned with the entries for the Three Counties Open Art Exhibition.
And I’d never before heard either the Galliard Ensemble or any of the music it was playing in the Westminster Theatre in that building.
Well, that‘s not quite true. I knew Rossini’s overture to the Italian Girl in Algiers, though not as arranged here for wind quintet. Fun though it was, I missed the strings.
On the other hand, the Haydn Divertimento which followed in Harold Perry’s arrangement was even better than its string original, and really did divert.
Hindemith’s Little Chamber Music for Five Winds was billed as being full of wit and irony. In fact, it was like sucking lemons while being slowly shaved with a blunt blade. It recalled my root canal treatment all over again. I heard it so you don’t have to.
The Galliard Ensemble’s website http://www.galliardensemble.com/home.html doesn’t reveal why they chose that name; maybe it‘s meant ironically. My dictionary -- well, yours too, if truth be told -- defines a galliard as a 16th century dance involving leaping and hopping. Not only did the ensemble remain seated, they played no galliards, and their discography reveals a strong preference for 20th and even 21st century music.
So following the Hindemith, written in 1922, I was awaiting the second half of the concert in some trepidation.
In fact, it was fascinating. Everyone now knows Samuel Barber’s Adagio, so it was good to hear something else by him. The Summer Music does have some modern moments, but also some splendid, languid tunes, particularly for oboe.
Holst’s wind quintet, written in 1903 but lost until the 1970s, is a little jewel, blending all those wind quintet harmonies into new shapes. Mind you, it isn’t in the same league as the Planets; nothing else by Holst is, as far as I can tell, and believe me, I keep on looking.
Finally, the Comedy for Five Winds by Paul Patterson, written in the 1970s. It begins with West Side Story and the Copland clarinet concerto, moves on to the blues, and ends with a fractured hornpipe, which is a lot of ground to cover. It’s fun and well made.
The Galliards are former New Generation artists, and even though their normal flutist Kathryn Thomas was absent, the playing was just as distinguished and impressive. Well, she was replaced by Phillipa Davies from the even more famous Nash Ensemble. Altogether an evening of stimulating and original sounds.
On the other hand, anyone who watched this week’s TV programme School of Saatchi will find the Three Counties Open Art exhibition a little confusing. Where, you might well ask, are the unmade beds, the sheds full of little towers, the whistles on a string?
There are a couple of abstract paintings, but mostly it’s either landscapes -- lots of trees -- or portraits (even one by the mother of a friend of ours, who’s in her eighties. I‘m sure she never leaves her bed unmade)
It seemed to me to be art for people who don’t know much about art but know what they like, which is probably why I liked it so much.
However, next year I shall be entering my latest video installation, which is sure to carry off the first prize for its originality and invention. Besides, I can’t draw.

NEXT The Keele Bach Choir perform in Keele University Chapel on Saturday night -- including, dare I say it, some Hindemith. Stafford and district choral society are at Sir Graham Balfour High School with Britten’s Saint Nicholas Cantata, appropriately enough for the time of year. And over at St Mary’s church in Uttoxeter, the Uttoxeter choir is resurgent under a new conductor, Anthony Rose. The concert features the Mozart Coronation mass and the Schubert German mass. On Sunday, the Lichfield Sinfonia is at the city’s Guildhall with Tchaikovsky’s fifth symphony and a Stamitz flute concerto. Next Wednesday you can get an early fix of Christmas at the Victoria Hall with massed school choirs courtesy of Staffordshire Performing Arts. You might even be asked to sing along with the carols. But I shall be at Keele again on Wednesday to open my Advent Calendar on the Badke string quartet playing Haydn, Bartok and Ravel. Better than chocolate.

