Bach
Classical CDs: Big symphonies, archlutes and the healing power of the violaSaturday, 13 March 2021
Bach: The English Suites Paolo Zanzu (harpsichord) (Musica Ficta)I’m a recent convert to Bach keyboard music played on harpsichord, having recently immersed myself in the Erato box set containing Zuzana Růžičková’s Bach recordings made in the... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Dusty graveyards, bell sounds on pianos and a cold Cambridgeshire fenSaturday, 27 February 2021
The Way of Light – The Music of Nigel Hess (Orchid Classics)You’ve probably heard Nigel Hess’s music without realising it. He’s scored multiple RSC productions and has provided incidental music for dozens of films and television programmes.... Read more... |
Pavel Kolesnikov, Wigmore Hall online review - the joyful wisdom of the GoldbergsWednesday, 17 February 2021
Aside from the happy accident of longevity, something that set Bach and Handel and Telemann apart from their contemporaries was fluency. I’m speaking here of musical rather than verbal tongues: the least polyglot of them was Bach, with his command... Read more... |
Classical CDs: recorders, fishermen, Spanish nightlife and waltzesSaturday, 30 January 2021
Bach: Sonatas for recorder, harpsichord and viola da gamba Michala Petri (recorder), Hille Perl (viola da gamba), Mahan Esfahani (harpsichord) (OUR Recordings)That these sonatas were originally composed by Bach for flute is surely of no... Read more... |
András Schiff, Wigmore Hall review - Bach in isolationFriday, 08 January 2021
Amid madness, fear and death, there is still an oasis in the music of Bach - and Bach played by András Schiff in the Wigmore Hall is a special type of haven. Normally one can’t get in to those concerts because they are instantly sold out, even... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Christmas CDs 2020Saturday, 19 December 2020
Bach: Christmas Oratorio Stuttgarter Hymnus-Chorknaben, Handel’s Company/Rainer Johannes Homburg (MDG)Another year, another new Bach Christmas Oratorio. Not that I’m complaining; this one is another zinger, up there with excellent contemporary... Read more... |
Brecon Baroque, Podger, Brecon Cathedral online review - Bach recolouredMonday, 26 October 2020
Bach’s Goldberg Variations, written for harpsichord in about 1741 supposedly (or perhaps not) for a certain Johann Goldberg to play to the insomniac Count Keyserlingk, have enjoyed – or suffered – countless arrangements for other instruments,... Read more... |
First Person: harpsichordist Chad Kelly on reimagining Bach's Goldberg VariationsThursday, 15 October 2020
As musicians took tentative steps into the unfamiliar world of PPE, socially-distanced rehearsals and audiences watching from home on a computer screen, a common water-cooler question was, “What did you do during lockdown?”. I am grateful to... Read more... |
Viktoria Mullova, Misha Mullov-Abbado, Fidelio Orchestra Cafe review - a rainbow of brilliant artistryThursday, 01 October 2020
There should eventually be a plaque on the outside of the Fidelio Orchestra Café in Farringdon, to the effect that London’s musical life after lockdown re-ignited here. And how, in early July, with Steven Isserlis exuberantly stepping up to play... Read more... |
Bach’s The Art of Fugue, Angela Hewitt, Wigmore Hall – the many voices of humanityTuesday, 29 September 2020
How do they do it? Bach and Angela Hewitt, I mean, transfixing and focusing the audience in the Wigmore Hall – at home, too, hopefully, thanks to the livestreaming– through 13 and three-quarter fugues and four canons, all starting in the same key... Read more... |
Academy of St Martin in the Fields review - from solo meditations to collective celebrationsMonday, 28 September 2020
Clearly it takes peculiar circumstances for some of us to hear the Academy of St Martin in the Fields within its eponymous church – that’s a first for me. The lure was considerable. Quite apart from the relative dearth of live events in London, the... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Bach, Andrew Hamilton, NielsenSaturday, 22 August 2020
Bach Sean Shibe (guitar) (Delphian)The lute was mostly used as a continuo instrument during Bach’s lifetime though he did compose a small number of solo lute works. They were written using two-stave keyboard notation rather than traditional... Read more... |
