Better—than Music! For I—who heard it—I was used—to the Birds—before—This—was different—’Twas Translation—Of all tunes I knew—and more— […] Let me not spill—its smallest cadence—Humming—for promise—when alone—Humming—until my faint Rehearsal—Drop into…
Category: Recitals/Concerts
Arias for Ballino: Opera Settecento at the London Handel Festival
Annibale Pio Fabri, known as ‘Ballino’, is not the best-known name amongst the singers who worked for Handel, yet on hearing him for the first time in 1729, Mrs Pendarves…
Ian Bostridge and Imogen Cooper travel ‘Over Silent Lands’ at the Oxford Lieder Festival
From Nordic songs to Nature’s spirit: after a day which focused on the music of Wilhelm Stenhammar and his Scandinavian compatriots, the fourth day of the Oxford Lieder Festival turned…
Scandinavian Landscapes at the Oxford Lieder Festival
The third day of this year’s Oxford Lieder Festival, which is celebrating its twentieth anniversary, focused on Scandinavian song, in particular the music of Wilhelm Stenhammar (1871–1927). This self-taught Swedish…
The English Concert perform Samson at the London Handel Festival
Handel’s dramatic talents as a composer ran to the expansive, in a way that Handel the promoter found tricky so that many of his works were trimmed and edited for…
Christina Gansch and Malcolm Martineau in Zemlinsky, Berg, and Mahler at Wigmore Hall
Song in particular and vocal music more generally were of great importance to Zemlinsky, Berg, and Mahler. In Zemlinsky’s case, more than half of his songs were composed in a…
Musick’s Monument: Lucy Crowe and Fretwork at Wigmore Hall
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…
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…