John Eliot Gardiner finds a London home
NewsThe church of St Martin-in-the-Fields on Trafalgar Square, which achieved international renown through the late Neville Marriner’s much-recorded ensemble, now has a new resident.
It was announced this morning that St Martin is to be ‘the London Home’ of the Monteverdi Choir & Orchestras – the first time that any of John Eliot Gardiner’s three ensembles – the Monteverdi Choir, English Baroque Soloists and Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique – have a base in the capital. Gardiner himself will conduct three concerts in the coming season.
Once upon a time a good hearted vicar saw St Martins crumbling, in his worries he sat with God and he was sent the answers. Canon Geoffrey Brown asked the independent ensembles to create a concerts series and raise money for the Church. Over 30 years later through scary times and good times the ensembles faithfully raised money for St Martin-in-the-Fields. 30 years later the new vicar sat with satan as he seemingly often did & was sent interesting friends from beelzebubs own stockpile it seems. Then on September 15, 2021 the story reads – Faithful Ensembles Made Homeless as ‘John Eliot Gardiner Finds a London Home’. Have a feeling someone very important packed up and left St Martins years ago.
No doubt JEG studied the history of the church and found something overlooked by everyone else which made it imperative that he uses the space for his uniquely scintillating music making. May NM RIP!
Oh!Joy!!
Exciting news for a unique and oh-so-lovely venue. Hope I get a chance to catch another concert there on my next London visit.
Good to see Jiggy back in town!
While it’s wonderful that our national ensembles are finding homes in churches, and, heaven knows, there are plenty to choose from in London, it is nice that the other Bach proponents, in this case the new Figure, is also being housed in a church.
For those of us who prefer our Bach to be less aggressive in its concert treatment and more church-like and thoughtful, and generally closer to what the great man had in mind, it is nice to see a new ensemble providing an alternative.
Incidentally there seems to be an embargo by the BBC on anyone other than JEG being allowed to air Bach on their channels, and its sad that that the offerings of theother groups such as the Netherlands Bach Society, for instance, don’t get heard publicly in this country.
While JEG has done much to promote Bach’s music it was interesting to note that in a recent InTune when Figure provided an extract from the St John Passion, the programme could not end without a JEG chorus from the St.Matthew, almost as an unsusubtle reminder of who was in charge.