Classical music
The Image of Melancholy, Eike, Sam Wanamaker PlayhouseMonday, 21 September 2015
“Sounds a bit depressing,” said several friends when I urged them to attend the theatrical incarnation of The Image of Melancholy, inspirational violinist Bjarte Eike’s award-winning CD with his stunning Norwegian-based group Barokksolistene.... Read more... |
theartsdesk at the Lammermuir FestivalMonday, 21 September 2015
It’s hard to believe that East Lothian’s Lammermuir Festival has only been around for six years. In that short time, it’s become a cherished fixture in Scotland’s musical calendar. For regular concert-goers, it’s a calmer antidote to the August... Read more... |
Sir David Willcocks (1919-2015)Saturday, 19 September 2015
Even if you never saw him conduct, you may well have sung one of Sir David Willcocks's carol arrangements. I remember the unnatural excitement in our church choir when the orange-jacketed Carols for Choirs 2 arrived on the scene, enhancing our... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Bernstein, Fučík, Wartime ConsolationsSaturday, 19 September 2015
Bernstein: Symphony No. 3 'Kaddish' Baltimore Symphony Orchestra/Marin Alsop (Naxos)Technically this disc is superb. Claire Bloom's narration is beautifully assimilated into the sound picture. The orchestral playing is razor-sharp, the chorus... Read more... |
Hofmann, Royal Danish Orchestra, Boder, Symphony Hall, BirminghamThursday, 17 September 2015
There’s just something about an opera orchestra when it’s let out of the pit. The Royal Danish Orchestra is more than that, of course – it makes much of its six centuries of history, and since its past members included John Dowland, Heinrich Schütz... Read more... |
'We have a duty to all children to share our rich artistic history'Wednesday, 16 September 2015
Two hundred and 74 years ago today, on 14 September 1741, Georg Friedrich Handel completed the first edition of his legendary oratorio, Messiah. It is a work associated with children’s charity, and thanks to a royal charter granted to philanthropist... Read more... |
10 Questions for Conductor Laurence EquilbeyWednesday, 16 September 2015
It’s a sunny afternoon at altitude – 1,082 metres, to be precise – in the precincts of France’s highest historic building, the austerely impressive early Gothic Abbey-Church of St-Robert, La Chaise-Dieu. I’m relaxed because I arrived the... Read more... |
Shibe, Egmont Ensemble, Wigmore HallTuesday, 15 September 2015
It was a sad coincidence that this Monday Platform “showcasing talented young artists” took place only weeks after the death in a road accident of Roderick Lakin, Director of Arts for 31 years at the Royal Over-Seas League which was last night's... Read more... |
Anne Boleyn's Songbook, Alamire, Sam Wanamaker PlayhouseMonday, 14 September 2015
Later this week David Skinner’s Alamire ensemble will collect the Early Music Gramophone Award for The Spy’s Choirbook, but last night it was the group’s follow-up album that was in the spotlight (or rather the candlelight) in a performance at the... Read more... |
Dunedin Consort, Butt, Brunton Theatre, MusselburghMonday, 14 September 2015
It was, admitted the Lammermuir Festival’s co-artistic director James Waters, ‘a bit of an experiment’. And trying to recreate the fertile atmosphere – intellectual, musical and culinary – of a Leipzig coffee house from the 1730s, complete with Bach... Read more... |
Last Night of the Proms, BBCSO, AlsopSunday, 13 September 2015
“A rich and eclectic sequence of works” was the promise made in this evening’s concert programme. It certainly was that, with the Last Night festivities taking in new and old, well-known and obscure, plus a handful of celebrity soloists for good... Read more... |
Sticky fingers: Conductors at the 2015 PromsSunday, 13 September 2015
Every summer at the BBC Proms the world's greatest conductors are captured in the waiting lens of Chris Christodoulou. His official portraits are sent out to the press straight after most concerts. But at the end of the two-month festival he... Read more... |
