Arcangelo Members Lounge
SPRING 2023
Welcome to the Arcangelo Members Lounge: Spring 2023
The Arcangelo Members Lounge is a private online space, offered exclusively to Arcangelo’s Friends and closest supporters, and updated once a quarter. For feedback or ideas about published or future content please email julian@arcangelo.org.uk
A critical hit – Arcangelo and ‘Theodora’ at Barbican
We were originally scheduled to make our Barbican Centre debut in April 2020 with a concert of Haydn’s ‘Creation’. When discussions resumed following lockdown, it was decided to present ‘Theodora’ instead, as part of our project to record the work.
It turned out to be an inspired change of plan. With Arcangelo’s credentials in Handel’s penultimate oratorio so firmly established since our 2018 BBC Proms performance, and with Katie Mitchell’s 2022 production for the Royal Opera House having raised the work’s profile to unprecedented levels, the critics came out in force for Arcangelo – and were unanimous in their praise.
We are delighted to headline the Spring 2023 Arcangelo Members Lounge update with a digest of the very best reviews, and a gallery of concert images by Mark Allan.
CRITIC REVIEWS: ARCANGELO PERFORM HANDEL’S ‘THEODORA’ AT BARBICAN
THE GUARDIAN
“Period music powerhouse Arcangelo gave the alternately poignant and earth-quaking arias the deluxe treatment in this unstaged yet dramatic concert performance…”
Click/tap the button to read the full Guardian review and further print and online reviews.
Back to Boccherini
This May, Arcangelo and Nicolas Altstaedt will reunite in the recording studio for the second volume in our landmark project to record the complete cello concerti of Luigi Boccherini. Remarkably, despite Boccherini’s European renown in his own time as the foremost cello player-composer, no complete cycle has yet been recorded on period instruments. It’s a natural next step from our BBC Music Magazine Award-winning accounts of C.P.E. Bach’s cello concerti in 2016. Those who attended our Recording Study Day last October will also be aware that our edition will strip some ‘Victorian upholstery’ from Boccherini’s original music. Watch the selection of videos below to find out more about the project.
PROJECT INTRODUCTION – NICOLAS ALTSTAEDT & ARCANGELO RECORD BOCCHERINI
Jonathan Cohen and Nicolas Altstaedt introduce our project to record Boccherinis’ cello concertos ahead of the sessions for volume 1 in Spring 2021.
RECORDING STUDY DAY – BOCCHERINI AND THE RISE OF THE CELLO
Our October 2022 Recording Study Day explored the history of Boccherini’s cello concerti in performance, and the evolution of the cello in the 18th century.
PERFORMANCE – NICOLAS ALTSTAEDT AND JONATHAN COHEN PLAY BOCCHERINI
Nicolas Altstaedt and Jonathan Cohen perform the Rondo from Boccherini’s Cello Concerto in D major, G.478
A first look at Telemann
We are really excited by this first snippet of raw footage from Arcangelo’s film sessions in the Wren Library at Trinity College Cambridge in January.
The ‘test edit’ shows the first movement of Telemann’s Paris Quartet No.6 in E minor performed by Georgia Browne (flute), Sophie Gent (violin), Jonathan Manson (gamba), Thomas Dunford (lute) and Jonathan Cohen (harpsichord).
Please note that this test edit has been prepared as a first guide to the assembly of raw audio and video, and should not be taken as in any way indicative of the appearance or sound of the finished production release.
Next Friends events
16th May – Boccherini Recording Open Session
Longstanding Arcangelo collaborator and internationally-acclaimed cellist Nicolas Altstaedt returns to record Vol. 2 of Boccherini’s virtuosic cello concerti in May.
Arcangelo Friends are invited to one of the recording rehearsal sessions with Nicolas Altstaedt on Tuesday 16th May at St Jude-on-the-Hill, 2-5 pm. Places are limited to 15 people, so please book without delay if you’d like to attend by filling in our online form:
8th June – Season Finale at Wigmore Hall
Join us for our Season Finale at Wigmore Hall on the 8th of June at 7:30 pm, where we’ll bid farewell to this whirlwind season with a programme of Handel’s Chandos Anthems. Originally written for James Brydges’s ‘English Versailles’ at Canons Park, these works show a Handel freshly inspired by his stay in Italy and at the height of his compositional prowess.
In what is now a welcome tradition, we are holding a post-concert dinner at the Mandeville Hotel, just a five minute walk from Wigmore Hall. We look forward to celebrating this successful season with Friends and artists in good company.
To secure £45 (discounted) concert tickets and register your interest in the post-concert dinner, please complete our online form.
Support our 2022-23 Recording Projects.
Following a year off in 2021-22 (and a pandemic flurry in 2020-21) we are making a decisive return to the recording studio in 2022-23 with a superb and ambitious range of projects. Fundraising appeals for these projects are now open, and donations can be made easily and securely via our new-style appeal pages. Donations are eligible for an attractive range of benefits, including equivalent benefits of the Arcangelo Friends Scheme. See the individual appeal pages for details.
Buxtehude: ‘Opus Posthumous’
Intricate, playful, odd – quintessentially baroque – Buxtehude’s trio sonatas have found ideal champions in Arcangelo whose two recordings to date earned plaudits including a GRAMMY nomination. In January 2023 we complete our survey of this marvellous music by recording chamber works unpublished during the composer’s lifetime.
Telemann: Paris Quartets
As a counterpart to our Buxtehude project, we will be creating Arcangelo’s first-ever full length film recording. Appropriately, we’ve chosen one of the great foundational works of modern chamber music from Telemann’s ‘Paris’ Quartets of the 1730s. Our filming location is the contemporary 18th century Wren Library at Trinity College Cambridge.
Handel: Chandos Anthems
Handel’s ‘Chandos Anthems’ are products of the remarkable and short-lived “English Versailles” that flourished at the Cannons Park stately home of James Brydges, Duke of Chandos. Written in a bravura Italianate style, these psalm settings represent the high watermark of English Baroque liturgical music – and are overdue the Arcangelo treatment!
Handel: Theodora
Arcangelo’s much-praised 2018 BBC Proms performance of Handel’s sublime late oratorio reignited interest in the work. Following repeat performances at the Vienna Konzerthaus (2020), Barbican Centre and DeSingel Antwerp (2022) we are delighted to make the first new studio recording of ‘Theodora’ in a quarter of a century, with a peerless cast led by Louise Alder.
Boccherini: Cello Concerti Vol.II
Following a BBC Music Magazine Award for our recording of cello concerti by C.P.E. Bach, Arcangelo and Nicolas Altstaedt turn their attentions to the equally virtuosic concerti of Boccherini. These recording sessions in May 2023 will be for the second volume in the series, with the first volume recorded in 2021 and due for release in Spring 2023.