Not pity but tragedy: Iestyn Davies and Joseph Middleton perform Die schöne Müllerin at Wigmore Hall

In The Cambridge Companion to Schubert’s ‘Winterreise’, James William Sobaskie suggests that while ‘Winterreise elicits empathy for its outcast, inducing us to share his emotions and experience similar distress’, Schubert’s earlier…

Gran Cadenza: Irvine Arditti’s 70th Birthday and Jake Arditti sings Hilda Paredes’ Canciones Lunáticas

Although over its many years the faces of the Arditti Quartet have changed, its one constant has been Irvine Arditti himself. Now 70-years old, this birthday lunchtime recital, called Gran…

Amazone: Lea Desandre and Jupiter at Wigmore Hall

The percussive thump and burr which sparked into life Francesco Provenzale’s ‘Non posso far’ (from his opera Lo Schiavo di sua moglie) at the start of this lunchtime recital by…

Brünnhilde’s Dream: an inventive, expressive and impressive sequence by Rozanna Madylus and Counterpoise at Wigmore Hall

The programme originally planned for this Wigmore Hall recital by the ensemble, Counterpoise, might have been titled ‘Fathers and Daughters’.     A new monodrama integrating speech, sprechstimme and singing, The…

Echo: Ruby Hughes and Huw Watkins at Wigmore Hall

Travelling into central London on Sunday afternoon was a slightly strange experience.  At least there were trains – never a given these strike-strife days – but footfall was light, despite…

Eternal Heaven: Jupiter Ensemble perform Handel at Wigmore Hall

A seamless sequence of beautiful arias and duets by Handel, balancing the secular and the sacred, the tranquil and the tempestuous, the sumptuous and the sophisticated – all brilliantly performed…

The English Concert at Wigmore Hall: Purcell and Blow

Harry Bicket assembled the ‘Dream Team’ for this English Concert programme of music by Henry Purcell and John Blow.  Seven internationally renowned singers were joined by new-kid-on-the-block, countertenor Hugh Cutting,…

A due voci: Iestyn Davies and Hugh Cutting at Wigmore Hall

This truly lovely recital represented the fruits of the introduction of the basso continuo at the end of the sixteenth century, which liberated polyphonic voices from their fundamental harmonic role…

Wolf’s Mörike-Lieder: Anna Prohaska and Christian Gerhaher at Wigmore Hall

A decidedly superior Liederabend, in terms of verse, musical setting, and performance. Hugo Wolf remains a connoisseur’s composer: slightly perplexing, perhaps, but then there is no playing to the gallery,…

A harrowing but very ‘human’ Winterreise from Mark Padmore and Paul Lewis at Wigmore Hall

There could really only be one work with which Mark Padmore would conclude this season residency at Wigmore Hall, a series forming his final solo recitals at the Hall, but…