📖 Sunday Culture Crunch 📖

For all your weekend culture needs

Good morning all, hello to new subscribers, and welcome to the Sunday Culture Crunch — my weekend roundup of thought-provoking listening/reading, new music, upcoming events, and recommendations for general culture stuff to look out for over the next few weeks. Happy browsing, and do comment if there’s anything you’d like to see featured in the Crunch. Want more/less fiction? Non-fiction? Old recordings? Let me know!

I’ve got a busy month coming up, so there’s plenty of opportunity to catch a Quartet event! I’ll be at Budleigh Salterton Literary Festival in Devon with the incomparable conductor Alice Farnham on the 20th September. On the 24th I’m in Stroud for the Hidden Notes festival, then I’m heading up to Scotland for the Wigtown Book Festival on the 29th in discussion with none other than Kate Mosse. If you can’t make it to Scotland, then you can also book to watch the Wigtown event online. I’m really looking forward to these — if you come to one please do come say hi at the book signings afterwards!

If you missed my discussion about Dora Pejačević at the BBC Proms, you can catch up on BBC Sounds here, and I’ve got a listening guide to her music here.

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New Recordings

• Ethel Smyth, Der Wald. This is a big one folks — it’s THE WORLD PREMIERE RECORDING OF SMYTH’S SECOND OPERA. With a stellar cast of soloists, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and BBC Singers conducted by John Andrews, it’s a first recording that I suspect Smyth would have been proud of. You can hear a preview here:

• Florence Price Symphony 4 & William Dawson Negro Folk Symphony. The Philadelphia Orchestra/Yannick Nézet-Séguin recording of Price’s 1st and 3rd symphonies won a Grammy for best orchestral recording, so you won’t want to miss this next instalment. These are two really fantastic works incredibly executed.

• Transfigured. Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective are one of my favourite ensembles out there at the moment — they programme innovatively and have an exquisite sound. I’ve loved all their recordings so far and this continues the trend. Includes works by Alma Mahler, Schoenberg, Webern and Zemlinsky.

• Bach Motets. Solomon’s Knot are another reliably brilliant ensemble. I’m not going to say anything about this disc except — listen to it.

• Parry, Scenes from Shelley's Prometheus Unbound. Can Chandos do no wrong? They are just turning out one knock-out disc after another. This is a world premiere recording, superbly produced and a great performance.

• Femmes de légende. This is the first album from pianist Élisabeth Pion, and it’s a fab debut. She combines Mel Bonis with Debussy, Dutilleux, Adès, Lili Boulanger and one of her own compositions, all gorgeously played.

• Infinite Voyage. This collaboration with Barbara Hannigan is the final album from the Emerson Quartet, who are giving their farewell concerts this year. It shows why the Emersons have been so highly regarded and feels like the end of an era.

• Folk Flow: Works for Accordion. This is a beautifully reflective disc from Viviane Chassot. It’s full of surprises and mixes classical with folk, contemporary with historical.

• Hymne à l’amour. Clearly I’m into accordion this month, because I loved this laid-back album of accordion and clarinet music from Duo Minerva. It’s great fun, and good early-morning listening.

• Atomos: The Art of Concentration. This is a really intense disc from Cuarteto Quiroga. It includes the premiere recording of Kurtág’s Secreta, and I particularly like their rendering of the Haydn Op. 42 D Minor Quartet.

An oldie and a goodie…

• Sam Lee, Ground of Its Own. This creative, inventive folk album got Lee on the Mercury Prize shortlist in 2012. He brings together a wide range of influences here, and the result is hypnotic.

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What I’m Reading

• Kerry Andrew, Skin. I’m not usually one for coming-of-age stories, but I loved this one. Atmospheric and haunting, Skin is about a child coming to terms with their father’s disappearance. It’ll stay with me for a long time.

• Katja Hoyer on writing a history of East Germany, and when life becomes history

• Multitude of Voyces are appealing for help to find Elizabeth Poston’s unpublished manuscripts

• The Independent Society of Musicians on Brexit’s impact on the music industry

• Neko Case on ageing and being 52

• Amelia Tait on the Colleen Hoover phenomenon

• Dom Aversano on favourite albums of 2023

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Live Music

• The BBC Proms are winding down this fortnight. In the remaining concerts, premieres are: Sarah Rodgers and Gabriela Ortiz on the 8th September, and James B. Wilson on the 9th (the Last Night). Elsewhere, Thomas Gould and the Britten Sinfonia give a concert based on musical reimaginings, including Max Richter’s Recomposed (responding to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons) on Wednesday 6th.

• The first London staging of Madeleine Dring’s only opera, Cupboard Love, is happening at Tête à Tête Opera Festival on 6th September. It’s described as a ‘comedy whodunit’, so I’m expecting Agatha Christie meets Gilbert & Sullivan.

• Jeneba Kanneh-Mason plays Shostakovich, Liszt, Beethoven & Price in Peckham on 7 September.

• I’m an absolute sucker for immersive/novelty concerts, so the Gesualdo Six’s/Concert Theatre Works' Secret Byrd is high on my list of things to do this month. Byrd with candlelight, soup and costumes? Yes please. They’re in Bristol 7 September, London 8 September, Lammermuir Festival on 13 September.

• Grimeborn Opera Festival is in full swing — Lisa Logan and Polly Teale’s Brontë: The Opera runs 12-16 September.

• Dani Howard’s new opera based on The Yellow Wallpaper is at Sadler’s Wells on the 14th & 15th September. It’s staged by The Opera Story, directed by Amy Lane and has a libretto by Joseph Spence. This is one of my top fortnight highlights — Howard’s music is phenomenal and I expect this to be no exception. The Copenhagen premiere has already got rave reviews.

• Manchester Collective are touring with a show inspired by Steve Reich’s Different Trains. They’re in Birmingham on the 14th September, Liverpool on the 16th, Leeds on 17th, Manchester on 20th, London on 22nd, and Stroud for Hidden Notes Festival on the 24th (which is the same day I’m speaking, so that’s two reasons to go).

• Film with live improvised music alert — Frame Ensemble score Pandora’s Box at the Carole Nash Hall in Manchester on 16th September.

• Barbara Hannigan is leading Stravinsky’s Pulcinella with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican on the 20th September.

• Benjamin Britten’s opera Peter Grimes opens at ENO on the 21st, with tickets starting at £10. While you’re at it, check out the rest of their coming season, including La Traviata, The Handmaid’s Tale, Jenůfa and The Magic Flute.

• Aurora Orchestra are playing Anna Meredith, Caroline Shaw, Nico Muhly and Bach at King’s Place on 22nd September.

• Yuja Wang is playing pieces she’s chosen to respond to David Hockney’s artworks at Lightroom from 28-30 September.

• I’m currently writing programme notes for the London Chamber Orchestra’s coming season. You can catch the first concert of the new season at Cadogan Hall on 28 September with trumpeter Lucienne Renaudin Vary, in a programme of Piazzolla, Haydn, and Efrain Oscher.

• Roomful of Teeth are at the Barbican on 7th October with a world premiere from Alev Lenz and a European premiere by Leilehua Lanzilotti.

And for something completely different…

Coffee is my go-to drink, and I’m always on the look-out for good coffee spots. My current love is Prufrock Coffee in London, which has one of the best tasting selections I’ve tried recently. They also do courses and workshops, which could make a great present a fellow coffee enthusiast (or for yourself, why not). Definitely recommended if coffee is your thing.