Classical Editor: Rob Barnett                               Founder Len Mullenger

ANNOUNCEMENTS CLASSICAL NEWS Yahoo services have a distinct US bias Classical Music News Films and Film Music (If the Yahoo buttons do not re-appear DO NOT REFRESH, Minimise and re-expand the page) Get the latest Classical news from Ananova The Wigmore Hall is currently promoting a concert on 20th October celebrating Michael Berkeley’s music Monday 20 October 7.30pm Michael Berkeley 60th Birthday Celebration Dame Felicity Lott (soprano) Susan Bickley (mezzo-soprano) Thomas Carroll (cello) Chilingirian Quartet Julius Drake (piano) Berkeley String Quartet 'Magnetic Field' Bach Sarabande, Bouree and Gigue from 'Cello Suite No. 1 in G BWV1007' Berkeley Speaking Silence; String Quintet 'Abstract Mirror' Poulenc Montparnasse; Hôtel; Les chemins de l'amour Berkeley Echo - Hommage a Poulenc Berkeley, Lennox O lurcher loving collier Bridge Go not happy day Britten O Waly, Waly; Sweet Polly Oliver Porter Night and Day Berkeley Touch Light £12 £16 £22 £24 Box Office 020 7935 2141 Online Booking www.wigmore-hall.org.uk CHRISTOPHER FIFIELD CONDUCTS HOLBROOKE WORLD PREMIERE 13 December 2008, All Saints Church, Rosendale Road, West Dulwich, London SE21, 7.30. Lambeth Orchestra Josef Holbrooke symphonic fantasie The Pit and the Pendulum, 1929 (world premiere). Hurlstone Piano Concerto (soloist: Martin Jones) Elgar Symphony No.1 23 May 2009, All Saints Church, Rosendale Road, West Dulwich, London SE21, 7.30. Lambeth Orchestra Variations on a theme by Verdi (world premiere) Matthew Curtis British Music in Worthing and London - Bax 4th and Arnold 3rd symphonies - Oct/Nov 2008 Sunday 14 September 2008 – 2.45pm. Assembly Hall, Worthing. 01903 206206 www.worthingtheatres.co.uk Worthing Symphony Orchestra (the professional orchestra of West Sussex) Principal Conductor – John Gibbons Piano solo – Rustem Hayroudinoff Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis; Shostakovich: Piano Concerto No. 1; Finzi: Eclogue for piano and strings; Tchaikovsky: Serenade for Strings Sunday 9 November 2008– 2.45pm. Assembly Hall, Worthing. 01903 206206 www.worthingtheatres.co.uk Worthing Symphony Orchestra (the professional orchestra of West Sussex) Principal Conductor – John Gibbons cello solo – David Cohen Elgar: Enigma Variations; Dvorak: Cello Concerto in B minor; 633 Squadron / Band of Brothers Ealing Symphony Orchestra conducted by John Gibbons continue their Malcolm Arnold Complete Symphonies Series Saturday 4th October 2008 – 7.30pm St Barnabas Church, Pitshanger Lane, Ealing. W5 1QG Malcolm Arnold: Symphony No. 3 Schubert; Symphony No. 8 ‘Unfinished’ Poulenc: Piano Concerto – soloist Yshani Perinpanayagam Saturday 22nd November – 7.30pm St Martin’s Church, Hale Gardens, Ealing. W3 Sir Arnold Bax: Symphony No. 4 Vaughan Williams: Overture ‘The Wasps’ Berlioz Harold in Italy www.ealingso.org.uk John Gibbons Conductor & Composer Home Farm, 139 Buckingham Road, Bletchley. MK3 5JD www.johnsgibbons.com www.johnsgibbons.com01908 367748 07973 617064 Rob Barnett says What a magnificently enterpising concert season American Symphony Orchestra: 2008-09 season at Lincoln Center Friday, October 3, 2008, 8PM LE ROI D’YS Edouard Lalo (1823-1892): Le roi d’Ys (1875-88) Opera-in-concert Sunday, December 7, 2008, 3PM AGAINST THE AVANT-GARDE: Romanticisms of the 1920s Walter Braunfels (1882-1954): Don Juan, Op. 34 (1923) U.S. Premiere Hermann Suter (1870-1926): Violin Concerto, Op. 23 (1924) U.S. Premiere Josef Marx (1882-1964): Herbstsymphonie (1921) U.S. Premiere Sunday, January 25, 2009, 3PM MUSIC IN EAST GERMANY Hanns Eisler (1898-1962): Auferstanden aus Ruinen, Hymne der DDR (1949) Rudolf Wagner-Regeny (1903-1969): Mythological Figures (1951) Paul Dessau (1894-1979): In memoriam Bertolt Brecht (1957) Udo Zimmermann (1943-): Sinfonia come una grande lamento, in memory of F. Garcia Lorca (1977) Hanns Eisler: Goethe Rhapsody (1949) Siegfried Matthus (1934-): Responso (1977) Friday, February 20, 2009, 8PM PERSECUTION AND FREEDOM: Masterworks of Conscience Luigi Dallapiccola (1904-1975): Volo di notte (Night Flight, 1939) Il Prigioniero (The Prisoner, 1948) Sunday, March 22, 2009, 3PM REVISITING WILLIAM GRANT STILL George Whitefield Chadwick (1854-1931): Tam O’Shanter (1917) William Grant Still (1895-1978): Darker America (1924) Edgard Varèse (1883-1965): Amériques (1921/27) William Grant Still: Suite for Violin and Orchestra (1943) William Grant Still: Africa (1930) Sunday, May 31, 2009, 3PM COMPOSING A NATION: Israel’s Musical Patriarchs Erich-Walter Sternberg (1891-1974): The Twelve Tribes of Israel (1938) U.S. premiere Mordecai Seter (1916-1994): Midnight Vigil, Op. 39a (1958) U.S. premiere Josef Tal (1910- ): Symphony No. 2 (1960) U.S. premiere Odeon Partos (1907-1977): Ein gev, Symphonic Fantasy (1952) U.S. premiere Paul Ben-Haim (1907-1984): Symphony No. 2 (1948) U.S. premiere Classics Declassified at Peter Norton Symphony Space RICHARD STRAUSS Four Last Songs Sunday, September 21, 2008, 4PM SILVESTRE REVUELTAS La noche de los mayas Sunday, February 8, 2009, 4PM JOHANNES BRAHMS Symphony No. 3 Sunday, April 19, 2009, 4PM In celebration of the bicentenary of the Irish born 19th century composer, Michael W. Balfe, Opera Ireland/RTE Ireland will be mounting a concert performance