Classical Explorer

One of the great choral works, Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem is often thought of as a humanist requiem, a work for the bereaved passages form teh Bible sleeked by Brahms himself. It takes a great […]

Toshio Hosokawa’s music recalls the calligraphic lines of Japanese script, but, as he puts it, ‘at the limit of time and space’. Hosokawa reframes the very way we experience the guitar; traditional folk music retains […]

Here is a disc of three magnificent performances of three Bach cantatas on the Signum label. superbly recorded in Norwood, London. The Oxford Bach Soloists is directed by Tom Hammond-Davies; Nick Pritchard is the fervent […]

LSO Futures: Homage to Pierre Boulez Debussy, Neuwirth, Arcaro, Agar, Boulez London Symphony Orchestra / Maxime Pascal (conductor). Barbican Hall, 26.01.2025  Debussy Trois Images pour Ochestre (interspersed)  Neuwirth Tombeau II Hommage à Pierre Boulez (World premiere, LSO […]

Respighi, Tubin, Falla, Ravel Will Dearden (double-bass); RCM Symphony Orchestra / Vasily Petrenko (conductor). Royal College of Music, London, 23.01.2025 Respighi Fontane di Roma, P. 106 (1916)  Tubin Double-Bass Concerto (1948)  Falla El sombrero de […]

“The idea is simple: instead of constantly travelling from one concert venue to another, I want to focus on each city for a full month and offer as much as I can to the local […]

Best known for his opera Der Vampyr (he was a leading composer in the period between Weber and Wagner), Heinrich August Marschner (1795-1861). He was well travelled though Europe before he arrived in Dresden by […]

Beethoven NOVO Quartet. Wigmore Hall, London, 3pm, 19.01.2025 (CC)  String Quartets: No. 4 in C minor, Op. 18/4 (1799/1800); No. 9 in C, Op. 59/3, Razumovsky’ (1806)  The NOVO Quartet of Denmark won the 77th […]

On the Transmigration of Souls: Haydn, Kurtág, Adams. Anna Devin (soprano); Hanna Hipp (mezzo); Rupert Charlesworth (tenor); Trevor Eliot Bowes (bass); Tiffin Youth Choir; London Philharmonic Choir; Jonathan Green (sound designer); London Philharmonic Orchestra / […]

For those looking for a modern-instrument performance of Mozart’s Requiem (in the Süßmayr completion), look no further. If ever there was an example of Jansons’ art, this is it. There will be adherents of Jansons’ […]