composers
Balsom, CBSO, Gražinytė-Tyla, Symphony Hall Birmingham review - made in BrumThursday, 03 October 2019
There’s nothing like practising what you preach. “I say straight out that I regard all so-called 12-tone music, so-called serial music, so-called electronic music and so-called avant-garde music as utter rubbish, and indeed a deliberate conning of... Read more... |
10 Questions for conductor Charles HazlewoodMonday, 23 September 2019
Charles Hazlewood (b. 1966) has worked across the gamut of orchestral music, his career showcasing the multitude of ways it can be perceived and enjoyed. Recently he has reengaged with his longstanding love of minimalist music, first via his two BBC... Read more... |
Preludes, Southwark Playhouse review - journeying into the mind of RachmaninoffThursday, 12 September 2019
Where does music come from? That’s the vital question posed to Sergei Rachmaninoff in Dave Malloy’s extraordinary 2015 chamber work, as the great late-Romantic Russian composer – stuck in his third year of harrowing writer’s block – tries to... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Brahms, Sibelius, Thomas WilsonSaturday, 27 July 2019
Brahms: The Piano Quartets The Primrose Piano Quartet (Meridian)Schoenberg complained that performances of Brahms’s G minor Piano Quartet never pleased him (“the better the pianist, the louder he plays and you hear nothing from the strings”).... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Dove, Leighton, Martin, Vaughan WilliamsSaturday, 06 July 2019
The Orchestral Music of Jonathan Dove BBC Philharmonic/Timothy Redmond, with Lawrence Zazzo (counter-tenor) (Orchid Classics)Jonathan Dove’s Airport Scenes could be subtitled Four Air Interludes, each movement extracted from his Glyndebourne... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Daniel Elms, Hindemith, TchaikovskySaturday, 15 June 2019
Daniel Elms: Islandia (New Amsterdam Records)Composers have long taken inspiration from landscape, and much of Daniel Elms’ absorbing Islandia is rooted in the ambience, sights and sounds of his home city, Hull. If you’ve not been there, book... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Bartók, Bruckner, BusoniSaturday, 25 May 2019
Bartók: Complete String Quartets Quatuor Diotima (Näive)Technical infallibility is now a non-negotiable when it comes to Bartók's six fiendishly difficult string quartets. Still, there's much more to these pieces than simply hitting the right... Read more... |
First Person: Conductor Maxime Pascal on Stockhausen at the Southbank CentreTuesday, 21 May 2019
Stockhausen stands alongside Monteverdi and Beethoven as a composer who exploded the understanding of his art. Stockhausen deeply changed the relationship between space, time and music; there’s a human, intimate dimension to his composition, and he... Read more... |
British Paraorchestra: The Nature of Why, Brighton Festival 2019 review - it's a happening!Tuesday, 07 May 2019
The Nature of Why is not so much a concert as a multi-discipline happening. To assess it is to relate a human experience rather than just an aesthetic appreciation of the new orchestral work by Goldfrapp’s Will Gregory which is at its heart. On the... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Mozart, Poulenc, Jeremy DenkSaturday, 13 April 2019
Mozart: The String Quintets Klenke Quartet (with Harald Schoneweg, viola) (Accentus Music)The viola was Mozart's instrument of choice when playing chamber music, his fondness for the instrument's warm timbre prompting him to add a second viola... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Beethoven, Mysliveček, TippettSaturday, 30 March 2019
Beethoven: Piano Concertos 1-5 Mitsuko Uchida (piano), Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Simon Rattle (Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings)You can pick up a superb set of Beethoven piano concertos for under a tenner with little effort. This box... Read more... |
Robin Hood, The Opera Story, CLF Café review - folk hero re-imagined as Tory villainWednesday, 06 March 2019
What’s the one thing everyone knows about Robin Hood? That he steals from the rich and gives to the poor. So it was quite a brave decision to re-cast Robin as a rapacious Tory shires MP, doing his best to stop the poor becoming rich. At least, I... Read more... |
