Classical Features
Mendelssohn on Mull: Close-up with Chamber MusicWednesday, 13 July 2011
Getting to Mull is an improbably romantic journey to classical music-making. One can easily understand why Mendelssohn was so affected by his experiences in Scotland – and Mull. On the three-hour train journey from Glasgow one sheds the habits of everyday life: the train winds through thickets of Forestry Commission plantations, which suddenly open out into wild panoramas of mountains and lochs, or a dramatic ruined castle against the skyline. Read more... |
theartsdesk in Cheltenham: Seven Concerts in Two DaysSunday, 10 July 2011
For so many days a year, Cheltenham's Regency symmetry and conservative values totter and buckle as they veer dangerously towards relative festive liberalism. As I sliced into one of the four annual beanfeasts, the Cheltenham Music Festival, it struck me how well lopsided, sometimes painful bendings of a classical framework by Schumann and Brahms sat with a battery of volatile percussion celebrating Steve Reich's 75th birthday. Read more... |
Music and Maths: A Yardstick to the StarsThursday, 30 June 2011
The history of maths and music is the history of early Greek philosophy, medieval astronomy, of the Reformation, the Enlightenment and the two World Wars. While mathematics at its purest may be an abstraction, the quest for its proofs is deeply and definingly human, charged with biological, theological and even political motive. Whether through performance or discussions about music, this year’s Cheltenham Music Festival (which begins this week) explores the mathematical processes that have... Read more... |
Set The Piano Stool on Fire: on filming Alfred BrendelWednesday, 01 June 2011
When Alfred Brendel first mentioned Kit Armstrong to me, in early 2008, I knew there was a film there. He was brimming with excitement: Kit had come to him with an interpretation of a Chopin Nocturne that displayed a command and maturity that was baffling considering Kit was 13 at the time of the recording. Read more... |
Opinion: Is classical music irrelevant?Sunday, 15 May 2011
Cambridge University, cradle of Newton, Keynes and Wittgenstein, of Wordsworth, Turing and Tennyson, has produced 15 prime ministers and more Nobel Prize-winners than most nations. In its 200-year history, the university’s debating society has hosted princes, politicians and leaders in every field: the Dalai Lama, Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela, and last week a 25-year-old east-London DJ, Kissy Sell Out. Read more... |
theartsdesk in Cuenca: Religious Music WeekSaturday, 23 April 2011
It’s Holy Wednesday in Cuenca, and going round the corner into Cathedral Square I’m surrounded by hordes of guys in multicoloured mufti who look like the Ku Klux Klan, with unnecessarily pointy hoods. Twenty of them are carrying a heavy float with a large statue of Jesus on it. In Cuenca things are fairly austere, compared to other places where there’s a lot of self-whipping, or where, if you have sin on your conscience, you may end up banging nails into your hands, as in Mexico. Still there... Read more... |
Interview: Violinist Daniel HopeWednesday, 02 March 2011
In the later 19th century, violinist and composer Joseph Joachim was hailed as the most brilliant fiddler of his day, but today his name lives on via the great works that he helped to bring into the classical repertoire. Brahms dedicated his Violin Concerto to Joachim, while Bruch's First Violin Concerto was substantially revised by Joachim and became closely identified with him. Both the Schumann and Dvořák concertos were written for him, though Joachim never performed the latter. Read more... |
Interview: Pianist Nick Van BlossWednesday, 09 February 2011
A new recording of The Goldberg Variations is now available, by Nick Van Bloss. In the annals of British pianism, it’s not quite a name to be conjured with. Or not yet. Until he performed at Cadogan Hall in 2009, he had not visited the concert platform in 15 years. After a promising early career, he retired at the age of 26. It’s not as if he didn’t play the piano at all in the interim. He just didn't play to anyone but himself. The reason why he gave up performing is simple.... Read more... |
Elgar's Enigma - A Love Child Named Pearl?Wednesday, 26 January 2011
UPDATE 2015: Four years ago, in January 2011, I wrote this article about the music critic and biographer Michael Kennedy's search for the missing portion of Elgar's life. It identified a Mrs Dora Nelson as the composer's mistress and mother of a lovechild, who might have influenced some legendarily enigmatic aspects of Elgar's compositional output. Read more... |
Opinion: If the classical concert scene ain't broke, don't fix itMonday, 24 January 2011
Most of us don't object to experiments in concert presentation - the occasional one-off showcase to lure the young and suspicious into the arcane world of attentive concert-going, the odd multimedia event as icing on the cake. It's only those pundits obsessed with the key word "accessibility" who tell us that the basic concept of sitting (or standing, as they have at the Proms for well over a century) and listening with respect for those around us needs overhauling. It's a typical... Read more... |
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