Helen Charlston: “Projection and accentuation of words is amongst the best I have encountered in a long while, I am tempted to say unrivalled,” writes reviewer Martin Dreyer. Picture: Julien Gazeau
HELEN Charlston’s elegant mezzo had already been heard at the festival’s opening event with Fretwork, but this solo recital with theorbist Toby Carr deserved special mention, not least for an attractive new work commissioned by the National Centre for Early Music from composer Anna Disley-Simpson and librettist Olivia Bell.
Neither had been on my radar before – definitely my loss – but their new piece is an exciting collaboration that bodes well for their futures. It was specifically designed to fit within the festival’s Heaven & Hell subtitle, “a reflection on the story of man’s fall from grace”, in the words of the brochure.
Bell contributes an extremely witty poem, Purgatory: a waiting room, which immediately lends itself to monodrama, in which the ‘keeper of the keys’ offers advice and comfort to a new arrival wondering whether they will end up above or below.
The surprise here, mirrored three times in a refrain, is that the visitor has a choice: ‘Beach or snow? Joy or woe? Peace or party? Sparse or hearty? Fire or ice? Naughty or nice?’
Although not the refrain, this extract conveys something of the poem’s internal rhymes, not to say its Betjemanesque humour. But behind its clipped, conversational tone lies deeper philosophy; comedy and ideas are cleverly intermingled.
Disley-Simpson’s through-composed approach is essentially tonal, but above all she is alive to the text and clearly understands what suits the voice, using emphatic leaps when need be.
She could hardly have had a better advocate than Charlston, whose projection and accentuation of words is amongst the best I have encountered in a long while, I am tempted to say unrivalled.
The theorbo, too, is given more than a mere underlay, with speedier riffs, for example, that invigorate the refrain. Toby Carr played with typical fluency throughout.
There was a clear feeling of teamwork between all four – two creators and two performers – that might valuably lead to something genuinely operatic, a one-act piece, for example, with a mute ‘visitor’ being harangued by the key-keeper, allowing even more amusing theatrics than a static singer can achieve. But the potential the work throws up is indisputable.
The first part of the evening, ‘Heaven’, took place in the Great Hall upstairs; after the interval, appropriately for ‘Hell’, we moved downstairs to the gloomier, candlelit Undercroft.
The downside of this was that it took the BBC all but an hour to move equipment accordingly. But the broadcasts, when they come up on BBC Radio 3 on July 27 and August 3, will surely prove the whole exercise worthwhile.
‘Heaven’ included especially poignant accounts of Purcell’s The Blessed Virgin’s expostulation, in which Charlston fully inhabited the virgin’s volatile misgivings, and of Lord, What Is Man?, with despondency quite blown away by a forthright final quatrain and Hallelujah.
In ‘Hell’, aside from the premiere and some tasty Charpentier, we had Carissimi’s wonderfully volatile take on Lucifer and some meatily mischievous Monteverdi. Both performers were on top form. Don’t miss them.
Fretwork: Marking 400th anniversary of Orlando Gibbons’s death
THIS year’s festival raced off the starting line in top gear with the six viols of Fretwork and mezzo soprano Helen Charlston. They focused entirely on the secular music of Orlando Gibbons, the 400th anniversary of whose untimely death at the age of 41 is being commemorated this year.
Gibbons is much better known these days for his sacred music, which is very much part of the backbone of cathedral repertory. His secular output is largely based on vocal techniques. The truth of this was underlined here by a single voice and viols doing duty for five unaccompanied voices in his madrigals – in accordance with the composer’s assertion on his title page in 1612, “apt for viols and voyces”.
Helen Charlston’s mezzo is so firmly centred that she is able to extend its resonance smoothly to either end of her range; there are no gear-changes. Furthermore, her diction is excellent. On this occasion, for my money, she was standing slightly behind the ‘sweet spot’ for voices in this arena and thus the consort was too far back as well. But the audience would not have guessed this from their close co-operation.
Melancholy was the dominant theme in much of the poetry set, no more so than in Sir Walter Raleigh’s What Is Our Life? Charlston spelt out the emotional force here, as in the lament by an anonymous writer Ne’er Let The Sunne, where lower viols provided eloquently darker colour. The counterpoint in each of these songs was sumptuous and all the clearer for its presentation in this rarer format.
Helen Charlston: “Mezzo so firmly centred that she is able to extend its resonance smoothly to either end of her range”. Picture: Julien Gazeau
Early music is making a point of getting living composers involved these days, with Nico Muhly filling the bill at this festival. His setting of words from Psalm 39, sandwiching the autopsy report of Orlando Gibbons, is more satisfying than that may sound. He describes it as a “ritualised memory piece” about Gibbons, writing it for five viols and four male voices.
The version here, however, was an authorised arrangement by Fretwork’s own Richard Boothby for mezzo soprano solo along with the viols. This makes sense not only as being more easy to perform, but also because Muhly’s setting owes a good deal to Gibbons’s own verse anthem to the same psalm, Behold, Thou Hast Made My Days As It Were A Span Long. Several later composers used the words “Lord, let me know mine end”, also from Psalm 39.
At its centre, we learn of Gibbons’s convulsions, where the viols are hesitant, fragmented and stuttering. But its climax lay at “Hear my prayer, O Lord”, with the voice pleading repeatedly against sparse accompaniment.
Earlier we had heard the top three viols alone, and then all five punctuating the voice, often quite rhythmically. Muhly uses ornamentation, rather than out-and-out counterpoint to highlight the text, and eventually repeats the opening words in his postlude. While its aura is more Jacobean than modern, it is still a touching evocation of a great talent.
