contemporary classical
France, LPO, Gardner, RFH review - the sound of other worldsSaturday, 04 October 2025
Even in the 21st century, it may not take that long for an outlandish literary experiment to jump genres and become an established musical classic. In 2008, I enthusiastically reviewed a strange, poetic, almost Beckett-like novella by the writer and... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Voice flutes, flugelhorns and frothSaturday, 04 October 2025
Corelli/Handel: Sonatas Michaela Koudelková (recorders), Monika Knoblochová (harpsichord), Libor Mašek (cello), Jan Krejča (theorbo) (Supraphon)This disc’s bright, piquant flavour makes it an irresistible acquisition. I dived... Read more... |
Hadelich, BBC Philharmonic, Storgårds, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - youth, fate and painMonday, 22 September 2025
Concerts need to have themes, it seems, today, and the BBC Philharmonic’s publicity suggested two contrasting ideas for the opening of its 2025-26 season at the Bridgewater Hall. One was “Fountain of Youth” (the programme title and also that of... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Shrouds, silhouettes and superstitionSaturday, 20 September 2025
Kabalevsky: Cello Concerto No. 2, Schumann: Cello Concerto Theodor Lyngstad (cello), Copenhagen Phil/Eva Ollikainen (OUR Recordings)This disc’s sleeve note suggests that Kabalevsky’s Cello Concerto No. 2 “owes an obvious debt to the composer’s... Read more... |
Lammermuir Festival 2025, Part 2 review - from the soaringly sublime to the zoologically ridiculousTuesday, 16 September 2025
My colleague Boyd Tonkin visited the Lammermuir Festival for the first time this year. His eyes and ears have been opened to its treasures, but some of us have been in on the secret for years. Importantly, that includes the East Lothian audiences,... Read more... |
Presteigne Festival 2025 review - new music is centre stage in the Welsh MarchesFriday, 12 September 2025
If you were a devotee of Dmitri Shostakovich whose only opportunity to attend some live performances marking this year’s 50th anniversary of his death was spending the weekend of 21 - 25 August at the Presteigne Festival, you probably wouldn’t have... Read more... |
Elizabeth Alker: Everything We Do is Music review - Prokofiev goes popWednesday, 27 August 2025
Composers and musicians explore acoustic space. Generally, they have got by with combinations of readily accessible sounds, with occasional novelties as instruments improved, bit by bit.In the 20th century that changed radically. New technologies... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Hamlet, harps and haikuSaturday, 09 August 2025
Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique, Ravel: La Valse Orchestre de Paris/Klaus Mäkelä (Decca)Rereading the composer’s memoirs and performing the Symphonie Fantastique have rekindled my interest in all things Berliozian, so this new album arrived at... Read more... |
theartsdesk at the Three Choirs Festival - Passion in the CathedralSaturday, 02 August 2025
“Powerful, Timeless, Inspiring” it says on the front cover of the programme-book for this year’s supposedly 297th Three Choirs Festival at Hereford. So please leave your frivolity at the cathedral door with your gun and your mobile phone.Richard... Read more... |
Album: Spafford Campbell - Tomorrow HeldMonday, 21 July 2025
Guitarist Louis Campbell and fiddle player Owen Spafford started playing together as teenagers in the National Youth Folk Ensemble when Sam Sweeney (of Bellowhead and Leveret) was its director. They released their first album, You Golden, three... Read more... |
Album: Olafur Arnalds and Talos - A DawningMonday, 07 July 2025
Silken ambience is the name of the game on this set from Icelandic composer-producer Olafur Arnalds and dreampop singer Talos, aka Eoin French, who tragically died in August last year, aged 36. Arnalds completed the album after his death.Talos' high... Read more... |
Aldeburgh Festival, Weekend 2 review - nine premieres, three young ensembles - and Allan ClaytonThursday, 26 June 2025
Actually it was a Thursday evening to Saturday experience, but what riches in seven concerts. The only Britten I heard was one of the Six Metamorphoses after Ovid as I approached the Red House on a hot Saturday morning, just too late for that... Read more... |
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