CityLife

Classical highlights: July 30 to August 5, 2010

The Hallé is in action on Sunday and again next Thursday at the Bridgewater Hall. Oddly enough, the former is called the ‘Last Night’ of the Hallé Proms, while the other one is also in the Hallé Promenade Concerts brochure.

But the Last Night is a brand, not a date. In the Hallé’s version there’ll be lots of songs (and not only sung by the audience) as Mary Carewe is guest soloist, and her list stretches from Ivor Novello and Noel Coward to Gershwin and Britten’s cabaret songs.

The orchestra contribute Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Delius, Walton and Eric Coates – and of course the traditional trimmings. Stephen Bell conducts.

Thursday’s is ‘Sir Mark’s Elder’s Summer Concert’, with two works on the programme: Beethoven’s third piano concerto (soloist Paul Lewis), and Richard Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben. The following day they’re doing the same works at the Royal Albert Hall for the BBC Proms, so you hear them here first.

Buxton has been a great place to be for music lovers in the past few weeks, and the Buxton Festival provides an intensive diet of musical events as well as its nightly operas.

One I fitted in was the world premiere of Floratorio, for school singers, two soloists and small orchestra commissioned by Sinfonia ViVA, the Derby-based orchestra, to celebrate Florence Nightingale. It’s 100 years since her death – a good reason to remind people that she spent some of her childhood near Matlock, began her good works near Cromford, and was a woman who got things done.

Floratorio – involving 120 pupils of Burbage, Hague Bar, Thornsett and Whaley Bridge Primary Schools, who sang like pros and had helped composer James Redwood with ideas for songs of their own – took her toughness seriously, pointing out how she had to fight to achieve what she did.

Soprano Claire Surman embodied her steely graciousness beautifully, and baritone Robert Davies made the best of the men who got in her way.

The music had neat touches, like an adaptation of nightingale birdsong (based on Messiaen) and some real Victorian ditties about the ‘lady with the lamp’.

Everyone involved – particularly conductor David Lawrence and animateur Matthew Beckingham – deserves a pat on the back for one of the most successful examples of its kind I’ve yet heard. There was much to hear from the operatic performers at Buxton, even when they weren’t on stage.

I listened to one of the Opera Scenes concerts, when singers who have learned complete roles as ‘covers’ for the principals get the chance to show how they would do them.

There were excellent performances from all of them, particularly the strong, clear line of Phoenicia Johnson (cover for the title role in Verdi’s Luisa Miller – she’s also Laura in the main cast), the exemplary acting ability of tenor Paul Featherstone (cover for Rodolfo – I wish I’d seen him do it on stage), and the golden-toned Robert Tucker (cover for Miller).

I also enjoyed immensely hearing the big stars in recital: Mary Plazas and Paul Nilon, accompanied by Andrew Greenwood, and Jonathan Lemalu (with Sandra Martinovic, aka  Mrs Jonathan Lemalu), accompanied by Michael Hampton.

It was a skilfully varied programme, with elements of the party piece for each of them: the highlights were Mary Plazas in Falla’s Siete Canciones Populares Españolas (which has amazing guitarish piano writing) and Paul Nilon’s selection of songs by Frank Bridge.

Jonathan Lemalu made Schumann’s opus 24 Liederkreis, to Heine poems, sound deeply eloquent, and in Poulenc’s Chants Villeagoises he found both fun and seriousness.

Sandra Martinovic was alert and characterful in songs by Grieg, and they ended the programme with some attractive Mendelssohn duets.