The most fulfilling of the purely viol pieces in the programme was Go From My Window, a set of variations that pits the two bass viols virtually in competition with one another. Equally exciting was the vivid Pavan and galliard in six parts, while two of Gibbons’s three five-part In Nomines underlined the fertility of his imagination. Fretwork is a tautly interlinked ensemble that breathes as one – exactly what this repertory demands.
Pablo Zapico: “Showed how Spain and Italy first took the guitar seriously”
Pablo Zapico, National Centre for Early Music, St Margaret’s Church, Walmgate, York, July 5
THERE are times, usually when listening to early music, when you have the feeling of drinking at the very fountainhead of a musical type. One such rarity came with the appearance of Pablo Zapico and his Baroque guitar.
He showed us how Spain and Italy first took the guitar seriously, with a sweeping survey of 17th century composers, notably Gaspar Sanz and Santiago de Murcia in Spain and Francesco Corbetta leading the Italian pack.
The origins of the guitar lie in the vihuela de mano, a waisted, plucked-string instrument, known in Italy as the viola de mano. Both were tuned exactly like a lute. Their heyday was the 16th century, but by the start of the 17th they had been superseded by the five-course Spanish guitar on display here, with a simplified form of notation.
The most remarkable feature of its predominant style was the strumming effect used alongside pure melody. In the hands of an expert like Zapico this can sound like two instruments being played at once, whereas he can switch between the two in the flash of an eye.
In five whimsical Preludios we sampled the improvisational possibilities with this instrument, often quite chromatic and all the time infused with headstrong Mediterranean temperament. In similar style, we had a volatile Jacaras by Sanz with high and low contrasts that sounded as if right out of the flamenco tradition.
In La Jotta, by de Murcia, based on a Baroque dance, there was a dominant tune heavily syncopated. The best was kept till last. In Sanz’s Canarios, based on a style originating in the Canaries, there were cross-rhythms galore, delivered with extreme rapidity. It was utterly breathtaking.
Zapico is a master of his craft.
The Tallis Scholars: “Intimacy that larger groups struggle to emulate”
The Tallis Scholars, York Minster, July 5
WITH Spanish music assuming some importance at this year’s festival, it was appropriate that Peter Phillips and the Tallis Scholars began and ended their Glorious Creatures event with Sebastián de Vivanco, who was an almost exact contemporary of Victoria and was born, like him, in Avila.
In between, they focused on Renaissance music about the beauties of nature, with a couple of sidetracks into the newer world of Nico Muhly.
Perhaps the most distinctive feature of this ensemble is its small size, here a mere ten voices. This enables an intimacy that larger groups struggle to emulate. It also puts a premium on the contribution of individual singers, especially the four sopranos, who are double the number of each of the lower parts.
Before the interval, the soprano contribution was typically clean but also a touch too heavy for an ideal blend. After the interval, however, there was a change and the top line became more relaxed and less anxious.
Vivanco’s setting of Sicut Lilium (‘Like the Lily’) from the Song of Songs was positively luscious, bordering on the erotic, whereas in Palestrina’s version of the same text, written a generation earlier and given here by an octet, textures were sparer and more delicately fragrant. Both were marvels of their kind.
At the centre of the programme was Lassus’s Missa Vinum Bonum, preceded by its eponymous motet, which leans so heavily on the fruit of the vine that it dabbles with giddiness (no fault of the choir).
The text quickly falls back on the wedding at Cana, where Christ changed water into wine, as justification for a good drink or two.
The mass itself makes copious use of the motet’s music, so it too is infused with jolliness. Ofcourse Lassus quickly inserts a penitent ‘Christe’ into the Kyrie – at least it was here – but there was plenty of syncopation in the Gloria, deftly handled, and after a vivid Resurrection the Credo accelerated dizzily towards its Amen.
Some of that spirit percolated into a crazy Hosanna In Excelsis. Naturally there was a modicum of remorse in the Agnus Dei, but it was about as terse as could be imagined. The liturgy has rarely been so earthy.
On either side of Lassus we had music of Muhly. There was something appropriate about his Marrow (2017), which sets the first eight verses of Psalm 63. Preceding the “marrow and fatness” we had “in a barren and dry land where no water is”, evocative of the present drought. Sure enough, Muhly conjures a heat-haze here.
His A Glorious Creature (2023) similarly sets musings on the sun by Thomas Traherne. Using all ten voices individually, Muhly makes expansive use of ‘the sun’, reflecting its extent and influence.
Thinning down its centre for grains of dust and sand, he then broadens out with Traherne’s linking of the sun with the soul. Here the choir revelled in the immense impact of the text, melding superbly.
Later we enjoyed settings of Descendi In Hortum Meum (I Went Down Into My Garden) by De Rore, Dunstable and Palestrina. The earliest, and the most telling here, was the Dunstable, which with the solo voices of alto Caroline Trevor and the tenors Steven Harrold and Tom Castle was an oasis of tender intimacy.
There remained a magnificent Magnificat Octavi Toni by Vivanco, made all the more spiritual by its plainsong interjections. But Spanish vitalidad kept bursting through. We were brought back down to our knees by the encore, Purcell’s incomparable Hear My Prayer.
Reviews by Martin Dreyer
York Early Music Festival continues until July 11. For full details and tickets, go to: ncem.co.uk.
Reviews by Martin Dreyer
York Early Music Festival continues until July 11. For full details and tickets, go to: ncem.co.uk.
Mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston: Going to Heaven or Hell at York Early Music Festival. Picture: Julien Gazeau
HEAVEN & Hell will be the theme of the 2025 York Early Music Festival, a summer fiesta of 19 concerts in eight days featuring international artists from tomorrow.
The Sixteen, the Tallis Scholars and Academy of Ancient Music will be taking part, as will French orchestral ensemble Le Consort, led by rising-star violinist Théotime Langlois de Swarte, in their York debut with an “exceptional rendition of exceptional of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons – but not quite as you know it”.
