Newsletter May 2012

M A RT I N R A N D A L L T R AV E L A RT • A R C H I T E C T U R E • G A S T R O N O M Y • A R C H A E O L O G Y • H I S T O R Y • M U S I C • L I T E R AT U R E

Newsletter May 2012

News, views & newly launched tours

Edinburgh Festival Edinburgh from Calton Hill, steel engraving c. 1870.

12–17 August 2012 (my 336) 5 nights • £1,820 (including 6 performances) Lecturer: Geoffrey Norris A selection of the best concerts and operas the Edinburgh International Festival has to offer.

Artists include Deborah Voigt, Angelika Kirchschlager, Sophie Bevan, Iestyn Davies and Nicola Benedetti.

Talks daily by a musicologist, and guided walks and visits with an art historian.

Excellently located hotel on Princes Street.

There are many for whom August would not be August without the Edinburgh Festival, where great cultural stars rub shoulders with talented aspirants in a fever of world-class performances and high art. This upright city hosts a feast for the senses where there is little time for repose, but instead encourages audiences and performers alike to indulge in a frenzy of activity.

With such abundance it is often difficult for the novice, or indeed the initiated, to

know where to start in choosing events, let alone to find a suitable place to rest a weary head. We have made some of those important choices for you, while allowing time for independent serendipitous exploration which is so much a part of the spirit of the festival. We have selected music, but you may choose to dip in to the book, theatre or film festival, or of course the Fringe.

Edinburgh is enjoying something of a

renaissance since the return of an elected devolved government after three hundred years of rule from Westminster. There are few cities with a more dramatic topography, with the great volcanic crags of Castle Rock and Arthur’s Seat marking the skyline, and the huge Castle dominating both the Old Town and the Georgian New Town. Princes Street runs down the ravine that divides them.

Edinburgh is replete with castles and

Contents

The Divine Office, by Peter Phillips..... 11–12 Federica Long..............................................13

Newly-launched

Edinburgh Festival........................................1 London Days.................................................3 Christmas 2012.....................................14–20 Mozart in Salzburg.....................................21 West Coast Architecture.............................22 Festivals 2013..............................................23 News & views

Why India? by Martin Randall................ 5–6 Lecturers’ News...........................................10

Tours & dates

Wagner Bicentenary tours.............................4 The British Raj...........................................7–9 Music in Europe....................................24–25 UK tours................................................26–28 The Baltic States....................................29–30 Danish Art & Design..................................31 Flemish Painting.........................................32 The Battle of Waterloo................................32 Tours by date, 2012–2013.....................33–36

New tours in 2012

‘If only the best will do, sign up with Martin Randall Travel.’

Edinburgh Festival continued

Daily Telegraph

Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians.

chapels, museums and galleries. The afternoons are free for independent visits, but in the mornings there are walks and visits (starting at c. 9.45am).

Hotel: the Caledonian Hilton hotel sits at one end of Princes Street and is just ten minute’s walk from Usher Hall. Public areas are comfortable and décor is traditional.

Bedrooms are more contemporary with a neutral décor and all mod cons. There is a restaurant and bar with a good selection of malts.

Itinerary Day 1. Tea is available from 3.00pm in the hotel. The tour begins with a talk at 4.15pm.

All the evening concerts in our programme take place in the Usher Hall, which is a few minutes on foot from the hotel. Concert with Deborah Voigt (soprano) and Brian Zeger (piano): songs by Amy Beach, Verdi, Richard Strauss, Respighi, Ben Moore and Bernstein.

Day 2. Led by Dr Shona Kallestrup, an art historian resident in Edinburgh, there is a morning exploration of the Old Town, a dense mass of narrow streets and alleys spreading either side of the Royal Mile which leads down from the Castle. Free time in the afternoon; the National Gallery is suggested, one of the most important collections of Old Masters in Britain.

There are also many exhibitions and Fringe performances to choose from. Concert with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Sir Roger Norrington, Angelika Kirchschlager, Sophie Bevan and Mary Bevan: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Mendelssohn) and Les nuits d’été (Berlioz).

Day 3. New Town walk with Shona Kallestrup. Begun in 1766, the New Town is a magnificent expanse of wide streets, squares, circuses, crescents and parks and terraces, and is one of the finest areas of Georgian architecture in Britain.

Recommended for the afternoon are the contiguous National Museum of Scotland, a 1990s building presenting the history of the country, and the Royal Museum of Scotland, which has eclectic collections in the 19th-cent. mould. Concert with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Vladimir Jurowski (conductor), Tatiana Monogarova, Sergei Skorokhodov and Vladimir Chernov: Bells in the Fog (Denisov), Silentium (Myaskovsky), Concerto for Orchestra No 2 ‘The Chimes’ (Rodion Shchedrin), The Bells (Rachmaninov).

Day 4. Visit the Palace of Holyroodhouse.

Still a royal residence, it dates largely to the reign of Charles II and has fine interiors and works of art. Adjacent is the Queen’s Gallery, which displays items from the royal collection. Evening opera: a Welsh National Opera concert performance of Tristan & Isolde (Wagner) with Lothar Koenigs (conductor), Ben Heppner (Tristan), Jennifer Wilson (Isolde), Susan Bickley (Brangäne), Phillip Joll (Kurwenal), Matthew Best (King Marke),

How strenuous? Most visits are on foot, including walking to the Usher Hall from the hotel (c. 10 mins). To participate in the walks you will need to be able to walk at about 3 mph for at least half an hour at a time. Some of the performances finish late, but there is plenty of free time.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Edinburgh

Simon Thorpe (Melot).

Day 5. There is an excursion in the morning to Dalmeny House, a few miles outside Edinburgh overlooking the Firth of Forth.

Property of the Earl of Rosebery, there are superb collections of fine and decorative art, in particular British paintings and 18th-cent. French furniture of the highest quality. Afternoon concert at Greyfriar’s Kirk with the brilliant new ensemble Arcangelo and Iestyn Davies (countertenor): music by Handel and Porpora. Dinner between the concerts. Evening concert at the Usher Hall with the London Symphony Orchestra, Valery Gergiev (conductor), Nicola Benedetti (violin): Symanowski, Symphony No.1 and Violin Concerto No.1; Brahms, Symphony No.1.

Day 6. Disperse after breakfast.

Practicalities Price: £1,820 (deposit £200). This includes: good tickets to 1 opera (concert performance) and 5 concerts. Accommodation as described below. Breakfasts, 4 dinners and 1 lunch with wine, water and coffee. Admissions to museums and sites. Tips for drivers and waiters. The services of the lecturer. Single supplement £340 (double room for single occupancy).

Lecturer: Geoffrey Norris. A leading specialist on piano-playing and a regular broadcaster on BBC Radio 3. He was for many years the Chief Music Critic of The Daily Telegraph. His publications include Rachmaninoff and contributions to the New

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at Christmas 22–27 December 2012 Details will be available towards the end of May. Contact us now to register your interest.

‘The tour was scholarly, seamlessly efficient, considerate of all guests and, above all, great fun.’

L.S., London

‘Wonderfully varied and intensive without any feeling of being rushed. Too many highlights to mention.’

R.A., Surrey

Illustration: The Canongate Tolbooth, late-19thcentury engraving.

London days 2012

London Days

Non-residential events to inform and inspire, May to October 2012

Indian Art in London

The Complete London Hogarth

Ragamala at Dulwich, the Nehru Gallery at the V&A, Zoffany at the Royal Academy

Saturday 19th May 2012 (ly 103) 9.30am to c. 5.00pm.

Lecturers: Dr Ainsley Cameron & Nathaniel Stein.

Maximum 16 participants £170 per person (reductions for Art Fund and RA members).

Almost full. Contact us for availability.

Park & Alley: across London on Foot Kensington to The Tower through parks, backstreets and alleys Friday 25th May 2012 (ly 104) 8.45am to c. 5.45pm.

Lecturer: Martin Randall.

Maximum 18 participants. £160 per person.

This walk is predicated on two beliefs. The first, platitudinous if rarely put to the test, is that the centre of London is not so large that people of ordinary fitness couldn’t walk everywhere. The second would perhaps be greeted in some quarters with some surprise, even scepticism: that one can traverse the capital from Kensington High Street to the Tower of London without walking along main roads for more than a couple of hundred yards.

This is London seen from parks, gardens, alleys, backstreets and pedestrian zones. As the crow flies, it is exactly five miles, but as avoiding traffic requires some tortuously circuitous deviations the distance covered is nearer eight miles. With three refreshment breaks and a lunch, this may be a tiring day but is scarcely strenuous.

The route – which is far from obvious, as may be understood – is laced with delights and surprises. Many famous buildings are

All the paintings

From The Foreign tour of Jones, Brown & Robinson

by Richard Doyle.

passed or glimpsed, but largely the interest lies in unexpected clusters of pre-twentiethcentury architecture, picturesque vistas and intriguing alleys, expanses of parkland and well-tended gardens, recent architectural behemoths and mediaeval street patterns, pedestrianised zones and little open spaces.

The lecturer provides intermittent and selective architectural and historical commentary. He is not a specialist but has a broad knowledge of English architecture, and he has been pacing these streets for forty years. The use of radio guides means that he does not have to shout and you should not have to strain to hear.

Some fairly special arrangements have been made to enter architectural masterpieces to which the public are not generally admitted. Champagne at the Savoy and lunch in the grandest Elizabethan hall in England are among the treats. But the main point of the day is to provide the deep satisfaction of accomplishing a unique and fascinating journey through the heart of the most vibrant, varied and fascinating city in Europe.

The walk begins at High Street Kensington Underground Station at 8.45am prompt and finishes at Tower Hill Station at about 5.45pm. As a guide to fitness, we suggest you should be able to walk at about 3 mph for at least an hour at a time. The terrain is fairly flat but there are steps (a flight of 57 on one occasion, 49 on another).

Stout shoes are of course advisable – but no trainers please: they are specifically forbidden at the lunch venue.

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Friday 13th July 2012 (ly 107) & Friday 26th Oct. 2012 (lz 110) 9.15am to c. 6.45pm.

Lecturer: Lars Tharp.

Maximum 20 participants. £190 per person.

William Hogarth (1697–1764) is, after JMW Turner, perhaps the British painter most admired in Europe, though ironically he satirised the craze for Continental styles of art and tirelessly proselytised on behalf of native talent. Best known as a satirist and social commentator, it is easy to lose sight of the reality that he is a first-rate artist of international standing, and played a crucial part in the establishment of the English school of painting.

Hogarth was a Londoner, and most of his best works remain in the city of his birth and death. This unusually intense but, hopefully, enthralling journey enables participants to see nearly all the paintings which remain in the city.

The day begins at St Bartholomew’s Hospital with Hogarth’s only essays in large-scale history painting, the dominant tradition from which he emerged. The Pool of Bethesda and The Good Samaritan with overlife-size figures remain in their original site.

The extraordinary Sir John Soane’s Museum possesses A Rake’s Progress (8 scenes) and Election (4 scenes), and the itinerary continues to the Coram Foundation to meet its founder, Captain Coram, one of the finest of all British portraits, and two other fine paintings.

The National Gallery has a third moralising series, Marriage à la Mode (6 scenes), and the enchanting Graham Children. Here we have lunch. Tate Britain possesses several genre, history and satirical scenes and several portraits. A re-hang in June means it is not known what will be on show but we will probably be able to see Calais Gate, Self-portrait with Pug and Hogarth’s Servants.

His mortal remains reside below an elaborate tomb in a churchyard beside the Thames at Chiswick; 26th October, the date of the second tour, is the anniversary of his death. The day finishes a few minutes

London days 2012

Tours in 2013, to be launched

Richard Wagner, 2013 bi-centenary away with an out-of-hours visit to Hogarth’s country retreat, recently refurbished and displaying a selection of his prints.

For the art lover this is either one of the most frustrating days in London ever devised – several world-class museums are entered and most of their contents ignored – or it ranks as one of the most pleasurable and illuminating. The speaker could not be bettered: Lars Tharp is well known as a lecturer, broadcaster and writer, is Hogarth Curator at the Foundling Museum, having been its director, and is Vice-Chair of the Hogarth Trust.

Coach transport, admission charges, lunch at the National Gallery restaurant, refreshments, and drinks at the Hogarth House are included. Details of how to join the tour at Barts Hospital in the City will be sent to participants. At the end of the day the coach takes you to Hammersmith Station (District Line, Piccadilly Line, Hammersmith and City Line, buses and taxis.

Making a booking

There is no booking form for London Days.

Just send us, or call us, with: • Your name(s) and contact details.

• Name, date and code of the event(s) you are booking.

• For the full-day events, details of any special dietary requirements.

• Payment. If by credit or debit card, give the card number, start date and expiry date (but for security not in an e-mail).

Confirmation will be sent to you upon receipt of payment and these other details.

Further details will follow.

Cancellation. We will return the full amount if you notify us more than 22 or more days before the event. We will retain 50% if cancellation is made within three weeks and 100% if within three days.

2013 sees the bi-centenary of Wagner’s birth. We will be running two (possibly three) tours taking in complete Ring Cycles in 2013.

The Ring in Berlin 3–11 April 2013 (mz 507) 9 days • £3,420 Lecturers: Barry Millington & Tom Abbott A 21st century production of the Ring Cycle and collaboration between the Berlin Staatsoper and Teatro alla Scala, Milan.

Conducted by Barenboim.

Richard Wagner, after a drawing by E. de Liphart 1889.

Contact us for the full details or visit www.martinrandall.com

The Ring in Seattle

The Ring at La Scala

2–11 August 2013 (mz 648) 9 nights • £4,920 Lecturer: Barry Millington

June 2012 Dates and prices to be confirmed.

Contact us now to register your interest.

Another strong cast in Seattle’s renowned Ring.

The stunning sets by Thomas Lynch, rooted in the natural world, evoke the landscape of the Pacific Northwest.

Led by Wagner expert, Barry Millington, who gives talks on the operas.

Contact us for the full details or visit www.martinrandall.com

Oman 11–21 January 2013 Price and lecturer to be confirmed Details will be available towards the end of May. Contact us now to register your interest.

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‘You supply a consistently high quality of travel experience, from the moment when a knowledgeable and friendly person (not a machine) picks up the phone to take a booking, until we say our goodbyes to your lecturer and our fellow tour members at a London airport. We are not surprised that MRT continues to prosper…’

S.H., Wiltshire.

India 2012–2013

Why India? package. Rarely is it understood that as well as different depths of pocket there are also different depths of interest, of education, of prior knowledge.

We cater for people who want to learn, and who bring to their travels a framework of knowledge, a mature aesthetic faculty and the ability to appraise critically the information that is put before them. In the context of the whole spectrum of tourists, they are a tiny minority. Even so there are many more of them than is recognised by tourism providers, with a result that many travellers receive a sadly and unnecessarily blunted experience of a country – especially of India.

Our clients would want much longer

at some places, and would not enjoy some of the standard sights at all. Few would want to start so early each morning to rush through the day’s visits, only to end with a clamourous ‘cultural’ show over dinner. The usual itineraries are just not appropriate. Tourism has a tendency towards standardisation; MRT exists because the standard, mainstream, one-size-fits-all product is not what everybody wants.

Against standardisation So this is the second reason for abandoning long-haul: we could not exercise the degree of control over the itinerary and all its details necessary for a tour to be truly an MRT Dehli, tomb at Qutb Minar, wood engraving from India & Its Native Princes by Louis Rousselet, 1876.

MRT launches an ambitious programme of tours to India for the 2012–13 season. Martin Randall tells of its origins.

Against long-haul Let’s begin with the reasons for not doing India. Indeed, for many years we have been faithful to a policy of not offering any long-haul tours. Why? Most cultural tour operators have a scattering of long-haul destinations so why can’t we?

We used to. Before the mid-1990s there were tours to Thailand, Indonesia, Mexico, Peru and India. Then we stopped, for two reasons. First, we came to realise that indulgence in these far-flung forays did not make sense economically. The costs of research, planning and prospecting for any new destination are considerable, and even higher for long-haul destinations. Only by running each tour several times would we have recouped the initial outlay, but we just didn’t have enough clients to enable us to do that.

We could have cut costs – and sometimes we did – by doing what most other tour organisers do, which is to put the arrangements in the hands of a local agent. They know the beaten track, the most popular sites, the best-value hotels. But there is a killer disadvantage: a tour arranged in this way would not differ significantly from any other tour in the same locality.

There is a deeply dispiriting attitude prevailing worldwide in the tourism business, which is that a tourist is a tourist is a tourist. Differentiation between one tour and another is almost entirely confined to the standard of hotels offered in the

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India 2012–2013 Why India? continued

first appointment was internal: Hannah Wrigley, who first joined MRT in 2002 and had run our Mediterranean cruises. She had first-rate project-managing credentials, excellent experience of high-end travel and was thoroughly imbued with the MRT ways of doing things. But she had never been to India (she has now).

The next appointment was someone with entirely complementary qualities: Hubert Giraud has never worked in tourism, but possesses exceptional knowledge of India.

An enthusiasm for the culture, history and art of Asia led to a degree in the subject as a mature student, and his many visits to India now add up to well over a year of his life.

Aiming to be different

Agra, the Taj Mahal, mid-19th-century engraving.

experience. Only by acquiring first-hand familiarity with a place, with its culture and history past and present, can we make the judgements which lead to a satisfying tour.

And only with familiarity with the presentday realities of the destination can we provide our clients with a first-class service and an excellent experience. Nor, we suggest, would we be adequately fulfilling our duty of care to our customers unless we knew the place well.

So what has changed? Why are we now preparing to send tours to a country which is far removed from our European and Mediterranean stamping grounds, in defiance of this cherished policy?

The allure of India One thing didn’t change: my fascination with India. I accepted the wisdom of calling a halt to long-haul tours, but I still hankered after India.

People are attracted to the country for many different reasons. In my case, though born several years after Independence, I cannot deny that the allure in part derived from a fascination with the vanished British Empire. There were remnants of the Raj in my childhood home, ranging from an illustrated edition of The Jungle Book to a set of repoussé Burmese silver bowls. A soldier grandfather (whom I never knew) had been posted to India for seven years in the 1920s

(and my mother, aged 13, hardly knew him when he returned to Wimbledon).

