Classical
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“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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
A fine, unpretentious, informative and readable piece on this wonderful music. MORE
https://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2013/sep/16/symphony-guide-beethoven-fifth-tom-service
https://www.theguardian.com/music/opera
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 […]
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
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
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 […]
“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 […]
In August 2015 I assessed a clutch of new recordings of the four-hands version of The Rite of Spring and noted that Guy and Bavouzet were far superior to all their rivals, not least – but also not only – because they were performing their own arrangement on two pianos rather Stravinsky’s for a single […]
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 […]
CHARLOTTE HIGGINS: England no longer values the profound, weird art of opera – and that leaves us all poorer I n Kyiv, daily performances at the National Opera of Ukraine are acts of brave defiance against the Russian invasion. They symbolise what the country is fighting for: life, culture. In Britain, untouched by war, we […]
Tim Ashley writes: Olga Peretyatko’s latest album is essentially an old-fashioned recital of coloratura show-stoppers, some drawn from the mainstream operatic repertoire, though others, like Alyabyev’s The Nightingale and Tosti’s Il Bacio, are party pieces associated with the great divas of yesteryear. As a technician, the Russian soprano is ……….. http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/may/08/olga-peretyatko-arabesque-review
Geoffrey Norris (The Guardian) writes …. This trio of sonatas resumes Paul Lewis’s exploration on disc of Schubert’s piano music after a gap during which Beethoven was the prime focus. Lewis’s mature insight into the workings and emotional characteristics of these works lends … MORE
Madness – Welcome to the House of Vinyl As a collector myself, I’ve long believed that ‘collecting’ (like any addiction) is a sort of madness. For some unfathomable reason, you become convinced that certain things are worth far more than they really are. It’s not helped by idiot reviewers raving over certain discs as though […]
“BEIJING — The great Polish composer Frederic Chopin is one of the classical music world’s best-loved musicians, admired both for his lyrical piano compositions and romantic life story.The bicentennial of his birth has thus been marked by a seemingly endless series of concerts and commemorations. While many of these are in Poland (where Chopin was […]
Why is sexism still tolerated in our industry? We need an immediate and total change in attitudes across the board. Classical music is not dying (pace yet another overly-enthusiastic report at Slate.com) but there are clearly many problems in the industry. Most of them are brought on by those of us in the business […]