Peter Quantrill writes …. There are strong arguments for opening out the themes of the Passion by means not of a staging transplanted from church to opera house, as has been attempted in recent years, but through movement. In this choreographed Passion there are two discrete but overlapping layers of action. The musicians concentrate on […]
Classical
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Erica Jeal writes: The Capuçon brothers, violinist Renaud and cellist Gautier, plus others including cellist Clemens Hagen make this lineup for Brahms’ two glorious string sextets something of a dream team. These recordings were made at last year’s Aix-en-Provence Easter festival, but there’s little bar the odd swoopy slide to remind us that it’s not […]
When Beethoven wrote his Symphony No 1, he was young and at the height of his powers as both a pianist and a composer of chamber music, but he had also lived more than half his life. This symphony couldn’t have been written by Mozart, that’s for sure, but what about Haydn? I guess you’d […]
The live recordings from 1949 to 1964 are being reissued to mark 40 years since Callas’s death Continues HERE
Perahia discusses and performs Bach’s French Suites to introduce his new album Continues HERE
A complete live performance by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and Andrés Orozco-Estrada The Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra’s YouTube channel continues to present some wonderful live performances. A couple of weeks ago we featured their account of Prokofiev’s First Symphony conducted by François Leleux, today it is a complete performance of Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra conducted by […]
From The Guardian: The next letter of our fortnightly alphabetical tour of the world and work of Richard Wagner is B, for Bayreuth and Brünnhilde. B is for Bayreuth, the capital of Upper Franconia in southern Germany, but more to the point the capital of Wagneria – it styles itself “Wagnerstadt” on local signs. It […]
Kate Molleson writes … Violinist James Ehnes and pianist Andrew Armstrong play together with an easy spark and suppleness that only old friends really can. In the past they’ve done excellent things with Franck, Strauss, Debussy and Elgar; now they turn to Beethoven with the same combination of light touch and searing focus. There’s a […]
Audiophile Audition / Gary Lemco writes ….. Strong collaborations and incisive sound editing give us fine interpretations of Prokofiev’s major violin works. Continues HERE
Andrew Clements writes ….. After discs devoted to the madrigals that Monteverdi wrote in Cremona and Mantua, the final part of Les Arts Florissants’ anthology includes pieces from the Seventh and Eighth books. Published in Venice in 1619 and 1638 respectively, they were the last such collections to appear in the composer’s lifetime, and the […]
I once thought (wrongly, as it turned out) that basically all versions of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring sounded pretty much the same. Stravinsky had finally done something that all other composers could only dream of: he’d created a piece of music that was conductor-proof. Of course, this didn’t begin to explain why that final chord […]
Stephen Johnson analyses the music and the background to the music of Brahms’ 2nd Piano Concerto with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Jonathan Schiffman with piano soloist Martin Roscoe. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0249gtx
A more relaxed attitude may be emerging towards the colossal musical legacy of Britain’s modern titan of the opera MORE
Stephen Ross writes: A stands for Alberich, antisemitism and Apocalypse Now. A is for Alberich, the vertically challenged, sex-crazed villain whose theft of the gold at the beginning of Das Rheingold – the prelude to the Ring Cycle – triggers a train of deranged events, which concludes four evenings and 15 hours later with the […]
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In Tune’s specially curated playlist: an eclectic mix of music, featuring music by Mendelssohn, Bruckner sung by Polyphony, Dvorak’s Serenade for Strings and Clement Doucet’s playful take on Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09xkbgt
Masaaki Suzuki’s recording of Mozart’s Mass in C minor won the 2017 Gramophone Choral Award, here he explores the score with David Vickers Continues HERE
They dominated the record catalogues of the 1950s and 1960s. Orchestras trembled at their every irate, intemperate word and record company executives scuttled to do their bidding. When the CD arrived, their recordings were again released in swathes. And then, like the dinosaurs, they suddenly disappeared. The once-mighty maestros Pierre Monteux, Fritz Reiner, Charles Munch, […]