Later, my interest was fuelled by E.M. Forster (despite his Bloomsbury prejudices leading to unjust distortions) and Paul Scott.

Charles Allen’s remarkable radio series Plain Tales from the Raj made a powerful impression in 1975, and twenty years later I was captivated by David Gilmour’s biography of Lord Curzon. (Happily, these two authors are among our tour leaders in the first season.)

I came to the conclusion that there was a way into long-haul destinations other than intermittent dabbling: to embark on a major, long-term commitment. If we were to recruit people with that elusive familiarity and specialist knowledge of India, if we were to spend a couple of years researching, planning and prospecting, if we were to launch not just one or two but seven or eight in the first season and steadily increase the programme thereafter, maybe we could make it work.

It would be a considerable investment, but perhaps in due course we could become the leading specialist in cultural tours to India.

From dream to fruition We started work in 2005, drawing up a business plan and studying the competition, though for various reasons we postponed the project. We started again a couple of years ago, beginning by recruiting staff. The

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One feature common to nearly all tours to India run by other organisations was that, in our view – and in the view of many we spoke to who had travelled on them – they covered too much ground. They travelled too far too fast, with the result that the experience was clouded by exhaustion and memories were confused by overload. That observation led to an important distinguishing feature of our India tours.

Selecting the right local agents was a lengthy and tricky procedure, but perhaps even more important has been the months of discussion and instruction to get them to understand the special needs and wants of our clients. The search for lecturers was a key task, and was ultimately accomplished very successfully. Several trips have been undertaken by Hannah, Hubert and myself to select hotels, appraise the sites and examine all the details necessary to design an itinerary. The end result are eight different itineraries for the 2012/13 season.

So, why India?

If you are now expecting an outflow of effusive prose, purple passages of passionate praise, you will be disappointed (or, more likely, relieved). There is not even any general introduction to the country in the brochure: few readers will need to be told that the country is worth a visit, and it is exceedingly difficult to encapsulate the brilliance of India in a few sentences. All I will say, based on my two trips there, is that visiting India is a most extraordinary experience. Potent, powerful, shocking, wondrously beautiful and endlessly stimulating, incredibly varied.

There is nowhere else like it. You should try it.

India 2012–2013

The British Raj Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi: history & architecture 5–17 January 2013 (mz 451) 13 days • £6,220 Lecturers: David Gilmour & Professor Gavin Stamp Led by two eminent lecturers, a historian of the Raj and a specialist in Victorian and Edwardian architecture.

Visits the major centres of British power, still India’s leading cities – Bombay (Mumbai), Calcutta (Kolkata) and Delhi.

There is an extraordinary wealth of European-style architecture from the late eighteenth century to the middle of the twentieth.

and idealism concerning the benefits of their work were abundantly prevalent. It was not lost on some that their mission to inculcate the native population with Enlightenment values – order, justice, liberty, democracy and equality before the law – must lead inevitably to emancipation and independence. Most of those joining the Indian Civil Service in the twentieth century believed that their function was to prepare native Indians to take over.

Considering independence came nearly seventy years ago, it is perhaps surprising that so much physical evidence of the Raj survives. The centres of the major cities are astonishingly, bizarrely British. Bombay is perhaps the world’s greatest Gothic Revival Calcutta, Town Hall, a drawing by Desmond Doig c. 1960.

Little-visited treasures as well as the major ones feature, with private visits and special access a feature of the tour.

Colonisation is also a term to be used warily. Plantations were rare, settling very much the exception (and planters were often a thorn in the flesh of the administration).

Most Britons who went to India expected to end their days in Britain. India was a place to seek adventure and to pursue a career, rarely a place to which to emigrate. If the imperial venture had its roots in trade, its fulfilment manifested itself in bureaucracy.

At the height of the Raj, about a thousand Anglo-Indians administered a population of 300 million. The Indian Civil Service was perhaps the most efficient and least corrupt in history. There was no shortage of arrogance and prejudice; but devotion to duty, sense of service, religious tolerance

An archetypical case of the MRT policy of travelling less and seeing more, with four days in each of the cities and free time.

In a history of the world’s empires, British India would stand out as an extreme oddity.

Both the way in which India was acquired and the means by which she was governed and administrated were exceptional.

It is not much of an exaggeration to say that the Subcontinent became British almost by accident. There was never an official expansionist strategy, and indeed time and again governments in London urged restraint or proscribed further territorial enlargement. When on occasion enthusiasts conceived grand designs they were usually stymied by the doctrine of ‘masterly inactivity’.

Extraordinarily, for the first two-and-ahalf centuries of British presence, India was not ruled by the Crown but by a commercial firm. The Honourable East India Company was founded in 1599, one of several such European enterprises initiated at the time to trade with the East via the recently discovered sea routes. But unlike most of the others, the EIC was not regarded as an arm of government and did not receive state subsidy. Only in the aftermath of the Mutiny of 1857–8 did India come to be ruled from Westminster and Whitehall.

British India was initially a trading enterprise, with treaties willingly entered into by local rulers. Military means were used intermittently to defend the status quo or for piecemeal consolidation of interests.

Conquest is an inappropriate term to describe the process of acquisition. And it was not as a consequence of military defeat that the British withdrew in 1947.

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India 2012–2013 The British Raj continued

townscape, the classical architecture of Calcutta can be spoken of in the same breath as St Petersburg, New Delhi is the ‘new town’ of the twentieth century.

It is startling to see so many buildings which seem to have been transported bodily from Manchester, Glasgow, Bristol or London – except that many are very much bigger than their peers in Britain. Except, also, on closer inspection, adaptations to the climate are evident. Some are designed by major British architects – George Gilbert Scott and Edwin Lutyens among them – but most are by less familiar names, British-based competition-winning practices who found a moment of glory in the sun, architects who settled in India for years or decades, and, towards the end, native Indian talent.

Indo-Saracenic architecture, an Orientalist hybrid, is a fascinating phenomenon. A Battle of the Styles raged in Victorian India in parallel with the GothicClassical debates back home: to impose our native styles as would any conqueror, proclaiming the superiority of British civilisation, or legitimise our role as rulers by appropriating Indian styles? There will be much to debate on this tour.

Itinerary Days 1 & 2: London to Bombay (Mumbai).

Fly from London Heathrow at c. 10am, and after a 5 1 /₂-hour time change reach the hotel in Bombay in the early hours of the following morning. The rest of the night constitutes the first night in Bombay.

Day 2: Bombay. Nothing is planned before a pre-lunch talk. Our hotel, a domed Edwardian pile which is one of the most famous in India, faces the Gateway of India, an Orientalised triumphal arch marking the spot where King George V and Queen Mary landed in 1911. In the afternoon we walk around the Victorian heart of Bombay, seeing the major public buildings which make it the most complete Gothic Revival city outside England: the Secretariat, the High Court and, above all, the University.

Other buildings include Watson’s Hotel, a mid-Victorian structure of pre-fabricated cast-iron, and the Prince of Wales Museum, an Edwardian building in the IndoSaracenic style which houses, amongst much else, a collection of both European and Indian paintings. Second of four nights in Bombay.

Day 3: Bombay. The Gothic Victoria Terminus railway station was clearly inspired by St Pancras in London. The

Calcutta, engraving 1895.

Gothic Revival Afghan Memorial Church is also a melancholy reminder of the first of Britain’s several disastrous interventions in Afghanistan. St Thomas’s Cathedral, typical of so many Anglican churches in India: a Classical building adapted to the climate and filled with poignant monuments to British merchants, soldiers and administrators who never returned home. The Sassoon Library and the University Library, erected from designs sent out by Sir Gilbert Scott, two of the more remarkable Gothic Revival buildings. We finish with the eclectic home of the Royal Bombay Yacht Club, the oldest such institution in Asia. Evening free. Third night in Bombay.

Day 4: Bombay. In the morning we experience a rather older India with a visit by boat to the famous caves on Elephanta Island, with their rock-cut architectural forms and sculptures dating from the 5th to the 8th centuries. In the afternoon we visit by special arrangement the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum, the oldest in the city, founded as the Victorian and Albert Museum in 1855. Remainder of the afternoon free.

Fourth and final night in Bombay.

Day 5: Bombay, Calcutta (Kolkata). Visit Mani Bhavan, the house which was used as Gandhi’s political headquarters in Bombay from 1917 until 1934 and from which he launched his campaign of civil disobedience against British rule. Then drive to the airport and fly to Calcutta, where we stay at the Oberoi Grand, a late 19th-cent. building.

First of four nights in Calcutta.

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Day 6: Calcutta. Established in 1690, Calcutta flourished as an East India Company trading post and later as the capital of British India, especially after Clive’s victory over the Nawab of Murshidabad in 1757. Located in the vicinity of Dalhousie Square at the heart of the city are St John’s Church, with the tomb of Job Charnock the city’s founder, Town Hall, Writers’ Building, General Post Office and High Court (Gothic, unlike most of Calcutta). Government House, begun in 1799 by Governor-General Marquess Wellesley, was the grandest of the palaces.

The Rabindra Bharati Museum is an 18thcent. house which was the home of the poet and writer Rabindranath Tagore. Cross the Howrah Bridge, the huge cantilever steel structure over the Hooghly river opened in 1943, to see the Howrah Station, an Edwardian building which is still a vital testament to the importance of the railway in unifying British India. Overnight Calcutta.

Day 7: Calcutta. St Paul’s Cathedral, 1839– 47, is one of the few Gothic buildings in Calcutta, and contains many good memorials and a superb Burne-Jones window. The huge domed Edwardian Baroque Victoria Memorial, by far the grandest building in Calcutta, was founded by Lord Curzon as a museum of British India and contains a magnificent collection of paintings and sculpture. The Belvedere was the residence of the Lieutenant Governors of Bengal and now houses the National Library. Finally we see the home of Warren Hastings, the controversial early Governor-General, which

India 2012–2013

is a stuccoed Classical villa typical of its time, followed by the house in which the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray was born in 1811. Overnight Calcutta.

Day 8: Calcutta. South Park Street Cemetery is a beautiful as well as poignant burial ground in which so many of Calcutta’s early residents lie in or under remarkably magnificent and sophisticated monuments.

The La Martinière Schools, one for girls, one for boys, were established under the will of the French mercenary Major General Claude Martin. The Indian Museum was established in 1814 by the Asiatic Society; its present home opened in 1878 and was the work of Walter Granville, architect of the Post Office and the High Court. It contains India’s most important collection of sculpture. Remainder of afternoon free. Last night in Calcutta.

Day 9: Calcutta. The Maghen David Synagogue of 1884 and the Armenian Church of 1707 survive as reminders of the cosmopolitan nature of the city before Independence. The Marble Palace is one of the grandest of the many stuccoed merchants’ houses which gave rise to Calcutta being known as the ‘City of Palaces’; built in 1835 by Raja Rajendra Mullick, behind its colonnades is housed a remarkable collection of antiquities and art (by private arrangement). Fly to Delhi at c.

5.30pm. First of four nights in Delhi.

Day 10: Delhi. On this first day we shall explore the area north of Old Delhi. It was here that some of the fiercest fighting took place during the 1857 Mutiny; we see the Flagstaff Tower and the Mutiny Memorial.

Here also the move of the capital from Calcutta to Delhi was announced at the 1911 Coronation Durbar; visit the temporary Viceregal Lodge, now part of Delhi University, occupied by the Viceroys until the new palace designed by Lutyens for them was ready. Located inside the Kashmir Gate of Old Delhi, scene of desperate fighting in 1857, is St James’s or Skinner’s Church, with its unusual centralized plan built by a cavalry officer, Colonel James Skinner, in the 1830s.

Overnight in Delhi.

Day 11: Delhi. This day is devoted to the magnificent Islamic architecture of Delhi.

Delhi is a very ancient city but its principal architectural glories date from the 17th century when it was the capital of the Mughal emperors. Shah Jahan began the Red Fort and its palace in 1639 (the British nearly demolished them after 1857) with its open diwans (audience chambers) and the Moti Masjid (Pearl Mosque) of white marble. The huge Jami Masjid (Friday

Mosque) with its two noble minarets is one of the very finest Islamic buildings, and the 16th-cent. garden mausoleum of the Emperor Humayun is an outstanding example of earlier Islamic design. Some free time in the afternoon. Overnight Delhi.

Day 12: New Delhi. The day is devoted to New Delhi, established in 1911 and inaugurated twenty years later. The magnificent group of government buildings at the heart of the low-density plan include the Secretariat and Parliament, both by Sir Herbert Baker, and the Viceroy’s House (now residence of the President) in which Sir Edwin Lutyens integrated Mughal, Hindu and Buddhist elements into his monumental Classical concept. Also by Lutyens, Hyderabad House is one of the palaces built for native princes; another such palace, Jaipur House, close to the All India Arch at the end of the long vista from Viceroy’s House, is now the National Gallery of Modern Art. Among the buildings designed by Lutyens’s disciples are the Anglican cathedral by Henry Medd and the Garrison Church by Arthur Shoosmith, an astonishing building which is a 20th-cent. monument of rare distinction. Overnight Delhi.

Day 13: Delhi to London. Fly from Delhi at c. 1.30pm, and arrive in London at c.

5.30pm.

Practicalities Price: £6,220 (deposit £500). This includes: air travel (economy class) on flights with Jet Airways: London to Mumbai (Boeing 777–300), Delhi to London (Boeing 777–300); travel by private air-conditioned coach; accommodation in the hotels as described below, breakfasts, 9 lunches (including 2 packed lunches) and 6 dinners with wine or beer, water and coffee; all admissions to museums and sites; all tips for drivers, restaurant staff, and local guides; airport taxes; the service of two lecturers.

Single supplement £840. Price without international flights: £5,430.

Hotels. Mumbai (4 nights): an iconic landmark and a masterpiece of IndoSaracenic architecture, comfortable and centrally located. Calcutta (4 nights): a longestablished luxury hotel conveniently located in the city centre, impeccable service, pool in courtyard gardens. Delhi (4 nights): dating to early 1900s, it retains colonial charm and is ideally situated in the heart of Lutyens’s Delhi, attractive garden and swimming pool.

Co-lecturer: David Gilmour is an historian and Fellow of the Royal Society of

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Literature and a former Research Fellow of Oxford University. He has been a journalist specialising in current affairs in Beirut, and more recently a reviewer for numerous publications including the Financial Times, Spectator, Independent on Sunday and the New York Review of Books. His awardwinning biographies include Curzon: Imperial Statesman, and The Long Recessional: The Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling. Other work includes The Ruling Caste, a study of the district officers and political agents who administered the Subcontinent during the reign of Queen Victoria.

Co-lecturer: Professor Gavin Stamp is an honorary Fellow of both the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland and the Royal Institute of British Architects and honorary Professor of the University of Glasgow. He has been Chairman of the Twentieth Century Society and Director of the Victorian Society Summer School.

He taught the history of architecture at the Mackintosh School of Architecture, Glasgow. Currently an independent scholar, he has a particular interest in 19th- and 20th-cent. British architecture and has written about the work of Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson, the Gilbert Scott dynasty and Sir Edwin Lutyens, amongst others.

He has presented a number of television programmes on architecture and has led many tours.

How strenuous? A good level of fitness is essential. Unless you enjoy entirely unimpaired mobility, cope with everyday walking and stair-climbing without difficulty and are reliably sure-footed, these tours are not for you. A rough indication of the minimum level of fitness required is that you ought to be able to walk briskly at about three miles per hour for at least half an hour, and undertake a walk at a more leisurely pace for an hour or two unaided. Uneven ground and irregular paving are standard, especially in the cities visited on this tour. Average distance by coach per day: 14 miles.

Age limit: We very much regret that bookings will not be accepted from those who would be 81 or over at the time of the tour.

Small group: the tour will operate with between 10 and 22 participants.

Contact us to request our India 2012–2013 brochure, or visit www.martinrandall.com for full details of our India programme.

News & views

Lecturers’ news This is just a sample selection and many other lecturers are also publishing and have news that simply could not fit in here.

Charles Allen has published his new book Ashoka: The Search for India’s Lost Emperor (Little, Brown 2012). He is leading Ashoka & Buddhist India, 1–14 March 2013, £4,920.

Dr Harry Charrington has a new book: Alvar Aalto: The Mark of the Hand, (with Vezio Nava) Rakennustieto Publishing 2011.

Harry’s tours are:

Norway, art, architecture & landscape, 11–19 June 2012 (currently full).

Frank Lloyd Wright, 1–12 September 2012 (currently full).

Le Corbusier, 20–28 April 2013.

Alvar Aalto, 29 June–6 July 2013.

West Coast Architecture, 7–19 September 2013, £4,740.

Major Gordon Corrigan’s latest book is The Second World War – A Military History (Atlantic Books 2010) with a further work due in 2013: A Great and Glorious Cause – A Military History of the Hundred Years War. He is leading The Battle of Waterloo, 2–6 July 2012, £1,750, and, together with his wife Major Imogen Corrigan, The Narrow Sea, 26 June–7 July 2013.

Caroline Holmes’s new book Impressionists in their Gardens is soon to be published by Antique Collectors’ Club (May 2012).

Caroline is undertaking a lecture tour for the New Zealand (NZDFAS) and Australian (ADFAS) branches of the National Association of Decorative and Fine Art Societies this summer and is meeting and speaking to MRT clients in Brisbane on 4 July at an event organised

by Kelly Ward of Martin Randall Marketing.

Her tours: Brittany, 29 May–6 June 2012, £2,780, and 4–11 June 2013.

Châteaux of the Loire, 26–29 May 2013.

Grampian Gardens, 18–24 August 2013.

Barry Millington’s book The Sorcerer of Bayreuth is to be published by Thames & Hudson (UK) and Oxford University Press (USA) in October 2012. He is also co-directing Wagner 200, a major celebration of Wagner’s bicentenary in 2013.

The Ring in Budapest, 11–18 June 2012, 2 places remaining.

The Ring in Berlin, 3–11 April 2013, £3,420.

