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…
Category: Recitals/Concerts
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.…
One Good Friday: two St John Passions
After the reverential intimacy of Johann Sebastiani’s St Matthew Passion at Wigmore Hall, on Good Friday evening J.S. Bach’s St John Passion – performed at the Barbican Hall by the…
Johann Sebastiani’s St Matthew Passion at Wigmore Hall
On Good Friday, it was out with the new and in with the old at Wigmore Hall. A little context, first. In Germany, Baroque music was embedded in religious culture,…
Bryn Terfel and Alexander Soddy in Wagner and Bruckner with the Philharmonia
Wagner and Bruckner often make a good coupling in concerts – if they have the right conductor. Musically they can be close – but they do need to be treated…
Handel in Rome: Nardus Williams and the Dunedin Consort at Wigmore Hall
London audiences seem to have been frequently invited to travel back to Handel’s Rome of late. After In the Realms of Sorrow at Stone Nest during the London Handel Festival…
Paavo Järvi’s Mahler Third: a fabulous and treasurable performance
In the wrong performance Mahler’s Third Symphony can be a burden on the listener and I have very often found this the most difficult of his symphonies to bring off…
Handel’s Scipione: the Early Opera Company close the London Handel Festival with a celebration of clemency
This year’s London Handel Festival was brought to a gracious close with a celebration of clemency, magnanimity and honour. Scipione, the ninth of the operas that Handel composed for the…