What's On

One of Verdi's greatest operas, Simon Boccanegra has a score inspired by the sea. It is the master's most intimate opera, revised with care at the end of his life - but it also calls for the largest company ETO has fielded to date.

Originally set in medieval Genoa, Verdi's plea for an end to factionalism in politics was never more resonant than in Italy after World War II, where ETO's production is located. Verdi's depiction of the shimmering Mediterranean is wonderful. So too are the characters he creates, from Simon, the rough-hewn buccaneer, to his adversary, his own father-in-law.

Michael Rosewell conducts this new production, sung in Italian with English surtitles. starring Craig Smith in the title role, Grant Doyle, Elizabeth Llewellyn and Charne Rochford.

Simon Boccanegra

Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)

Highlights of this year’s English Music Festival include world première performances of important works by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Henry Walford Davies; a rare opportunity to hear Arthur Sullivan’s cantata The Golden Legend, masterpieces by Elgar, Moeran and Bax, and a ‘last night’ celebration concert boasting no fewer than eight new commissions.

The Seventh English Music Festival will take place in and around Dorchester-on-Thames, Oxfordshire over the weekend of 24th – 27th May 2013. Once again, the Festival showcases works which were box office hits during their day, but which have since fallen into unaccountable neglect.

This opening concert featuring the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Martin Yates (and broadcast on BBC Radio 3), contains three significant world premières. The first of these is the previously unpublished early Serenade in A Minor by Ralph Vaughan Williams; a gorgeous work that Martin Yates has recently recorded for the Dutton Epoch label to great acclaim. This five-movement work, composed in 1898, was in fact the composer’s first for orchestra, and it gives a fascinating insight into Vaughan Williams’s early style prior to the influences of folk song and Tudor polyphony which permeated his later work.

The programme will also include Vaughan Williams’s early tone poem, The Solent (from the unpublished suite In the New Forest), dating from 1903-04. According to Vaughan Williams’s biographer, Michael Kennedy, one of the themes in this work appeared to be a favourite of the composer’s and re-appeared in his Sea Symphony and again, at the end of his career, in the Symphony No 9.

The second half of the concert features the first performance of the substantial Symphony No 2 by Sir Henry Walford Davies (1869-1941). The concert opens with Parry’s Jerusalem and also includes Britten’s effervescent Canadian Carnival and Holst’s atmospheric A Winter Idyll.

Saturday’s main evening concert gives the opportunity to hear one of the important and impressive works to have come from the pen of Sir Arthur Sullivan (usually more famously associated with WS Gilbert). A complete and rare performance of The Golden Legend will be performed by the English Symphony Orchestra, conducted by John Andrews, with soloists Elena Xanthoudakis, Jean Rigby, Daniel Norman and Grant Doyle. This substantial cantata, setting words by Longfellow, was composed for the 1886 Leeds Music Festival, and its success was testified to by countless performances in Britain, America and beyond. Indeed, until the end of the 20th century it was so frequently given in Britain that only Handel’s Messiah was performed more often, as The Golden Legend surpassed even Mendelssohn’s Elijah in popularity. This English Music Festival performance will be the first professional revival since Sir Charles Mackerras conducted a centenary performance in Leeds in 1986.

Another notable performance will take place during the morning concert on Saturday 25th. In recent years Rupert Marshall-Luck and Matthew Rickard have given a succession of performances of neglected English pieces for violin and piano. This year the Sonata No 3 by Harold Darke will be under the spotlight. Their programme will also include music by Havergal Brian, Britten, Delius and Howells.

The English Music Festival has always been keen to showcase our country’s rich choral heritage and this year the Elysian Singers will perform a programme of choral works by Parry and Stanford in the beautiful Chapel at Radley College, near Abingdon on the afternoon of Sunday 26th May. The music will be set in context with readings, including extracts from letters by the composers.

For the evening concert back in Dorchester Abbey, Hilary Davan Wetton will conduct his City of London Choir in John Gardner’s Stabat Mater, as well as works by Britten, Dyson and Finzi, ending with Vaughan Williams’s ever-popular Five Mystical Songs.

The closing concert on Bank Holiday Monday, 27th May, will be devoted entirely to works commissioned for the occasion. This follows the success of our first New Commissions Concert which took place during the second English Music Festival in 2008. This year’s programme will include a Symphony by David Owen Norris and orchestral works by Richard Blackford, Paul Lewis, Christopher Wright, Philip Lane, and Ben Palmer who is also conducting the concert with his Orchestra of St. Paul’s. He will be joined by Rupert Marshall-Luck for two works for violin and orchestra; composed by Paul Carr and David Matthews. This is an unique and unmissable concert, and a fitting conclusion to this year’s Festival and to Founder-Director Em Marshall-Luck’s vision to continue to commission individual new works in the English tradition.

Other programmes include a piano recital by Duncan Honeybourne, featuring Bax’s Piano Sonata No 3 alongside works by Moeran, Fleischmann, Britten and Howells; evocative music for strings by Bantock, Alwyn and Ireland performed by the London Chamber Strings and conducted by Sir Granville Bantock’s Great-grandson, Bjorn Bantock; and late-evening light music by Noel Coward, Ivor Novello, Elgar, Delius and Ketelby amongst others.

A convenient mini-bus transfer is available to/from Didcot station, Dorchester-on-Thames and other venues; see website time-table for details.

Booking opens on the English Music Festival website from 15th March.

