Baroque
Partenope, Iford Arts review - a midsummer night's dream of a Handel comedyTuesday, 26 June 2018
Rejected by London’s Royal Academy of Music in 1726 on grounds of frivolity, Partenope is the ultimate Handelian rom-com – a comedy whose intriguing is carried out with a smile, a swagger and a sparkle in the eye. But what raised eyebrows in the... Read more... |
The Courtesan’s Gaze, Fieri Consort, Handel House review – historical female composers in contextWednesday, 20 June 2018
From an early age, Barbara Strozzi would have entertained the guests of her father’s Venetian academy with songs, including her own works. A similarly intimate room at London’s Handel House museum provided a suitable setting for Strozzi’s work to be... Read more... |
Acis and Galatea, English National Opera, Lilian Baylis House review - Handel for the hashtag generationTuesday, 12 June 2018
If you go to ENO’s Acis and Galatea expecting a grassy knoll draped decoratively with a Watteau shepherdess or two then you may be disappointed. Launched in 2017, the company’s reliably punchy Studio Live strand (stripped-back, small-scale, off-site... Read more... |
Franco Fagioli on performing the Baroque: 'a challenge is to interpret beyond the musical notation'Sunday, 03 June 2018
I started singing when I was nine years old in my primary school choir. I sang plenty of solos there before moving on to another children’s choir; that was a formative experience for me. At this point, I was singing the soprano part and from here I... Read more... |
Amy Sackville: Painter to the King review - portrait of the artist in shadow and lightSunday, 15 April 2018
Inevitably, the story begins and (almost) ends with Las Meninas. Inspired by the art and life of Diego Velázquez, Amy Sackville tops and tails her third novel with his endlessly enigmatic group portrait from 1656. It shows the Spanish royal... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Kraków - Easter music with a British focusTuesday, 03 April 2018
Held annually every Holy Week, Kraków’s Misteria Paschalia is one of the continent’s most vibrant early music festivals. With an increasing focus on international collaborations, the 2018 edition welcomed Edinburgh’s Dunedin Consort as artists in... Read more... |
Vivaldi's The Four Seasons: A Reimagining, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse review - a gentle exploration of life, love and deathMonday, 19 March 2018
Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons: A Reimagining – it’s not a title that trips off the tongue. Nor one, frankly, that inspires much excitement, with its clunky functionality and on-trend buzzword. But set that aside and buy a ticket immediately, because... Read more... |
Rinaldo, The English Concert, Barbican review - Bicket's band steals the spotlightWednesday, 14 March 2018
It was the work with which Handel conquered London, the Italian opera that finally wooed a suspicious English audience to the charms of Dr Johnson’s “exotic and irrational entertainment”. Three hundred years later, neither Rinaldo nor London’s... Read more... |
Orlando, La Nuova Musica, SJSS review - Handel painted in primary coloursFriday, 02 February 2018
The advertising for La Nuova Musica’s Orlando billed it as “Handel’s most psychologically complex opera”. Whether or not you agree (and there are plenty of heavyweight rivals – Alcina, Giulio Cesare and Agrippina just for starters) there’s also the... Read more... |
Kožená, LSO, Rattle, Barbican Hall review – springing surprises from Schubert and RameauFriday, 12 January 2018
Cheers and huzzahs greeted the arrival of Sir Simon Rattle on the Barbican stage last night before the London Symphony Orchestra had even played a note. The 10-day festivities to open his tenure as principal conductor evidently worked a treat. The... Read more... |
Orpheus Caledonius, Brighton Early Music Festival review - a thrilling meeting of musical clansSaturday, 28 October 2017
In 1725 a collection of some 50 songs was published by one William Thomson. You might not know his name, or even the names of the songs, but given the first bar of most I’m betting you could hum them from beginning to end. The work? Orpheus... Read more... |
Prom 73 review: The Well-Tempered Clavier - Book 1, Schiff - glorious solo voyage across Bach's universeFriday, 08 September 2017
Amazingly, last night Sir András Schiff scored a Proms first with his performance of Book One of Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier. Never before has even half of the sublime and seminal “48” taken the Royal Albert Hall stage in unmutilated form... Read more... |
