Category: Music

Franco Fagioli: Porpora Arias

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Franco Fagioli

(Wigmore Hall, Academia Montis Regalis with Alessandro De Marchi, 21 September 2014)

 If you have the misfortune to follow me on Twitter, you’ll be aware that I have signally failed to remain grown-up and detached about the prospect of attending my first concert of Baroque music. Forgive me. I can only beg the indulgence due to the zealous new convert, while pointing to my almost complete immersion in the Baroque for the last six weeks. And surely I can’t be blamed for my excitement, because I was kicking off my career as a barocchista with a concert by none other than the high priest of showmanship and bravura ornamentation, the inimitable Franco Fagioli.

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Sant’ Alessio (1632): Stefano Landi

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Landi: Sant' Alessio

(Théâtre de Caen, Les Arts Florissants with William Christie, 2007)

★★★★ ½

Over the weekend I treated myself to another opera DVD, this time one which transported me back to the very earliest days of the art form, to Rome in 1632. At this date the Counter-Reformation was in full swing and the Baroque was just coming into being. Gianlorenzo Bernini, who would become the supremo of 17th-century Rome, was 25 and had been asked to design the stage set for Stefano Landi’s new religious oratorio Sant’ Alessio. The production available on this DVD attempts to recreate the feel of that first performance and I admit I came to it with some trepidation. This all felt a very long way from the exuberance of the 18th century.

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Artaserse (1730): Leonardo Vinci

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Vinci: Artaserse

★★★★★

(with I Barocchisti [CD] and Concerto Köln [DVD], directed by Diego Fasolis, 2012)

Before we start, I should emphasise: the composer is not the artist Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), but a completely different person, the Neapolitan Leonardo Vinci (1690-1730). I must also add a disclaimer. As you may remember, I know nothing about the technicalities of music. In this field I am, more than ever, merely an enthusiastic amateur. That’s especially the case in Baroque music, which must be one of the most technically complex and elaborate areas of classical music. However, as I’ve said before, I’m fascinated by the phenomenon of the castrati and, as such, this particular opera (and performance) was one I couldn’t resist.

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Songs for Running

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Running

The Olympics (and today’s long-awaited first gold medals for Great Britain) have reminded me of my own sporting commitment, which I hasten to add is on a much smaller scale. My charity half-marathon is now only two months away and I haven’t been training as much as I should have been over the last few weeks. In fact, I haven’t been training at all. That’s because the last thing I want to do, after staying up past midnight reading a good book, is to get up at 6am the next morning to go running…

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The Turn of the Screw (1954): Benjamin Britten

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Britten: Turn of the Screw

★★★★

(Glyndebourne, 11-28 August 2011)

I have a huge debt of gratitude to repay to my friend who, on being given three tickets for this performance (the original purchaser having fallen ill), asked me to come with her. Glyndebourne is a remarkable experience and, for us, it was a brief glimpse into another, gilded, world.  As evening dress is traditional, it was easy to spot our fellow festival-goers on the 14:47 from Victoria.  Well-heeled couples carried Fortnum & Mason hampers and groups of young men, who might have stepped straight out of Brideshead Revisited, lounged in the aisles toting picnic rugs and bottles of champagne.  At Lewes station we all piled out of the train and onto some waiting coaches and then we rattled through narrow winding streets (it’s a picturesque little town; I’d never been before) to the house itself.

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Era-defining albums

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CDs

My uncle has been doing a stellar job of introducing me to some of the great albums that were around when he was a music journalist for his student paper back in the early ’70s.  We’ve already covered the late ’60s and we’ve currently got up to 1971, though I’m sure there have been a couple of chronological diversions here and there.  But this got me thinking.  Some of these tracks have the power to conjure up very vivid memories for my uncle and my parents of where they were and what they were doing when they listening to them.  And I found myself wondering which albums might have the same effect on me in twenty years time.  Below were some which sprang to mind.

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