The Ring in Seattle, 2–11 August 2013, £4,920.

Charles Nicholl has a new book: Traces Remain (Allen Lane 2011).

He is leading Shakespeare & his world, 12–17 June 2012, £1,920 and also Leonardo da Vinci, 17–21 October 2012, £1,840.

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Dr Tom Nickson will be taking up a new lecturership in Mediaeval Art and Architecture at the Courtauld Institute from September 2012.

József Sisa is the newly appointed acting director of the Institute of Art History, Research Centre for the Humanities and Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest.

Neil Taylor has been awarded ‘The President’s Medal’ by the Estonian government for services to tourism since the restoration of independence in 1991. The award was made by Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves at the Estonian Embassy in London in February 2012.

Neil is leading The Baltic States, 9–21 July 2012 and 20 August–1 September 2012, £3,220; 10–22 June 2013.

‘I am constantly impressed by the consistently high standard of tours, itineraries, lecturers, hotels etc. To such an extent, that I have rarely been tempted to stray.’

C.F., Dorset

News & views

The Divine Office: a Festival for Oxford

by Peter Phillips

have the best-known choirs in the university.

This is perhaps to put Merton on a pedestal it doesn’t yet deserve, but although we do not have boy choristers - and are of very recent foundation – I believe in the undergraduate mixed-choirs format, and indeed have lived off a professional version of it in the make-up of the Tallis Scholars all my career. But as we know from the work of the chapel choirs of Trinity, Caius and Clare in Cambridge, to mention only three, the results of such undergraduate choirs can be exceptional, and I see no reason why mixed Oxford college choirs should not build up the same

reputation. It is time they did. In fact the leading light in Oxford in this respect for some time past has been the choir of Queen’s, who unfortunately were not able to take part in our festival this time.

On account of the numbers who may attend them, the Hours will require two polyphonic choirs and two plainsong choirs operating in tandem. The Tallis Scholars decided to sing all eight of the Hours (with a Mass joined to Terce)– effectively nine performances of varying length in a period of 22 hours, with only short gaps in between. For most of these Christ Church, from a pen drawing c. 1900.

Martin Randall and I argue about the moment when the seed for this Festival was first sown, but it definitely took place in Naples airport on the morning after a Tallis Scholars concert in the Chiesa di Pio Monte della Misericordia attended by one of Martin’s touring groups. One of us went up to the other and said ‘I have always wanted to experience the complete monastic Hours, in their correct sequence, during a single night’; and the other said: ‘So have I’.

Martin is well known for thinking big. The best venue for this project was identified without much trouble: Oxford or Cambridge. Since I am a Director of Music at Merton College Oxford, and since I am waging a campaign to promote the Oxford choral foundations in the public eye as against the Cambridge ones, I didn’t flinch.

Very soon after the ‘So have I’ moment, Cambridge was relegated to the status of a threat every time we met a setback with our plans in Oxford. For a while I heard a certain amount about the number of friends Martin has in Cambridge, but recently these references have mercifully ceased. It is true we had to wait until the beginning of the current academic year to hear from all the foundations we hoped to involve in our plans; but now we have, and the list is not just impressive, it is ideal.

We felt strongly that the night-time sequence of Hours should be experienced in buildings of medieval, and preferably monastic foundation, and so we turned immediately to Merton, New College, Magdalen and Christ Church. These were the obvious choices, not just because they alone have the medieval chapels big enough to hold the projected numbers of attendees, but also because they

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News & views

‘Politics & Politicians’ November 2011

The Divine Office: a Festival for Oxford continued

by Simon Hoggart So what is so attractive about staying up all night and listening to literally hours of plainsong, interspersed with occasional performances of polyphony? Of course few of us know the answer yet, but to me the idea has long been compelling. It is unfortunate in a way that we will live through this night gearing ourselves up to survive it just this once, where the monks of the past did it every 24 hours and so came to its rigours as to something if not desirable, then at least normal. No doubt we have all at times enjoyed the particular atmosphere of a weekday choral evensong in one of our great chapels, and come away refreshed. The hope is that that atmosphere will be sustained and intensified throughout the Hours, by virtue of taking the listener through a cycle which was designed to encompass everything which was of importance to the medieval mind and spirit. Here is the chance to find out whether these things are still of importance to us.

Reprinted with thanks from The Oxford Theologian, magazine of Oxford University’s Theology Faculty, 3 (2012), p. 15.

Peter Phillips is founder of the Tallis Scholars and Director of Music at Merton College. services we will have the specialist chant choir Sospiri with us. At the same time, and in another place, a changing combination of Stile Antico, the men of Westminster Cathedral and the men of Magdalen will sing the same services. The sequence will be: Matins at 1.00am, Lauds at 4.00am, Prime at 6.30am, Terce and Mass at 9.15am, Sext at noon, None at 3.30pm, Vespers at 6.45pm and Compline at 9.15pm - all on Thursday 27th September; and the venues will variously be Christ Church Cathedral and the college chapels of New College, Magdalen, Merton and Keble.

Once the idea for the monastic Hours was in place, we were able to create a fuller festival around it. Before the big night therefore, beginning on Monday the 24th, there will be a series both of lectures and of concerts.

The lectures will be given by Sir Diarmaid MacCulloch, Simon Jones, myself and Christopher Page. The concerts will be given by the choirs of Christ Church, Magdalen, Merton, the Gabrieli Consort, Stile Antico, The Tallis Scholars and the viol consort Phantasm, all culminating, on the afternoon of the 27th September in the Sheldonian Theatre, with a performance of an orchestral mass given by the choir of New College accompanied by the orchestra Charivari Agréable.

The Divine Office: Choral Music at Oxford (24–28 September 2012). Contact us for the full details or visit www.martinrandall.com.

Last weekend we were in Taunton at a discussion weekend on politics and politicians. This is a new venture by Martin Randall, who mostly organises upmarket trips to centres of art and music. He’s had previous weekends about historians and biographers.

About four dozen people had paid to come, and a bright, informed and jolly lot they were. The politicians were Douglas Hurd, Martin Bell, John Gummer, Chris Mullin, Clare Short, Michael Meacher and Patrick Mercer, and between us we performed for several hours.

You may have noticed that all the pols’ careers had - how can I put this? crested.

None of them has much, if any, ambition left for office, and Patrick Mercer, the ex-army Tory MP whose boats were burned when a recording turned up of him ranting against David Cameron, can expect no preferment this side of Armageddon. Anyhow, it was fascinating to see how much agreement there was, now none of them has to stick to some party political line.

It was off the record, but I did get Mercer’s permission to tell this. He was with a home affairs committee trip to India when Gordon Brown was in office but scarcely in power.

They were in a minibus returning from the Taj Mahal. It was around 2am in India, but mid-evening in Britain. Mercer was the only Tory MP there.

Someone’s phone rang and the conversation went roughly like this: ‘That’s very good of you, prime minister, but it’s not really for me.

Sadly have to turn you down.’ Moments later another phone rang: ‘Hello, Gordon – sorry, prime minister – no, I wouldn’t be much use as a junior whip...’ And a third, with the same result. Brown clearly had no idea where he was phoning.

‘After that,’ said Mercer, ‘I did a thing with my own phone and got it to ring. I said, ‘prime minister, I am honoured and delighted to accept!’ There was a pause while they all digested this, then a great shout of laughter. Which went completely mad when the driver’s phone rang...’

Reprinted, with thanks, from The Guardian, Saturday 3 December 2011.

Top left: Magdalen College Chapel from Magdalen College Oxford, 1907. Above: Tom Tower from St Aldate’s Street, from Cathedrals, The Great Western Railway, 1926.

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Another weekend of Politics & Politicians is planned for 2013. Details available in the autumn. Contact us now to register your interest.

Federica Long, 1972–2011 Here in Chiswick we remember her laugh. In our fairly sedate environment, we would frequently be roused from our work by the blast of Fede’s laughter. It was brilliant.

And for such a little person she could produce such an incredible noise.

Fede worked for us for ten years.

She started in September 2001 as an Operations Assistant in our Italian department, her first major task being our Rome Festival which took place five months later. From the moment she came for her interview we knew she’d be a great member of MRT. Her determination and sparkiness were immediately apparent; her humour and happy disregard for form were soon to be so.

Fede died at home in the Piedmont mountains on 26th June 2011 aged 39. Guy was with her, having moved to Italy months before. They were engaged to be married, and although this was not to be, their happiness and togetherness in the time they had was powerfully evident to all.

Fiona Urquhart Operations Director

Her studies in English and German Literature at the University of Turin led to a year abroad at Potsdam University. Once she graduated she packed her bags for the UK, and about a year later began full-time at Martin Randall Travel.

For those of you who travelled with Fede as your tour manager – and she accompanied 15 tours, 12 music festivals and 5 Mediterranean cruises in this role – her efficiency, willingness and tact might be how you’d remember her – or perhaps her dancing about in a high-vis tabard coaxing coach drivers into action.

‘In May and June I will be walking the Via Francigena, the medieval pilgrimage route from Canterbury to Rome. Actually, I’ll just be walking the best bit, the Italian leg starting in Monginevro, a distance of around 570 miles.

I’m doing this to raise money for Sarcoma UK and in memory of Federica Long – my fiancée, a much loved daughter and sister, and a great friend to so many.

Fede developed a phyllodes tumour in 2009, a rare type of breast sarcoma, and died last June. The money will go towards Sarcoma research and helping those and their families who are affected by them.

Fede was proud to be Italian and, amongst countless wonderful characteristics, loved walking, nature, being dragged round old churches (less so that one), eating well, and being outdoors, so I think she would have approved of this journey through Piedmont, Lombardy, Emilia Romagna, Liguria, Tuscany and Lazio. Staying mostly in monasteries and other pilgrim hostelries, I hope to arrive in Rome after about 45 days of walking; I know she would have liked to have done it too.’

If you would like to donate, visit www.justgiving.com/ walkingtorome

The Val Lucerne in Piedmont.

Fede grew up in the Piedmont mountains and forever loved the outdoors; camping, trekking, and occasionally rock-climbing, were up there with modern art, languages, literature, and, of course, travel.

While on holiday with myself and Tara Latimer (our Operations Manager at the time), Fede opted for climbing the hills behind Positano rather than lazing on the beach. Needless to say, Fede had the encounter with the interesting family and was invited in for lunch.

It was no surprise to us. Fede, quietly and gently, had an ability to inspire the trust and strong sense of loyalty that underpinned her many good friendships.

Fede returned to Italy in 2003, but continued to work for us a tour manager, and then as an Operations Executive. We were all delighted when our Marketing Manager, Guy Hinton, and Fede became an item a few years later, not least as it promised the return of Fede to London. In the end, this could not happen. Fede was diagnosed with breast cancer in November 2009, and from then on gave battle. To say she was brave is simply not enough. We were all in awe of her – and of Guy.

Guy took a sabbatical before Fede’s death, and has since left MRT. He is about to embark on a fundraising mission in memory of Fede. Here follows an extract from his ‘JustGiving’ website.

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Christmas tours 2012

Music in Dresden & Prague At Christmas Day 2: Dresden. Introductory walk of the Altstadt to include the Catholic Court Church, a splendid Italianate building.

Visit of the great domed Frauenkirche, the Protestant Cathedral whose painstaking reconstruction was completed in 2005. At the Semperoper: Un Ballo in Maschera (Verdi), Carlo Montanaro (conductor), Giorgio Berrugi (Riccardo), Marco Di Felice (Renato), Marjorie Owens (Amelia), Tichina Vaughn (Ulrica), Carolina Ullrich (Oscar), Ilhun Jung (Silvano), Tilmann Rönnebeck (Tom).

Day 3: Dresden. Walk to the Zwinger, a unique Baroque combination of pleasure palace, arena for festivities and showcase for cherished collections, and a visit to the Old Masters Gallery, one of Europe’s finest collections, particularly strong on the Italian and Netherlandish painting. Some free time in the afternoon or join an optional guided tour of the excellent Porcelain Collection, also housed in the Zwinger. Opera at the Semperoper: Hänsel und Gretel (Humperdinck), Mihkel Kütson (conductor), Barbara Senator (Hänsel), Romy Petrick (Gretel), Sabine Brohm (Gertrud), Milana Butaeva (Witch), Elizabeth Zharoff (Sandman/Dew Fairy).

Prague, etching by J. Vandrous, 1924.

20–27 December 2012 (mz 443) 8 days • £2,880 (includes 4 performances) Lecturers: Professor Jan Smaczny & Tom Abbott (in Dresden only) In Dresden: Un Ballo in Maschera (Verdi) and Hänsel und Gretel (Humperdinck) at the Semperoper.

In Prague: Rusalka (Dvořák) and Swan Lake (Tchaikovsky) at the State Opera House.

Talks by a musicologist.

Programme of walks and visits with an art historian (in Dresden) and Czech guides (in Prague).

Two historic 5-star hotels in both Old Towns.

Dresden, capital of Saxony, was Prague’s nearest metropolitan neighbour (Vienna is twice the distance), and so the corridor of cultural exchange between the two cities was crucial to the history of both.

From early in the seventeenth century, Dresden has been one of the most important operatic centres north of the Alps.

Performing in the magnificent 19th-century theatre designed by Gottfried Semper, the modern company has built upon the

long-standing tradition of high standards of musicianship and visually exciting (if not avant-garde) productions to ensure a consistently high standard of performance.

Prague has three opera houses in regular use, two of which are visited on this tour, although we only attend performances at the State Opera. The oldest, and one of Europe’s most regularly functioning eighteenthcentury theatres – Don Giovanni had its première here – is the Estates Theatre.

Mozart operas still continue to be performed there from time to time. The other two were added in the second half of the nineteenth century, serving the Czech and German communities respectively.

What is now called (misleadingly) the State Opera, with a wonderful interior of Bavarian Rococo inspiration, compensates for its lack of funding with enterprise and energy to achieve fine artistic results.

This tour is led by a musicologist whose main contribution will be to give talks on the performances. The programme of walks and excursions will be led by an art historian in Dresden and local guides in Prague.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 10.00am from London Heathrow to Berlin and travel by coach to Dresden. First of three nights in Dresden.

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Day 4: Dresden, Prague. Morning visit of the Residenzschloss to see the wonderful contents of the Green Vault, one of the world’s finest princely treasuries, once again displayed in their original venue. Drive beside the Elbe through forested hills and cross into the Czech Republic. First of four nights in Prague.

Day 5: Prague. Walk through the Old Town, a dense maze of streets and squares with buildings of all ages and an exceptionally lovely main square. A guided tour of the Estates Theatre, where Don Giovanni had its première in 1786, and a visit to the Obecni dům (‘Municipal House’) to see the glorious suite of assembly rooms created 1904–12. Optional midnight Mass at St Vitus Cathedral.

Day 6: Prague­, Christmas Day. An optional early drive to Prague Castle to attend Mass in the Cathedral, or follow by coach. Visit the mediaeval Royal Palace with amazing late-Gothic vaulting and the Cathedral of St Vitus, a pioneering monument of High Gothic, richly embellished with chapels, tombs, altarpieces and stained glass.

Optional walk through the Lesser Town which remains the most picturesque and unspoilt part of Prague. Ballet at the State Opera House: Swan Lake (Tchaikovsky).

Day 7: Prague. Th ­ e Klementinum is a vast Jesuit complex with library halls and chapels.

Christmas tours 2012

Modern Art on the Côte d’Azur See also in the Old Town the church of St James, a Gothic carcass encrusted with Baroque finery after a fire in 1689.

Walk across 14th-century Charles Bridge, the greatest such structure in Europe, wonderfully adorned with sculptures. Visit the infrequently opened Wallenstein Palace, a rare example of a 1630s residence (now the Senate), and St Nicholas, one of the greatest of Baroque churches in Central Europe. Free afternoon. Opera at the State Opera House: Rusalka (Dvořák).

Day 8. Fly from Prague to Heathrow arriving at c.12.15pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,880 (deposit £300). This includes: first category tickets for 3 operas and 1 ballet; air travel (economy class) on British Airways flights (aircraft: Airbus A319 & A320 jet); travel by private coach; hotel accommodation as below; breakfasts, 2 lunches and 5 dinners, with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturers and the Czech escort. Single supplement £260 (double for single use). Price without flights £2,650.

Lecturers: Tom Abbott. Specialist in architectural history from the Baroque to the 20th century with a wide knowledge of the performing arts.

Lecturer: Jan Smaczny. Hamilton Harty Chair of Music at Queen’s University, Belfast. An author, broadcaster and journalist, he has published books on the Prague Provisional Theatre and Dvořák’s Cello Concerto.

Hotels: in Dresden (3 nights): 5-star hotel in a reconstructed Baroque building, 15 minutes walk from the Semperoper. In Prague (4 nights): 5-star hotel built in 1904 that retains an Art Nouveau theme throughout. Excellently located opposite the Obecni dum, a short walk from the Old Town Square.

Music tickets: tickets for the Semperoper are confirmed. Tickets for the State Opera will be confirmed in the summer.

How strenuous? A lot of walking, some of it over steep and roughly paved streets. One dinner is after the opera. Average distance by coach per day: 18 miles.

Weather: cold, often below freezing at least at the beginning of the day, though buildings are well heated. Snow is possible, but blue skies for much of the time are likely.

Small group: 12–20 participants.

Nice, etching c. 1925

by F. Farrell.

21–28 December 2012 (mz 446) 8 days • £2,820 Lecturer: Monica Bohm Duchen Europe’s greatest concentration of classic modern art, in a setting of idyllic scenery and pretty towns.

Bonnard, Braque, Léger, Miró, Giacometti, Cocteau, Chagall, Matisse, Picasso, Renoir.

Stay in Nice throughout, in a comfortable 4-star hotel on the Promenade des Anglais; all rooms have a sea view.

Natural resources and climate have drawn invaders and visitors to Nice and its surroundings from the Greek colonists of classical times to the jet-set of today.

But from the late nineteenth century a special category of visitor – and settler – has transformed the Côte d’Azur into the greatest concentration of modern art in Europe.

