Whose Fantasie…. Richter’s or Yuja’s
Fans have uploaded a performance of Schubert’s four-hand Fantasie, played on their recent tour by Yuja Wang and Vikingur Olafsson. There is much to admire in it by way of structure and accuracy, but the […]
Slipped Disc
Milstein, 120
Those of us old enough to hear Nathan Milstein in our youth will never forget the sound, the charm, the sheer joie de vivre of a violinist who made the greatest of his rivals seem […]
US-Canadian composer dies, 89
The composer and educator Jack Behrens passed away earlier this month in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. His 1970 orchestral work The Sound of Milo was warmly received. Behrens was chair of music theory and composition at the […]
Ecuador mourns premier composer, 94
The National Conservatory of Music in Quito has announced the death of (Luis) Gerardo Guevara (Viteri). A student of Nadia Boulanger in Paris, Guevara published more than 100 scores and wrote the defining history of […]
Livewire mezzo, RIP
Ars Choralis Coeln has announced the death of its founder, the versatile mezzo-soprano Maria Jonas. A specialist in early, contemporary and improvised music, Maria founded and directed numerous ensembles, often combining early and new music […]
Fiona’s top 10 of 2024
The Observer music critic Fiona Maddocks rates Death in Venice as her signature opera experience of the year. Read her full rankings here. There is stgill time to add your top 3 to the Slippedisc […]
The new Lebrecht Interviews: Itzhak, Mirga and the Janacek cyclist
Over the hoplidays this week, BBC Radio 3 is running three new Lebrecht Interviews with leading figures in thee music world. Two are notoriously elusive. This is, I am told, the first programme-length interview Itzhak […]
Vintage shot: Telling a conductor what he’s worth
This is the forbidding Erich Leinsdorf, conducting the LA Phil in the 1980s. When he wasn’t looking, someone put the sign up and oboist David Weiss snapped this shot. Leinsdorf was not renowned for having […]
Britain’s busiest classical producer?
Tip a hat to Grammy-nominated Brian Pidgeon who is, we think, the most prolific record producer in the UK. Brian has made around 400 recordings. He was Simon Rattle’s first record producer with the Merseyside […]
Can Gergiev still do Mahler?
Early in his international career, Valery Gergiev professed himself a Mahler enthusiast and conducted the symphonies with great engagement whenever he got the opportunity. For the past three years, as a Putin collaborator, he has […]
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%20TallWall%20Media_Oxford%20Song.jpg?w=160&resize=160,160&ssl=1 "There was no closure here: four Irish women composers give voice to women of the Magdalene Laundries in remarkable performances from Lotte Betts-Dean & Deirdre Brenner in Oxford")