REQUIEM; POTTERS DO VERDI PROUD

Verdi’s Requiem failed to fill the newly-built Royal Albert Hall when it was first performed in England in 1875. I suppose that with a chorus of 1000 and orchestra of 140 that didn’t really matter.
For many people, the work was, well, too Roman Catholic. However, for those who were religious, it was scandalously theatrical. Poor Verdi couldn’t win either way. Well, he was an agnostic; it goes with the territory.
The other problem the people in the Royal Albert Hall would have had was with the very poor acoustics, which weren’t properly fixed until the late twentieth century.
Luckily, there are no such problems at the Victoria Hall in Hanley. I counted only 150 singers and 50 players, but the sound was superb, featuring the combined strength of the Ceramic City Choir and the Leek Phoenix Singers. And we are now able to hear the Requiem for what it is -- a moving, dramatic opera about the human condition.
Conductor Oliver Neal Parker avoided the work’s traps -- linger too long and it all gets very holy -- and managed to strike those difficult balances (orchestra/choir, choir/soloists, orchestra/choir….).
I’d have liked the choir even louder in the Dies irae, but then, I have very long hairs on the back of my neck. And they could perhaps have been sprightlier in the Sanctus.
The Orchestra da Camera make a habit of backing local operatic societies, and they do it very well indeed. This is a work with a lot of brass, and their exceptional wind choir was well up to it -- I loved the trombones.
The choir brought in four professionals for the solo singing -- Geraint Dodd for a lovely bit of Italian tenor, Rita Cullis, a powerful and wide-ranging soprano, Valerie Reid’s penetrating mezzo, and at the bottom, Graeme Danby’s bass. I liked his voice a lot, though since he was directly facing my seat that may have had something to do with it.
The Requiem didn’t fill the Victoria Hall, either, but the human condition has been pretty ropey in North Staffordshire in recent times, which can‘t have done a lot for ticket sales.
But some of the choir brought their families, and it was great to see younger people than is usual in a classical concert. I hope they enjoyed it, for this was something to be very proud of.

NEXT Tomorrow (Sunday) night the Rhos Orpheus Male Voice Choir and Foden’s Band push the boat out for the RNLI. I hope to be out again on Wednesday to see the Galliard Ensemble at Keele. If you like brass bands, you’ll like this - a wind quintet, with some very unusual music.

CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG; FROM HANLEY WITH LOVE

I could have been James Bond, you know. I have the sophistication, the manliness, and the ability to speak several languages. Granted, I don’t currently have a dinner jacket, but I’m sure I could hire one.
What would rule it out, though, is my inability to bear pain. Blofeld would only have to threaten a Chinese burn and I’d be spilling the beans (though in the 60s, when Bond was written, Russian spies practically ran MI5 and they already knew enough beans to open their own cannery. This fact seems, strangely, to be missing from Ian Fleming’s novels.)
And I’ve had to suffer some pain these past few days. I woke on Monday morning with a nasty toothache, which got steadily worse as the day went on. By teatime I was sucking soluble aspirin through a straw (oh all right, dispersible aspirin if you insist. When did it stop dissolving?)
Tuesday morning saw me at the dentists undergoing the full root canal treatment, drill up through the head, disgusting abscess, the lot. I bore it bravely, of course, helped by my wife‘s sympathy. “I thought you seemed tetchier than usual,” she remarked.
So by the time I got to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the Regent Theatre on Tuesday night I would have been saying Bah, Humbug, to a week in Barbados with a bevy of Bond girls.
It is a tribute to this production that I felt the odd glimmer of enjoyment in the next two hours.
It might at first seem strange that Ian Fleming wrote this story in between Bonds, until you look more closely. Plainly, Caractus Potts, the mad inventor at the heart of the tale, is Q, and Chitty Chitty is the ultimate Bond car -- it floats and it flies. The baddies live in Vulgaria, and vulgarity was the unforgivable sin for snobby Fleming.
One exchange between the two baddies says it all. “But we can speak English and still be Vulgar, can’t we?” “No, that would make you American.”
A lot of the publicity for this production centres on the gimmicks, of which there are plenty. Everything on stage that can move, does. And of course, the car actually does fly. It looks like a better ride than anything at Alton Towers.
But there should also be a mention for a professional, slick and well-drilled cast. From the two children to the Baron, it’s all very well sung and acted. There were a lot of young children at the opening night, and almost no fidgeting, which says it all.
This is, in fact, an accomplished, five-star, West End production, and should answer the panto needs of many families.
The shadow of the Childcatcher, booed heartily last night, hung over the Fleming family. The author died when his son Caspar was just 12, and by all accounts neither he nor his wife was very good at being parents. Caspar killed himself in his early twenties.

NEXT Tonight, pianist Stefan Ciric plays Beethoven, Brahms and Liszt at Keele -- an extra Harding Trust treat. There’s an organ prom in Hanley on Saturday lunchtime, and in the evening the Ceramic City Choir are performing what is really an opera by another name -- Verdi’s coruscating Requiem. I’ll be there.