Monet first visited Antibes in 1883; Signac bought a house in the fishing village of St-Tropez in 1892. Matisse’s first visit to the Midi in 1904 transformed his art, and from 1918 he spent more time on the Côte d’Azur than in Paris.

Matisse, Chagall and Picasso are merely among the most illustrious of the artists who chose to live in the South of France. Many of their fellow modernisers followed suit: Braque, Bonnard, Dufy, Picabia.

This tour is an extraordinary opportunity to see how modernity relates to the past as well as the present, and how gallery displays can be centred on the art, the location or the patron/collector. In Matisse’s Chapelle du Rosaire at Vence, traditional arts and crafts

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have been revived by a modern genius, as in the monumental mosaic and glass designs of Léger which can be seen at Biot.

There are also echoes of collecting habits of earlier eras in the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild. The mixture of past and present and the juxtaposition of the Goût Rothschild with the beauty of its location are breathtaking. (Graham Sutherland drew exotic flowers and plants in the extraordinary gardens.)

At Antibes the Picasso Museum is housed in the Château Grimaldi, lent to Picasso as studio space in 1946 where he produced life-affirming paintings.

Old and new galleries abound, such as the Fondation Maeght, St-Paul-de-Vence, whose building (designed by José Luis Sert, 1963) makes it a work of outstanding sympathy to its natural surroundings, in gardens enlivened by Miró’s Labyrinthe and other sculptures.

Itinerary Day 1: Nice. Fly at c. 11.45am from London Heathrow to Nice. There is an afternoon visit to the Musée des Beaux Arts Jules Cheret, concentrating on their 19th- and early 20thcentury holdings (Monet, Renoir, Dufy, etc.). All seven nights are spent in Nice.

Day 2: Nice, Vence. The Marc Chagall Museum has the largest collection of the artist’s works, notably the seventeen canvases of the Biblical Message, set in a peaceful garden in a salubrious Nice suburb. Vence, an artists’ colony, has the Chapel of the Rosary, designed and decorated by Matisse.

Day 3: Antibes, Vallauris. Most of the

Christmas tours 2012

Christmas & New Year – to be launched...

Modern Art on the Côte d’Azur Continued

paintings Picasso produced in his studio in the Château Grimaldi in 1946 have been donated to the town of Antibes. Vallauris is a centre of contemporary pottery revived by Picasso, whose masterpiece War and Peace is here.

Day 4: St-Tropez, Biot. Drive west to StTropez, which has been popular with artists since Paul Signac settled here in 1892. The Musée de l’Annonciade is one of France’s finest collections of modern art (Signac, Maillol, Matisse, Bonnard, Vlaminck, Braque). Continue to Biot and visit the renovated Musée National Fernand Léger, built to house the artist’s works bequeathed to his wife.

Day 5: Cap Ferrat, St-Paul-de-Vence.

Drive east to St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat to see the paintings, sculpture and furniture of the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild, a mansion set in attractive gardens. The Maeght Foundation at St-Paul-de-Vence is renowned for its collections (Picasso, Hepworth, Miró, Arp, Giacometti, but not all works are shown at once) and for its architecture and setting.

Day 6: Nice. The Musée Matisse unites a wide range of the artist’s work; sculpture, ceramics, stained glass as well as painting.

The afternoon is free in Nice; suggestions include the Musée d’Art Moderne et d’Art Contemporain with its excellent collection of post-war art.

Day 7: Villefranche, Menton. In Villefranche is the small Chapelle St-Pierre, decorated by Cocteau. Along the coast to Menton, the last French town before Italy, is a new Cocteau museum (opened in 2011) and the Salle des Mariages, also painted by Cocteau.

Le Cannet in 2011. Fly from Nice arriving at London Heathrow c. 4.30pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,820 (deposit £300). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled flights with British Airways (Airbus 319); private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts and 5 dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions; all tips for waiters and drivers; all taxes; the services of the lecturer; hire of radio guides for better audibility of the lecturer. Single supplement £340 (all with a sea view). Price without flights £2,630.

Lecturer: Monica Bohm-Duchen.

Lecturer, writer and curator specialising in 20th-century art. She studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem before graduating in English Literature and History of Art from UCL, and with an MA in Art History from the Courtauld. She has lectured for the National Gallery, Tate, Royal Academy, Courtauld, Sotheby’s and Birkbeck College.

Hotel: stylish four-star hotel partially built into the cliff and overlooking the Promenade des Anglais. Rooms are furnished in modern Provençal style and most have a balcony.

All have a sea view. Dinners are at good restaurants.

How strenuous? There is a fair amount of walking and standing around in museums.

Average distance by coach per day: 44 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Weather: winter weather in Nice is usually mild, but low temperatures and rain cannot be ruled out.

Day 8: Le Cannet. The first museum dedicated to the works of Bonnard opened in

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Music in Berlin at New Year 28 December 2012 –2 January 2013 Lecturer: Tom Abbott Opera performances at the Deutsche Oper & Staatsoper im Schillertheater.

Concerts at the Staatsoper and Philharmonie.

Full details will be available towards the end of May. Contact us now to register your interest.

Edinburgh at Christmas 22–27 December 2012 Lecturer: to be confirmed Full details will be available towards the end of May. Contact us now to register your interest.

Illustrations: above left: Cannes, engraving 1882; above: the Staatsoper, detail from an 18th-century engraving.

Christmas tours 2012

Turin at Christmas Palaces, porticos & piazze 21–27 December 2012 (mz 441) 7 days • £1,980 Lecturer: Dr Luca Leoncini

the beginning of XIV century with flamboyant Gothic interior.

Day 5: Turin, Superga. Free morning. After Christmas lunch drive up to the Basilica di Superga, the burial site of the Italian Royal family, a votive church designed by Juvarra magnificently sited on a hill overlooking the city and mountains.

Great art and architecture, particularly rich in palaces.

A grand city unaccountably neglected by tourists, despite being a major cultural centre.

Day 6: Turin. Morning visit to the Galleria Sabauda, an excellent picture collection housed inside Guarini’s Palazzo Dell’Accademia. Some free time and the opportunity to visit the Egyptian Museum, one of the best in Europe. In the afternoon visit the Pinacoteca Giovanni and Marella Agnelli at Lingotto which has a small but excellent collection in a building designed by Renzo Piano.

Includes an excursion to the village of Saluzzo, an unknown jewel at the foot of the Alps.

Spreading across a plain at the foot of the Alps and along the upper reaches of the River Po, the gracious, spacious capital of Piedmont takes visitors by surprise with the beauty of its location and its streetscape.

Turin was developed on a grand scale in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as the capital of Savoy, an independent state from the Middle Ages and a kingdom from 1720. Later exchanges of territory led to the title of Kingdom of Sardinia. In the nineteenth century Piedmont became administratively and industrially the most advanced state in Italy, and the springboard for the risorgimento. Turin was the first capital of the newly united and independent Italy, 1861–65.

The historic centre is laid out on a regular plan with broad avenues and piazze of remarkable architectural homogeneity. Guarino Guarini (1624–83) and Filippo Juvarra (1678– 1736), among the best architects of their time, both worked here for much of their lives.

Though once a major industrial centre (a reputation which has unjustly deterred cultural tourists), this is not evident in the centre.

Within Italy Turin now has a reputation for a high quality of life, and is repositioning itself as one of the major cultural centres in the north of the country.

The 2006 Winter Olympics were the catalyst for an extensive programme of civic regeneration and restoration. The proximity to the mountains not only brings visual benefits but helps to make the city one of the most agreeable in Italy in which to live.

Illustration: Turin, after Inglis Sheldon Williams, 1928.

Day 7: The flight from Turin arrives at c. 7.00pm at London Gatwick.

Practicalities

Itinerary Day 1: Fly at c. 2.45pm from London Gatwick to Turin.

Day 2: Turin. Morning walk through beautiful Piazza S. Carlo, with arcades and 18th-century churches. Visit the little church of S. Lorenzo, a Guarini masterpiece, and the cathedral, with Guarini’s Chapel of the Holy Shroud, and the sumptuous Consolata church. In the afternoon visit the Palazzo Madama in the centre of Piazza Castello, rebuilt and enlarged many times, and now housing the City Art Museum. Walk past the metal dome and spire of the 19thcentury Mole Antonelliana and the Palazzo Carignano by Guarini.

Day 3: Turin, Venaria, Stupinigi. The Royal Palace in Turin was built in 1660 and has wonderful interiors from the 17th–19th centuries. Outside the city is the magnificent Royal Palace of Venaria (Amedeo Castellamonte, 1659) reopened in 2007 after extensive renovation work. See the exterior of the royal hunting lodge of Stupinigi (Filippo Juvarra, 1730) en route to Villa della Regina, a luxurious residence built at the beginning of 17th century on the hill of Turin.

Day 4: Turin, Manta, Saluzzo. Drive to the castle of Manta to see the beautiful Fountain of Youth and Heroes and Heroines fresco cycles dating back to the beginning of the 15th century. Walk around the charming historic centre of the mediaeval town of Saluzzo at the foot of Mount Monviso (3841m above sea level) and visit Casa Cavassa, a typical and very well preserved local Renaissance palace and the church of San Giovanni from

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Price: £1,980 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (Airbus 319); private coach for transfers and excursions; hotel accommodation as below; breakfasts, 4 dinners and 3 lunches with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £230 (double for sole use). Price without flights £1,820.

Lecturer: Dr Luca Leoncini. An art historian specialising in 15th-century Italian painting. He studied at Rome University followed by research at the Warburg Institute in London and has published articles on the classical tradition in Italian art of the 15th century.

Hotel: a completely renovated 4-star hotel, comfortable, elegantly furnished and central with very efficient staff.

How strenuous? Quite a lot standing in palaces and galleries and a lot of uphill walking in Manta and in the historic centre of Saluzzo. Average distance by coach per day: 27 miles.

Weather: cold but not harshly so, and often clear at this time of year. Rain should not be ruled out.

Small group: 10–22 participants.

Christmas tours 2012

Florence at Christmas Cradle of the Renaissance Florence, Ponte Vecchio, original drawing by F. Richards, 1914.

22–29 December 2012 (mz 445) 8 days • £2,450 Lecturer: Dr Michael Douglas-Scott The best place for an art-history tour – highly influential art, wonderful architecture.

The Renaissance occupies centre stage; mediaeval and other periods are not ignored.

A smaller group than usual.

A first visit to Florence can be an overwhelming experience, and it seems that no amount of revisiting can exhaust her riches, or stem the growth of affection and awe which the city inspires in regular visitors.

For hundreds of years the city nurtured an unceasing succession of great artists.

No other place can rival Florence for the quantity of first-rate, locally-produced works of art, many still in the sites for which they were created or in museums a few hundred yards away. Giotto, Brunelleschi, Donatello, Masaccio, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo – these are some of the artists and architects whose works will be studied on the tour, fully justifying Florence’s epithet as the cradle of the Renaissance.

Florence is moreover one of the loveliest cities in the world, ringed by the foothills of the Apennines and sliced in two by the River Arno. Narrow alleys lead between the expansive piazze, supremely graceful Renaissance arcades abound while the massive scale of the buildings impressively demonstrates the wealth once generated by its precocious economy.

It is now a substantial, vibrant city, yet the past is omnipresent, and from sections of the mediaeval city walls one can still look out over olive groves.

Though the number of visitors to Florence has swelled hugely in recent years, it is still possible during winter, and with careful planning, to explore the city and enjoy its art in relative tranquillity.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 10.45am from Heathrow to Pisa, then transfer by coach to Florence.

See the Byzantine mosaics and Renaissance sculpture in the baptistry in the late afternoon.

Day 2. Visit the Bargello, a mediaeval palazzo housing Florence’s finest sculpture collection with works by Donatello, Verrocchio, Michelangelo and others. The

granary-cum-church of Orsanmichele has sculpture by Donatello, Michelangelo, Ghiberti and Verrocchio. In the afternoon, study the buildings and sculpture in the Piazza della Signoria before entering the Uffizi, one of the world’s greatest art galleries, for the rest of the afternoon.

Day 3. A Michelangelo morning: visit the Laurentian Library, his most substantial building in Florence, and the New Sacristy of San Lorenzo, burial chapel of the Medici family and Michelangelo’s largest sculptural ensemble. See the exquisite frescoes by Benozzo Gozzoli in the chapel of the Palazzo Medici Riccardi. In the afternoon, visit the vast Franciscan church of Santa Croce, favoured burial place for leading Florentines and abundantly furnished with sculpted tombs, painted altarpieces and frescoes.

Day 4, Christmas Day. Free morning, with a range of options for a church service.

Christmas lunch in Piazzale Michelangelo followed by an afternoon visit is to the Romanesque abbey church of San Miniato al

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Monte which affords panoramic views over Florence.

Day 5: Siena. Day trip by coach to Siena, most beautiful of Italian hill towns. Walk through exquisite streets to Il Campo, the main scallop-shaped ‘square’, visit the Palazzo Pubblico, the elegant 14thcentury town hall, with frescoes by Simone Martini, Ambrogio Lorenzetti and others.

Visit the splendid cathedral of white and green marble, many times enlarged, and the baptistry. In the cathedral museum see Duccio’s Maestà, the finest mediaeval painted altarpiece to be found anywhere.

Visit the hospital of Santa Maria della Scala, which has a rich collection of 15th-century frescoes.

Day 6. See Brunelleschi’s Foundling Hospital (1419), the first building wholly in Renaissance style. The Early Renaissance is wonderfully and colourfully represented by the enchanting paintings by Fra Angelico in the Friary of San Marco. See Michelangelo’s David and the ‘Slaves’ sculpture in the Accademia. In the afternoon visit Santa

Christmas tours 2012

Palermo at Christmas Art, archaeology & architecture Maria Novella, Dominican church with many works of art. In Santa Trinita there are fine frescoes by Ghirlandaio.

Day 7. See the Masaccio fresco cycle in the Brancacci Chapel, which constitutes the most important work of painting of the Early Renaissance. Visit Santo Spirito, Brunelleschi’s last great church, and the extensive Boboli Gardens, at the top of which is an 18th-century ballroom and garden overlooking olive groves. In the afternoon visit the polychromatic marble cathedral capped by Brunelleschi’s massive dome, and the museum with works of art from the cathedral and baptistry.

Day 8. The redoubtable Palazzo Pitti houses several museums including the Galleria Palatina, outstanding particularly for High Renaissance and Baroque paintings. Travel by coach to Pisa and fly to Heathrow, arriving at c. 4.15pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,450 (deposit £250). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (aircraft: Airbus A319); private coach travel; hotel accommodation as below; breakfasts, 1 lunch (Christmas Day) and 5 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all taxes; all tips; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £220 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,270.

Lecturer: Dr Michael Douglas-Scott.

Associate Lecturer in History of Art at Birkbeck College, specialising in 16thcentury Italian art and architecture. He studied at the Courtauld and Birkbeck College, University of London. He has written articles for Arte Veneta, Burlington Magazine and the Journal of the Warburg & Courtauld Institutes.

Hotel: a delightful, recently renovated 4-star hotel in a very central location. Rooms are stylishly decorated; singles are double rooms for single occupancy. Dinners are at selected restaurants nearby.

How strenuous? A lot of walking. This tour would not be suitable for anyone with difficulty in everyday walking and stair climbing. Average distance by coach per day: 25 miles.

Weather: fairly cold but often clear at this time of year. Rain should not be ruled out.

Small group: 10–18 participants.

Mosaic from the Palatine Chapel, Palermo, engraving 1881.

20–27 December 2012 (mz 444) 8 days • £2,620 Lecturer: Dr Roberto Cobianchi One of the most fascinating cities in Italy, much improved recently.

Includes access to private palaces and to places outside public opening hours.

Excursions to several other towns and sites in western Sicily: Cefalù, Bagheria, Monreale, Segesta.

Sicily’s heritage of art, architecture and archaeological remains is exceptionally rich and varied, and Palermo is by far the most interesting of the island’s cities. Staying here for all seven nights, the tour also has excursions to some of the best of the island’s patrimony outside the city.

Ancient classical remains are prominent, with some of the finest standing Doric temples to be seen anywhere at Segesta and Agrigento. In the ninth century AD, when Byzantine rule was supplanted by that of Muslim Arabs, Palermo became the leading city on the island and famous throughout Europe for the beauty of its position, its tradition of craftsmanship and its enlightened administration.

In the eleventh century, Arab rule was swept aside by conquering Normans. By succumbing to the luxuriant sophistication

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of their predecessors they distanced themselves as far as is imaginable from their rugged northern roots. From a Palermobased cosmopolitan court they ruled with efficiency and tolerance an affluent and cultured nation.

The unique artistic blend of this golden age survives in the Romanesque churches with details of Norman, Saracenic, Levantine and classical origin. Byzantine mosaicists were extensively employed, and more wall and vault mosaics survive here than in all of Byzantium. The tour includes not only the Norman buildings in Palermo but also the cathedrals at Cefalù and Monreale.

The prosperity and power of Sicily began to wane from the later Middle Ages, but pockets of wealth and creativity remained, as Gothic and Renaissance creations demonstrate. Artistically, however, a final flourish was reached in the Age of Baroque when churches and palaces were erected in Palermo and throughout the island which are as splendid and exuberant as anywhere in Europe.

Always a seething, vibrant city, enlightened local government has made Palermo cleaner, safer, and altogether more enjoyable than even a few years ago.

The tour includes a number of special arrangements to gain access to private palaces or visit buildings outside opening hours.

Christmas tours 2012 Palermo at Christmas Continued

Palermo, S. Giovanni degli Eremiti, wood engraving 1882.

Itinerary Day 1: fly at c. 12.20pm from London Heathrow to Palermo, via Rome. Overnight in Palermo where all seven nights are spent.

Day 2: Palermo. A morning walk through the old centre includes visits to several oratories and an excellent collection of pictures in the 15th-century Palazzo Abatellis. Visit a private palace and dinner here by special arrangement.

Day 3: Agrigento. A full day excursion to Agrigento to see the ‘Valley of the Temples’, one of the finest of all ancient Greek sites, with two virtually complete Doric temples, other ruins, and superb archaeological museum.

