More shows on 17 and 27 April!

We had a whale of a time at Kings Place, performing the UK premiere of Being Mrs Bach on Saturday afternoon. Left to right: Ben Bevan (baritone), Steven Devine (harpsichord), me, Jonathan Manson (cello and gamba) - what an absolute privilege to work with them! Totally knocked out by the brilliance of Steven's harpsichord playing, which provided the effect of an entire orchestra or two, the apparently effortless beauty of Jonathan's solos and the way he switched between instruments as if simply taking another breath, and the warm, gorgeously tender tone of Ben's baritone, which we understand will be gracing Opera Holland Park this summer.

Onwards... next up is Odette: A Celebration of Swan Lake, which takes wing on Wednesday. The award-winning Fenella Humphreys (violin), also-award-winning Viv McLean (piano) and I will be at Bob Boas's series, Music at Mansfield Street, London W1, on 17 April, and St Mary's Perivale on 27 April. St Mary's will be LIVE STREAMED! If you would like to come along on Wednesday, there are still places available (it clashes with a) the Easter hols and b) most annoyingly, the Proms launch) and you can email boas22m@btinternet.com for further details. If you want to come to St Mary's, just turn up on the night - more details here. And if you want to watch the live stream, it will be here (but is only available at the actual time, not online thereafter.) The concert is an hour and a half without an interval.

More stuff below!

Fenella Humphreys (violin)
Viv McLean (piano)
Jessica Duchen (narrator)

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet score for Swan Lake casts a powerful spell over generation after generation. It has had innumerable reimaginings and retellings, balletic and otherwise. The latest is author and music critic Jessica Duchen's magical-realist novel ODETTE, in which the enchanted swan princess meets 21st-century Britain.

This remarkable narrated concert mingles selected readings from the book with the story behind Tchaikovsky's creation of Swan Lake and its passionate, tragic inspirations. Award-winning, ballet-loving British violinist Fenella Humphreys embraces the great violin solos with which Tchaikovsky embroidered his score, as well as the closely related Violin Concerto; pianist Viv McLean evokes the influence of Chopin and Liszt on Tchaikovsky; and there's plenty of humour, with works by Saint-Saëns and Gershwin. Share the enchantment with this joyous celebration of a beloved ballet, its composer, its fairy tale and what they can mean to us today.

Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake – Introduction 

Saint-Saëns: Danse macabre 

Liszt (arr. Achron): Liebestraum No.3 

Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake – Odette's Solo 

Gershwin: The Man I Love 

Chopin: Polonaise-Fantaisie 

Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake – White Swan Pas de Deux 

Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake – Adagio from the Black Swan Pas de Deux 

Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D major - finale 

Fenella Humphreys (violin) enjoys a busy career combining chamber music and solo work, performing in prestigious venues around the world. Her first concerto recording, of Christopher Wright's Violin Concerto with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra was released in 2012 to great critical acclaim. Her recent Bach to the Future project, a set of six new unaccompanied violin works by eminent composers was a huge success, garnering performances at acclaimed UK venues, and has now been recorded over two CDs for Champs Hill Records. Both have received huge critical acclaim, and the second received the BBC Music Magazine's 2018 Instrumental Award. Her new disc with Nicola Eimer was released in February 2019. Fenella is a passionate chamber musician and is regularly invited by Steven Isserlis to take part in the prestigious Open Chamber Music at the International Musicians' Seminar, Prussia Cove. Concertmaster of the Deutsche Kammerakademie, Fenella also enjoys guest leading and directing various ensembles in Europe. Her teachers have included Sidney Griller CBE, Itzhak Rashkovsky, Ida Bieler and David Takeno at the Purcell School, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and the Robert-Schumann-Hochschule in Düsseldorf. She plays a beautiful violin from the circle of Peter Guarneri of Venice, kindly on loan from Jonathan Sparey.

Viv McLean (piano), the winner of the First Prize at the 2002 Maria Canals International Piano Competition in Barcelona , has performed at all the major venues in the UK as well as throughout Europe, Japan , Australia and the USA . He has played concerti with most major UK orchestras, performed chamber music with leading groups such as the Ysaye String Quartet and the Leopold String Trio. Viv studied at the Royal Academy of Music and was the piano winner at the Royal Overseas-League Music Competition and one of three winners of the National Federation of Music Societies' Young Artists Competition, leading to various recitals and concerto appearances throughout Great Britain . Viv has recorded regularly for BBC Radio 3 and recorded for Sony Classical Japan and Naxos , as well as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra's own label. Viv lives in Harrow and has been a huge supporter of concerts at both St Mary's Perivale and St Barnabas in recent years.

