Annibale Pio Fabri, known as ‘Ballino’, is not the best-known name amongst the singers who worked for Handel, yet on hearing him for the first time in 1729, Mrs Pendarves…
Category: Reviews
Ian Bostridge and Imogen Cooper travel ‘Over Silent Lands’ at the Oxford Lieder Festival
From Nordic songs to Nature’s spirit: after a day which focused on the music of Wilhelm Stenhammar and his Scandinavian compatriots, the fourth day of the Oxford Lieder Festival turned…
Scandinavian Landscapes at the Oxford Lieder Festival
The third day of this year’s Oxford Lieder Festival, which is celebrating its twentieth anniversary, focused on Scandinavian song, in particular the music of Wilhelm Stenhammar (1871–1927). This self-taught Swedish…
The English Concert perform Samson at the London Handel Festival
Handel’s dramatic talents as a composer ran to the expansive, in a way that Handel the promoter found tricky so that many of his works were trimmed and edited for…
Christina Gansch and Malcolm Martineau in Zemlinsky, Berg, and Mahler at Wigmore Hall
Song in particular and vocal music more generally were of great importance to Zemlinsky, Berg, and Mahler. In Zemlinsky’s case, more than half of his songs were composed in a…
La Voix Humaine by Opera Philadelphia
Francis Poulenc’s opera La Voix Humaine portrays a woman speaking on the phone for 45 minutes to a lover who is leaving her. After various technical and emotional travails, she…
Glyndebourne’s 2021 Tour opens with Frederic Wake-Walker’s new production of Fidelio
Beethoven was none too sure about his only opera, Fidelio. When librettist Friedrich Treitschke set about revising the first versions of the opera, originally titled Leonore, oder Der Triumph der…
Musick’s Monument: Lucy Crowe and Fretwork at Wigmore Hall
Thomas Mace’s Musick’s Monument, or, A remembrance of the best practical musick, both divine and civil, that has ever been known to have been in the world divided into three…
The dashing brilliance and stylish artistry of Jakub Józef Orliński at Wigmore Hall
There is a very good reason why Jakub Józef Orliński is such an audience draw today. Just a few lines into the first song, Johann Joseph Fux’s ‘Non t’amo per…
Verdi’s Macbeth opens Lyric Opera of Chicago 2021–22 Season
With a new production by Sir David McVicar of Giueppe Verdi’s Macbeth Lyric Opera of Chicago has opened its new season and recommenced live performances on stage with audience. In…