Day 4: Palermo. Visit the cathedral this morning, a building of many periods, with royal and imperial tombs, followed by the Teatro Massimo. A free afternoon is followed by a reception in a private palazzo, with astonishing Rococo interiors and original furnishings (used by Visconti for ‘The Leopard’).

Day 5: Monreale. Monreale dominates a verdant valley southwest of Palermo, and its cathedral is one of the finest Norman churches with the largest scheme of mosaic decoration that survives from the Middle Ages. Visit the Castello di Zisa in the afternoon, an Arab-Norman Palace.

Day 6, Christmas Day: Segesta, Palermo.

In the morning drive to Segesta, one of the

most evocative of ancient Greek sites, with magnificently sited temple and theatre. Back in Palermo, Christmas lunch is in a local restaurant.

Day 7: Cefalù, Bagheria. Cefalù, a charming coastal town, has a massive Norman cathedral with outstanding mosaics.

Bagheria on the fringes of Palermo is a district of aristocratic Baroque and NeoClassical villas. The remarkable if faded Villa Palagonia has a fine external staircase and is adorned with grotesque statuary.

Day 8: Palermo. Before leaving Palermo, the extraordinary 12th-century Palace of the Normans, containing the Palatine Chapel and Hall of King Roger, both with outstanding mosaics. The Norman church of S. Giovanni degli Eremiti has five cupolas and a garden. Fly from Palermo to London Heathrow, via Rome, arriving c. 7.00pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,620 (deposit £250). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled Alitalia flights (Airbus 319); travel by private coach; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts, two lunches and five dinners (including one in a private palace), all with wine, water and coffee; all admissions to museums, sites, etc.; all tips for restaurant staff, drivers, guides; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £280 (double room for single occupancy).

Price without flights £2,380

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Lecturer: Dr Roberto Cobianchi. Art historian and lecturer at the University of Messina. He studied at Parma University and the Catholic University of Milan, and completed his PhD at Warwick. He was a Rome Scholar at The British School in Rome and fellow of the Biblioteca Hertziana, Rome, and Villa I Tatti, Florence­. His research includes iconography and patronage of the Mendicant Orders from the late Middle Ages to the Baroque.

Hotel. A 16th-century palazzo converted into a charming 4-star hotel in the centre of Palermo. Rooms combine classical furnishings with modern comforts and the terrace has fine views over the city.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking on this tour, some of it over rough ground at archaeological sites and in the historic centres. It is not suitable for anyone who has difficulties with everyday walking or stair-climbing. Average distance by coach per day: 49 miles.

Weather. Winter weather in Palermo can be balmy and dry, but visitors should allow for the possibility of low temperatures and some rain.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Tours in 2013

Mozart in Salzburg The annual winter festival

An annual winter festival, the ‘Mozartwoche’, in the composer’s birthplaloists, with a predominance of music by Mozart.

Five-star hotel close to the Mozarteum.

Salzburg is that rare thing, a tiny city with world-class standards in nearly everything the discerning visitor – and resident – would want. It is miraculous that such charm, and such grandeur, and, above all, such unparalleled weight of musical achievement should be concentrated in so small a place.

A virtually independent city-state from its origins in the early Middle Ages until its absorption into the Habsburg Empire in the nineteenth century, Salzburg’s days of glory had all but slipped into the past by the time Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born there. He became the unwitting instigator, post-mortem, of Salzburg’s transformation from minor ecclesiastical seat to the world’s foremost city of music festivals.

There are five of them. The Mozartwoche (Mozart Week) held in January every year celebrates Salzburg’s most famous son with musicians famed worldwide for their Mozart interpretations.

Our tour allows the concerts to be interspersed with a gentle programme of walks and an excursion to some of the finest art and architecture and scenic beauty in the region. But plenty of free time is also allowed for individual exploration of the city, or just for relaxing to prepare for the next concert.

The city has several museums - a recent addition is a Museum of Contemporary Art in a cliff-top location overlooking the city, and the city’s principal museum, the Carolino Augusteum, has at last been transferred to a part of the Archbishop’s palace. Also, relatively recent is the complete refurbishment of the Kleines Festspielhaus, one of the smaller auditoria, now renamed the Haus für Mozart.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 9.30am from London Heathrow to Munich. After a drive from Munich to Salzburg, visit the excellent museum in the Mozart family home.

Introductory lecture and dinner.

Day 2. As on most mornings, the day starts with a lecture in the hotel at 9.30am.

Concert at the Mozarteum with the Emerson String Quartet, Menahem Pressler (piano): Mozart, String Quartet in D, K.499; Piano

Quartet in E flat, K.493; Adagio & Fugue in C minor, K.546; Piano Quartet in G minor, K.478. Lunch, followed by a visit to Mozart’s birthplace. Concert at the Großes Festspielhaus with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Sir Simon Rattle (conductor): Mozart, Symphonies No.39, No.40 and No.41.

Engraving, 1880s.

24–30 January 2013 (mz 460) 7 days • £3,340 Lecturer: Richard Wigmore

Day 3. Walk through the heart of the old city with a local guide. Free afternoon, opportunity for further exploration such as the buildings by Fischer von Erlach, greatest Austrian architect of the Baroque era, or the Archbishop’s Palace, which houses the city museum. Early dinner before the concert.

Concert at the Großes Festspielhaus with the Vienna Philharmonic, Gustavo Dudamel (conductor), Maria João Pires (piano): Wagner, ‘Siegfried-Idyll’; Mozart, Piano Concerto in D minor, K.466, Serenade No.9 in D, ‘Posthorn’.

Day 4. Concert at the Mozarteum with Cappella Andrea Barca, András Schiff (soloist/ leader): Beethoven, Piano Concerto No.4; Schubert, Symphony No.4, ‘Tragic’; Mozart, Piano Concerto in B flat, K.595. Lunch followed by a free afternoon. Concert at the Mozarteum with Les Musiciens du Louvre Grenoble, Marc Minkowski (conductor), Sonya Yoncheva (soprano), Christian Helmer (baritone): Gluck (re-scored by Wagner), overtures from ‘Iphigenia in Aulis’; Mozart, overtures from ‘Don Giovanni’; Wagner, Symphony in C.

Practicalities

Day 5. After a lecture depart for an excursion through the ravishing landscapes of the Salzkammergut to Bad Ischl, with lunch here. Some free time in Salzburg. Concert at the Stiftung Mozarteum with Le Cercle de l’Harmonie, Jérémie Rhorer (conductor), Julia Kleiter (soprano), Renata Pokupic (mezzo soprano), Benjamin Bruns (tenor): Mozart, Symphonies No.12 and No.29; Pasquale Anfossi, Arias from ‘Lucio Silla’.

Lecturer: Richard Wigmore. Music writer, lecturer and broadcaster. He writes for The Daily Telegraph, BBC Music Magazine and Gramophone and gives classes in Lied history and interpretation at Birkbeck College. He read French and German at Cambridge and later studied Music at the Guildhall. His publications include Schubert: the complete song texts and Pocket Guide to Haydn.

Day 6. Guided tour of the Mozarteum Archive. Some free time or join the optional walk to St Sebastian’s cemetery where several members of the Mozart family are buried.

Early dinner before the evening performance at a famous old restaurant. Opera at the Haus für Mozart: Lucio Silla (Mozart) with Les Musiciens du Louvre Grenoble, Salzburger Bach Choir, Marc Minkowski (conductor), Marshall Pynkoski (director), Rolando Villazón (Lucio Silla), Olga Peretyatko (Giunia), Marianne Crebassa (Cecilio), Inga Kalna (Lucio Cinna), Eva Liebau (Celia).

Day 7: The flight from Munich arrives at London Heathrow c. 2.30pm.

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Price: £3,340 (deposit £350). This includes: music tickets costing c. £885; air travel (economy class) with British Airways (Airbus A319 Jet); accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 3 lunches (including a packed lunch on the final day) and 3 dinners, with wine, water, coffee; private coach travel; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £260 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £3,190.

Music tickets: these will not be confirmed until August 2012.

Hotel: excellently located two minutes walk from the Mozarteum and just across the river from the Festspielhaus (600 metres).

A 5-star family run hotel occupying an old building, impeccably converted. Luxurious but not lavish. Included lunches and dinners are in the hotel and in carefully selected restaurants elsewhere.

How strenuous? A fair amount of walking is unavoidable, and the tour is planned on the expectation that participants walk to and from the concert venues; average distance by coach per day: c. 72 miles.

Small group: this tour will operate with between 12 and 22 participants.

Tours in 2013

West Coast Architecture A century of building in Arizona & California 7–19 September 2013 (ma 675) 12 nights • £4,740 Lecturer: Dr Harry Charrington Contact us for the full details, or visit www.martinrandall.com The whole gamut of architecture, 1908 onwards, some of it usually closed to the public.

Begin at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Arizona, and end at his Hanna House in Stanford, California.

Louis Kahn, Charles and Ray Eames, Rudolf Schindler, Richard Neutra, Bernard Maybeck, Greene & Greene are also well represented.

Contemporary architects include Rafael Moneo, Frank Gehry, Mario Botta, Herzog & de Meuron, Richard Meier, Paolo Soleri, Arata Isozaki, Michael Graves.

Great landscapes, from desert to coast and into the Napa Valley, plus a stunning journey by rail from L.A. to San Francisco through countryside not seen by road.

Time to visit the excellent art collections at the Getty Center, Norton Simon, de Young and Legion of Honor Museums.

Four bases: Phoenix (Arizona), La Jolla (California), Los Angeles, San Francisco.

Modernism was made for California. Just as it was on the West Coast that the twentieth century’s dominant art form, the movie, was to flourish, so Modernist architecture blossomed unencumbered by the concerns and limitations of the Old World.

Here was a climate that adored flat roofs and a hilly topography of brilliant views that called for structural daring, a place with a self-conscious lack of history in which displaced Europeans – and Americans freed from the waspish East Coast – could create whole new worlds and life-styles facing the seemingly boundless freedom of the desert and the Pacific.

Superlatives abound: the ‘cast stone’ of Louis Kahn’s Salk Institute is perhaps the most sublimely generous construction of post-war architecture; Charles and Ray Eames’s Studio House the most witty and charming; while right at the beginning of the century, Greene & Greene and Bernard Maybeck’s Arts & Crafts was as vivid a reimagining of William Morris as you can imagine. Equally remarkable are the cities, from the captivating milieu of San Francisco to its unfathomable cousin Los Angeles,

Getty Center, Los Angeles

the City of 4 Ecologies: hills, mesa, littoral, autopia.

The chutzpah of patron and architect hasn’t let up in the twenty-first century with Richard Meier’s hilltop Getty Center, Raphael Moneo’s Cathedral of Our Lady of Our Angels – both in L.A. – and Herzog & de Meuron’s de Young Museum in San Francisco.

If one looks for a beginning to all this, beyond the fragments of the Pueblo and the Spanish Mission architecture, it is found in Frank Lloyd Wright. While Europeans spent the 1920s and 30s playing catch-up to Wright’s disciplined Prairie houses, he went wild in the West.

In Los Angeles, beginning with the extraordinary Hollyhock House, he demonstrated a virtuosity on California’s slopes equal to that he’d achieved on the flat expanse of the Mid-West. Wright’s approach was extended by his ex-pupils Rudolf Schindler and Richard Neutra who threw away the cloak of their native Vienna to create a series of exquisite, ecologically responsive dwellings that would lead to the ‘Case Study Houses’ and the ‘Bay Area School’ around San Francisco.

Wright also built his combined home and fellowship at Taliesin West in the desert outside Phoenix. Gradually shaped over thirty years, this complement to his earlier Taliesin East, is Wright at his most successful – and moving. A blurring of

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building and landscape formed from desert rocks and sand, its inspiration lies in the light touch of the native Sinagua Indians.

Paolo Soleri’s eco-city of Arcosanti, still being constructed today far out in the Arizona desert, pays homage to Taliesin and is either a suggestion of an ecologically viable future, or the American Dream at its most indulgent and eccentric.

Practicalities – in brief Price: £4,740 (deposit £300). Single supplement £640 (double room for sole occupancy). Price without the international flights £4,110.

Art in

Texas 16–27 October 2012 12 days • price to be confirmed Lecturer: Gijs van Hensbergen Details will be available in June.

Contact us to register your interest.

Music festivals 2013

2013 Music Festivals Pre-book your space now

Return the form below to us along with £100 per person deposit in order to guarantee yourself a space on one (or more) of our music festivals in 2013. The deposit is fully refundable should you change your mind once the full details are released.

A Festival of music in Seville 10–15 May 2013

The J.S. Bach Journey 7–13 July 2013

The Danube Music Festival 16–23 August 2013

English Music in Yorkshire 22–27 September 2013

The Rhône Music Festival 17–24 October 2013

Pre-booking form: 2013 Music Festivals Your details

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Tours in 2012

Verona Opera Lyric spectacle in the Veneto 5–9 July 2012 (my 304) This departure is currently full 2–6 August 2012 (my 324) 5 days • £1,950 Carmen • Turandot • Aida Lecturer: Dr Roberto Cobianchi The first magic moment comes well before the conductor raises his baton. Unless you have led a team on to the pitch at Wembley, or won the New Hampshire primaries, you are unlikely to have experienced anything quite like the wall of heady high spirits which hits you as you emerge from the entrance tunnel into the arena.

Filling the vast ellipse of the nineteenhundred-year old Roman amphitheatre are fourteen thousand happy people, bubbling with joyous expectation of the spectacle which is to follow. Even the most dour of dusty-hearted opera purists cannot help but be uplifted.

Then the floodlights go down, the chaotic chatter quietens to a reverential whisper, and the enveloping dusk is pierced only by flickering candle flames as uncountable as the stars above. Magic again; for these special moments the Verona Festival remains without rival.

The list of unique assets continues.

There is the inestimable advantage of the stage and auditorium, one of the largest of ancient amphitheatres which, though built for rather less refined spectacles (‘arena’ is Latin for sand, used in quantity after the slaughter of animals and gladiators) provides miraculously sympathetic acoustics. The elliptical form also seems to instil a sense which can best be described as resembling an embrace, bonding the audience however distant or disparate the individual members might be.

Then there is the benefit of being at the heart of one of the most beautiful of Italian cities. Verona is crammed with magnificent architecture and dazzlingly picturesque streets and squares. Surprisingly, the city seems scarcely deflected from a typically Italian dedication to living well and stylishly by the annual influx of festival visitors.

Enough of the spectacle, what of the music? Most performances reach high standards, with patches of stunning singing.

For the (largely Italian) casts, to perform at Verona is still a special event, and there remains as an incentive to excellence the typically Italian expression of audience disapproval, instant and merciless. Besides, the younger singers know that they will be judged by more agents, casting directors and

Verona from the Giusti Gardens, wood engraving 1887.

peers in one performance than usually would see them in a season.

Opinions vary concerning the best place to sit. All the seats we have booked are numbered and reserved (no queuing for hours and elbowing to seize the best of what remains), and a proportion are poltronissime, cushioned stalls seats, which we offer for a supplement. The rest are on the lowest tiers, the prime gradinate, with clear sight lines, while plastic seating is mercifully interposed between you and the marble.

Perhaps the greatest difficulty confronting anyone wanting to attend the festival is finding somewhere to stay; hotels up to two hours’ drive away can be full of opera goers. We stay just five minutes walk from the arena in the centre of Verona.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 4.00pm from London Gatwick to Verona.

Day 2. An introductory walk in Verona, passing through the beautiful streets and squares at the heart of the city. The afternoon is free. Evening opera in the Arena.

Day 3. A walk leads to the Romanesque cathedral, across the River Adige to the well-preserved Roman theatre. Lunch is at a privately owned villa in the countryside (by special arrangement). Evening opera in the Arena.

Day 4. The morning walk includes the Castelvecchio, a graceful mediaeval castle and fortified bridge, now housing an art museum. Alternatively, there are bus and train services offering the opportunity to see more of the region, perhaps Lake Garda or Venice. The afternoon is free or take an

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optional visit to the church of S. Zeno, a major Romanesque church with sculpted portal and a Mantegna altarpiece, and the Gothic church of S. Fermo Maggiore.

Evening opera in the Arena.

Day 5. Fly from Verona, arriving London Gatwick at about 1.00pm.

Practicalities Price: £1,950 (deposit £200). This includes: 3 opera tickets costing c. £240 (July), c. £270 (August); air travel (economy class) with scheduled British Airways flights (aircraft: Boeing 737); accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 3 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer.

Supplement for poltronissime seats £240.

Single supplement £370 (double room for sole use). Price without flights £1,810.

Lecturers: this tour is accompanied by an art historian who leads walks around Verona.

There are no specialised talks on the operas.

Dr Roberto Cobianchi. Art historian and lecturer at the University of Messina.

Studied at Parma University and the Catholic University of Milan, and completed his PhD at Warwick. He was a Rome Scholar at The British School in Rome and fellow of the Biblioteca Hertziana, Rome, and Villa I Tatti, Florence­.

Hotel: a friendly 4-star a short walk from the Arena in a quiet street.

How strenuous? To participate fully in the itinerary, a fair amount of walking is involved. The average distance by coach per day is 18 miles.

Small group: 10–22 participants.

Tours in 2012

Drottningholm & Confidencen 10–13 August 2012 (my 326) 4 days • £1,970 (including tickets for 2 operas) Lecturer: Ian Page For a fuller description of this tour, visit www.martinrandall.com or contact us.

Very few theatres survive unchanged from the eighteenth century. Only the Drottningholm Court Theatre survives without having needed modern restoration or refurbishment, with the original stage machinery and scenery intact, and as home of a living operatic tradition of international renown.

Built in 1766 for Queen Luisa Ulriki of Sweden as part of a marvellous ensemble of palace, park and lake outside Stockholm, the theatre enjoyed its heyday during the reign of her son Gustav III. But after his death in 1792 it ceased to be used and was virtually forgotten for over a century. Performances recommenced in 1922, and subsequently an annual festival developed which specialises, appropriately enough, in Baroque and Classical repertoire.

The opera for 2012 is Haydn’s Orlando paladino.

