Schwanengesang and other lieder: Ian Bostridge and Imogen Cooper at Leeds Lieder 2022

The thirteen songs, setting poems by Rellstab and Heine, that Schubert’s publisher Tobias Haslinger grouped together, supplemented with an additional setting of Johann Seidl and published as Schwanengesang in 1829,…

The Revolution Smells of Jasmine: Wallis Giunta, Sean Shibe and Adam Walker at Leeds Lieder

The Irish-Canadian mezzo-soprano, Wallis Giunta, described her late-night programme with guitarist Sean Shibe and flautist Adam Walker as ‘the sound track of revolution … an homage to protest music in…

Song Illuminated: Samling Institute Showcase at Leeds Lieder 2022

English song of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries was the focus of this lunchtime recital by two Samling Artists, mezzo-soprano Shakira Tsindos and baritone Dominic Sedgwick, on the opening day…

Brilliant Weill from Kožená, Rattle and the LSO at the Barbican

The Seven Deadly Sins is perhaps the most interesting of the collaborations between Kurt Weill and Berthold Brecht.  Composed ‘post-rift’ in 1933, this ballet chanté is sophisticated both musically and…

Mahler Unwrapped: The London Chamber Orchestra at St John’s Smith Square

‘This concert takes us on a journey through everything in Mahler’s world,’ was presenter Dr Leah Broad’s ambitious claim for this London Chamber Orchestra programme at St John’s Smith Square. …

Atmospheric performances from Vox Luminis at St John’s Smith Square

The week-long St John’s Smith Square Easter Festival concluded with a rare appearance by the Belgian early music ensemble Vox Luminis, offering choral gems from two masters of the German…

The Academy of Ancient Music bring Bach’s St John Passion, of 1725, to the Barbican

There are four versions of Bach’s St John Passion.  The first was heard on Good Friday 1724, in the St Nicholas Church in Leipzig, during Bach’s first year of employment…

London Handel Festival at St John’s Smith Square

On Wednesday 14 April 2022, two London festivals came together when the London Handel Festival brought a programme of Baroque sacred music to St John’s Smith Square’s Easter Festival. Adrian…

Technically accomplished Marian Consort at Turner Sims

In a concert that could have been titled ‘Towards Bach’, the Marian Consort fashioned a themed programme that linked two towering German composers: Heinrich Schütz and Johann Sebastian Bach. They…

London Handel Festival: Opera Settecento perform Fernando, re di Castiglia

This London Handel Festival performance at St George’s Hanover Square was billed as ‘Fernando, re di Castiglia: A Handel Premiere’.  Well, not quite, one might say: the first staged revival…