of Balfe's, Falstaff at the National Concert Hall in Dublin on Thursday, September 25th 2008, with the RTE Orchestra and an international cast. The opera will also be recorded. This will be a world premiere recording of this unique work. The following are the contact details for ticketing: www.nch.ie - Box offices opens Monday July 14th . This remarkable Balfe opera had it premiere at the Italian Opera in London in July 1838, when it was sung by four of opera's immortals... Luigi Lablache, Antonio Tamburini, Giulia Grisi and Giovanni Battista Rubini. These four singer had created Bellini's I Puritani three years earlier in Paris. The Armstrong Gibbs Society is pleased to present the first Gibbs Music Festival. Featuring the music of C. Armstrong Gibbs the three day festival starting Friday 12th September 2008 NEW BOOK ON YMA SUMAC PUBLISHED In April, 2008, Yma Sumac - The Art Behind the Legend by Nicholas E. Limansky was published by YBK Publishers in New York City. Available internationally, the book is considered to be the reference on Yma Sumac. Profusely illustrated, it includes a complete career overview, as well as an indepth discussion of Yma Sumac's voice and music. In addition to the book, there is also a CD-Rom which is purchased separately, which reproduces all the photographs in the book as well as many that did not appear within the book and numerous, unpublished, color photographs. In addition, the CD-Rom also has over 150 pages of additional text - including a detailed analysis of all of Yma Sumac's recordings, a complete, international discography, range sheets for 50 of her songs, a discussion of the history of Peru, an analysis of the Exotica movement in the United States, an indepth discussion of the acuto sfogato (unlimited) soprano from Mozart's time to our day and the text for her 1955 Souvenir booklet. The book is available internationally from Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble and Borders as well as many other online sites. article link: http://www.musicweb.uk.net/classRev/2007/Aug07/Sumac.htm THE HYMN TUNE INDEX: A PLEA FOR VOLUNTEERS from Nicholas Temperley A plan is being formed to extend the online Hymn Tune Index (HTI). The present index was published in four volumes in 1998, and an online version has existed since 2001 (please see http://hymntune.music.uiuc.edu). At present it covers over 2,000 printed sources from the Reformation to the year 1820, and lists over 18,000 tunes in some 160,000 printings. The ultimate target is to reach 1900, while still covering all printed psalm or hymn tunes associated with English-language texts. But the quantities become so vast as the 19th century wears on that 1900 is a very distant goal at this point. As well as the hundreds of 'mainline' hymnals of the various denominations within Britain, there are many books of the 'West Gallery' type for country choirs, and others for domestic use. There are huge numbers of American hymnals, covering whole new categories such as folk hymns, shapenote music, Mormon hymns, gospel hymns, and negro spirituals; and there are a growing number of books printed in British colonies and missions abroad. Of course, many tunes crossed national and denominational boundaries, or came from secular sources. It seems that the only way we can hope to make progress is by a collaborative effort. Sally Drage has agreed to help me co-ordinate work on English sources. We are looking for volunteers from different parts of the English-speaking world. Meanwhile, we are devising a web interface that will allow people to index books directly from any library or from their personal collections, with the help of explicit guidelines that we will supply. Ideally, we would go methodically through the years in chronological order, starting in 1821. But we know that many people are interested in particular types or groups of sources, and we wouldn't want to discourage them from indexing these books as soon as they can, rather than waiting until we reach a particular year. We will then have to find ways of filling in the 'gaps' not covered by any such offers. For North America, an organizing committee is being formed. It will meet in 2007 at the University of Illinois, which will continue to be the headquarters of the HTI. Perhaps a similar committee could be brought together next summer for the UK. It is also possible, though not certain, that we will be able to raise some modest funds to cover travel or photocopying expenses for those who are helping. So I am now asking for volunteers who would like to take part in this project over the next few years. Please reply directly to Sally and me jointly (sally@drage.me.uk, ntemp@uiuc.edu) giving your name and contact details, and stating what types of source you would be willing to cover - e.g. ''parochial tunebooks in Sussex', 'hymn books in Birmingham public library', 'Methodist hymnals', 'books in my own possession', etc. Or, if you have no special preference, please tell us if you would be willing to index a list of books that we will provide. If you don't use e-mail please write to Sally Drage, 2 Grasmere Avenue, Congleton, Cheshire CW12 4LZ. Nicholas Temperley, Professor of Music Emeritus, The University of Illinois

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