‘The long sobs of the violins of autumn wound my heart with a monotonous languor.’ The first lines of Paul Verlaine’s ‘Chanson d’automne’ exemplify the poignant melancholy of Verlaine’s poetry…
Year: 2023
Nabucco at the Arena di Verona
The Arena di Verona has just hosted its 100th year of summer opera. Long ago the Arena had places for 30,000 Romans, now, with one-third of the monumental structure as an…
Maltworms and Milkmaids: a new recording of Warlock’s orchestral music and songs
During his tragically short life, Peter Warlock – the pen name used by Philip Heseltine (1894-1930) – composed around 119 solo songs, 23 choral works (some unaccompanied and others with…
Simon Rattle’s Prom of Poulenc and Mahler proved both unforgettable and deeply personal
Farewell. This was an essential part of Sir Simon Rattle’s second Prom at the Royal Albert Hall. It was a final farewell to his tenure at the London Symphony Orchestra…
Late-night Bach at the Proms: Iestyn Davies and the English Concert
In an article in the Daily Telegraph, published just prior to this late-night Prom with The English Concert led by director Kristian Bezuidenhout from the harpsichord, countertenor Iestyn Davies tells…
Das Rheingold at Ravello Festival
The 150th anniversary of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen will arrive in 2026. Perhaps the most intriguing commemorative initiative is an effort to reconstruct the precise playing, singing and staging…
The Greek Passion at the Salzburg Festival
Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů was a WWII refugee to the U.S. who returned to Europe (Switzerland) in his last years (d. 1959) where he turned Greek novelist Nikos Kazantzakis’ Christ…
Falstaff and Macbeth at the Salzburg Festival
Falstaff at the hands of old-guard avant-gardistes Christof Marthaler and Anna Viebrock. Set on a sound stage somewhere (certainly Hollywood) where Orson Wells is acting or directing his three Falstaff…
Parsifal at Bayreuth
There are intractable conventions at Bayreuth. There are no supertitles. Parsifal is done every year (though it was not during WWII due to ideological incompatibility). There is no applause after…
Sir Simon Rattle and the LSO introduce Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri to the Proms
“It’s the great masterpiece you’ve never heard.” So declared Sir Simon Rattle when he introduced Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri to the London Symphony Orchestra in 2015, in a…