Drottningholm is not the only eighteenth-century theatre in Stockholm’s watery environs. Confidencen, the theatre built in 1752 at Ulriksdal, is also part of a palace complex in a beautiful lakeside setting and, again like Drottningholm, a long period of neglect preceded its revival.

But the festival here is of much more recent origin and as yet is little known outside Sweden. Artistically, it has to be said, it sets its sights lower, but productions have become increasingly accomplished. The choice of composer this year suggests, correctly, that cutting-edge adventurousness is not their mission, but it will be a marvellous setting for Mozart’s The Magic Flute.

The tour is based in the centre of Stockholm, a city with many architectural and artistic riches spread across the archipelago where the waters of Lake Mäleren meet the Baltic. There is quite a lot of free time to explore the city independently.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 10.30am from London Heathrow to Stockholm.

Day 2. In the morning a guided tour of the old town centre. Free afternoon. Opera at Confidencen Theatre: The Magic Flute (Mozart).

The Royal Palace, Stockholm.

Day 3. Travel by boat from the centre of Stockholm to Drottningholm Palace, summer residence of the Swedish royal family since the 17th century. Opera at Drottningholm Slottsteater: Orlando paladino (Haydn).

Day 4. Fly to London Heathrow, arriving at c. 5.00pm.

Practicalities – in brief Price: £1,970 (deposit £200). Single supplement £120­. Price without flights £1,760.

Lecturer: Ian Page is the conductor and artistic director of Classical Opera, which specializes in the works of Mozart and his contemporaries. Ian has also worked at the Drottningholm Slottsteater. He also teaches at the Royal College of Music in London.

Hotel: a 4-star hotel excellently situated on the waterfront of the Gamla Stan, the heart of Stockholm’s Old Town.

How strenuous? Participants need to be fit enough to navigate the city centre and parks on foot and to cope easily with stair climbing. Average distance by coach per day: 12 miles.

Haydn in Eisenstadt 9–15 September 2012 (mz 369) 7 days • £2,370 (including 5 performances) Lecturer: Geoffrey Norris

The Schubertiade 16–23 June 2012 (my 282) This departure is almost full 4–10 September 2012 (mz 372) 7 days • £3,050 (including 9 performances Lecturer: Richard Stokes Contact us for full details and current availability – or visit www.martinrandall.com

Small group: 12–22 participants.

This brochure was designed in-house by Jo Murray. It is printed on sustainably-sourced paper.

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Tours in 2012

North Wales Castles & Geology in Snowdonia & Anglesey 9–16 July 2012 (my 307) 8 days • £2,640 Lecturers: Peter Cattermole & Neil Johnstone Contact us for the full details or visit www.martinrandall.com Some of Britain’s most beautiful landscapes, highland and lowland.

The finest group of mediaeval castles to be found anywhere, a choice variety of country houses and gardens, historic walled towns.

A geologist joins the tour to explain remarkable and beautiful rock formations.

There are three optional walks to pursue this theme further (with an alternative programme for non-geologists).

Industrial archaeology a significant strand, with some of the greatest bridges of the 19th century and fascinating relics of slate mining.

Itinerary Day 1: Conwy. The coach leaves Llandudno Junction Railway Station at 2.30pm (having picked up at the Bodysgallen Hall hotel if required). Conwy castle is one of the great achievements of mediaeval military architecture, and its curtain walls and vast cylindrical towers survive intact – as does the wall around the contiguous town, founded for English settlers at the same time (1283).

First of three nights at Bodysgallen Hall.

Day 2, Vale of Conwy, Dee Valley, Conwy Valley: Erddig, Pontcysyllte, Rug. The journeys today traverse a variety of delightful lowland and valley landscapes. Erddig is one of the most fascinating and evocative country houses in Britain. Mainly of the early 18th century, it has fine furnishings and artworks, and the servants’ quarters are particularly well preserved. Telford’s Pontcysyllte Aqueduct carries a canal high above the River Dee, and Rug Chapel preserves an unaltered 17th-century interior. Overnight Bodysgallen Hall.

Day 3: Conwy, Penrhyn, Beaumaris or Penmon. See more of the little historic town of Conwy including Plas Mawr, a well preserved Elizabethan town house. Continue along the coast to enormous Penrhyn Castle, built 1820–35 in neo-Norman style, and one of the most sumptuous houses of its time. Cross the Menai Strait to Anglesey on Telford’s suspension bridge (1819–26), another engineering marvel. Then there is a choice between Beaumaris Castle, the most technically perfect of Edward I’s castles,

Conway Castle, lithograph c. 1840.

and the Norman church of Penmon Priory.

Overnight Bodysgallen Hall.

Day 4: Bodnant, Llechwedd, Harlech, Portmeirion. Bodnant Garden is one of the finest in Britain, and has an idyllic setting with views of Snowdonia. In the afternoon rise into this range and explore a 19th-century slate mine. Clinging to a crag between the sea and the mountains, Harlech is the most dramatically sited of Edwardian castles. It endured an eight-year siege during the Wars of the Roses. The village of Portmeirion, created by Clough Williams Ellis from the 1920s to the 1960s, is a wholly delectable if eccentric architectural confection. We spend four nights here.

Day 5, Lleyn Peninsula: Uwchmynydd, Criccieth. The largely low lying Lleyn Peninsula has enchanting landscapes with remote fishing communities and tiny fields.

At Uwchmynydd, its westernmost tip, are fine exposures of the Mona Complex, a collision zone where massive undersea landslides, ancient pillow lavas and highly contorted rocks of various persuasions are exposed in superb locations. A nongeological alternative includes the Lloyd George Museum at Llanystumdwy, his boyhood home and burial place, and Criccieth Castle, atop a promontory jutting into Tremadog Bay. Overnight Portmeirion.

Day 6, Anglesey: Rhoscolyn, Plas Newydd; Dolbadarn. Return to Anglesey. Rhoscolyn

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Bay has spectacular geology. Sedimentary rocks were thrust downwards, there to be metamorphosed and deformed into a kilometre-scale antiform (upfold structure) within which are subsidiary antiforms. Plas Newydd, late Georgian home of Marquesses of Anglesey, has Waterloo mementos and a wonderful 1930s Rex Whistler panorama – and, looking across the Strait to Snowdonia, as fine a view as from any house in Britain.

On the mainland, stop at Dolbadarn Castle, built for Llywelyn the Great in the 1230s.

Day 7: Caernarfon, Llanberis, Snowdon.

Rising above the River Seiont and the Menai Strait, Caernarfon is the greatest of the Edwardian castles. It was built as a seat of government and exhibits features intended to evoke ancient Rome and imperial status.

In the afternoon there is a choice: explore the great geological melée that is the valley of Llanberis, which, etched by the ice that covered Wales during the last glaciation, reveals a sequence of ancient marine sediments and subaerial volcanic rocks; or take the cogwheel railway train to the summit of Snowdon, a round trip of 2 1/2 hours. Overnight Portmeirion.

Day 8: Gwydir. Return to the Conwy Valley to visit Gwydir Castle, an enchanting accumulation of 15th, 16th and 17th-century parts which, together with its gardens, is steadily being restored by its current owners.

The coach returns to Llandudno Junction by 2.30pm.

Tours in 2012

Great Houses of the East

Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Rutland

Practicalities – in brief Price: £2,640 (deposit £250). Single supplement £200. Members of the National Trust will be refunded c. £17; members of English Heritage or CADW will be refunded c. £35.

Dr Peter Cattermole. Formerly a lecturer in planetary geology and volcanology at the Universities of Wales and Sheffield. He has worked with NASA and as an astronomer, he has appeared regularly on BBC’s Sky at Night.

Neil Johnstone. Neil studied archaeology and history at Bangor University. His work on the royal courts of the Welsh princes and related excavations have appeared in various publications.

Hotels. Bodysgallen Hall (3 nights) is a 17th-century mansion in 220 acres of grounds and gardens expertly restored in the last thirty years and now belonging to the National Trust. At Portmeirion (4 nights), rooms are scattered through the idyllic village built by Clough Williams Ellis in the 20th century in a variety of historic, vernacular and original styles.

Small group: 12–22 participants.

The Cotswolds 10–17 September 2012 (mz 373) 8 days • £2,420 Lecturer: Dr Steven Blake Contact us for the full details or visit www.martinrandall.com Nine walks through some of the loveliest countryside in the world with stops to enjoy buildings and landscape features.

A carefully selected itinerary which favours the lesser-visited and less accessible places over some of the more touristy ones.

Several outstanding gardens are a feature, as are manor houses and a handful of the finest parish churches in the country.

One hotel throughout, a 16th-century country house.

Illustration, this page: Blickling Hall, wood engraving from The Art Journal 1887.

20–28 June 2012 (my 289) 9 days • £2,880 Lecturer: Dr Andrew Moore Contact us for the full details or visit www.martinrandall.com The best country houses in East Anglia and the East Midlands, outstanding examples from the end of the Middle Ages to the Victorian era.

The Tudor and Stuart age is particularly well represented, as is the Palladian style.

Great architecture, major works of art, spectacular gardens, landscaped parks, life both sides of the green baize door.

Special arrangements and out-of-hours visits.

Why is Britain the locus classicus of the country house? Wealth is a precondition of their erection in the first place, and by and large there was a sufficiency. Geography has been kind in allowing agricultural prosperity, and we pass through places key to the Agricultural Revolution of the eighteenth century which further enhanced what Nature provided. The financial benefits of Britain’s primacy in trade and industry seeped into stately piles. Relative peace and absence of foreign occupation, preference for primogeniture, a reluctance to revolt, a fruitful balance between the power of the monarch and the rights of the nobles: all these have been factors in the creation and maintenance of country house culture. Many of the houses on this tour have been in the same family for several generations.

The broad spread of this tour, East Anglia and the East Midlands, allows for the inclusion of some of the very finest country houses in England. If all you ever see of eighteenth-century England are Houghton and Holkham, they will suffice

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to shine in the memory for ever as the epitome of restrained grandeur and elegant opulence. Burghley is the most elaborate and monumental of Elizabeth great houses, Blickling the most beautiful of Jacobean, Belton the most perfectly proportioned of Restoration ones.

There are also several brilliant if less mainstream masterpieces. Layer Marney Tower is little more than a Tudor gateway, but what a gateway, the highest such in Britain. Felbrigg is not much more than a large-scale manor house, albeit an exceptionally handsome one, but it is one element in an enchanting ensemble which includes walled gardens, Italian paintings and a remote location. Harlaxton will thrill those who are prepared to be thrilled by such Victorian rumbustiousness, the Queen’s private estate at Sandringham will impress with its quietly regal interiors despite pretensions to be unexceptional, Deene Park will captivate with the depth of its history and the authenticity of its atmosphere.

A feature of the tour is the opportunity to spend a little time in some of the loveliest towns and villages in England – Lavenham, Norwich, Stamford. And then there is the ravishing countryside, East Anglia with its broad undulations, big skies, fens and bosky vistas, and the rolling farmland and magnificent trees of the ‘Dukeries’.

Practicalities – in brief Price: £2,880 (deposit £300). Single supplement £520.

Hotels: in Lavenham (3 nights): dating from the 15th-century, The Swan at Lavenham.

In Congham (2 nights): The Congham Hall Hotel. In Stapleford (3 nights): the Stapleford Park Hotel.

Small group: 12–22 participants.

Tours in 2012

Shakespeare & his world Plays and places in Stratford & London

12–17 June 2012 (my 291) 6 days • £1,920 (includes tickets to 5 performances) Lecturer: Charles Nicholl For fuller details, contact us or visit www.martinrandall.com An exceptional theatrical experience: five Shakespeare plays, visits to related sites, talks and discussions.

At Stratford with the Royal Shakespeare Company: King John, Julius Caesar and Richard III. In London: The Comedy of Errors at the Roundhouse and Henry V at the Globe, the reconstruction of the theatre where it was probably first performed.

With a dazzling succession of top-rank productions, daily talks and discussions, meetings with directors and visits to places known to Shakespeare, our annual ‘Shakespeare and his World’ provides an incredibly rich theatrical experience.

The Royal Shakespeare Company – ‘probably the most famous classical theatre company in the world’ – provides three of the plays in their theatre at Stratford.

This re-opened last year after a three-year building and refurbishment programme; even the larger of the two auditoria (capacity 1,000) has no seat more than 13 metres from the stage.

Though a replica of the 1599 building as exact as available evidence allows, the reconstructed Globe on Bankside is no mere antiquarian exercise or meretricious tourist attraction. Productions here are vital, demotic, thoughtful, hilarious, intimate and profoundly moving,

with a degree of authenticity provided by an audience generally uncowed by stuffed-shirt theatre-going conventions. We will buy two tickets for each participant, one for the gallery and one for the yard. If you tire of standing among the penny stinkers you can retire to the (relative) comfort of a (covered) seat, though if your back can cope you may not want to relinquish the extraordinary engagement that proximity to the stage brings. The play we see here, Henry V, was maybe the very first to be performed in the original Globe (‘this wooden O’).

The other London venue is the Roundhouse in Camden, which began life in 1846 as a steam-engine repair shed and has become a major cultural venue, home to a bold and exciting programme of live music, theatre, dance, circus, installations and new media.

There is another aspect to this tour: visits to sites in Stratford and London associated with Shakespeare.

Some are fascinating, beautiful and moving – others less so (one is now an underground carpark), but all provide a springboard for a study of the topographical and historical context in which the plays were written. They provide a powerful aid to coming closer to Shakespeare the man and the writer and to learning about the age which shaped him, his plays and poems. Like Autolycus in The Winter’s Tale, he was ‘a snapperup of unconsidered trifles’, and his observations of the quotidian and the banal characterise his work as much as his acute commentary on the grand affairs of state or the revelation of the human condition.

London was where Shakespeare pursued his second career as an actor and playwright, acquired fame, achieved social advancement and made his fortune. But Stratfordupon-Avon, his birthplace, remained his home. When he headed for the metropolis aged around 23, his wife, three children, parents and siblings remained behind, and he returned to them regularly. In London he was only a lodger; he bought the biggest house in Stratford aged 33, and when he died there (aged 52) he may have been retired from the London stage for three or four years.

Fortune has been kind to the

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fabric of Shakespearean Stratford, less so to his London. But in London there are sufficient physical remains and identifiable sites – the footings of two Elizabethan theatres have been revealed in recent years – for an exploration to be peculiarly rewarding.

The lecturer, Charles Nicholl, is author of The Lodger, acclaimed for bringing the reader closer to Shakespeare than any other historical study, and of The Reckoning, an award-winning study of the death of Christopher Marlowe.

Itinerary Day 1: Stratford. The RSC performs King John at the Swan Theatre, the smaller of the two RSC auditoria, directed by Maria Aberg. First of three nights in Stratford.

Day 2: Stratford and around. In the evening, Julius Caesar is at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, directed

by Gregory Doran (RSC Chief Associate Director).

Day 3: Stratford. At the Swan Theatre, Richard III, directed by Roxana Silbert (RSC Associate Director).

Day 4: London. Drive to London.

The evening performance at the Roundhouse in Camden is The Comedy of Errors, directed by Amir Nizar Zuabi. First of two nights in London.

Day 5: London. The evening performance is at the Globe: Henry V, directed by Dominic Dromgoole with Jamie Parker in the title role.

Day 6: London. Visit also the sites of Shakespeare’s most documented lodging and of the indoor theatre at Blackfriars, second only in importance to the Globe. The tour finishes at the hotel by 12.30pm.

Talks with directors and actors to be confirmed nearer the time.

Illustration: Julius Caesar, Act III Scene II, wood engraving after John Gilbert from The Works of Shakespeare, vol. III 1866.

Tours in 2012

The Baltic States Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania 9–21 July 2012 (my 305) 13 days • £3,220 Lecturer: Neil Taylor 20 August–1 Sept. 2012 (my 340) 13 days • £3,220 Lecturer: Neil Taylor Three countries with different languages, diverse histories and distinct cultural identities.

An extensive legacy from German, Polish, Russian and Swedish occupations.

The focus of the tour is history, politics and general culture, rather than art and architecture.

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania: the regaining of independence in 1991 by these three states was a happy outcome of the demise of the Soviet Union. Of all the fragments of that former super-power, the Baltic States are perhaps the countries with the brightest future and the least clouded present.

Though geographical proximity leads the countries to be conventionally thought of together as a single entity, the degree of difference between them is surprisingly great in terms of ethnicity, language, historical development and religion.

The Estonians are of Finno-Ugric origin and their language has nothing in common with their Latvian or Russian neighbours.

Lithuanian history has for much of the postmediaeval era been linked with Catholic Poland, whereas Estonia and Latvia were early recipients of Protestantism.

In the eighteenth century these states succumbed to the bear-hug of the Russian Empire – and only after the First World War did they achieve full independence.

In 1940, with the annexation by the Soviet Union, they once more fell under Russian rule. Between 1941 and 1944 they had the additional suffering of the German Occupation. Yet the Baltic States were always among the most prosperous and liberal of the Soviet republics, and among the most independent-minded.

Surprise ranks high among the responses of the visitor now – surprise that there is so much of interest and beauty, and surprise that the Iron Curtain was indeed so opaque a veil that most of us in the West could remain so ignorant of these countries and their heritage. Surprise, perhaps, that on the whole the region functions with considerable efficiency and sophistication.

Tallinn, 20th-century woodcut.

Itinerary Day 1: Tallinn (Estonia). Fly at c. 1.30pm from Gatwick to Tallinn. First of three nights in Tallinn.

Day 2: Lahemaa National Park (Estonia).

Drive east into an area now designated as a national park. The charming manor houses of Palmse and Sagadi have full 18th-century classical dress disguising the timber structure. Lunch is in a roadside inn, with wooden buildings – a former postal service station on the road to St Petersburg.

Overnight Tallinn.