Jessica Duchen's books have gathered a loyal fan-base and wide acclaim. Odette, published by Unbound in November 2018, is her sixth novel, but has occupied her for over 26 years. Ghost Variations (Unbound, 2016) was Book of the Month in BBC Music Magazine and was John Suchet's Christmas Choice among the Daily Mail's Best Reads of 2016 ("A thrilling read" - John Suchet).   Jessica grew up in London, read music at Cambridge and has devoted much of her career to music journalism, with 12 years as music critic for The Independent. Her work has also appeared in BBC Music Magazine, The Sunday Times and The Guardian, among others. She was the librettist of Silver Birch by composer Roxanna Panufnik, which was commissioned by Garsington Opera and shortlisted for an International Opera Award in 2018, and she has worked frequently with Panufnik on texts for choral works. Her further output includes biographies of the composers Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Gabriel Fauré, her popular classical music blog JDCMB, and the play A Walk through the End of Time , which won the town medal of St Nazaire in France, where its commissioning festival was based. Jessica lives in London with her violinist husband and two cats.

Mrs Bach is in town on Saturday

My words&music show BEING MRS BACH is at Kings Place on Saturday at 5pm, part of the venue's magnificent Bach Weekend. More info here: please join us!

With harpsichordist Steven Devine, baritone Benjamin Bevan and cellist/gamba Jonathan Manson we explore the story of Anna Magdalena Bach, looking back on her life from her last days when she was tragically forgotten - even by most of her large family. From gifted young soprano to mater familias and sidekick-in-chief to her overworked husband, and the terrible operation that hastened his death, we follow her through arias and solos that reflect the emotions and preoccupations of the Bach family's Leipzig life. https://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on/classical/being-mrs-bach/


Here's a little interview I did for Kings Place's website:

Why did you want to create an event around Anna Magdalena Bach?

The initial suggestion for ‘Being Mrs Bach’ came from the pianist Kathryn Stott, artistic director of the Australian Festival of Chamber Music. She knew about my various narrated concerts and thought this would be an exciting creation to add to a Bach Day for the 2018 festival. The idea was to bring Anna Magdalena to the fore in her own right and try to find out more about who she really was. I loved the idea and it was a joy to be part of that lovely event in Far North Queensland.

How did you go about researching it?

Besides the usual reading etc, I went to Leipzig! I completely fell in love with the place. It has an extraordinary wealth of musical associations, including Schumann, Mendelssohn, Grieg, Brahms and Wagner, and takes great pride in this legacy. The Thomaskirche, where Bach spent much of his working life, is still much as he would have known it. I attended a service and a concert there, trying to immerse myself in its atmosphere and acoustic. The Bach Museum is a treasure-trove: here one can explore the layout of the Thomasschüle where Bach taught, read a great deal about the family, listen to a wealth of music examples and even see a few rare relics - including the buckle and thimble that were retrieved from what was thought to be Bach’s grave.

What struck you particularly about her life and work?

While too little is known about her personality, a few key facts make it possible to join dots and colour in blanks. She was a very fine musician and singer: she was employed at the court of Anhalt-Cöthen as a soprano in Bach’s ensemble when he was Kapellmeister, which is where they met. Unfortunately when they moved to Leipzig, town regulations decreed that women were not allowed to sing in public! I expect she sang at home, though… She loved both nature and nurturing (children, stepchildren, birds, plants and constant visitors). This was just as well, because she inherited four step-children when she married Bach, who was a widower 16 years her senior - and she went on to have 13 children of her own (sadly fewer than half survived to adulthood). She must have been Bach’s greatest support, both personally and professionally, in the latter capacity serving as copyist and collector, especially of the ‘Anna Magdalena Notebook’. I think she may have had the constitution of an ox.

Nevertheless, the painful truth is that Anna Magdalena has been desperately neglected, both in her lifetime and beyond it. She survived Johann Sebastian by nearly a decade, but ended up in a hand-to-mouth existence, reliant on charity. Then, when Bach’s body (or what they thought was his) was first exhumed in 1894, the skeleton of a younger woman was found with him. They reburied him elsewhere - and left her behind.

Do you think she really did write the cello suites, or any of her husband's music?

It’s not impossible, but I’m afraid I’m not entirely convinced.

What music did you want to include in the event? 

We needed repertoire that would illumine the narration so that words and music cohere as a sequence. For instance, an extract from the Coffee Cantata picks up on the tribulations of having teenage children! I particularly wanted to end with ‘Mache dich mein Herze rein’ from the St Matthew Passion so that this otherwise tragic story would have an uplifting, transcendent conclusion. Meanwhile, there are solos for Steven Devine and Jonathan Manson as well as various contrasting arias for Ben Bevan. We have added, quite late, the aria ‘Komm, süßes Kreuz’ (also St Matthew Passion) because it includes a magnificent viola da gamba obbligato and therefore shows off all three musicians to the utmost. 

