If one thinks of a classical ‘Passion’ one might not expect the Chinese-American composer Tan Dun to feature in any list of compositions. The liturgical, protestant, Passions of Bach (unfashionable…
Category: Recitals/Concerts
The Owl and the Nightingale: stylish musical storytelling from the City of London Sinfonia
‘Avian invective’ is, sadly, an all-too-common dissonance on the cyber-airwaves today. But, twittering tiffs are no modern invention: the medieval bird-debate poem tradition offers rich examples of feathery squabbles, such…
Katya Kabanova: orchestral drama from the LSO and Sir Simon Rattle
Perhaps the most perfectly proportioned of Janáček’s operas, certainly one of the most emotionally and dramaturgically correct—which, in Janáček’s case, is saying quite something—Katya Kabanova has not wanted for recent…
Echo: Ruby Hughes and Huw Watkins at Wigmore Hall
Travelling into central London on Sunday afternoon was a slightly strange experience. At least there were trains – never a given these strike-strife days – but footfall was light, despite…
Sorrow and Serenity from Sir Simon Rattle and the LSO at the Barbican Hall
There seems to be much sorrow in the world at the moment, but little serenity. This concert by the London Symphony Orchestra thus offered a welcome balancing of affekts, the…
Rattle’s Stravinsky Journey with the LSO
Criticism of Simon Rattle as a conductor might be justified in several ways; as a creator and innovator of concert programs, however, such criticism would be very wide of the…
Eternal Heaven: Jupiter Ensemble perform Handel at Wigmore Hall
A seamless sequence of beautiful arias and duets by Handel, balancing the secular and the sacred, the tranquil and the tempestuous, the sumptuous and the sophisticated – all brilliantly performed…
A Child of Our Time: a performance of modern relevance – LPO and Edward Gardner
There is, in part, a trait of cowardice that haunts some of the artists, composers and poets who were working just before the Second World War. Some of W. H.…
An Anatomy of Melancholy
‘Melancholy can be overcome only by melancholy.’ One imagines that countertenor Iestyn Davies and lutenist Thomas Dunford have taken heed of the words of the English clergyman Robert Burton –…
Patricia Petibon blurs musical and theatrical boundaries at Oxford Lieder
Back in August, when I spoke to Sholto Kynoch about this year’s Oxford Lieder Festival, he told me that one of the things he was most looking forward to, as…