VALERY GERGIEV: News

  The maestro tells Andrew Stewart about his passion for Slavic culture – and Putin It takes less than a minute to rattle Valery Gergiev. He looks irritated while I mention the names of several younger Russian musicians whose careers are located firmly in the West, Vladimir Jurowski and Vasily Petrenko among them. The 59-year-old’s […]

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” … and it’s a triumph of creative risk” – writes Martin Chilton of The Guardian.

“Classical pianist Simone Dinnerstein and country-folk singer Tift Merritt have collaborated on a joint album called Night — and it’s a triumph of creative risk” – writes Martin Chilton of The Guardian. Musical collaborations can sometimes be tired sparring sessions, but classical pianist Simone Dinnerstein and folk-country singer-songwriter Tift Merritt have worked on an album, […]

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GLENN GOULD: News

It’s 30 years since the death of Glenn Gould, but the pianist still provokes strong reactions. So how do today’s top players assess his legacy? It still sounds like nothing you’ve ever heard, however many times you listen to it: Glenn Gould’s first recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, made in 1955, has an energy, an intensity […]

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GARETH MALONE: News

Cole Moreton finds out! Is Gareth Malone really as nice as people think? He’ll happily coax a weeping military wife or a distressed shop keeper into singing through the tears, but when was the last time he put himself on the line and sang in public? “I had to choose the music for the funeral […]

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ANDRAS SCIFF: News

One of the world’s greatest pianists, Andras Schiff, played his 60th birthday concert on Saturday – a hugely demanding programme of the Goldberg Variations by Bach and Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations. Earlier he told the BBC’s Tim Franks why he gave the performance in London – and not in his homeland, Hungary. Andras Schiff takes me […]

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OPERA: News

HELEN PIDD / MARK BROWN The ultimatum to English National Opera was attacked as ‘cultural vandalism’, but raised some hopes nearer Manchester https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/nov/27/a-fight-at-the-opera-could-forcing-eno-up-north-work-out-manchester-arts-council

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CHORAL MUSIC: News

  The director of the Marian Consort Rory McCleery talks to Editor Martin Cullingford about the ensemble’s latest recording, ‘Music for the Queen of Heaven’, an album of modern Marian motets, many of which were commissioned by the choir. The album is ….. Continues HERE

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DVORAK: News

ERICA JEAL: I love this music and no-one seems to play it.” It’s only a slight exaggeration on Leif Ove Andsnes’s part to say that about Dvořák’s Poetic Tone Pictures; this beautifully recorded release is one of only a handful available, and he is the highest profile of today’s pianists to have recorded this baker’s […]

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GLENN GOULD: He called this ‘the greatest song cycle ever written

  “Glenn Gould called it ‘the greatest song cycle ever written’, entitling his notes on the two versions of Paul Hindemith’s masterpiece ‘A Tale of Two Marienlebens’. Stravinsky had already insinuated ‘Last Year at Marienleben’. And my pupils recently produced a better wordplay: asked what the name meant, they shyly volunteered ‘Married Life…?’ Copies of […]

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NEW? NEW! How music can always offer us something new

Martin Cullingford writes: Recently I used this space to praise those who support contemporary music, who ensure that music written today is an integral part of our listening life. The occasion then was that James MacMillan’s Stabat mater was our Recording of the Month. Well, three issues on, and this month we bestow that accolade […]

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