When I look for a classic French orchestral sound I’d normally turn to an orchestra such as the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra or the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du…
Category: Recitals/Concerts
A triumphant final concert with the LSO from Simon Rattle at the Barbican
Sir Simon Rattle’s final Barbican concert with the London Symphony Orchestra as their Music Director ended his six-year tenure – perhaps one that was shorter than it might have been…
The English Music Festival, Dorchester-on Thames
Warm summer sunshine, a long bank holiday weekend, four days of English music in a lovely Oxfordshire village among convivial company: what a treat. Well, the holiday exodus from the…
Ecstasy and Revolution: The Bells and Prometheus with Kochanovsky and the Philharmonia
The anniversaries of composers always provide a decent opportunity to hear music we rarely do. Serge Rachmaninoff’s 150th anniversary is a major chance to do that – although he is…
England’s Orpheus: Iestyn Davies and Thomas Dunford at Wigmore Hall
One imagines that, when compiling their programme for this recital at Wigmore Hall, Iestyn Davies and Thomas Dunford sat down and drew up a list of their ‘desert island’ favourites. …
Donizetti’s L’esule di Roma: Opera Rara at Cadogan Hall
Donizetti’s melodramma eroico, L’esule di Roma, was the composer’s first major success with opera seria. It premiered in Naples at the Teatro S. Carlo on 1st January 1828, travelled to…
Exaltation from the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir fit for a King
Hymn of the Forests was the programme title for what was really a celebration of events earlier in the day down the road at Westminster Abbey. There was certainly much…
Total Immersion: Kaija Saariaho
‘Total Immersion’ is a good way of describing the music of the Finnish composer, Kaija Saariaho. The spectral sonorities that she creates by synthesising, manipulating and layering timbres, harmonies and…
‘Babi Yar’: Shostakovich, Noseda and the LSO
Shostakovich’s ‘Babi Yar’ Symphony, his thirteenth, is amongst his greatest works – and yet in a sense it disappeared completely after its troubled premiere on December 18th, 1962. The composer…
Breath-taking performances from The Sixteen
In today’s increasingly secular society where rural churches are now no longer obliged to hold a weekly service, musical settings of devotional texts can create spiritual balm for many listeners.…