On a recent Sunday evening at Millennium Park Lyric Opera of Chicago presented its annual concert to introduce the new season. During his initial remarks welcoming audience members to Sunday…
Month: September 2021
Respighi Songs: Ian Bostridge and Saskia Giorgini
In 1913, Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936) became professor of composition at the Liceo Musicale di S Cecilia in Rome, a post he held for over a decade. One of his students…
Arcangelo perform Bach’s St Matthew Passion at the BBC Proms
When Arcangelo performed Handel’s Theodora on the penultimate evening of the 2018 Proms season, I wondered whether a small period-instrument ensemble and singers could surmount the challenges posed by the…
Cinquecento present an outstanding collection of music by Heinrich Isaac
After hearing this excellent disc which Cinquecento have devoted to the music of Heinrich Isaac, I was compelled to find other recordings. How seldom the music of this Flemish-born composer…
Amy Beach’s Cabildo at Wilton’s Music Hall: a Creole Beggar’s Opera
Pierre Lafitte (1770-1821) is a figure of swashbuckling legend. The French-born New Orleans merchant mariner-cum-pirate and his brother Jean ran an illicit trading network in defiance of the American, Spanish…
Hurn Court Opera’s Dido and Aeneas
An outing to the handsome Romanesque-revival church in Wilton, Wiltshire for a performance of Dido and Aeneas by Hurn Court Opera provided food for thought. Established in 2017, this Dorset-based…
Elizabeth Llewellyn and Simon Lepper open the 2021-22 Wigmore Hall season with Italian and English song
One year on from her Wigmore Hall debut, and following the release of her highly praised album of the songs of Samuel Taylor-Coleridge, Heart & Hereafter, soprano Elizabeth Llewellyn returned…
An intriguing debut album from L’Escadron Volant de la Reine – Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger: Il tedesco a Roma
Rome, the 1620s. Johann Hieronymus (Giovanni Girolamo) Kapsberger, virtuoso theorbist, singer and esteemed composer is at the peak of his fame and influence. Born to German parents in Venice in…
Polished performances from Sir John Eliot Gardiner in Bach & Handel
There’s no denying the energy and precision Sir John Eliot Gardiner can still coax from the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists, founded by him over fifty years ago. In…
Tristan und Isolde: the London Philharmonic rise to epic heights, an inspired conductor … and two Tristans
I’m often left wondering with a great performance of Tristan und Isolde whether the true emotion of the work comes from the orchestra rather than the singers. There were moments…