Music

A concert given in St. Patrick’s, Patterdale, Cumbria, of Russian liturgical and secular music performed by four young musicians from the St Petersburg Conservatory who sung in the choir of the Konevets Monastery on the island of Konevets on Lake Ladoga. The Konevets Quartet sing unaccompanied and maintain tuning at the start of each piece by striking a tuning fork (which is inaudible to the audience).

Read more: The Konevets Quartet at Patterdale

Interesting to hear Nederlands Kamerorkest: Frank Martin’s Pavane played well as an unusual introduction to this classic programme. The acoustic of the Concertgebouw integrated the string sound with a very pleasing effect.

Read more: Nederlands Kamerorkest - March 2012

Winterreise performed by Chris Underwood (bass-baritone) and Michael Hancock (piano)

What could be more appropriate than a performance of Schubert's Winterreise (Winter Journey)  in the Lake District in winter? The great song cycle, settings of poems by Wilhelm Müller, compares the poet's loss of love to the cold and bleakness of winter. The journey of the cycle includes songs inspired by a weather-vane, torrent and stream, a charcoal-burners' hut, a dream of spring-time, a crow and a wayside inn. All familiar features of the Lake District scene.

Read more: Winterreise at Patterdale

Rusalka isn't a familiar opera, it's in Czech so before surtitles it was probably not viable outside of the Czech homeland. Tonight’s was only the eighth performance ever at Covent Garden. Royal Opera bill their production as a “Lyric fairytale in three acts” although at heart Antonin Dvorák’s opera is a tragedy. As a fairytale, it seems the moral is “Be careful what you wish for”, as the heroine Rusalka finds out. The score is full of glorious melodies in the style that Antonin Dvorák has made us think of as Czech national music although the underlying emotions are as much jealousy, pain, grief as lust and joy.

Read more: Rusalka - The Royal Opera

A young cast in an established production of Don Giovanni at Covent Garden gave an energetic performance. The Italian language wasn’t bad and the characterisations weren’t undermined by the physiques of the singers: Don Giovanni (Erwin Schrott) looked a credible “dissolute one”, he chatted up a lady in the stalls circle in Act 1 and he got his shirt off in ActII before being claimed by the stone figure of the Commendatore. Donna Elvira’s Act II solo (Ruxandra Donose) was electric although some of this rather restless audience weren't impressed. Nice to have a fortepiano continuo (Mark Packwood) rather than a harpsichord.

The audience was impressed by Da Ponte’s comedy, the complicated acting and the staging - including live fire for the torches carried by the search party with more live fire for the flames that engulfed the unrepentant Don Giovanni.

Read more: Don Giovanni - The Royal Opera