The festival will intertwine three very different themes: firstly, the music of Renaissance composer Orlando Gibbons, opening with viol consort Fretwork and mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston’s My Days: Songs and Fantasias programme tomorrow at the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York, at 7.30pm.
Secondly, the genius of the Baroque, focusing on Bach and Vivaldi, not least the aforementioned Le Consort performance of The Four Seasons on Sunday at the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall at 7.30pm, when Lifetime Achievement Award 2025 recipient Catherine Bott will be the reader.
Thirdly, the strand that lends itself to the 2025 title: a reflection on Man’s fall from grace – from Heaven to Hell – in biblical times with YEMF artistic advisor and BBC New Generation artist Helen Charlston and her fellow Gramophone Award-winner, lutenist and theorbo player Toby Carr, who team up in the medieval Guildhall of the Merchant Adventurers’ Hall on July 9 from 6.30pm to 9.45pm.
“I feel very lucky to have such a bond with the York Early Music Festival,” says Helen, who was a choral scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge, studying music there from 2011 to 2014. “It’s a special festival and it feels like a special connection as I’ve been coming up for many years.
“My early memories of the festival are of doing a few years’ concerts with David Skinner’s vocal consort Alamire. I’ve also sung with the Yorkshire Bach Choir, after Peter Seymour was given my name and I helped him out for a concert at short notice, and as so often that led to a fruitful partnership.”
Fretwork: Performing My Days: Songs and Fantasiaswith Helen Charlston at Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York tomorrow
Helen is in the third year of her role as festival artistic advisor. “I was very honoured to be asked and it’s a lovely way to connect with music-making around the country. I don’t run the festival but I do really love music and thinking about what audiences might like to hear that they haven’t,” she says.
“I can flex my festival muscle thinking about that and it gives me the chance to suggest who could be invited to take part in the festival. For example, this year Le Consort are coming over from France. I know their work from a group called Les Arts Florissants, a French baroque ensemble who I’ve done a young artists’ projects with in Paris. I’ve got to know a few of their players and a few of them will be appearing with Le Consort.”
Festivals are the “perfect launch-pad for collaborations”, says Helen, whose July 9 programme is a case in point. In an open call for the York Early Music Festival Special Commission, NCEM Young Composers Award alumni were invited to respond to the Heaven & Hell theme by writing a piece to be performed by Charlston and Carr as part of their In Heaven & Hell…Yours To Choose programme featuring Purcell, Strozzi, Monteverdi, Charpentier and Humfrey works.
Anna Disley-Simpson has been awarded the commission from a competitive field of 24 applications for her piece Heaven Or Hell, for which she collaborated with librettist Olivia Bell, drawing inspiration from Kurt Weill for a composition that Anna promises will be “deliberately subversive and unexpected in several ways”.
Supported by the Hinrichsen Foundation and an anonymous donor, Dorset-born, London-based Anna has received a commission fee of £2,000, plus travel and accommodation expenses within the United Kingdom to attend a workshop with the musicians in London and the York premiere.
“Toby and I are doing a programme about heaven and hell after Delma [festival director Delma Tomlin] and I were having a conversation about the York Mystery Plays and it sparked my interest in the idea of York being a place for the retelling of very graphic stories,” says Helen.
“Delma is the governor of the Merchant Adventurers, who sponsor the Last Judgement in Mystery Play productions, and my initial idea began to spiral into thinking about how a lot of 17th century music is about heaven and hell. Toby and I decided we wanted to look at performing religious music by composers whose secular works we’ve shared with the festival audience.”
Composer Anna Disley-Simpson
Those works will be complemented by Disley-Simpson’s commission. “We had a whole heap of wonderful ideas put to us by applicants from the Young Composers scheme and had a lovely day chatting with eight composers before we selected Anna,” says Helen.
“Anna’s piece is wonderful: a monologue with a second character welcoming you to purgatory, where you have to decide which route you will take, to heaven or hell. I think it’s got something about it that the audience will not quite expect!
“I hope other people will take her work up as a song as I always want to encourage others to perform works to see how they develop when I’ve commissioned a piece.”
In further highlights, The Tallis Scholars present Glorious Creatures at York Minster on Saturday, 7.30pm; The Sixteen perform Angel Of Peace at York Minster, July 7, 7.30pm, and the Spanish ensemble Cantoria present A La Fiesta!, a sizzling array of ensaladas and villancicos, at St Lawrence Church on July 8, 7pm (sold out).
Swiss-based medievalists Sollazzo return to York for the first time since winning a prestigious Diapason d’Or award to present The Angels Are Singing at the NCEM on July 10, 7pm.
Thefestival will finish with a flourish in the company of the Academy of Ancient Music and their leader, violinist Bojan Čičić in a celebration of Bach’s violin concertos at the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall on July 11, 7pm.
The full programme and booking details can be found at ncem.co.uk/whats-on/yemf/. Bookings also can be made on 01904 658338, via boxoffice@ncem.co.uk and in person at the NCEM, Margaret’s Church, Walmgate, York.
Violinist Bojan Čičić: Leading the Academy of Ancient Music in a celebration of Bach’s violin concertos at the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall on July 11
Festival commission: BBC New Generation artist and mezzo soprano Helen Charlston will perform a new Anna Disley-Simpson work with theorbo player Toby Carr in In Heaven & Hell…Yours To Choose on July 9 at Merchant Adventurers’ Hall, York, at 6.30pm. Picture: Julien Gazeau
HEAVEN & Hell will be the theme of the 2025 York Early Music Festival, a summer fiesta of 19 concerts in eight days featuring international artists from July 4 to 11.
The Sixteen, the Tallis Scholars and Academy of Ancient Music will be taking part, as will French orchestral ensemble Le Consort, led by rising-star violinist Théotime Langlois de Swarte, in their York debut with an “exceptional rendition of exceptional of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons – but not quite as you know it”.
