Classical Features
theartsdesk at the Dresden Music Festival - orchestral abundance in a spectacular settingWednesday, 25 May 2022
Dresden is filled with music at this time of year. The Dresden Music Festival runs through May and early June, with concerts at all the famous venues – the Frauenkirche, the Semperoper – but also recitals in smaller halls and unlikely settings. Read more... |
'An invitation to stillness and reflection': saxophonist and composer Christian Forshaw on collaborating with top choir TenebraeSaturday, 30 April 2022
The idea of recording an album with Tenebrae has been bubbling away for a number of years. Nigel Short and I first worked together in 2007 when I asked him to direct the vocal consort for a UK tour I was doing with my own group. Since then we have worked together on a number of projects and regularly discussed the idea of a collaboration with Tenebrae. Read more... |
First Person: composer Michael Price on responding to Bach's Second Brandenburg ConcertoFriday, 22 April 2022
There are lots of ways that we respond to great works of art – intellectually and emotionally, then visually, aurally and even by taste and smell, depending on the art in question. I have a habit of screwing my eyes tight shut and bringing to mind a piece of favourite music, or book, or person, and it seems a glowing imprint forms behind your eyelids. You could try it now! Read more... |
First Person: composer Mason Bates on the powers and perils of musical storytellingMonday, 28 March 2022
What do Beethoven and Pink Floyd have in common? Narrative – ingeniously animated by music. From the Ninth Symphony to The Wall, narrative music has brought a new dimension to the forms and genres it has touched. Read more... |
Russians and friends play on for UkraineWednesday, 16 March 2022
National sensitivities are running understandably high right now in the thick of an ever-escalating aggression. What a shame that the Southbank Centre has excluded Russian artists from performing alongside British and Ukrainian performers to bring a message of peace through the arts in their upcoming fundraiser. Not so "Dance for Ukraine" at the London Coliseum, including Natalia Osipova in its line-up. Read more... |
‘Slava Ukraini!’: Russian musicians worldwide show solidarityFriday, 04 March 2022
“You are told that we hate Russian culture,” President Zelenskyy of Ukraine informed Russians, using their language, in a speech for the ages just before the invasion, “But how can a culture be hated? Any culture? Neighbours are always enriching each other culturally. But that does not make them one entity, and does not separate people into ‘us’ and ‘them’ “. Read more... |
‘Let me be your main course’: composer Jimmy López on why new music needs time and spaceTuesday, 22 February 2022
No, not your aperitif – and certainly not your digestif; your bona fide main dish, the one your audience yearns for, dresses up for, and looks forward to. Read more... |
First Person: Pavel Šporcl on Paganini and the Czech violin traditionSaturday, 29 January 2022
It is taken for granted today that Paganini is almost a God-like figure for violinists. After all, he epitomises the ultimate virtuoso figure, both as someone whose technique outshone (so we are told!) every other player of his time, and who oozed charisma. Read more... |
First Person: young composer Nicola Perikhanyan on a new immersive reality experience at London WallWednesday, 22 December 2021
There's something really moving about standing in the centre of London Wall's Roman ruins and looking up at the city that has grown around it. Thinking about our past, present and future simultaneously. More than 2000 years have passed since the Romans created our city, and while much has changed there's still so much consistency in how our society exists, both the beauty and the flaws. Read more... |
First Person: composer Cheryl Frances-Hoad on a musical love letter to the natural worldWednesday, 24 November 2021
In the darkness my dreams are interrupted I see the blackbird in my mind and the whirring of my brain begins Read more... |
Pages
inside classical music
latest in today
Help to give theartsdesk a future!
It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
Saul, Glyndebourne review - playful, visually ravishing desc...
This thrilling production of Saul takes Handel’s dramatisation of the Bible’s first Book of Samuel and paints it in...
theartsdesk at the Dublin International Chamber Music Festiv...
If, like me, chamber music isn’t your most frequent home, there are bound to be revelations of what for many are known masterpieces. Mine in...
The Gold, Series 2, BBC One review - back on the trail of th...
The first series of The Gold in 2023 was received rapturously, though apparently it only told one half of the story of the 1983 Brink’s-...
Eva Quartet, St Cyprian's review - polyphonic bliss
Eva Quartet are four outstanding Bulgarian voices of polyphonic purity and depth, drawn from the legendary choir Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares, who...
Album: Mary Chapin Carpenter - Personal History
In those seemingly long-ago times of loneliness and lockdown, artists around the world invited us into their kitchens and living rooms as they...
Miss Myrtle’s Garden, Bush Theatre review - flowering talent...
The Bush Theatre is becoming a garden...
Così fan tutte, Nevill Holt Festival/Opera North review - re...
Marianne Moore once famously defined poems as “imaginary gardens with real toads in them”. Operas also fill, or anyway should fill, their...
Music Reissues Weekly: Gather In The Mushrooms
“Forest and the Shore” by Keith Christmas is remarkable. In his essay for Gather In The Mushrooms, compiler, author and Saint Etienne...