This recording, made in the Adrian Boult Hall at the Birmingham Conservatoire of Music in June 2014, is the fourth disc in SOMM’s series of recordings with Paul Spicer and the Birmingham Conservatoire Chamber Choir.
Month: December 2015
L’Arpeggiata: La dama d’AragÛ, Wigmore Hall
Having recently followed some by-ways through the music of Purcell, Monteverdi and Cavalli, L’Arpeggiata turned the spotlight on traditional folk music in this characteristically vibrant and high-spirited performance at the Wigmore Hall.
Tippett : A Child of Our Time, London
Edward Gardner brought all his experience as a choral and opera conductor to bear in this stirring performance of Michael Tippett’s A Child of Our Time at the Barbican Hall, with a fine cast of soloists, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and BBC Symphony Chorus.
Taverner and Tavener, Fretwork, London
‘Apt for voices or viols’: eager to maximise sales among the domestic market in Elizabethan England, publishers emphasised that the music contained in collections such as Thomas Morley’s First Book of Madrigals to Four Voices of 1594 was suitable for performance by any combination of singers and players.
Fall of the House of Usher in San Francisco
It was a single title but a double bill and there was far more happening than Gordon Getty and Claude Debussy. Starting with Edgar Allen Poe.
The Merry Widow at Lyric Opera of Chicago
For its latest production of the current season Lyric Opera of Chicago is presenting Franz Leh·r’s The Merry Widow (Die lustige Witwe) featuring RenÈe Fleming /Nicole Cabell as the widow Hanna Glawari and Thomas Hampson as Count Danilo Danilovich.
Kindred Spirits: Cecilia Bartoli and Rolando Villazón at the Concertgebouw
Mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli has been a regular favourite at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam since 1996. Her verastile concerts are always carefully constructed and delivered with irrepressible energy and artistic
commitment.
Cav/Pag at Royal Opera
When Italian director Damiano Michieletto visited Covent Garden in June this year, he spiced Rossini’s Guillaume Tell with a graphic and, many felt, gratuitous rape scene that caused outrage and protest.
Verdi Giovanna d’Arco, Teatro alla Scala, Milan
Verdi Giovanna d’Arco at Teatro alla Scala, Milan, starting the new season. Primas at La Scala are a state occasion, attended by the President of Italy and other dignitaries.
Iestyn Davies, Allan Clayton and James Baillieu at Wigmore Hall
This performance by countertenor Iestyn Davies and tenor Allan Clayton was a
stirring celebration of the diversity and continuity that characterises vocal
settings of English texts by English and American composers, past and present.
Imaginatively and intelligently devised by pianist James Baillieu, the
programme demonstrated the affective power of music ranging from the simplest
to the most sophisticated forms of vocal expression, and encompassed art-song,
folk-song, realisations, quasi-operatic mini-drama and spiritual
meditation.