A quick guide to a few of the finest accounts on record of Holst’s hugely influential musical journey across the galaxy Continues HERE
Classical
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Andrew Clements: “At the halfway stage of their Beethoven cycle for Virgin, the Artemis Quartet have turned their attention to a different but, in many ways, equally daunting challenge. Schubert’s last three string quartets make a natural two-disc set, though few listeners will want to tackle all of these intense works (which arguably sit alongside […]
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000hcq
Hannah Peel presents an adventurous, immersive soundtrack for late-night listening, from classical to contemporary and everything in between. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jgd0
Rad all about it HERE
Disarming and engaging … pianist Christopher Glynn and soprano Claire Booth. Andrew Clements writes: More than half a century after his death, Percy Grainger’s true stature as a composer remains hard to pin down. For all that his own music trampled across stylistic boundaries and cheerfully subverted the conventions and proprieties of concert music, and […]
Former Gramophone Young Artist of the Year, Jan Lisiecki has recorded a new cycle of the five concertos which DG has just released at the start of its Beethoven Edition Hear HERE
If the title and indeed often unearthly content of Messiaen’s best-known chamber work can lead us to listen to it in refined but also abstracted terms, this ‘reframing’ places the Quartet for the End of Time in the context of its disputed origins, in wartime France and Poland. You can read all about them […]
The pianist’s new complete set, on Sony Classical, is an early contribution to the Beethoven 250 commemorations Hear HERE
Details HERE
“At 48, he performs around the globe and records on the piano in solo, chamber and concerto music. He composes music. He writes and blogs prolifically. He paints and writes poetry, and has won awards for both. He champions rarely performed composers and works. He takes his own photos for his blog, and, as an […]
Martin Roscoe’s interpretation of the neglected master is one for repeated listening, says Geoffrey Norris Continues HERE
Sir Simon Rattle’s recording of his ‘party piece’ The Rite of Spring is vivid, says Ivan Hewett. MORE
Ludus Baroque’s performance of Handel’s The Triumph of Time & Truth is buoyant and scrupulously characterised, says Geoffrey Norris. Anyone who likes spotting instances of Handel’s capacity for recycling would have a field day in his oratorio The Triumph of Time and Truth, a reworking in 1757 of his 1707 Il trionfo del Tempo e […]
Even if you have eclectic tastes, if you’re under 30, chances are good you listen to little or no classical music. This isn’t an admonition; it’s a fact, and one you’ve probably heard before in an admonishing tone. For decades, classical music has been in lugubrious decline. This trend has become a grave concern for […]
As would be the case for many people of my generation, my starting point for this film was Ken Russell’s Song of Summer, which was a drama about Delius’s final years. I think it is the best composer film that Russell ever made. It relies very heavily on the book by Eric Fenby, Delius As […]
Dip in and out HERE
Christopher Breunig writes: The interest here lies in the pianist Bernd Glemser (whose Rachmaninov programme on OC 558 is not to be missed: it has the Corelli Variations, Sonata 2 and other pieces) and the transcribed string quartet, which might be a way in for those who normally would fight shy of Shostakovich’s chamber […]
David Vickers takes an in-depth look at the composer, his life, and works… Not so long ago George Frideric Handel was best known to the general public for a few predictable things: Messiah, being ‘German’, his obesity, and for going blind. Thankfully that narrow perception has substantially altered over the last 30 years. Nowadays we […]
Martin Cullingford writes: Every year, around this time, I report back from the annual gathering of the classical industry at the Classical:NEXT conference. Bringing labels, distributors, innovators and artists together always breeds good ideas, goodwill and a better, shared understanding of where, as an industry, we are heading. Year after year, the constant is the […]
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From the archives: As his centenary year reaches a climax, Claudia Pritchard hails the composer Continue reading
Stravinsky’s father sent him to study criminal law and legal philosophy at St Petersburg University in 1901. Through his friendship with Vladimir and Andrei Rimsky-Korsakov, two sons of the great composer, Stravinsky became a family friend and a frequent visitor to Rimsky’s house. With Feodor Stravinsky’s death in 1902, Igor began taking lessons (free of […]
The Principal of the Birmingham Conservatoire talks to James Jolly Continues HERE