A month in classics: May
Our guest classical music picker, Huw Lewis selects some highlights for this month and spotlights the chance to hear Bach on a big stage
Organ sensation Alison Lapwood has sold out The Glasshouse at the end of May, but here’s six concerts you’d not want to miss across the North East in the coming weeks.
May the Fourth Be With You
Hats off to the Royal Northern Sinfonia for performing the most iconic film music ever written, on the one day in the calendar when it absolutely must be played (May 4).
Head to The Glasshouse on Star Wars Day to round off the bank holiday and hear the John Williams themes and motifs from the film cycle burned into the soul of several generations.
The Sinfonia promise that come members of the orchestra may be coming in character costumes … and we suspect some members of the audience may be too.
Details and tickets here.
Ah! Mahler brings that big orchestral thrill
We know that there is always a distinct ripple of excitement in the region when a visiting orchestra comes to Gateshead with an epic romantic symphony on the programme.
Conductor Domingo Hindoyan has made a habit of doing that with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic in recent times, not least with the symphonies of Bruckner.
His Friday night treat on May 8 is that Austrian giant from the start of the last century... Gustav Mahler’s music is heartfelt, angst-ridden and ultimately gushing. His Ninth Symphony is for many his masterpiece, with a slow movement of aching beauty.
Details and tickets here.
Hear the one piece that truly puts Mozart among the greats
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is a good classical composer who achieves greatness when he writes for the voice and for wind instruments.
Mozart’s operas are constantly staged but his wind serenades much less so, because being composed for a handful of flutes, clarinets and the like they don’t fit into normal concert hall programmes.
So - thank you, thank you, thank you Royal Northern Sinfonia, for bringing us Mozart’s ultimate (but under performed) masterpiece the Gran Partita in concerts at St George’s Church Cullercoats and then Sunderland’s Fire Station on the weekend of May 9 and 10.
You’ll know its slow movement from soundtracks and the radio, don’t miss the chance to see the whole thing live.
Details and tickets here here.
Was this the first long player to go triple platinum?
In the last years of the 18th Century the Austrian composer Joseph Haydn released what may have been the first true hit ‘album’.
His huge choral work The Creation was not initially available on vinyl, of course, but if live performances across Europe were an equivalent to triple platinum on disc then he scored a success to rival Michael Jackson’s Thriller or Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours.
Haydn’s musical evocation of the creation of the world for orchestra, soloists and choir has been popular ever sense. The music is full of drama and beauty which the tight corsets of classical form only make more gripping.
The Royal Northern Sinfonia bring the light to the Sands Centre in Carlisle on Saturday May 16 and to The Glasshouse, Gateshead the following night.
Details and tickets here
A modern, moving and meditative choral classic
The same weekend the Joseph Haydn’s Creation is thrilling the crowds at The Glasshouse there’s the opportunity to hear a striking modern choral work down the road at Durham Cathedral (May 16).
Morten Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna was written at the end of the 20th Century as is mother was dying and has struck a chord with many through its serenity and meditative quality, well suited to the Cathedral’s great spaces.
It is performed by the Durham Choral Society alongside the Czech 19th Century composer Anton Dvorak’s bright and accessible Mass in D Major (Note: Masses written in major keys are always uplifting things to tune in to).
Details and tickets here.
Four musicians: One evening that excites at every turn
With centuries of music to choose from, sometimes the smart folk who plot classical concerts nail it with a programme that excites at every turn.
The Marmen String Quartet are at The Glasshouse on May 23 with just such a concert, ranging from the flamboyant 17th Century English genius Henry Purcell to the 20th Century Hungarian master of the genre Bela Bartok.
Also on the menu are Joseph Haydn’s elegant (with a properly funny punchline) Joke Quartet as well as French impressionist Claude Debussy.
Put together this is a Saturday night of sparkling white wine, with Bartok providing a shot of Islay single malt whisky in the middle.
Details and tickets here.