Jerusalem

Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry (1848-1918)

Canadian Carnival

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)

The Solent from 4 Impressions for Orchestra (In the New Forest) - (world premiere)

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)

Serenade in A minor (world premiere)

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)

A Winter Idyll

Gustav Holst (1874-1934)

Symphony No 2 in G (world premiere)

Sir Henry Walford Davies (1869-1942)

Violin Sonata No 1 in E major

Herbert Howells (1892-1983)

Sonata for Violin and Piano No 1

Frederick Delius (1862-1934)

Legend

Havergal Brian (1876-1972)

Violin Sonata No 3 first performance of new edition by Jonathan Clinch

Harold Darke (1888-1976)

Suite for Violin and Piano

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)

Highlights of this year’s English Music Festival include world première performances of important works by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Henry Walford Davies; a rare opportunity to hear Arthur Sullivan’s cantata The Golden Legend, masterpieces by Elgar, Moeran and Bax, and a ‘last night’ celebration concert boasting no fewer than eight new commissions.

The Seventh English Music Festival will take place in and around Dorchester-on-Thames, Oxfordshire over the weekend of 24th – 27th May 2013. Once again, the Festival showcases works which were box office hits during their day, but which have since fallen into unaccountable neglect.

The opening concert on Friday 24th May in Dorchester Abbey, featuring the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Martin Yates (and broadcast on BBC Radio 3), contains three significant world premières. The first of these is the previously unpublished early Serenade in A Minor by Ralph Vaughan Williams; a gorgeous work that Martin Yates has recently recorded for the Dutton Epoch label to great acclaim. This five-movement work, composed in 1898, was in fact the composer’s first for orchestra, and it gives a fascinating insight into Vaughan Williams’s early style prior to the influences of folk song and Tudor polyphony which permeated his later work.

The programme will also include Vaughan Williams’s early tone poem, The Solent (from the unpublished suite In the New Forest), dating from 1903-04. According to Vaughan Williams’s biographer, Michael Kennedy, one of the themes in this work appeared to be a favourite of the composer’s and re-appeared in his Sea Symphony and again, at the end of his career, in the Symphony no.9.

The second half of the concert features the first performance of the substantial Symphony No 2 by Sir Henry Walford Davies (1869-1941). The concert opens with Parry’s Jerusalem and also includes Britten’s effervescent Canadian Carnival and Holst’s atmospheric A Winter Idyll.

Saturday’s main evening concert gives the opportunity to hear one of the important and impressive works to have come from the pen of Sir Arthur Sullivan (usually more famously associated with WS Gilbert). A complete and rare performance of The Golden Legend will be performed by the English Symphony Orchestra, conducted by John Andrews, with soloists Elena Xanthoudakis, Jean Rigby, Daniel Norman and Grant Doyle. This substantial cantata, setting words by Longfellow, was composed for the 1886 Leeds Music Festival, and its success was testified to by countless performances in Britain, America and beyond. Indeed, until the end of the 20th century it was so frequently given in Britain that only Handel’s Messiah was performed more often, as The Golden Legend surpassed even Mendelssohn’s Elijah in popularity. This English Music Festival performance will be the first professional revival since Sir Charles Mackerras conducted a centenary performance in Leeds in 1986.

Another notable performance will take place during the morning concert on Saturday 25th. In recent years Rupert Marshall-Luck and Matthew Rickard have given a succession of performances of neglected English pieces for violin and piano. This year the Sonata No 3 by Harold Darke will be under the spotlight. Their programme will also include music by Havergal Brian, Britten, Delius and Howells.

The English Music Festival has always been keen to showcase our country’s rich choral heritage and this year the Elysian Singers will perform a programme of choral works by Parry and Stanford in the beautiful Chapel at Radley College, near Abingdon on the afternoon of Sunday 26th May. The music will be set in context with readings, including extracts from letters by the composers.

For the evening concert back in Dorchester Abbey, Hilary Davan Wetton will conduct his City of London Choir in John Gardner’s Stabat Mater, as well as works by Britten, Dyson and Finzi, ending with Vaughan Williams’s ever-popular Five Mystical Songs.

The closing concert on Bank Holiday Monday, 27th May, will be devoted entirely to works commissioned for the occasion. This follows the success of our first New Commissions Concert which took place during the Second English Misic Festival in 2008. This year’s programme will include a Symphony by David Owen Norris and orchestral works by Richard Blackford, Paul Lewis, Christopher Wright, Philip Lane, and Ben Palmer who is also conducting the concert with his Orchestra of St. Paul’s. He will be joined by Rupert Marshall-Luck for two works for violin and orchestra; composed by Paul Carr and David Matthews. This is an unique and unmissable concert, and a fitting conclusion to this year’s Festival and to Founder-Director Em Marshall-Luck’s vision to continue to commission individual new works in the English tradition.

Other programmes include a piano recital by Duncan Honeybourne, featuring Bax’s Piano Sonata No 3 alongside works by Moeran, Fleischmann, Britten and Howells; evocative music for strings by Bantock, Alwyn and Ireland performed by the London Chamber Strings and conducted by Sir Granville Bantock’s Great-grandson, Bjorn Bantock; and late-evening light music by Noel Coward, Ivor Novello, Elgar, Delius and Ketelby amongst others.

A convenient mini-bus transfer is available to/from Didcot station, Dorchester-on-Thames and other venues; see website time-table for details.

Booking opens on the English Music Festival website from 15th March.

The Golden Legend

Sir Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900)