Classical music
Alina Ibragimova, Samson Tsoy, Fidelio Orchestra Café review – cataclysms and calm on the Clerkenwell RoadWednesday, 15 July 2020
The Fidelio Orchestra Café is where you go for electric-shock and deep immersion therapy from the greatest of musicians. It happened last week with Steven Isserlis in Bach, and last night Alina Ibragimova sent high voltage shooting through the body... Read more... |
First Person: Royal College of Music Director of Programmes Diana Salazar on a transformation in learning and teachingTuesday, 14 July 2020
I wasn’t the only one who felt emotional when I left our beautiful building in South Kensington for the last time before lockdown. By that stage in mid-March the corridors had become quiet. The sense of loss was palpable: no concerts, no playing... Read more... |
This House is Full of Music, Imagine..., BBC One review – a spring dream of a lockdown concertMonday, 13 July 2020
No happy family, surely, was ever quite like this one. Love and mutual respect bound up with music-making at the highest level make the Kanneh-Masons of Nottingham a role-model for this country in times of trouble, with their reiterated message that... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: horn player Sarah WillisSaturday, 11 July 2020
Horn player Sarah Willis joined the Berlin Philharmonic in 2001. She juggles her position with spells of teaching, interviewing soloists and conductors for the Berlin Philharmonic's Digital Concert Hall and hosting an online series of Horn Hangouts... Read more... |
Classical music/Opera direct to home 20 - more signs of musical life around the UKSaturday, 11 July 2020
So, arts people, you’ve had precisely two days to get your outdoor events ready, so where are they? Well, it seems that Glyndebourne had advance notice and will be holding its garden concerts soon, though they sold out almost immediately. Opera... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Coriún Aharonián, Beethoven, Humphrey Procter-GreggFriday, 10 July 2020
Coriún Aharonián: Una carta Ensemble Aventure, SWF-Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden/Zoltán Peskó (Wergo)Uruguayan composer Coriún Aharonián (1940-2017) was born in Montevideo to Armenian parents. His output is described here as “a complex melange... Read more... |
Steven Isserlis, Fidelio Orchestra Café review – distilled reflection, joy and witThursday, 09 July 2020
What music would you choose to hear for your first live event after nearly four months of lockdown? For me, it would be Bach, and probably any one of the Cello Suites. Interpreter? Ideally, one of four living cellists – so the dream came true last... Read more... |
'She spoke through her violin': Steven Isserlis on extraordinary meetings with Ida Haendel (192?-2020)Tuesday, 07 July 2020
So Ida has left us – a legend has departed. What a violinist! What a woman! Magnificent, unique, incorrigible – she was a law unto herself.First, the playing: a film about her was aptly entitled: “I AM the Violin.” And she was! The violin was her... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Holst, Nielsen, Piatti, TchaikovskySaturday, 04 July 2020
Holst: The Planets; Nielsen: Helios Overture Mythos (Bjarke Mogensen and Rasmus Schjaerff Kjøller, accordions) (Mythos)Pairing Nielsen’s Helios Overture with Holst’s The Planets makes total sense, and one’s surprised that it’s not been done... Read more... |
‘We are still standing and planning for the brightest future we can’: Svend McEwan-Brown on the survival of a festivalWednesday, 01 July 2020
They say that you discover who your true friends are when you find yourself in direst need. East Neuk Festival, our success story on the Fife coast, which should have been happening this week, faced the deepest crisis in its 16-year history this... Read more... |
Mark Padmore, Mitsuko Uchida/ Benjamin Baker, Timothy Ridout, Wigmore Hall online/BBC Radio 3 review – hail and farewellSunday, 28 June 2020
Of course, we just had to end with a midsummer Winterreise. The Wigmore Hall’s month of lockdown concerts for BBC Radio 3 had begun with a legendary elegy – the Chaconne from Bach’s D minor Partita, written according to musical folklore in memory of... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Enescu, Mendelssohn, Tuur, Sara StoweSaturday, 27 June 2020
Mendelssohn: Octet, Enescu: Octet Gringolts Quartet & Meta4 (BIS)Mendelssohn began work on his delicious Octet at the age of 16. He’d been composing for several years previously, though this work, along with the equally miraculous overture... Read more... |
