Shostakovich’s ‘Babi Yar’ Symphony, his thirteenth, is amongst his greatest works – and yet in a sense it disappeared completely after its troubled premiere on December 18th, 1962. The composer…
Category: Recitals/Concerts
Breath-taking performances from The Sixteen
In today’s increasingly secular society where rural churches are now no longer obliged to hold a weekly service, musical settings of devotional texts can create spiritual balm for many listeners.…
One Good Friday: two St John Passions
After the reverential intimacy of Johann Sebastiani’s St Matthew Passion at Wigmore Hall, on Good Friday evening J.S. Bach’s St John Passion – performed at the Barbican Hall by the…
Johann Sebastiani’s St Matthew Passion at Wigmore Hall
On Good Friday, it was out with the new and in with the old at Wigmore Hall. A little context, first. In Germany, Baroque music was embedded in religious culture,…
Bryn Terfel and Alexander Soddy in Wagner and Bruckner with the Philharmonia
Wagner and Bruckner often make a good coupling in concerts – if they have the right conductor. Musically they can be close – but they do need to be treated…
Handel in Rome: Nardus Williams and the Dunedin Consort at Wigmore Hall
London audiences seem to have been frequently invited to travel back to Handel’s Rome of late. After In the Realms of Sorrow at Stone Nest during the London Handel Festival…
Paavo Järvi’s Mahler Third: a fabulous and treasurable performance
In the wrong performance Mahler’s Third Symphony can be a burden on the listener and I have very often found this the most difficult of his symphonies to bring off…
Handel’s Scipione: the Early Opera Company close the London Handel Festival with a celebration of clemency
This year’s London Handel Festival was brought to a gracious close with a celebration of clemency, magnanimity and honour. Scipione, the ninth of the operas that Handel composed for the…
Myths and monsters from the BBCSO and Brabbins at the Barbican Hall
Beowulf is an archetypal heroic text of the medieval age: warriors and kings, the sea and craggy cliffs, monsters and myths: the bright gleam of the hero’s ceremonial armour juxtaposed…
Tchaikovsky’s first surviving opera, Oprichnik, gets a vibrant performance from Chelsea Opera Group
Tchaikovsky was fascinated by opera; he started writing around 20 of which nine survive as complete works. We know so very few of them well. His first opera to survive…