Classical and Jazz: Latest News > July 14
TWO of the greatest baroque choral works are being performed at St Martin-in-the-Fields tomorrow evening (Friday). Handel’s dazzling virtuoso setting of Psalm 110, Dixit Dominus, and Purcell’s operatic masterpiece Dido and Aeneas are in line for superb treatment by leading chamber choir Canticum and period instrument ensemble Counterpoint. Soprano Nino Bennet will be singing the role of Dido in Purcell’s opera.
Celebrating its 21st anniversary this year, Canticum is noted for its range of choral music embracing Renaissance polyphony, close harmonies of jazz classics and specially commissioned new works.
Conductor Mark Forkgen can be expected to extract the utmost humour from Purcell’s music in Dido for witches and drunken sailors contrasting with some of the most moving scenes in baroque opera, including Dido’s famous lament.
• The young Ligeti Quartet is playing again at the Red Hedgehog on Sunday afternoon as part of its summer residency at the Highgate venue. Formed last year by graduates from the London music conservatoires and Oxford University, the quartet is devoted to the promotion of 20th and 21st-century music. The quartet is led by Mandhira de Saram, who came to London from Sri Lanka after being awarded a music scholarship at North London Collegiate School.
Pieces to be played include Ligeti’s first string quartet and Haydn’s quartet op 64/2 in B minor. Also on the programme are works by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and Rachel Lockwood, a young composer currently working on a piece for the Ligeti Quartet.
Published: 14 July, 2011
by SEBASTIAN TAYLOR