mon 02/12/2024

countertenors

Iestyn Davies, Aurora Orchestra, Collon, Kings Place review - Elizabethans and extraterrestrials

Music in London has faced down plagues, puritans, philistines and planners over the four centuries spanned by the Aurora Orchestra’s season-opener at Kings Place on Saturday. This concert in the venue’s “London Unwrapped” strand filled its main hall...

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Alina Ibragimova, Kristian Bezuidenhout/Iestyn Davies, Elizabeth Kenny, Wigmore Hall online/BBC Radio 3 review - two perfect pairings

Last Tuesday’s offering from the Wigmore Hall’s series of live broadcasts was a fiery recital from Russian violinist Alina Ibragimova partnered by pianist Kristian Bezuidenhout. Beginning with Schubert’s Violin Sonata "Sonatina" in A minor...

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Saul, Glyndebourne review - from extravaganza to phantasmagoria

It's swings and roundabouts for Glyndebourne this season. After the worst of one director currently in fashion, Stefan Herheim, in the unhappy mésalliance of the house's Pelléas et Mélisande, only musically gripping, comes the already-known best of...

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Classical CDs Weekly: Martin, Martinů, Vivaldi, 4 Girls 4 Harps

 The Secret Mass: Choral works by Frank Martin and Bohuslav Martinů Danish National Vocal Ensemble/Marcus Creed (OUR Recordings)We're lucky to be able to hear Frank Martin’s Mass for two four-part choirs at all; this most fastidious and self-...

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Franco Fagioli on performing the Baroque: 'a challenge is to interpret beyond the musical notation'

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...

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Davies, BBCSO, Knussen, Barbican

Last night’s concert at the Barbican focused on the theme of dreams and night-time, centred around the UK premiere of Dream of the Song by George Benjamin. But the one piece on the programme that did not fit with the theme stole the show. Stravinsky...

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Farinelli and the King, Duke of York's Theatre

No doubt this sophisticated bagatelle starring Mark Rylance worked like a charm in the intimate space and woody resonance of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. The Duke of York's Theatre is one of the West End’s smaller mainstream venues, its proscenium...

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theartsdesk in Oslo: Barocking Handel in the Opera House

Oslo is a winter wonderland, and adults seem to be outnumbered by children, flocking from all over Norway to Disney on Ice. It’s the deep snow and the silence in pockets of the city rather than the kids which make me wonder if anyone has set Handel’...

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Britten 100: Death in Moscow

“A cold coming we had of it,” grumble the three kings in T S Eliot’s poem “The Journey of the Magi” later set by Britten as his Canticle IV. “Just the worst time of year for a journey,” they complain, carried onwards by the ungulate bass notes of...

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Britten: The Canticles, Linbury Studio Theatre

As good old Catullus put it, I hate and love, you may ask why. No doubt it's my job as a critic to probe such difficult responses to Britten's Canticles. Why am I so repelled by the sickly-sweet lullaby Isaac sings just before daddy's about to put...

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Bach Unwrapped, Blaze, La Nuova Musica, Bates, Kings Place

Faced with yet another world premiere from his friends in the Borodin Quartet, Shostakovich severely asked them whether they’d yet played all of Haydn’s quartets (they hadn’t). As a listener, I feel the same about Bach’s cantatas. Whether or not a...

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theartsdesk Q&A: Countertenor Iestyn Davies

Recently hailed by The Observer as “today’s most exciting British countertenor”, Iestyn Davies is on a roll. Indeed, many critics would – and have – gone further, seeing this young British singer as the natural heir to David Daniels and Andreas...

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