Given that Beethoven’s final symphony normally has a playing time of just over an hour, what can you sensibly pair with it in the first half? Something else by Beethoven,…
Author: Alexander Hall
Proms 2025: East and West collide with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Making unusual connections is one of the hallmarks of the BBC Proms. Honouring Sofia Gubaidulina, who died aged 93 in March, this concert opened with the sound of soft tubular…
Pocket-sized Wagner: Grimeborn Opera’s Tristan und Isolde
Much has been written about Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, and for various reasons. It is one of the most compelling love stories of all time, with roots stretching back to…
A journey through space and time with Benjamin Appl
Schubert’s Winterreise is listed under the catalogue number D911 as part of the Deutsch-Verzeichnis, the method by which all his works are uniquely identified. More often than not, this sole…
Sin, death and love: English sonnets with David Butt Philip
If you want an intellectual challenge, then power your way through the sonnets of John Donne, the leading exemplar of the school of Metaphysical Poets, as I and many other…
The whimsical, the valedictory and the heroic: three sides of Richard Strauss
Sometimes comments are voiced to the effect that you’d never know Jane Austen had been writing in the middle of the Napoleonic Wars, since there isn’t a single reference anywhere…
Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown: Opera North’s Simon Boccanegra
What links Verdi with Shakespeare is a keen awareness of the distinction that needs to be made between the public and the private man: an individual may project a particular…
What comes after the very end? Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde offers some answers
Some composers, like Dvořák for instance, seemed at home in whichever genre they chose to write. Mahler, by contrast, though he repeatedly wrote for the human voice, never attempted an…
Dance, then, wherever you may be: Edward Gardner and the LPO sign up to that
Sydney Carter’s Lord of the Dance might well act as the individual watchword for this concert given by the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Edward Gardner which inaugurated a short Southbank…
A curious combination of Schnittke, Shostakovich and Brahms: Lisa Batiashvili, Gianadrea Noseda and the LSO
In German there is only one word (Schicksal) to cover the twin ideas of Providence watching over you in pursuit of higher things (destiny) and the workings of malign supernatural…