The festival will intertwine three very different themes: firstly, the music of Renaissance composer Orlando Gibbons, opening with viol consort Fretwork (Friday, July 4); secondly, the genius of the Baroque, focusing on Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (Sunday, July 6).
Thirdly, the strand that lends itself to the 2025 title: a reflection on Man’s fall from grace – from Heaven to Hell – in biblical times with YEMF artistic advisor and BBC New Generation artist Helen Charlston and her fellow Gramophone Award-winner, lutenist and theorbo player Toby Carr (Wednesday, July 9) in the medieval Guildhall of the Merchant Adventurers’ Hall.
Fretwork: Viol consort will open York Early Music Festival with Renaissance music of Orlando Gibbons in My Days: Songs and Fantasias with mezzo soprano Helen Charlston on July 4 at 7.30pm at Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York
The Tallis Scholars (Saturday, July 5) and The Sixteen (Monday, July 7) will share their programmes in the glorious surroundings of York Minster; the Spanish ensemble Cantoria (Tuesday, July 8) will present a sizzling array of ensaladas and villancicos in their A La Fiesta programme and Swiss- based medievalists Sollazzo (Thursday, July 10) will return to York for the first time since winning a prestigious Diapason d’Or award.
Thefestival will finish with a flourish in the company of the Academy of Ancient Music and their leader, violinist Bojan Čičić (Friday, July 11) in a celebration of Bach’s violin concertos.
York Early Music Festival continues to support emerging musicians with invitations to two 2024 York Early Music Festival Young Artists Competition winners, Ayres Extemporae and Ensemble Bastion.
Once again, the festival will showcase a variety of York’s beautiful historic buildings, such as the Minster, the medieval Merchant Adventurers’ Hall and the intriguing hidden architectural gem Bedern Hall.
The Sixteen: Returning to York Minster to present Angel Of Peace on July 7at 7.30pm
In an open call for the York Early Music Festival Special Commission, NCEM Young Composers Award alumni were invited to respond to the Heaven & Hell theme by writing a piece to be performed by Charlston and Carr as part of their In Heaven & Hell…Yours To Choose programme featuring Purcell, Strozzi, Monteverdi, Charpentier and Humfrey works on July 9.
Anna Disley-Simpson has been awarded the commission from a competitive field of 24 applications for her piece Heaven Or Hell, for which she will collaborate with librettist Olivia Bell, drawing inspiration from Kurt Weill. Expect her composition to be “deliberately subversive and unexpected in several ways,” Anna promises.
Supported by the Hinrichsen Foundation and an anonymous donor, Anna will receive a commission fee of £2,000, plus travel and accommodation expenses within the United Kingdom to attend a workshop with the musicians in London and the York premiere.
Looking forward to the July event, festival director Dr Delma Tomlin says: “We are thrilled to welcome friends old and new to what promises to be a fantastic celebration of music from an outstanding array of artists.
Le Consort: French orchestral ensemble will make York Early Music Festival debut on July 6, performing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons at Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York, at 7.30pm
“Celebrating over 500 years of music from across Europe, we are particularly delighted to be able to welcome ensembles from France, Switzerland, Poland, Spain and the Netherlands to our wonderful city. We look forward to welcoming visitors and residents alike to eight wonderful days of music-making.”
The full programme and booking details can be found at ncem.co.uk/whats-on/yemf/. Bookings also can be made on 01904 658338, via boxoffice@ncem.co.uk and in person at the NCEM, Margaret’s Church, Walmgate, York.
York Early Music Festival: the back story
ESTABLISHED in 1977, the festival is designed to celebrate York’s myriad of medieval churches, guildhalls and historic houses through historically informed music-making of the highest international standard.
The annual event is the “jewel in the crown” of the National Centre for Early Music’s annual programme, enjoyed by York residents and visitors from all over the UK and across the world.
The Tallis Scholars: Performing Glorious Creatures programme at York Minster on July 5 at 7.30pm. Picture: Hugo Glendinning
“I’m delighted to be joining this fabulous organisation as artistic adviser and working with this talented team in the beautiful city of York,” says Mark Seow
VIOLINIST, musicologist , writer and broadcaster Mark Seow is the new addition to York Early Music Festival’s team of artistic advisers.
He joins mezzo-soprano and BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist Helen Charlston, music writer and producer Lindsay Kemp, University of York Emeritus Professor of Music and Yorkshire Baroque Soloists & Choir director Peter Seymour and University of Huddersfield Emeritus Professor of Music and Rose Consort of Viols member John Bryan.
“I’m delighted to be joining this fabulous organisation as artistic adviser and working with this talented team in the beautiful city of York,” says Mark. “I’ve always been a huge admirer of the world-class York Early Music Festival, which continues to go from strength to strength, attracting the finest musicians to the city.”
Festival director Dr Delma Tomlin says: “We’re very pleased to welcome Mark to York Early Music Festival’s talented team, whose input is so important to the development and profile of this hugely popular annual celebration of early music.
“I’m sure that Mark’s wealth of experience and enthusiasm will be invaluable assets and I’m sure he will enjoy his time in this beautiful city.”
After studying Baroque violin at the Royal Academy of Music in London, Seow received his doctorate in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach from the University of Cambridge.
He has performed at the Wigmore Hall (London), St Thomas Church (Leipzig), Philharmonie (Berlin) and Palais Garnier (Paris), working with directors such as John Eliot Gardiner, Masaaki Suzuki, Rachel Podger, Harry Bicket and Trevor Pinnock. He has even performed with the Orchestra Of The Age Of Enlightenment in the Royal Albert Hall and a pub!
