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…
Category: Recitals/Concerts
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…
Christian Gerharer and friends at Wigmore Hall
This recital looked somewhat ‘epic’ on the page and fulfilled its promise in performance, presenting three major chamber works, each encompassing expressive heights, and nadirs, and unified by the nocturnal…
Edward Gardner conducts a magnificent The Midsummer Marriage to open his first season at the LPO
The last time I heard Michael Tippett’s The Midsummer Marriage was when I reviewed Graham Vick’s 1996 Covent Garden production. Visually spectacular – that vast Stockhausen-like globe, split open temple…
Profound questions from Ondřej Adámek and the LSO, at the Barbican
An obvious risk, and frustration, in asking infinitely profound questions is that one knows they cannot be answered. The title of Ondřej Adámek’s orchestral song-cycle, Where Are You?, poses one such…
A wonderful recital of French song from Sabine Devieilhe and Alexandre Tharaud at Wigmore Hall
When I heard the French soprano Sabine Devieilhe make her solo debut at Wigmore Hall in May 2018, the only quibble I had with her charming programme, Les Salons de…
Rising Stars Concert, Lyric Opera of Chicago, 2021
On a recent Sunday evening at Millennium Park Lyric Opera of Chicago presented its annual concert to introduce the new season. During his initial remarks welcoming audience members to Sunday…
Arcangelo perform Bach’s St Matthew Passion at the BBC Proms
When Arcangelo performed Handel’s Theodora on the penultimate evening of the 2018 Proms season, I wondered whether a small period-instrument ensemble and singers could surmount the challenges posed by the…
Elizabeth Llewellyn and Simon Lepper open the 2021-22 Wigmore Hall season with Italian and English song
One year on from her Wigmore Hall debut, and following the release of her highly praised album of the songs of Samuel Taylor-Coleridge, Heart & Hereafter, soprano Elizabeth Llewellyn returned…
Polished performances from Sir John Eliot Gardiner in Bach & Handel
There’s no denying the energy and precision Sir John Eliot Gardiner can still coax from the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists, founded by him over fifty years ago. In…