Day 3: Tallinn. The upper town has a striking situation on a steep-sided hill

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overlooking the Baltic with views over the city. Among the mediaeval and classical buildings are the Toompea Palace (Parliament), Gothic cathedral and late 19th-century Russian cathedral and the 15th-century town hall (subject to confirmation). Continue through the unspoilt streets of the lower town with its mediaeval walls, churches and gabled merchants’ houses and see the church of the Holy Ghost and the City Museum. Visit St Nicholas, a Gothic basilica with a museum of mediaeval art. Overnight Tallinn.

Day 4: Tartu (Estonia). Drive through a gently undulating mix of woodland and fertile fields, with traditional vernacular

Tours in 2012 The Baltic States continued

the former Jewish ghetto, the cathedral and the exquisite little Late-Gothic church of St Anne. Visit the church of Saints Peter and Paul with outstanding stucco sculptural decoration and see the Museum of Applied Arts. Overnight Vilnius.

Day 12: Vilnius. Kazys Varnelis House Museum is an eclectic private collection of art and maps. The recently opened National Gallery houses 20th and 21stcentury Lithuanian art. A free afternoon or an optional visit to the Church Heritage Museum. Overnight Vilnius.

Day 13: Vilnius. Fly from Vilnius to London Gatwick, via Riga, arriving c. 12.30pm.

Practicalities Vilnius, wood engraving 1889 from Russian Pictures.

farmsteads. Tartu is in some ways the cultural capital of Estonia, the university having been founded in 1632. There are fine 18th- and 19th-century buildings, especially the town hall and university and there is a visit to the restored Jaani church. Overnight Tartu.

Day 5: Cesis (Latvia). Enter Latvia travelling through hilly landscape renowned for its beauty. Cesis is an historic and well-preserved small town with church and ruined castle. Its manor house Ungurmuiza (about 10 miles out of town) is constructed in wood with a baroque façade and interior.

The drive continues via Straupe, another attractive village. First of three nights in Riga.

Day 6: Riga (Latvia). Explore Latvia’s capital on foot. Within the extensive Old Town there are mediaeval streets, Hanseatic warehouses, Gothic and Baroque churches and 19th-century civic buildings. There are visits to the Menzendorff House, a restored merchant’s house and now a museum, Gothic St Peter with its distinctive tall spire and the cathedral, which is the largest mediaeval church in the Baltic States.

Overnight Riga.

Day 7: Riga. The Art Nouveau district is a residential quarter of grand boulevards, with classical, historicist and outstanding façades.

There is a drive via the market, formerly Europe’s largest, situated in five 1920s Zeppelin hangars, followed by a visit to the fascinating outdoor museum of vernacular buildings. Free afternoon when possibilities

include the National Art Museum, Occupation Museum­or the Jewish Museum.

Overnight Riga.

Day 8: Rundale (Latvia), Siauliai, Kaunas (Lithuania). Rundale was one of the most splendid palaces in the Russian Empire, built from 1736 by Rastrelli for a favourite of Empress Anna. Lunch is in the palace restaurant. Lithuania is entered via the town of Bauska and there is a stop in Kedainiai to visit the regional museum and the mausoleum of Radvila Dukes. First of two nights in Kaunas.

Day 9: Kaunas (Lithuania). A diverse historic town with a wealth of architecture.

Near the central square are a number of churches and the Town Museum. The Ciurlionis Art Museum has works of Lithuania’s most famous composer and artist. Other afternoon visits include the Resurrection Church and the Synagogue.

Overnight Kaunas.

Day 10: Pazaislis, Vilnius (Lithuania).

At Pazaislis is a magnificent Baroque nunnery and pilgrimage church, one of the architectural gems of Eastern Europe.

Continue to Vilnius which, far from the sea, has the feel of a Central European metropolis, with Baroque the predominant style. Afternoon walk to the bishop’s palace (now the Presidential Palace), the university, and the Church of St John. First of three nights in Vilnius.

Day 11: Vilnius. Walk to the Gates of Dawn, the Carmelite church of St Theresa,

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Price: £3,220 (deposit £350)This includes: air travel (economy class) on Air Baltic and Estonian Air flights (Boeing 737); travel by private coach throughout; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 4 lunches and 8 dinners (including one light one) with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and local guides. Single supplement £360. Price without flights £3,000.

Neil Taylor is the leading expert on the Baltic States. He travels there as visiting university lecturer, tourism consultant and tour leader. He read Chinese at Cambridge University and worked in tourism in China, the USSR and many Third World countries.

His publications include The Bradt Guide: Estonia, The Bradt Guide: Tallinn, The Bradt Guide: Baltic Cities, A Footprints Guide to Berlin.

Hotels: in Tallinn (3 nights): a small stylish hotel in a turn-of-the-century building. In Tartu (1 night): centrally located with a good restaurant; decor is quite dated. In Riga (3 nights): a modern well-located hotel with views over the park (but expect some street noise). In Kaunas (2 nights): newly-opened in a 19th-century mansion with modern features. In Vilnius (3 nights): an elegant and comfortable hotel in an excellent location.

All hotels have a local 4-star rating with acceptable levels of comfort, good service and a central location. Showers are more common than baths.

How strenuous? This is a long tour with four hotel changes and some long coach journeys.

There is a lot of walking, some of it on cobbled or roughly paved ground. Average distance by coach per day: 56 miles.

Small group: 12–22 participants.

Tours in 2012

Danish Art & Design 28 June–5 July 2012 (my 297) 8 days • £3,060 Lecturer: Shona Kallestrup

Woodcut by Johannes Larsen 1905.

A range of excellent art galleries, many with exciting new buildings or fine settings, showing international as well as Danish art.

Focus on Danish painting of the 19th and early 20th centuries, especially the Golden Age. Historic and modern architecture, city and provinces, town and country.

Aspects of design in everyday life.

Itinerary Day 1: Copenhagen. Fly at c. 10.00am from London Heathrow to Copenhagen.

A walk along the waterfront and through Frederiksstaden, an 18th-century development, unfurls the post-mediaeval history of the city. Pass the 1750s palaces of the Amalienborg, the finest such group outside France, the English church, Gefion Fountain, the Little Mermaid, the bastions of the Kastellet and (across the water) the amazing new opera house. First of three nights in Copenhagen.

Day 2: Copenhagen, Humlebæk. The Hirschsprungske Collection is perhaps the finest assembly of 19th-century Danish painting and retains its early 20th-century hang. North of the city in Humlebæk the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art has a permanent collection of international modern art and changing exhibitions in halfburied galleries in parkland beside the sea; a magical combination. Ordrupgaard Museum has French Impressionists and Danish art in a 19th-century mansion and a bold extension

by Zaha Hadid, surrounded by woodland and gardens. Grundtvig’s Church (Peter and Kaare Klint 1920–40) is one of the finest brick Expressionist edifices of the 20th cent.

Day 3: Copenhagen. Explore Slotsholmen, the original core of the city: Christiansborg Palace houses the Parliament, the Renaissance stock exchange, Thorvaldsen Museum dedicated to the eponymous Neo-Classical sculptor (1770–1844). The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, magnificent benefaction of a brewer, has collections of Mediterranean antiquities, particularly Roman portrait sculpture, Impressionists and Post-Impressionists and Golden Age paintings. Some free time: choices include the Viking section in the National Museum and shops selling classic Danish design in the pedestrianised Strøget.

Day 4: Copenhagen. The morning is spent at the Statens Museum for Kunst, the Danish National Gallery, which possesses an extensive collection of Danish art from the Golden Age to the present day and a fine holding of European Old Masters excellently displayed in a new wing overlooking a park.

Christian IV’s private palace of Rosenborg, gradually augmented 1605–33, has excellently preserved and richly decorated rooms and the royal treasury in the cellars.

Leave Copenhagen by coach and cross the straits between Zealand and Funen on the 12-mile Storebælt Bridge. First of four nights in Odense.

Day 5: Fåborg, Egeskov. Drive to Fåborg on the south coast where there is an excellent museum, a private collection of recent art opened to the public in 1915, particularly strong on the Funen School. The charming old town centre is well preserved. Egeskov is a 17th-century moated mansion, well furnished, with park and gardens.

Day 6: Odense, Kerteminde, Ladby. A walk around Odense, a delightful town where old and new blend well with little cobbled streets, rehabilitated industrial buildings, riverside park and a Gothic cathedral. The Funen Art Museum has a comprehensive collection of Danish painting, the best outside Copenhagen. The fishing village of Kerteminde was home of Johannes Larsen (1867–1961), leader of the Funen school, and his house, studio and gardens are preserved with a new gallery building (Danish Museum of the Year 2007). There is a midafternoon choice between driving straight to Odense (free time, with the option of visiting the Hans Christian Andersen birthplace museum) or visiting the Viking ship burial museum at Ladby.

Day 7: Århus. Excursion by rail (1 hour 30 minutes) to Århus, Denmark’s second city, crossing by bridge to Jutland. At the heart of the city a traffic-clogged thoroughfare has

31

been replaced by a river, long confined to a culvert, the embankments now burgeoning with café culture. Arne Jacobsen’s town hall (finished 1942) is one of Modernism’s icons, mathematically precise, perfectly poised, defiantly unmonumental. The ARoS Art Museum (2004) is a brick and glass cube with a curvaceous white interior housing historic Danish art, as well as some significant pieces of modern art. There is a choice between visiting the influential university campus, a prime example of Danish Modernism (1930s), or the Old Town Museum, 16th- to 19thcentury buildings from all over Denmark reassembled to form an enchanting little town.

Day 8: Copenhagen-Ishøj. Re-cross the Storebælt Straits and traverse Zealand again.

Above a fine beach south of Copenhagen, the Arken Museum of Modern Art is outstanding for its striking architecture (nautical, angular), unexpected location and adventurous exhibitions. Fly from Copenhagen, arrive Heathrow c. 5.00pm.

Practicalities – in brief Price: £3,060 (deposit £300). Single supplement £330. Price without flights £2,890.

Shona Kallestrup. Specialist in Central, East European and Scandinavian art and design. Her publications include Art and Design in Romania, 1866–1927.

Hotels: in Copenhagen (3 nights): a traditional hotel in the Nyhavn district. In Odense (4 nights): a modern 4-star hotel, a few minutes’ walk from the town centre.

How strenuous? Quite a lot of walking and standing. Average distance per day: 31 miles.

Total distance by rail: 189 miles.

Small group: 10–22 participants.

Tours in 2012

Flemish Painting From Van Eyck to Van Dyck 27 June – 1 July 2012 (my 303) 5 days • £1,540 Lecturer: Clare Ford-Wille Short, sharp immersion in some brilliant painting and beautiful old cities; a classic art history tour.

Visits the main centres: Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp, Louvain and Brussels.

Hotel in Ghent, which is equidistant from the other cities, cutting travelling time.

First-class travel by Eurostar from London.

Few travellers are aware just how attractive and unspoilt are the ancient cities of Flanders, or how glorious are the paintings of the Flemish school when displayed in their original environment.

Towards the end of the Middle Ages, Ghent, Bruges, Antwerp and Brussels were among the most prosperous and progressive cities in Europe. Though ruled successively by two of the most illustrious European dynasties – the Burgundian dukes of Burgundy and the House of Habsburg – these great cities were virtually independent.

Their flourishing cultural life sustained one of the most brilliant episodes in the history of art.

The Golden Age of Flemish painting was inaugurated at the beginning of the fifteenth century by the brothers Hubert and Jan van Eyck, whose consummate skill with the new art of oil painting resulted in pictures which have never been surpassed for their jewel-like brilliance and breathtaking naturalism.

The tradition of exquisite workmanship was continued with the same tranquillity of spirit by such masters as Hans Memling in Bruges and with greater emotionalism

by Rogier van der Weyden in Brussels and Hugo van der Goes in Ghent. Hieronymus Bosch was an individualist who specialised in the depiction of diabolical nastiness.

The sixteenth century saw a shift towards mannerist displays of virtuoso skill and spiritual tension, though the outstanding painter of the century was another individualist, Pieter Bruegel.

A magnificent culmination was reached in the seventeenth century with Peter Paul Rubens, the greatest painter of the Baroque age. His works are of an unsurpassed vitality and painted with a breadth and bravura which exploited to the utmost the potential of the technique of oil painting.

Itinerary Day 1: Louvain, Ghent. Depart at c.

11.00am from London St Pancras by Eurostar to Brussels. Drive to the university city of Louvain, In St Peter, in the chapel for which it was painted, is the marvellous Institution of the Sacrament by Dirch Bouts.

Walk around the old centre, including the splendid gothic town hall and peaceful Béguinage (religious community). Drive to Ghent for dinner. Stay in Ghent for all four nights.

Day 2: Ghent, Bruges. Visit the great altarpiece in the cathedral of Ghent, the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb by Hubert and Jan van Eyck, one of the greatest masterpieces of the Flemish School. Walk around the attractive historic centre, passing canals, guild halls and the castle.

In Bruges see the Gothic Church of Our Lady, housing tombs of the Valois dukes and Michelangelo’s marble Madonna and Child and the Groeninge Museum which has a wonderful collection of paintings by Van Eyck and other Bruges painters.

Day 3: Antwerp. The great port on the Scheldt has an abundance of historic buildings in the old centre, and possesses museums and churches of the highest interest. Three of Rubens’s most powerful paintings are in the vast Gothic cathedral.

The Royal Museum of Fine Arts is closed for renovation until 2017. However, highlights of its impressive collection are on display in the cathedral, and in the recently opened Museum van der Stroom, a striking new structure of red stone and curved glass panels. See also the house and studio Rubens built for himself and the Mayer van der Bergh Museum which has a small but outstanding collection including works by Bruegel.

Day 4: Bruges. With its extensive and highly picturesque streetscape constructed of melancholy dark red brick, Bruges is the loveliest of Netherlandish cities. The mediaeval Hospital of St John is now a museum devoted to Hans Memling and contains many of his best paintings. See the market place with its soaring belfry, Gothic town hall and Basilica of the Holy Blood.

Return to Ghent in time to see the Bosch paintings at the Fine Arts Museum.

Day 5: Brussels. Rising to prominence later than the other cities and thriving in the 19th and 20th centuries, Brussels nevertheless retains splendid palaces and guildhouses around the Grand Place. The Fine Arts Museum is one of the best in Europe, and

32

presents the most comprehensive of all collections of Netherlandish painting as well as international works (the 19th- and 20th-century collections are currently closed for renovation but are due to re-open in February 2012). Take the Eurostar from Brussels to London St Pancras, arriving c.

6.00pm.

Practicalities Price: £1,540 (deposit £200). This includes: rail travel (first class, standard premier) on Eurostar; private coach for transfers and excursions; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts and 3 dinners with wine, water, coffee; cold snacks and drinks on the Eurostar; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer.

Single supplement £230. Price without rail travel by Eurostar £1,390.

Clare Ford-Wille. Art historian and lecturer. She graduated in History and History of Art from Birkbeck College, London University and regular teaches at Birkbeck, Morley College and the City Lit. She lectures for the V&A, the National Gallery and for NADFAS and recent publications include entries in the Companion Guide to European Art. Hotel: all nights are spent in Ghent in a comfortable 4-star hotel, excellently located beside the town hall. Rooms are wellequipped and all have double beds (there are no twins).Included dinners are in good restaurants.

How strenuous? Quite a lot of standing in museums and walking on this tour, often on cobbled or roughly paved streets. Average distance by coach per day: 63 miles.

Small group: 10–19 participants.

The Battle of Waterloo 2–6 July 2012 (my 299) 5 days • £1,750 Lecturer: Major Gordon Corrigan Contact us for full details or visit www.martinrandall.com

Dates 2012–2013

Dates, June 2012–November 2013 5th century head of Zeus, engraving c. 1860.

Our programme for 2013 is being constantly updated, and a number of tours here do not have precise dates yet.

If you would like to receive full details on a tour as soon as they are finalised, please contact us. Details are also published on our website on an on-going basis – www.martinrandall.com Our main brochure for 2013 is distributed in early July.

