Tenor Robin Tritschler sings songs of Greece at Wigmore Hall, January 8 [Benjamin Ealovega]
THE abruptness with which businesses in early January stop harassing you with things to buy for Christmas and replace them with advertisements for summer holidays is psychologically unsettling.
But, that said, the idea of a sun-kissed beach isn’t unwelcome in the depths of winter. And the Wigmore Hall clearly agrees because it has a concert on Jan 8 in which the tenor Robin Tritschler sings an entire programme of songs inspired by the blue skies and sparkling seascapes of Greece – as set to music by Graecophile composers from Schubert through Ravel to Lennox Berkeley.
That most of them never actually touched foot inside the country only made their fantasies about it more exotic and intense, enhanced by the allure of ancient Greek mythology. So what you’ll get here is the audible equivalent of a glossily idealised travel brochure: full-board, five-star luxury and flights included. wigmore-hall.org.uk
• The Wigmore happens to be one of London’s busiest concert venues at this time of year, when most of the others are still crawling back to life after the festive break. It doesn’t hang around, hosting events all week. And among them is another reminder of summer, with a London platform on Jan 3 for the Peasmarsh Festival which happens down in East Sussex in far-off June.
This is effectively an urban taster for what Peasmarsh – an idyllic, rural chamber music fixture – offers. And it comes with a world premiere specially commissioned from the American composer Steven Mackey: a composer as interested in playing rock guitar as in writing concert scores, and who has accordingly written this new piece for string quartet and guitar – which he will play himself here at the Wigmore. wigmore-hall.org.uk
• There was time when the so-called “Three Bs” of music were Bach, Beethoven and Brahms; and to some extent they still are. But taking a different view on Jan 9 at the Barbican, Simon Rattle and the LSO give a programme of Brahms, Boulez and George Benjamin: the Brahms being his magisterial 4th Symphony and the Benjamin being an orchestral suite of music from his acclaimed (if disturbing) opera – seen not so long ago at the Royal Opera House – Lessons in Love and Violence. barbican.org.uk
• Should you be in need of hearing actual opera with the voices still there, the Royal Opera’s decent if austere Richard Jones staging of La Boheme continues to Jan 14, playing alongside the same company’s more upholstered (ie cosy) Hansel and Gretel which runs to Jan 9. rbo.org.uk
• Also running on into the new year are English National Ballet’s Nutcracker at the Coliseum (until Jan 12, ballet.org.uk); the deathless singing/dancing/flying Snowman at the Peacock Theatre, Holborn (to Jan 4, sadlerswells.com); and Matthew Bourne’s once radical now classic rethink of Swan Lake at Sadler’s Wells itself (to Jan 26, sadlerswells.com). So don’t imagine London’s classical scene has totally gone to sleep over the holidays: the big, seasonal juggernauts role on while others take a break – from which they’ll almost all be back next week.