Seow has been a broadcaster for BBC Radio 3 since 2021, presenting more than 50 editions of The Early Music News. His documentary for BBC Radio 4, Eastern Classical, was shortlisted for a Royal Philharmonic Society Award in 2024. He has worked for Decca Classics, Bach Network and Bärenreiter and has been a critic for Gramophone magazine since 2019.
He taught at the University of Cambridge, where in 2023 he was AHRC DTP Fellow in Music, and now holds a position in the University for Music and Performing Arts department of musicology in Vienna.
His recordings include Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and Handel’s Messiah and he premiered the electronic-choral work Lark Ascending Remixed at London’s Southbank Centre.
York Early Music Festival: Helen Charlston & Toby Carr, Undercroft, Merchant Adventurers’ Hall, York, July 10; The Marian Consort & Rose Consort of Viols, National Centre for Early Music, York, July 11
THERE is something special about a late-night recital, especially when the lights are low. The low-ceilinged Undercroft, with the audience in darkness and the performers dimly back-lit, was just the ticket for a spot of drama.
With the trusty theorbo of Toby Carr for support, Helen Charlston brought her considerable voice to bear on battle-hardened heroines.
Hers is no ordinary mezzo, as in soprano without the high notes. She has a considerable range, both high and low, but her tone is smoothly focused throughout, without sign of gear changing. Add to that a flair for diction which adds conviction to her theatricality, and you have a voice like no other. This was an exciting evening.
She opened and closed with Purcell. His most successful song in Bonduca (Boadicea as imagined by John Fletcher), O Lead Me To Some Peaceful Gloom, neatly captured the heroine’s inner conflict, and An Evening Hymn spoke of bold spiritual confidence.
She also evinced a special feel for the music of17th-century Italian Barbara Strozzi, a singer herself. The bitter-sweet pain of L’Heraclito Amoroso and the marvellously Italianate decorations in La Travagliata (The Tormented Woman) were meat and drink to Charlston’s skill.
She took her programme title, Battle Cry, from an eponymous work by Owain Park setting poetry by Georgia Way, which she premiered in 2021. It pictures intimate reactions to four ‘abandoned’ women: a lament for Boadicea, the solitude of Philomela, a prayer to Sappho and love-regret for Marietta.
Here she showed an uncommon affinity for the words, in vocal lines that were grateful even when occasionally flowery. Carr’s underpinnings were invaluable; as so often elsewhere, his rhythmic awareness added colour to the ebb and flow of passion. Its harmonies were modern but its aura evoked a much earlier era.
The highlight of the programme was the nobility in Charlston’s approach to Monteverdi’s Lamento d’Arianna, which allowed us to discern a steely centre to the heroine’s emotional roller-coaster. Her dramatic style suggested that she must soon have a future on the operatic stage.
Carr was with her every step of the way. Indeed, it would have been good to hear more from him alone than the three brief solos we were allowed. Either way, they made a powerful duo.
The Marian Consort, represented by six voices at the NCEMon July 11
THE following lunchtime saw the combination of two consorts, the Rose Consort of Viols, which harks back to this festival’s origins, and the Marian Consort (of six voices). Byrd At Elizabeth’s Court celebrated the great man’s high-wire act as a Roman Catholic under a Protestant ruler.
It also allowed anthems normally heard with organ accompaniment to be experienced with the intimate richness of viols.
At its heart lay Byrd’s carol anthem Lullaby, My Sweet Little Baby, which features the Virgin Mary’s gentle retort to the Massacre of the Innocents.
Responding to a new commission from the consorts to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Byrd’s death, Juta Pranulytė sensitively chose the same text to reflect the number of children born into war, cruelty and oppression in our own day.
Pranulytė’s smooth vocal lines moved in mainly close harmony over viols required at times to produce trills and portamentos. The soprano opened at the top of her range and needed to negotiate several high semi-tonal shifts.
The atmosphere thus conjured was elegiac, combining comfort with tears, in a style reminiscent of Byrd’s own musical misgivings about the plight of Roman Catholics under Elizabeth. Apart from its prologue, which was diffuse, this was a canny piece of writing that fell easily on the ear.
Several verse anthems surrounded this centrepiece. The higher-voiced soloists mainly needed to enunciate more clearly, but choral blend was exquisite. Byrd’s rare setting of Italian, the Ariosto poem La Verginella, was delicately treated by the soprano Caroline Halls.
Other highlights included the madrigal-style Come To Me Grief, For Ever, sung unaccompanied, and a gorgeous Amen to close the New Year carol O God That Guides The Cheerful Sun. The Tallis motet O Sacrum Convivium, sung from the back of the hall, was an apt reminder of Byrd’s important mentor and (later) close colleague.
The Roses offered several pieces on their own, including a five-part Tallis fantasia reconstructed by John Milsom and Byrd’s voluntary for Lady Nevell, infused with snappy figurations. His variation-packed Browning was typical of the ensemble’s smooth dexterity.
Helen Charlston: “Alto voice so clear in both quality and volume in the lower range”
York Early Music Festival: Yorkshire Baroque Soloists & Rose Consort of Viols, Body And Soul, St Lawrence Church, York, July 11
THIS was excellent. Real refinement and clarity was the order of the day, both in texture and line. The balance was impeccable, the instrumental playing was crisp, articulate, and the singers a joy.
They seemed at ease as soloists, in ensemble engagement and comfortable too in their own vocal range: this was particularly true of Helen Charlston. Not that she was the pick of an excellent quintet, but I haven’t heard an alto voice so clear in both quality and volume in the lower range. The church acoustic was excellent, and it behaved itself too.
However, my role isn’t just to soak the performance with appreciation and blessings but to review it, so here we go.
