Mozart
Double French: the 35th Buxton FestivalMonday, 08 July 2013
Retrieving buried rarities, many even by famous composers, is the cornerstone of the Buxton Festival, now in its 35th year. This time around, artistic director Stephen Barlow has plucked out a pair of 19th-century French comic operas by Saint-Saëns... Read more... |
BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition 2013 Final, BBC FourMonday, 24 June 2013
Once in a blue moon, the judges would seem to have got it wrong. I can think only of 2001, when stunning Latvian mezzo Elina Garanča failed to win the coveted goblet but has since gone on to deserved fame as one of the top half-dozen singers... Read more... |
Le nozze di Figaro, Glyndebourne Festival OperaSunday, 09 June 2013
The Marriage of Figaro is so much a part of Glyndebourne’s history that it’s sometimes hard to recall the details of this or that production. Michael Grandage’s current staging, though, will be easily remembered for its strong characteristics, both... Read more... |
Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Garsington OperaSaturday, 08 June 2013
In sunshineand bright blue skies there can be few places more green and pleasant than Wormsley Park. Garsington Opera has found a happy home there, with this being its third season in its sleekly rectilinear big top at the Getty family’s... Read more... |
Uchida, CBSO, Nelsons, Symphony Hall, BirminghamFriday, 03 May 2013
“Did he who made the Lamb make thee?” Blake asked the tiger. One might have asked the same question of Scriabin’s Poem of Ecstasy, with Mozart’s G major Piano Concerto, K.453, as the lamb, in this hyper-diverse Birmingham concert. The image of... Read more... |
Sir Colin Davis, 1927-2013Monday, 15 April 2013
In its ebbs, flows and final grand flourishing, the career of Sir Colin Davis was reminiscent of some of the great musical masterpieces with which he became closely identified. From Mozart to Tippett, Berlioz to Beethoven and Sibelius, Davis proved... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Mahler, Mozart, Vaughan WilliamsSaturday, 16 March 2013
Mahler: Symphony no 9 Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra/Gustavo Dudamel (DG)This new, live, Mahler 9 sounds impressive – microphones are closely placed and you really feel in the thick of things. Dudamel’s intakes of breath are clearly... Read more... |
Schiff, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Queen Elizabeth HallTuesday, 26 February 2013
You’d not expect Einstein to have daubed Amadeus’s Ninth Piano Concerto with the label “Mozart’s Eroica”. The really famous one didn’t : that piece of punditry came not from Albert the Great but Alfred the (musicologist) Lesser. Embarrassingly, the... Read more... |
Pires, LSO, Haitink, Barbican HallWednesday, 13 February 2013
It’s not that Bernard Haitink’s tempos are universally slow, it’s just that they often feel that way. When it works the music can be magisterial, immense, but when it doesn’t you find yourself chafing against such unyielding allegiance to restraint... Read more... |
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Rattle, Royal Festival HallWednesday, 30 January 2013
Period instruments demand absolute honesty from their players. Their sound is their personality - candid, quirky, eccentrically beautiful - but their soul is revealed in the spirit of the playing, where beauty is not skin deep and the expressiveness... Read more... |
WNO Chorus and Orchestra, Poppen, St David's Hall, CardiffSaturday, 17 November 2012
Speaking about the Requiem he composed in 1990 in memory of the London Sinfonietta’s long-time artistic director Michael Vyner, Hans Werner Henze always talked as a believing atheist. “Paradise is here or ought to be,” he insisted, “not later, when... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Haydn, Mozart, Xavier Montsalvatge, Daniel PropperSaturday, 03 November 2012
Xavier Montsalvatge: Orchestral works BBC Philharmonic/Juanjo Mena (Chandos)Xavier Montsalvatge (1912-2002) was a Catalan composer who remained true to his regional roots, resisting any stereotypical notions of what Spanish music was supposed... Read more... |