June 2012 1– 5 5–10 5–16 6– 9 8–16 9–16 9–24 11–18 11–19 12–17 13–17 13–21 14–19 16–23 17–23 20–27 20–28 21–25 24–30 25– 2 26–29 27– 1 28– 5

29– 7

July 2012 2– 6

Norway: Art, Architecture, Landscape (my 288) Dr Harry Charrington

5– 9

Ravenna & Urbino (my 271) Dr Luca Leoncini

8–12

Shakespeare & his World (my 291) Charles Nicholl

Baroque & Rococo (my 281) Tom Abbott Ardgowan (my 280) Caroline Knight

The Schubertiade with Hill Walking (my 282) Richard Wigmore

Roman & Mediaeval Provence (my 273) Dr Alexandra Gajewski

Trasimeno Music Festival (my 293) Alan George

2– 6

7–13

9–16 9–21 14–20 20–28

The Battle of Waterloo (my 299) Major Gordon Corrigan

Mediaeval Middle England (my 298) John McNeill Verona Opera (my 304) Clare Ford-Wille

Dürer & Riemenschneider (my 300) Dr Joachim Strupp Opera at Aix (my 308) Prof. Richard Langham-Smith

North Wales (my 307) Peter Cattermole & Neil Johnstone The Baltic States (my 305) Neil Taylor

Dürer & Riemenschneider (my 311) Dr Joachim Strupp Mitteldeutschland (my 313) Dr Jarl Kremeier

Armenia (my 274) Alan Ogden

August 2012

Opera in Paris (my 290) Roderick Swanston

10–13

The Victorian Achievement (my 296) Christopher Newall

11–17

Flemish Painting (my 303) Clare Ford-Wille

16–20

Great Houses of the East (my 289) Dr Andrew Moore

2– 6

German Romanesque (my 295)

10–16

Country House Opera (my 279) Daniel Snowman

12–17

Danish Art & Design (my 297) Dr Shona Kallestrup

17–23

Verona Opera (my 324) Dr Roberto Cobianchi

Drottningholm & Confidencen (my 326) Ian Page Opera in Macerata & Pesaro (my 322) Simon Rees

1–12 2– 7

4–11 4–14 7–10 7–18 8–17 9–15 9–15 10–16 10–17 11–20 13–19 16–23 16–23 16–22 17–23 17–24

Salzburg Summer Festival (my 325) Prof. Jan Smaczny

17–24

Torre del Lago (my 337) Daniel Snowman

20–26

Edinburgh Festival (my 336) Geoffrey Norris

17–26

Walking the Danube (my 332) Richard Wigmore

21–28

33

The Danube Music Festival The Baltic States (my 340) Neil Taylor

The Victorian Achievement (my 346) Dr Paul Atterbury The Road to Santiago (my 349) John McNeill

September 2012

4–10

Eastern Turkey (my 286) Rowena Loverance

The Ring in Budapest (my 287) Barry Millington

31–12

4–10

Walking to Santiago (my 268) Adam Hopkins & Gaby Macphedran

Mediaeval Burgundy (my 275) John McNeill

28– 4

3– 9

Palladian Villas (my 269) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott

Saxon Transylvania (my 272) Alan Ogden

20– 1

3– 9

Klimt & Secessionist Vienna (my 267) Dr Diana Silverthorne

Matisse & his World (my 270) Monica Bohm-Duchen

17–24

Frank Lloyd Wright (mz 350) Dr Harry Charrington

The History of Impressionism (mz 357) Dr Chloe Johnson

Gaudí & the Guggenheim (mz 354) Gijs van Hensbergen Istanbul (mz 367) Jane Taylor

Villas & Gardens of Campagna Romana (mz 356) Dr Joachim Strupp The Schubertiade (mz 372) Richard Stokes

Great Houses of the South West (mz 366) Anthony Lambert Transoxiana (mz 364) Dr Luke Treadwell

Poets & the Somme (mz 359) Andrew Spooner

Walking to Santiago (mz 352) Adam Hopkins & Gaby Macphedran Classical Greece (mz 368) Dr Andrew Farrington

Walking Hadrian’s Wall (mz 351) Prof. Richard Hingley Haydn in Eisenstadt (mz 369) Geoffrey Norris Lucca (mz 353) Dr Antonia Whitley

The Cotswolds (mz 373) Dr Steven Blake Sardinia (mz 365) Dr Roberto Cobianchi

Music in the Saxon Hills (mz 355) David Vickers & Tom Abbott

Courts of Northern Italy (mz 360) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott The Heart of Italy (mz 375) Dr Helen Langdon St Petersburg (mz 362) Dr Alexey Makhrov

History of Medicine (mz 361) Prof. Helen King

Bohemia (mz 378) Michael Ivory

Walking the Thames Valley (mz 379) Dr Paul Atterbury Castile & León (mz 363) Dr Tom Nickson

Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes (mz 371) Steven Desmond Berlin, Potsdam, Dresden (mz 370) Dr Jarl Kremeier

Dates 2012–2013

21–29 24–28 24– 1 24– 5 24– 6 25–30 25– 1 26– 4

Saxon Transylvania (mz 374) Bronwen Riley

October 2012

6–10

The DIVINE OFFICE Choral Music at Oxford (mz 376)

2– 8

6–11

Cave Art of France (mz 382) Dr Paul Bahn

3– 7

Ancient Egypt (mz 383) Dr Angus Graham

4– 7

Sicily (mz 377) Christopher Newall

4– 9

Palladian Villas (mz 390) Dr Fabrizio Nevola

6–12

Connoisseur’s Prague (mz 380) Michael Ivory

The Heart of Portugal (mz 384) Adam Hopkins

8–17 9–14 9–15 9–15

Detail from Aix Cathedral, engraving c. 1900 after a drawing by H.P. Clifford.

9–17 9–17

10–15 13–21 14–21 15–20 15–22 15–22 15–22 15–25 16–20 16–23 16–25 17–21 21–28 22–27 22–28 23– 5 24–28 24–28

Beethoven in Bonn (mz 414) Prof. Barry Cooper Ravenna & Urbino (mz 387) Dr Luca Leoncini Opera in Cardiff (mz 406) Simon Rees Ancient Rome (mz 386) Angus Haldane

Gastronomic Piedmont (mz 396) Marc Millon Classical Turkey (mz 389) Palladian Villas (mz 392) Dr Joachim Strupp

Walking & Wine in Lebanon (mz 399) Toulouse & Albi (mz 395) Dr Alexandra Gajewski Essential Jordan (mz 393) Jane Taylor

Normans in the South (mz 394)

13–17 18–24 19–25 23–25

2–17 20–27 20–27 21–28

Dark Age Brilliance (mz 400) John McNeill

21–27

Sinai (mz 405) Nicole Douek

Pompeii & Herculaneum (mz 421) Dr Ffiona Gilmore Eaves

22–28

Walking in Sicily (mz 413) Christoper Newall

Gastronomic Spain (mz 398) Gijs van Hensbergen

Walking in Tuscany (mz 402) Dr Joachim Strupp Andalucía (mz 403) Adam Hopkins

Writers’ Florence (mz 397) Jonathan Keates

Modern Art on the Côte d’Azur (mz 401) Monica Bohm-Duchen Israel & Palestine (mz 411) Dr Garth Gilmour

Leonardo da Vinci (mz 404) Charles Nicholl

Villas of the Veneto (mz 408) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott

Naples: Art, Antiquities & Opera (mz 417) Dr Helen Langdon Genoa & Turin (mz 412) Dr Luca Leoncini

The Indian Mutiny (mz 407) Patrick Mercer mp Writers’ Venice (mz 410) Gregory Dowling Art in Madrid (mz 409) Gail Turner

A FESTIVAL OF MUSIC IN ROME (mz 422)

34

Venice Revisited (mz 423) Dr Luca Leoncini Florence (mz 427) Dr Roberto Cobianchi

Venetian Palaces (mz 428) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott

Palermo Rediscovered (mz 424) Christopher Newall Florence Revisited (mz 430) Dr Joachim Strupp

Music weekend, the Castle Hotel: The Schubert Ensemble

December 2012

Pompeii & Herculaneum (mz 419) Angus Haldane

November 2012 4– 9

12–18

Valencia (mz 426) Adam Hopkins

Rajput & Mughal Rajasthan (mz 442) Dr Giles Tillotson Palermo at Christmas (mz 444) Dr Roberto Cobianchi

Music in Dresden & Prague at Christmas (mz 443) Professor Jan Smaczny Modern Art on the Côte d’Azur at Christmas (mz 446) Monica Bohm-Duchen Turin at Christmas (mz 441) Dr Luca Leoncini

Florence at Christmas (mz 445) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott Also on-sale soon: Edinburgh at Christmas Music in Berlin at New Year

January 2013 5–17 11–21 14–26 18–20 24-30

The British Raj (mz 451) David Gilmour & Prof. Gavin Stamp Oman (mz 453)

Temples of Tamil Nadu (mz 450) Prof. Adam Hardy

The Endellion String Quartet (mz 458) at The Castle Hotel, Taunton Mozart in Salzburg (mz 460) Richard Wigmore Malta Baroque Festival

February 2013 1–14 8–10 10–23 18–24 22–24 22– 8 26– 3

Kingdoms of the Deccan (mz 470) John M. Fritz Politics & Politicians at The Castle Hotel, Taunton Bengal by River (mz 474) Dr Rosie Llewellyn-Jones Florence (mz 475) Dr Roberto Cobianchi

The Wihan Quartet (mz 479) at The Castle Hotel, Taunton Essential India (mz 480) Dr Giles Tillotson

Connoisseur’s Rome (mz 477) Dr Helen Langdon

Dates 2012–2013

Connoisseur’s Rome (mz 478) Dr Joachim Strupp

22–28

Lucca (mz 522) Dr Antonia Whitley

Ethiopia

26–28

March 2013

29– 8

The Aronowitz Ensemble (mz 539) at The Castle Hotel, Taunton

27– 4

Opera in Turin & Milan

1–14 4–10 5– 9 5–12 11–17 14–22 15–17 17–24 18–26 18–29 19–27 20–28 26– 3

Ashoka & Buddhist India (mz 48) Charles Allen

Walking in Madeira: Garden of the Atlantic (mz 487) Roland Randall Venetian Palaces (mz 486) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott

Modern Art on the Côte d’Azur (mz 499)

The Art History of Venice (mz 488) Polly Buston

3–11 5–12 8–14 8–15 8–17 9–13 9–17 13–18 14–19 15–21 15–22 17–21 18–24 20–28

20–29

3– 8

6–10 6–10 6–13

Extremadura (mz 495) Adam Hopkins

The Heart of Italy (mz 496) Dr Helen Langdon

7–16

Sicily (mz 497) Dr Luca Leoncini

10–15

A Schubertiade in Newcastle (mz 494) at Jesmond Dene House, Newcastle

Palestine (mz 502) Dr Felicity Cobbing Normans in the South (mz 498) John McNeill

The Cathedrals of England (mz 501)

Essential Jordan (mz 505) Jane Taylor

Granada & Córdoba (mz 534) Adam Hopkins The Ring in Berlin (mz 507) Barry Millington

Gastronomic Andalucía (mz 510) Gijs van Hensbergen Pompeii & Herculaneum Angus Haldane

Parma & Bologna (mz 514) Dr Roberto Cobianchi Classical Turkey (mz 571) Dr Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

Lisbon Neighbourhoods (mz 530) Adam Hopkins

7–13

7–16 7–17

10–16 12–19

12–19 13–22 18– 2 19–25 20–26 22–26 22–29 24–31 26–29

Normans in the South (mz 516) Christopher Newall

Genoa & Turin (mz 527) Dr Luca Leoncini

Walking in Sicily (mz 533) Ffiona Gilmore-Eaves

Ravenna & Urbino (mz 518) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott

Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes (mz 520) Steven Desmond Le Corbusier Dr Harry Charrington

Classical Greece (mz 531) Henry Hurst

10–17

Minoan Crete (mz 540)

11–18

Bosnia & Serbia

17–25

Istanbul

10–22

19–26 20–25

Basilicata (mz 547) Dr Rowena Loverance Art in Madrid (mz 552) Gijs van Hensbergen

Off-beat Andalucía Adam Hopkins

Walking in Tuscany Dr Fabrizio Nevola The Duchy of Milan

Walking & Wine in Lebanon (mz 559) Dr Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

24–28 25–30 26–29 26– 7 29– 6

The Pyrenées (mz 553) John McNeill

Eastern Turkey (mz 571) Dr Rowena Loverance

Walking Hadrian’s Wall (mz 574) David Breeze Southern Tuscany (mz 575) Dr Antonia Whitley Medici Villas & Gardens Dr Katie Campbell

The Douro (mz 576) Adam Hopkins Mediaeval Normandy (mz 579) Dr Cathy Oakes

4–10 4–11 4–15 7–15

Palladian Villas (mz 591) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott

Connoisseur’s Vienna (mz 588) Dr Jarl Kremeier

Brittany (mz 589) Caroline Holmes

Walking to Santiago (mz 590) Adam Hopkins & Gaby Macphedran Saxon Transylvania (mz 597) Bronwen Riley

35

Ardgowan (mz 612) Caroline Knight Mediaeval East Anglia (mz 617) John McNeill

Bauhaus & Expressionism (mz 616) Munch in Oslo (mz 622) Dr Frank Høifødt

The Narrow Sea (mz 620) Gordon & Imogen Corrigan Aalto & Others (mz 624) Dr Harry Charrington

July 2013 3– 7 3– 7 3– 7 7–13 7–13

10–17 15–23 25–29

Dresden & Meissen (mz 628) Dr Jarl Kremeier

Organs of Bach’s Time (mz 629) James Johnstone Flemish Painting (mz 631) Richard Williams

THE J.S. BACH JOURNEY

Scotland: the Borders (mz 640)

King Ludwig II & the Wittelsbach Palaces of Bavaria (mz 633) Tom Abbott Mediaeval Saxony (mz 636) Dr Joachim Strupp

Bede (mz 638) Major Imogen Corrigan Savonlinna Opera Santa Fe Opera Verona Opera

Martina Franca Torre del Lago

Gastronomic Sicily

4– 9

Armenia (mz 614) Alan Ogden

The Ring at La Scala

Naples: Art, Architecture, Opera

June 2013

Anjou & Poitou (mz 611)

The History of Impressionsim

Châteaux of the Loire (mz 581) Caroline Holmes

Dresden Festspiele

Great Houses of the South-West (mz 602) Anthony Lambert

The Schubertiade

St Petersburg (mz 555) Dr Alexey Makhrov

Great Houses of the North (mz 566) Gail Bent

The Baltic States (mz 599) Neil Taylor

Art & Industry

A FESTIVAL OF MUSIC IN SEVILLE

Courts of Northern Italy (mz 558) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott

The Italian Marches Polly Buston

Northumbria

Transoxiana (mz 556) James Allan

Ottoman Turkey (mz 557) Jane Taylor

Madiaeval Burgundy (mz 598) John McNeill

Opera in Oslo, Gothenburg & Copenhagen

Sardinia Dr Roberto Cobianchi

Bergen Music Festival

Piero della Francesca (mz 524) Dr Antonia Whitley

The History of Impressionism (mz 526) Dr Frances Fowle

Palladian Villas (mz 535) Dr Joachim Strupp

May 2013

6–13

April 2013 2– 9

23–28

8–15

Trasimeno Music Festival

August 2013 2–11 12–16 16–23 16–22 18–24 27– 3

The Ring in Seattle (mz 648) Barry Millington

Art in Munich (mz 649) Tom Abbott

THE DANUBE MUSIC FESTIVAL Walking the Danube (mz 651) Richard Wigmore Grampian Gardens (mz 663) Caroline Holmes

The Victorian Achievement (mz 664) Dr Paul Atterbury

Dates 2012–2013

The Road to Santiago (mz 669) John McNeill

Batrican camel, 16th-century woodcut.

30–11

Salzburg Summer

Edinburgh Festival

Drottningholm & Confidencen Royal Palaces

Opera in Macerata & Pesaro Verona Opera

Operetta in Austria

Lucerne Summer Festival

September 2013 2– 6 2– 9

7–19 9–15 9–16 9–16 10–16 10–21 14–25 15–22 16–22 16–22 19–25 20–26 22–27 22–29 23–29

The Welsh Marches (ma 678) Major Imogen Corrigan

Bohemia (ma 673) Michael Ivory

West Coast Architecture (ma 675) Dr Harry Charrington French Gothic (ma 676)

The Cotswolds (ma 694) Dr Steven Blake

Berlin, Potsdam, Dresden (ma 707) Dr Jarl Kremeier

23–30 23–30 23–30 23– 4 28– 7 29– 6 30– 8

Cave Art of France (ma 709) Dr Paul Bahn

Walking in Tuscany (ma 712) Dr Antonia Whitley

Sicily (ma 717) Christopher Newall Classical Greece (ma 689)

Dark Age Brilliance (ma 724) Ffiona Gilmore-Eaves Castile & León (ma 721) Gijs van Hensbergen Transoxiana

Connoisseur’s Prague (ma 674) Michael Ivory

7–13 7–13 8–13 9–13

10–17 11–17 13–19 14–24 14–25 16–27 17–24 20–25 26– 3 28– 3

Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes (ma 700) Steven Desmond

2– 6

1–10

St Petersburg (ma 705) Dr Alexey Makhrov

2– 9

Courts of Northern Italy (ma 708) Dr Fabrizio Nevola

4–10

ENGLISH MUSIC IN YORKSHIRE

The Etruscans (ma 710) Dr Nigel Spivey

3– 7

5–11

Ravenna & Urbino (ma 728) Dr Luca Leoncini

The Cathedrals of England (ma 732) The Venetian Hills (ma 729) Dr Joachim Strupp

Monasteries of Moldavia (ma 730) Alan Ogden Gastronomic Piedmont (ma 731) Marc Millon

Modern Art on the Côte d’Azur (ma 736)

Roman & Mediaeval Provence (ma 737) Dr Alexandra Gajewski Ancient Rome

Andalucía (ma 740) Adam Hopkins Sicily (ma 747)

Art in Texas (ma 742) Gijs van Hensbergen

RHONE MUSIC FESTIVAL Pompeii & Herculaneum Angus Haldane

Essential Jordan (ma 761) Sue Rollin & Jane Streetly

Walking in Madeira: Garden of the Atlantic (ma 760) Roland Randall

Ancient Egypt

Aragón (ma 727) Adam Hopkins

Israel & Palestine (ma 726) Garth Gilmour

Art in Madrid Gail Turner

Ethiopia

October 2013

Gastronomic Catalonia (ma 696) Gijs van Hensbergen

Palladian Villas (ma 737) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott

Parma Verdi Festival

Stresa Festival

1– 9

Malta (ma 735) Juliet Rix

Modern Art in Italy

Music in the Saxon Hills

The History of Medicine (ma 695) Dr Helen King

Caravaggio (ma 734) Dr Helen Langdon

Music in London

North-Eastern Turkey

Morocco (ma 690) James Brown

Friuli-Venezia Giulia (ma 733) Dr Joachim Strupp

Opera in Cardiff

Opera in Venice

Walking to Santiago (ma 682) Adam Hopkins & Gaby Macphedran The Heart of Italy (ma 692) Dr Luca Leoncini

Walking the Thames Valley (ma 711) Dr Paul Atterbury

7–13

Walking in Northern Tuscany Nubia

November 2013 4–11 7–11 12–16 15–29

Granada & Córdoba Gijs van Hensbergen

Florentine Palaces (ma 769) Dr Joachim Strupp Venetian Palaces (ma 770) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott Essential India (ma 771) Zurbarán

M A RT I N R A N D A L L T R AV E L A RT • A R C H I T E C T U R E • G A S T R O N O M Y • A R C H A E O L O G Y • H I S T O R Y • M U S I C • L I T E R AT U R E

Voysey House, Barley Mow Passage, London, United Kingdom W4 4GF

Telephone 020 8742 3355 Fax 020 8742 7766 info@martinrandall.co.uk From Australia and New Zealand you can contact:

Martin Randall Marketing, PO Box 537, Toowong, Queensland 4066 5085

Telephone 1300 55 95 95, from New Zealand +61 7 3377 0141 Fax 07 3377 0142, anz@martinrandall.com.au

From the USA and Canada there is a toll-free telephone number: 1 800 988 6168

www.martinrandall.com