AFCM#6: Being Anna Magdalena

It’s done! The premiere of Being Mrs Bach was yesterday at 5pm and it simply flew by. It’s almost impossible to sum it up...but the great reward, when you’ve dreamed up a project and you can see it in your mind’s eye, and then months later that image actually becomes reality and does what you want it to do - that’s a good feeling.

Mrs Bach backstage. #townsville #afcm #afcm18 #australianfestivalofchambermusic #beingmrsbach

A post shared by Jessica Duchen (@jessica.duchen) on Aug 1, 2018 at 3:05pm PDT

The original commission for Being Mrs Bach came through last summer from Kathy Stott and Tom and I took off to Leipzig to experience Bach’s environment as far as humanly possible. The trip made a big difference to the story, because there is information at the Thomaskirche, the Bach Museum and the city museum in the Town Hall that provides colour and authenticity that would not have been available to me from the comfort of my bookshelves. Anna Magdalena’s tragedy was that she gave her whole life to Bach and her family, only to find, first, that she could no longer sing - women were not allowed to sing in public in Leipzig - and then, after JSB’s death, she and her youngest daughter were left reliant on charity as, for some reason, the other children gave her little support. In 1894, when Bach’s body was exhumed so that scientists could measure his skull, hers was left behind. By the time he was reburied in pride of place in the Thomaskirche in 1950, anything that remained of Anna Magdalena had probably been blasted to pieces by allied bombing.

How to choose the right pieces from Bach’s gigantic output to include in the show was, to put it mildly, mind-boggling - especially with such an eclectic roster of astounding musicians available to take part. But as soon as Kathy let me know who my singers could be, things began to fall into place. The chance to persuade Roddy Williams to sing ‘Mache Dich’ from the St Matthew Passion to finish the show seemed almost too good to be true, and he kindly agreed to sing ‘Hat man nicht mit seinen Kinder’ from the Coffee Cantata as well. The glorious soprano Siobhan Stagg sang ‘Bist du bei mir’ - such a favourite of mine that we had it at our wedding. (You may have seen Roddy and Siobhan as Papageno and Pamina in The Magic Flute at the Royal Opera House last year....).

Mrs Bach with her Sebastian and Magdalena... Roddy Williams, me and Siobhan Stagg celebrating post-concert tonight! #afcm #afcm18 #australianfestivalofchambermusic #townsville #beingmrsbach

A post shared by Jessica Duchen (@jessica.duchen) on Aug 1, 2018 at 5:05am PDT

The Goldner Quartet are in residence - who better to tackle the legendary Unfinished Fugue of The Art of Fugue? The effect is devastating: this magnificent complexity unfurling in phase after phase suddenly peters out into silence with a few final notes on the viola. Daniel de Borah contributed not only two splendid solos - the chunky, good-natured E flat Prelude and Fugue from Book 2 of the 48 and the ubiquitous Minuet in G, beautifully embellished on its repeat - but also accompanied Siobhan and joined the Winterschool’s very accomplished student quartet and bassist Kees Boersma in the ensemble for ‘Mache Dich’. Guy Johnston played the first movement of the C major Cello Suite, just as Anna Magdalena remembers how she made fair copies, put in all the bowings and used to imagine that one day someone might find those pages in her handwriting and wonder if she wrote them herself... ;).

Funnily enough, the single most complicated part of the process was setting up the stage. We wanted everyone there all the way through for ease of running - we only had an hour - and it can be hard to tell in advance what will fit and what won’t. Solutions were found, lighting was planned, and everyone made valuable contributions to the placements and the flow.

And to judge from the audience reaction, I think it went pretty well.

It’ll be a wrench to say goodbye to Anna Magdalena and return her dress to the costume store, but I hope she may simply be awaiting a resurrection of her own, should any more concert halls or festivals fancy meeting her.

Onwards...and today I am giving the Winterschool a lecture about eight - or nine - wonderful composers across the ages who happen(ed) to be female.

My holiday job...

Hello, Townsville! from Jessica Duchen on Vimeo.

I'm off to the Australian Festival of Chamber Music in Townsville, Far North Queensland, in late July, where I'll be presenting my new narrated concert Being Mrs Bach, specially commissioned for the event by artistic director Kathryn Stott. My colleagues on stage will include Siobhan Stagg, Roderick Williams, Guy Johnston, the Goldner String Quartet and many more, and it's kind of thrilling. I'll also be giving a talk about women composers for the Winterschool and writing copious quantities of words about the experience of attending the festival.

The other day I spent a happy few hours in the National Theatre's costume hire warehouse, trying on 18th-century garb. I did find something in which I could actually breathe, which was a good start. I hope it'll work. No, it will not be anything like Lucy Worsley. Yes, I really hope we can do some version of it in the UK too.