Royal Northern Sinfonia
The Third Symphony by Louise Farrenc, composed in 1847, is given a rare performance. The conductor Duncan Ward programmes it alongside works by two composers who championed Farrenc’s music; there’s Schumann’s Introduction, Scherzo and Finale, and Berlioz’s Reverie et Caprice, for violin and orchestra.
• 4 December, streamed live from The Sage, Gateshead (£), not available on demand
Spitalfields Music festival at Home
The annual winter festival is compressed into a single, virtual day. Highlights include a concert by the violin-and-viola Miller-Porfiris Duo and pianist Siwan Rhys with the premieres of eight commissions from female composers, and a programme from the Dunedin Consort devoted to choral works by early baroque composers, Schütz, Monteverdi, Grandi, Strozzi and Caccini.
• 5 December, one ticket gives access to all the day’s streamed events and then available on demand (£), until 19 December
Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields
Ryan Wigglesworth conducts the latest concert in the ASMF’s Reconnect series. There’s a movement from Sibelius’s incidental music to Belshazzar’s Feast, Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll and Mozart’s Symphony No 34, as well as Hans Abrahamsen’s exquisite reworking for 10 instruments of Nielsen’s Three Little Pieces for piano, Op 59.
• 5 December, St Martin-in-the-Fields, London WC2, ticketed live performances, and streamed online (£) from 10 December
Owen Wingrave
Grange Park Opera’s filmed version of Britten’s penultimate opera, based upon a short story by Henry James and originally written for television. Conducted by James Henshaw, Stephen Medcalf’s production was recorded in a variety of stately-home locations in September; the cast is headed by Ross Ramgobin as Owen, with Susan Bullock as Miss Wingrave, Richard Berkeley Steele as Sir Philip Wingrave, and William Dazeley and Janis Kelly as Mr and Mrs Coyle.
• 9 December, streamed free, on demand, until 31 December
Rosenblatt Recitals at Home
A series of eight themed programmes, involving 30 singers who were all recorded at home during lockdown between April and June with proceeds from the streams donated to Target Ovarian Cancer. In the series there are programmes devoted to bel canto, verismo, Verdi, songs in English and opera from Handel to Wagner; the singers include Angel Blue, Ailish Tynan, Tara Erraught, Joseph Calleja, Bryan Hymel and Matthew Rose.
• Available as video or audio streaming (£)