JENUFA; NOT AN EVERYDAY TALE OF COUNTRY FOLK

I blame programmes like Location, Location and Escape to the Country. They’ve given people the impression that country life is some sort of idyll to be treasured.
Well, keep Kirsty away from Janacek’s opera Jenufa, whatever you do. It reveals the truth; the country is a place of numbing boredom, spousal abuse, marriage between close relatives, suicide and infanticide. Why do you think the history of civilisation is of mankind desperately heading for the bright lights of the cities?
This is an opera so deep and dark there are aliens in black holes looking down in amazement. Compared to Gabriela Preissova, on whose play Janacek based the opera, Jack Dee is an irrepressible optimist. Thomas Hardy is spinning in his grave, ashamed he never wrote anything half so depressing.
The opera was written a hundred years ago, but it was not until twenty years ago that the score as Janacek originally conceived it was finally published. Yet it’s due to be performed in the next six months in Bordeaux, Leipzig, Madrid, Prague and Strasbourg.
So what is it about Jenufa which has turned it into an international smash hit? So powerful are the surging rhythms and melodic waves of Janacek’s unique music that you are swept along with the force of the millstream that is at the centre of this tragedy, until finally the music swells into a hymn of forgiveness and redemption. Caught up in this current, there is no room for comic relief or objective appreciation; you drown in the music.
For the two women at the centre of this whirlwind, the opera must be an ordeal and a challenge -- but obviously, Glyndebourne’s Jenufa, Giselle Allen, and her stepmother, the Kostelnicka, Anne Mason, relished every minute of it. They made their voices gloriously heard across a very full orchestra used in unique and inventive ways (Janacek sounds like no other composer). They triumphed at the Regent last night, and got a standing ovation.
Peter Wedd as Laca, a man full of love and jealousy, sang with complete command of the role. Pavel Cernoch, who must have helped the cast to get their Czech accents right, gave a great performance as a weak but handsome wastrel, though his voice was sometimes lost in the orchestra.
The sets are all they need to be, and I was particularly taken with the weak blue lighting streaming in from the windows in the final act, making huge shadows on the wall (did I see a cross there somewhere?) Take a bow, Paul Hastie.
It seems only yesterday that I met conductor Robin Ticciati in Café Nero in Hanley one morning. Already, he’s leaving Glyndebourne to run the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. So reluctant was Stoke-on-Trent to let him go last night that the curtain wouldn’t open properly at first and he had to start all over again. Let’s hope he can persuade the Scottish Chamber Orchestra to pay us a visit.
For he writes in the programme; “My favourite night is the midweek performance in Stoke. It will almost certainly be a freezing November evening and people will have run in straight from work for a night at the opera. That is a real gift for them, us and the art form.”

NEXT Cosi Fan Tutte is repeated at the Regent tonight, Falstaff tomorrow (Saturday). Jenufa, alas, is not repeated.
And if you venture into the Cheshire countryside, Clonter Opera has an opera gala tomorrow night.
Next week, however, I’m venturing into a new musical experience. I’m going to the opening night on Tuesday at the Regent of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

FALSTAFF; TUDOR TO DIE FOR

I confess I never understood Glyndebourne’s Macbeth in modern dress, so I was very worried about seeing Falstaff set in 1946. Director Richard Jones and his designer Ultz decided to update Shakespeare, making the surroundings mock-Tudor instead of actual Tudor, including a complete quaint half-timbered High street.
Falstaff is Captain Mainwaring without the cash, Pistol and Bardolph -- well-characterised by Sion Goronwy and Harry Nicholl -- are Laurel and Hardy and Ford -- baritone Guido Locosolo -- is a spiv.
I’m not completely convinced. They weren’t washing clothes in the Thames in 1946, and even rich housewives didn’t have servants available to throw the contents of the laundry basket out of the window.
But if you’re going to set Falstaff in 1946, Glyndebourne are the gang to do it. The sets are absolutely wonderful, making the most of the Regent Theatre’s big stage. The costumes are superb; it could be our great-grandparents up there. Oh all right, grandparents. Oh, go on then, parents.
And there are laughs. Falstaff’s safari suit is a treat, the face-slapping farce in Ford’s house is good slapstick, and then there are the sly Brownies, the landlady who serves a pint to the audience (Helen Atkinson Wood), and the cat. They’ve either nailed a real one to the bar or it’s very clever animatronics.
The singing, of course, is without compare. There’s a virtuoso performance from Jonathan Veira as the fat man. The strength of his voice and stage presence make his downfall even sorrier.
Kathleen Wilkinson has fun playing Mistress Quickly as a tubby ATS girl. Elena Tsallagova and Nicholas Phan, new to Glyndebourne, give winning performances as Nannetta and Fenton, whose true love is meant to show up all the fake love going on around them. They’re the only characters for whom Verdi wrote anything that might be considered a conventional aria, and they look good and sing sweetly and with distinction.
Rossini wrote some beautiful and original music he called “sins of old age”, and this opera is Verdi’s old age sin. He was nearly 80 when he wrote it not for his fans but for his own satisfaction. The music is complicated, highly coloured, full of melody but short on tunes. The Glyndebourne on Tour orchestra under James Gaffigan give a masterly performance, well worth the price of admission on its own.
Another thing about 1946; wasn’t it all in black and white?
NEXT Tonight (Thursday), Jenufa by Janacek, a work virtually unknown in Britain until Glyndebourne rediscovered it in the 1930s. This staging has had rave reviews in the press. You might be worried about whether you’ll like the music, since the composer sounds terribly modern. Think Dvorak with added hot paprika, and you’ll be fine.