The concert was descriptively labelled Body And Soul, which was particularly appropriate for the first-half performance of Buxtehude’s vocal masterpiece, Membra Jesu Nostri Patientis Sanctissima. The work is a set of seven short, beautifully crafted cantatas for Holy Week. The text is a medieval hymn cycle in which the author looks in wonder at the body of the crucified Christ.
We experience the mystical contemplations of different parts of his body: the feet in the first cantata, to the knees, hands, side and breast, and the heart to the face. Quite extraordinary.
Buxtehude’s music has a gentle, austere beauty to it, and this was enhanced by the economy of performers: five soloists, six instrumentalists, including Peter Seymour on organ, plus the Rose Consort of Viols.
The soloists teased out every nuance of the text. They lingered deliciously on every expressive dissonance and suspension, while the players added warmth, colour, as well as crisp commentary.
There was a gorgeously intense, yet poignant concerto Quid Sunt Plagae Istae. Maybe it was just me, but I thought the dramatic percussive opening of this third cantata suggestive of the nails being hammered into Christ’s hands. Perhaps not.
The dramatic focal centre of the work was the fourth movement Ad Cor. The Vulnerasti Cor Meum had a tortured intimacy, the singers embracing the honesty and humanity of the text. The precision in the agitated off-beat accents of the concluding Amen worked well.
Nevertheless, in the concluding four movements of Ad Faciem there is a relaxing of the tension, a meditative closure.
The performance captured a fascinating subtle layer of creative tension between the Catholic mysticism of the text and Buxtehude’s Lutheran faith. Maybe. We don’t seem to dwell on the sufferings of the crucified Christ but celebrate the “graces that flow from that suffering”, its humanity.
In short, the performance was both radiant and illuminating. A triumph for Peter Seymour, who must have been delighted.
Two little grumbles. Firstly, although it did have the intended dramatic effect, change of colour and so forth, the introduction of the excellent Rose Consort of Viols did temporarily break the spell. But then again, I wasn’t ready or expecting the changing of the guard.
Secondly, although I invariably find (composer and) performer biographies tedious essays in vanity, I would have expected some biographical acknowledgement of these superb performers in the programme: sopranos Bethany Seymour and Helen Neeves, alto Helen Charlston, tenor Jonathan Hanley and bass Frederick Long. Violins, Lucy Russell and Gabriella Jones; cello, Rachel Gray; violone, Rosie Moon; theorbo, Toby Carr and organ & director, Peter Seymour. Take a bow.
Finally, the concert was dedicated to the memory of Klaus Neumann, an important figure in the York Early Music Festival. Mr Seymour gave a touching tribute and kept the programme photo on the organ next to the Buxtehude score. It summed the evening up nicely.
Wildish curator Jo Walton with a pot by Julie O’Sullivan and one of her own metal paintings at Pyramid Gallery
MUSIC festivals and mystic femininity in art, comedy antics and bucket list stunts, a scary scientist and a madcap whodunit spark Charles Hutchinson’s interest.
Exhibition launch of the week: Wildish, Pyramid Gallery, Stonegate, York, today until August 13
CURATED by Rogues Atelier Studios artist and interior designer Jo Walton, Wildish unites six women – five artists and a poet – through a theme based loosely on deep and sensual mystic femininity.
Taking part will be Jo Walton, Julie O’Sullivan, Christine Pike, Izzy Williamson, Zoe Catherine Kendal and York poet Nicky Kippax. Meet them at today’s 11am opening for a drink, nibbles and a chat.
Niall Ransome, left, and Dave Hearn in rehearsal for The 39 Steps at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
Revival of the week: The 39 Steps, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until July 29
ARTISTIC director Paul Robinson revives his hit 2018 production of Patrick Barlow’s fast and frenetic stage adaptation of John Buchan’s juicy spy novel and Alfred Hitchcock’s film in tandem with the Theatre by the Lake, Keswick.
Barlow adds a dash of Monty Python to the winning combination of whodunit and old-fashioned romance as Mischief Theatre founder member Dave Hearn’s Richard Hannay is joined by fellow Mischief alumnus Niall Ransome, reprising his Clown role from 2018, Lucy Keirl and SJT debutante Olivia Onyehara. Cue the iconic chase on the Flying Scotsman, the first-ever theatrical biplane crash and a death-defying (well nearly) finale. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.
Paul Heaton: Performing with special guest singers rather than regular partner in song Jacqui Abbott at Scarborough Open Air Theatretonight. Picture: David Harrison
Outdoor gig of the week: Paul Heaton, Scarborough Open Air Theatre, today, gates open at 6pm
PAUL Heaton, former frontman of Hull bands The Housemartins and The Beautiful South, heads up the Yorkshire coast for a headline gig in Scarborough. Special guests supporting the self-styled “Last King Of Pop” will be Ian Broudie’s Lightning Seeds.
Busy week ahead for Scarborough OAT: Hollywood Vampires, Alice Cooper, Johnny Depp, Joe Perry and Tommy Henriksen’s American rock supergroup, play a sold-out show on Wednesday, followed by The Cult on Thursday, Tom Grennan on Friday and Pulp (sold out) next Sunday. Box office: scarboroughopenairtheatre.com.
Chris Lynam: Topping tonight’s Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club bill at The Basment, City Screen Picturehouse
Comedy gig of the week: Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club presents Chris Lynam, Patrick Monahan, Dean Coughlin and Damion Larkin, The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse, York, tonight, 8pm
HEADLINER Chris Lynam has been feverishly subverting the traditions of the stand-up comic for more than 30 years with his grasp of crazy antics. Patrick Monaghan holds the world record for Longest Hug at a time of 25 hours and 25 minutes, set at the 2013 Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Dean Coughlin has worked on the comedy circuit since 2017. Master of ceremonies and club organiser Damion Larkin will be improvising his set as ever. Further LOL Comedy nights are in place for August 5 and September 2. Box office: lolcomedyclubs.co.uk.
