Forming a choral centrepiece at the Newbury Spring Festival, Joby Talbot’s Path of Miracles was given an inspirational outing by the internationally acclaimed ensemble Tenebrae at Douai Abbey in Woolhampton,…
Category: Recitals/Concerts
Rapturous reception of Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta in Poole
“Who’d have thought it could happen in Poole” voiced one overawed audience member. He was not referring to the standing ovation, although that in itself was exceptional, but the outstanding…
Celebrating the Schoenberg Sesquicentennial at Carnegie Hall
Over the past generation, the polymathic conductor Leon Botstein has done much to promote large and obscure late-Romantic works. A recent sold-out performance of Arnold Schonberg’s Gurre-Lieder at Carnegie Hall…
Jurowski’s London Philharmonic Ring comes to a magnificent end with Götterdämmerung
Life can sometimes imitate art and in the case of this concert performance of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung that has certainly been so. Originally scheduled for 2021, at the end of Vladimir…
Mixed Performances of Mendelssohn from the OAE
Judging by a revelatory all-Mendelssohn concert recently heard at the Anvil, Basingstoke with Sir András Schiff and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, I had every reason to assume…
Poulenc’s Gloria in an all-French programme with the BBCSO at the Barbican
It is, I think, worth quoting the first paragraph of the booklet notes for the section on Francis Poulenc’s Gloria, the second work on this BBC Symphony Orchestra concert: ‘I…
Handel’s Arianna: An unforgettable close to the London Handel Festival’s ‘Spring Awakenings’ festival
This is not the London Handel Festival’s first stab at Handel’s unjustly neglected opera, Arianna in Creta; it was previously staged at the Royal College of Music in March 2014.…
Verdi, La traviata in Venice
The opening reception of the Biennale had ended early, Teatro La Fenice was dark, and I found myself with an unexpectedly free evening in Venice. Musica a Palazzo is one…
Bach’s Easter Music from the Choir and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
If Holy week is usually a time for Christian meditation, this concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall given by the Choir and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment traded solemn…
Wagner’s 1877 Grand Festival makes a thrilling return to the Albert Hall
In May 1877, Richard Wagner brought to London, for eight concerts, what would become known as Wagner’s Grand Festival. The year before, Der Ring des Niebelungen had been heard for…