GETTING COSI WITH GLYNDEBOURNE

Rarely is it given to us to know exactly what we were doing three years ago. But in this case it happens to have been written down.
Back in November 2006 I was enjoying a wonderful Glyndebourne on Tour production of Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte, starring last-minute stand-in Natasha Jouhl as Fiordiligi. At the time, this is how I reckoned it had happened;
So there you are at breakfast, contemplating a second cup of coffee. The phone rings. “Oh, yes, it’s like this… The star’s gone ill and her understudy’s got tooth troubles, so you remember that part you understudied six months ago in Sussex, could you just nip up to Stoke-on-Trent and stand on a stage in front of several thousand people for three hours singing your heart out? No, I’m afraid rehearsals are out of the question. Oh good. If you nip over to Euston now, you should get a cheap day return with a bit of luck.”
And do you know, it happened all over again last night.
Surely by now Natasha must have known this was coming. If it’s Glyndebourne and Stoke-on-Trent, you’re on.
I wrote in 2006 that we’d be hearing a lot more of Natasha Jouhl. This is what the Chicago Tribune wrote about her in 2008: “Natasha Jouhl traced the long, radiant lines of Kumadha's music with exactly the 'clear and beautiful voice' described in the text.” And last month, when she appeared in Handel’s Alcina with English Touring Opera, the critic wrote; “not only the highlight of the evening, but one of the most sensationally delivered arias I have heard all year. I sat in my seat utterly transfixed by her performance.”
And how well her lovely voice fitted with Lucia Cirillo’s Dorabella, a sparkling, vibrant performance. And how well both their voices went together with Jacques Imbrailo, a classic, strong baritone in the body of a clever comic actor, and Andrew Tortise, a fine, light but not weak tenor, playing Ferrando as a conceited fop. Riccardo Novaro’s man-hating Don Alfonso had power and authority. The only slight disappointment was another stand-in, Jacquelyn Parker as the wicked servant Despina, who seemed to be struggling with the vast open spaces of the Regent Theatre.
Once again, this is a classic, first-class production of an extraordinary work. It’s on again on Friday, and I urge you not to miss it.
No one quite knows where Lorenzo Da Ponte -- who wrote the words -- got the idea for the plot, which now seems very modern in its tone but must have been amazingly daring and controversial in its day (which probably explains why it‘s now among Mozart‘s most popular operas.)
Here are two sisters at the mercy of a cynical old gent and a vicious servant who find they can love any nice young man, given the opportunity, and two gents who decide to test their girls’ faithfulness and find themselves swapping partners. And for it, Mozart wrote not some sort of comic music but songs which speak of real sorrow, loss, parting -- and deep love.
Da Ponte, quite a character, was banned from Vienna altogether shortly after the opera was written. Amazingly, he didn’t die until 1838, and by then he’d been a professor at Columbia University, was a United States citizen, and just about single-handedly brought opera to America (I commend you to the fascinating book by Anthony Holden, The Man Who Wrote Mozart.)
As for Natasha Jouhl, she recently won an award from Glyndebourne to help with her studies. This came shortly after she moved up from her role of First Woodnymph to sing the title role for Acts 2 and 3 of Rusalka at Glyndebourne when the scheduled soprano fell into the orchestra pit (luckily, she wasn‘t badly hurt).
Now come on, Natasha, you can’t go on doing this for the rest of your career. Time your name went up in lights as the star -- not the star’s plucky and first-rate replacement.
NEXT Tonight (Wednesday) at the Regent, Glyndebourne’s production of Verdi’s last opera, Falstaff. Some apparently think the librettist Boito did better than Shakespeare.
If you think you can play the recorder -- well, we were all taught at school, weren’t we? -- I suggest a visit to Keele to see Red Priest, who will reveal it can do more than Greensleeves.