Amy Gregory in rehearsal for her role as Emma Carew in 1812 Theatre Company’s Jekyll & Hyde The Musical
Musical of the week: 1812 Theatre Company in Jekyll & Hyde The Musical, Helmsley Arts Centre, Wednesday to Sunday, 7.30pm
JULIE Lomas directs Helmsley Arts Centre’s resident troupe, the 1812 Theatre Company, in their first ever musical production, Frank Wildhorn and Leslie Bricusse’s Jekyll & Hyde, based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s story.
Marking the venue’s 30th anniversary, the show features husband and wife Joe and Amy Gregory in the lead roles of Jekyll/Hyde and Emma Carew. John Atkin is the musical director; Michaela Edens, the choreographer. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
Mezzo soprano Helen Charlston: Performing Battle Cry: She Speaks with theorbo player Toby Carr at York Early Music Festival on July 10
Festival of the week: York Early Music Festival 2023, Friday until July 14
THIS summer’s York Early Music Festival takes the theme of Smoke & Mirrors with a focus on William Byrd, a practising Catholic composer working for a constantly threatened Protestant queen.
The City Musick, Ensemble Jupiter & York countertenor Iestyn Davies, The Sixteen, violinist Rachel Podger, The Marian Consort and Rose Consort of Viols and mezzo soprano Helen Charlston are among the week’s musicians. Full festival details and tickets: ncem.co.uk; 01904 658338.
Tom Figgins: Showcasing new songs at Stillington Mill on Friday
Solo gig of the week: Tom Figgins, At The Mill, Stillington, near York, Friday, 7.30pm
SINGER and songwriter Tom Figgins, programmer for At The Mill’s summer’s season of music, comedy and theatre, plays the Stillington garden for a third time this weekend. Noted for his vocal range, distinctive guitar playing and complex lyrics, he numbers radio presenter Chris Evans among his fans, appearing on his BBC Radio 2 show. Expect songs old and new at one of his favourite spots. Box office: tickettailor.com/events/atthemill/925897.
Steve-O: Working through his bucket list of stunts at York Barbican
Stunts of the week: Steve-O, York Barbican, Friday, 7.30pm
EVERY idea on American entertainer Steve-O’s bucket list was so ill advised, he never expected to go through with any of them. Until it was time to prepare for this tour. Not only are the stunts even more ridiculous than Steve-O pulled off on MTV’s Jackass, but now he has made a highly XXX-rated, multimedia comedy show out of them too. Not for children or the faint of heart, he warns. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
The Magpies: Curating and playing at their festival at Sutton Park in August
Heading to the park: The Magpies Festival, Sutton Park, Sutton-on-the-Forest, near York, August 11 and 12
TRANSATLANTIC folk trio The Magpies have confirmed the line-up for their two-day open-air festival of music, activities, stalls and food and drink. The Friday main stage acts will be Laura Cortese & The Cards, Chris Difford and Holy Moly & The Crackers, followed by the Saturday bill of Liz Stringer, Honey & The Bear, Blair Dunlop, Rachel Sermanni, The Magpies and Edward II.
Friday acts on the Brass Castle Stage will be The Dicemen, Thorpe & Morrison, The Often Herd and New York Brass Band; Saturday will welcome Jack Harris, Megan Henwood, Tom Moore & Archie Moss, Gilmore & Roberts, and Bonfire Radicals, concluding with a Ceilidh with Archie Moss. Box office: themagpiesfestival.co.uk.
York countertenor Iestyn Davies: Performing Eternal Source Of Light concert with Ensemble Jupiter on July 8. Picture: Chris Sorensen
YORK Early Music Festival 2023 takes the theme of Smoke & Mirrors with many of next month’s concerts reflecting the religious uncertainty of life in Tudor times.
Running from July 7 to 14 in York’s churches and historic buildings, the nine-day extravaganza of concerts, talks and workshops features The Sixteen, Ensemble Jupiter & Iestyn Davies, Rachel Podger and the City Musick among its headline performers.
Festival director Dr Delma Tomlin says: “This year’s outstanding line-up of artists also includes Carolyn Sampson, RPS Vocal Award winner Anna Dennis, Alys Mererid Roberts and Helen Charlston, leading the charge for women across the ages.
“We are also presenting some of the most accomplished emerging ensembles from across Europe, including the 2019 and 2022 winners of the York International Young Artists Competition, who we are delighted to be welcoming back to York.”
The 2023 festival commemorates the 400th anniversary of the death of one of England’s most celebrated composers, William Byrd, a man who lived a life beset by “smoke and mirrors” – hence the festival theme – as a practising Roman Catholic composer working for a constantly threatened Protestant Queen.
Mezzo soprano Helen Charlston: July 10 concert with theorbist Toby Carr at the Undercroft, Merchant Adventurers Hall. Picture: Benjamin Ealovega
“The Rose Consort of Viols and The Marian Consort will share music of state and church for voices and viols, in Byrd At Elizabethan Court, at the National Centre for Early Music, directed by Rory McCleery on July 11,” says Delma.
“You can learn about his keyboard music with harpsichord supremo Francesco Corti in Musica Transalpina, also featuring toccatas and variations by Girolamo Frescobaldi and Peter Philips, at the Unitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate, on July 10, and take a ‘Byrd pilgrimage’ around the churches of York with York Minster organist Benjamin Morris at All Saints’ Church, North Street, on July 12, and St Lawrence’s Church, Hull Road, and St Denys’s Church, Walmgate, on July 13.
“You can also enjoy the heavenly sounds of Byrd’s liturgical masterpieces in The Sixteen’s A Watchful Gaze concert with the York Minster Choir, directed by Harry Christophers at York Minster on July 9, when Byrd’s legacy will be taken firmly into the modern day with two new works by Dobrinka Tabakova, Arise, Lord Into Thy Rest and Turn Our Captivity.”
