For my generation, as well as for me personally, Pierre Boulez’s Mahler was probably the most influential of all. My Mahlerian coming of age coincided with his decisive return to…
Author: Mark Berry
Pénélope at Bavarian State Opera
Fauré’s only opera Pénélope was premiered at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo in March 1913, moving to the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées only two months later. It has fared incommensurably less well…
Die Liebe der Danae in Munich
For what continues to be considered an ill-fated rarity, Die Liebe der Danae has had several outings over the past couple of decades or so. I have seen three productions…
Handel’s Saul at Glyndebourne
I found myself listening at home to Saul a few months ago (Charles Mackerras’s outstanding Leeds Festival recording with Donald McIntyre, James Bowman, Margaret Price, et al.). It made for…
Magical Surreality: The Excursions of Mr Brouček from Simon Rattle and the LSO
Simon Rattle’s survey of the Janáček operas has proved a tale of two cities: Berlin (first the Philharmonic and latterly the Staatsoper) and London (the LSO). The latter has been…
Barbara Hannigan at the Barbican (II)
The second of Barbara Hannigan’s two March LSO concerts opened with a UK premiere: Golfam Khayam’s Je ne suis pas une fable à conter, which Hannigan commissioned and has already…
Nash Ensemble at Wigmore Hall
Founded in October 1964 by Amelia Freedman at the Royal Academy of Music, a shortish walk away from the Wigmore Hall, the Nash Ensemble is celebrating its sixtieth anniversary season,…
Barbara Hannigan at the Barbican
Barbara Hannigan is unquestionably a star in today’s musical firmament. Anyone who has heard (and seen) her Ligeti Mysteries of the Macabre, live or recorded, would neither doubt nor forget…
Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius in memory of Andrew Davis
This was to have been something entirely different: Berlioz’s L’Enfance du Christ, conducted by Andrew Davis. The death of the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s former chief conductor led not only to…
BCMG at Wigmore Hall
London visits from the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group are rarer than we might hope, though doubtless many would object, quite reasonably, that visits to the capital need not be its…