We’ve all been there: the heart-lurching response to the sound of the telephone, the bitter disappointment when a text message isn’t returned and the rapid descent into floor-pacing emotional disarray.…
Category: Reviews
Das Rosenband: Inga Kalna presents Strauss alongside some Latvian gems
It’s probably fair to say that Latvian composers don’t feature greatly on even the most avid classical music aficionado’s radar. When I reflect, only the names of Ēriks Ešenvalds and…
Met Stars Live in Concert: Sonya Yoncheva in Germany
At the start of The Metropolitan Opera’s most recent Met Stars Live in Concert broadcast, our genial host, Christine Goerke, introduced us to the Baroque Library of the Schussenried Cloister…
I wonder as I wander: an assured debut from James Newby and Joseph Middleton
Recorded only five years since his graduation from Trinity Laban, this is an excellent debut CD from the not-yet-thirty-year-old James Newby, already with a string of prizes including the prestigious Kathleen…
Songs of Travel: James Platt and Lada Valešová
The second day of Oxford Lieder’s two-day festival, Winter into Spring, heralded the arrival of the season of rebirth and renewal. If the programme presented by bass James Platt and…
To the New World: the Carducci Quartet and VOCES8
VOCES8’s Live from London, Spring series continues to offer diverse delights. Recent performances by Apollo 5 and Stile Antico framed The Winter House – an interactive family concert created and…
Oxford Lieder: Winter into Spring – the changing seasons
The weather was fortuitous for Oxford Lieder’s live, online mini-festival, Winter into Spring. Across the UK, the blossom buds and nudging crocuses were bathed in warm sunshine, the thick dawn…
Purcell Royal Odes: music for royalty superbly fashioned by The King’s Consort
Robert King has been addressing the music of Henry Purcell for over thirty years, and his ground-breaking anthology of odes and welcome songs begun in 1988 brought fresh insights to…
A unique Das Lied from Karajan and a highly charged Salzburg Fifth
Herbert von Karajan started conducting Mahler in 1955 when he performed Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen. Those performances were given in the United States – Chicago and New York – and…