Tickets are still available for several prominent festival concerts, not least The Sixteen, the festival’s opening concert by The City Musick on July 7 and York countertenor Iestyn Davies with festival debutants Ensemble Jupiter on July 8, both at the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York.
Directed by William Lyons, The City Musick’s Renaissance big band – 20 musicians in all – will be focusing on the legacy of David Munrow in an homage to his iconic 1970s’ recordings but with a modern twist.
Apotropaïk: Performing at All Saints’ Churchon July 12
Lyons’s band brings together – deep breath – consorts of recorders, strings, shawms, crumhorns, racketts, dulcians, bagpipes, hurdy-gurdy, cornetts, sackbuts, keyboard, lutes and percussion to delight in the joy and richness of Renaissance instrumental sounds and dance styles, from sombre almains and pavans to effervescent bransles, galliards and ciaconnas.
Directed by lutenist Thomas Dunford, Ensemble Jupiter join with Iestyn Davies to perform Eternal Source Of Light, a selection of Handel’s most beautiful arias from the 1740s and ’50s, as heard on their award-winning Eternal Heaven album collaboration. Expect a seamless sequence of the secular and the sacred, the tranquil and the tempestuous, the sumptuous and the sophisticated.
On July 12, sopranos Carolyn Sampson, Anna Dennis and Alys Mererid Roberts join the Dunedin Consort to perform Out Of Her Mouth, three miniature cantatas written by Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre.
Performed in three historic venues, the NCEM at St Margaret’s Church, the Great Hall of the Merchant Adventurers Hall, Fossgate, and the hall’s Undercroft, these works by a woman, about women and for women reveal the stories of three Biblical women narrating their own complex, heart-searching experiences.
This concert has sold out, as have the The Rose Consort of Viols and The Marian Consort’s celebration of Elizabeth I and her courtiers, festival artistic advisor Helen Charlston’s July 10 concert with theorbist Toby Carr at the Undercroft, Merchant Adventurers Hall, and violinist Rachel Podger’s return to the NCEM with theorbist Daniele Caminiti on July 13.
Violinist Rachel Podger: Returning to the National Centre for Early Music on July 13
Mezzo soprano Charlston and Carr explore the intimate sound-world of solo voice and theorbo in Battle Cry: She Speaks, those battle cries resounding down the centuries in song; Podger and Caminiti perform Hidden In Plain Sight, celebrating the virtuosity of the violin and its place on the concert platform.
The NCEM Platform Artists’ showcase for emerging European ensembles opens with 2019 EEEmerging+ Prize winners The Butter Quartet’s Well Met By Moonlight on July 9, moved to the NCEM after selling out Bedern Hall, followed by Apotropaïk,who scooped three prizes in last year’s York International Young Artists Competition, performing songs from a 13th century re-telling of the story of Tristan and Isolde, on July 12 at All Saints’ Church
2019 winners L’ Apothéose, from Spain, launch their new album, recorded at the NCEM last year, with a July 13 programme of Carl Stamitz chamber works from the 1780s, back at the NCEM. 2022 prize winners The Protean Quartet perform Tempus Omnia Vincit there on Juy 14 ahead of recording their debut album with Linn Records.
The festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award 2023 will be awarded to baroque trumpet player Crispian Steele-Perkins at the NCEM on July 9 immediately after the live edition of BBC Radio 3’s Early Music Show, broadcast from there.
For the full festival programme and tickets, visit: ncem.co.uk.
I Zefirelli: July 6 concert at the National Centre for Early Music
I Zefirelli to play July 6 concert in NCEM gardens as part of week-long residency
AWARD-WINNING young instrumental ensemble I Zefirelli will arrive in York from Germany on July 4 for a week-long residency.
They will perform Mr Handel In The Pub! on July 6 in the National Centre for Early Music gardens, at St Margaret’s Church, Walmgate, where they will present a very particular blend of folk and early music as seen through the lens of life in London in the 1700s.
The ensemble will be undertaking the residency as part of the EEEmerging + programme, a large-scale European cooperation project that promotes the emergence of new talent in early music.
In the I Zefirelli line-up are Luise Catenhusen, recorder; María Carrasco, baroque violin; Jakob Kuchenbuch violoncello, viola da gamba; Tobias Tietze, lute, theorbo, baroque guitar, vihuela; Jeroen Finke, percussion, baritone, and Tilmann Albrecht, harpsichord, percussion.
Tickets for the 6.30pm to 7.30pm concert cost £10 at www.ncem.co.uk/events/i-zefirell. Refreshments will be available.
Ensemble Moliere: Premiering Sarah Cattley’s Rossignolet on International Women’s Day
THE National Centre for Early Music, in York, is celebrating International Women’s Day on March 8 – and throughout the year.
A new composition, Rossignolet, by 2019 NCEM Composer Award joint winner Sarah Cattley, commissioned by BBC Radio 3, will be presented by the all-female instrumentalists Ensemble Moliere in a broadcast at 1.30pm on Wednesday.
Looking ahead, women composers will be highlighted within this summer’s York Early Music Festival, led off by a new work by Lithuanian composer and NCEM alumna Juta Pranulyte, commissioned jointly by NCEM, The Marian Consort and the Rose Consort of Viols.
Three miniature operas by the late-17th century French composer Élisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre, telling the heartrending stories of three Biblical women, will be sung by Carolyn Sampson, RPS Vocal Award 2023 winner Anna Dennis and Alys Mererid Roberts. BBC New Generation Artist Helen Charlston will present her award-winning Battle Cry!.
York Early Music Festival 2023 will run from July 7 to 14 with a theme of Smoke & Mirrors. Tickets will go on sale on March 6 at ncem.co.uk and on 01904 658338.
