Classical Features

Q&A Special: Memories of Lutosławski

alexandra Coghlan Saturday, 26 January 2013

While the history of 20^th-century music is undoubtedly the history of the 20^th century – from the decadent expressionism of fin-de-siècle Berlin to the imagined surrealist worlds of 1920s Paris – few composers lived or wrote the century quite as vividly as Witold Lutosławski. He is celebrating his centenary this year.

Barbican and Southbank 2013-14 seasons: still neck and neck

David Nice Tuesday, 22 January 2013

With the cuts still to bite deep, it's enterprising business as usual for both of London’s biggest concert-hall complexes and their satellite orchestras in the newly announced season to come. I use the word "complex" carefully, because as from September, the Barbican Centre, which already has access to LSO St Luke's up the road, will also be using the 608-seater hall constructed as part of its neighbouring Guildhall School of Music and Drama’s Milton Court development.

Galina Vishnevskaya on Britten and his War Requiem

David Nice Friday, 14 December 2012

One of Russia’s greatest and most inspirational sopranos, Galina Vishnevskaya died on 11 December at the age of 86. To the world at large, she will probably be most famous for taking an heroic stand alongside her husband, cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich, against the Soviet authorities over the treatment of Alexander Solzhenitsyn; in 1974, the couple were stripped of their citizenship as a result.

Remembering Ravi Shankar, 1920-2012

mark Kidel Thursday, 13 December 2012

While living in Bombay in the late 1940s, betrayed by a business partner and his first marriage in the midst of painful implosion, Ravi Shankar decided to commit suicide. At the eleventh hour, a holy man, who happened to be passing by, knocked on his door asking for water. The man told Shankar that he was aware of his fateful decision. This wasn’t, he went on, the right time to be renouncing life.

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theartsdesk Q&A: Conductor Markus Stenz on Mahler

David Nice Sunday, 09 December 2012

Never mind the huge interpretative challenges; Mahler’s Eighth, dubbed the "Symphony of a Thousand" owing to the gargantuan forces the composer marshalled as conductor of its 1910 Munich premiere, needs an even greater mastery of logistics.

Hearing Voices: Jocelyn Pook

Louise Gray Sunday, 02 December 2012

“I am always fascinated by how much is in a voice, by their textures and qualities,” says composer Jocelyn Pook. “They’re like aural photographs of a person and you recognise them instantly.” We are in her studio in north London and Pook flicks through audio-files in her computer to prove the point. Some of the voices she was chosen for their inherent musicality – voices on answerphones rise upwards as questions are asked and intervals are sounded for multi-syllabic words.

Elliott Carter Remembered

stephen Walsh Monday, 12 November 2012

It’s hard to imagine that a composer’s death at the age of 103 could be a loss to music, in the sense of possible future work, as well as a personal loss, which of course death will always be. But Elliott Carter was a unique exception.

Opinion: why arts education matters

graham Rickson Monday, 05 November 2012

There’s been a star-studded attack from leading figures in the arts on the decision by Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education, to exclude the performing arts from the English Baccalaureate, the planned replacement for the GCSE examination. To the Coalition’s credit, they've also published a National Plan for Music Education, “part of the Government’s aim to ensure that all pupils have rich cultural opportunities alongside their academic and vocational studies”.

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theartsdesk in Calgary: Innovation and Iconoclasm at the 2012 International Honens Piano Competition

alexandra Coghlan Sunday, 04 November 2012

Can you name the last three winners of the Tchaikovsky Piano Competition? The Van Cliburn? The Queen Elizabeth? Chopin? Probably not. There was a time when winning a piano competition was a ticket to success, a star-making, career-changing event. Now it’s lucky to land you an agent, let alone a record contract.

The Composer and the Water-Nymph: Hans Werner Henze's Ondine

Ismene Brown Wednesday, 31 October 2012

Hans Werner Henze, the composer who died on Saturday aged 86, wrote the music for one of Margot Fonteyn's signature ballets, Ondine, a ballet about an inhuman spirit who longs to be joined to a man - but when she does, he must die. It might almost be a metaphor for the death of the thought the moment it is realised.