Classical Source Reviews

Pat Metheny’s return to the Barbican Centre, the first of two performances, spoke about an artist whose work has shaped modern jazz and jazz guitar artistry for half a century. At 71, he is still […]

The Magic Flute means many things to many people, ranging between its two narrative poles of a serious story or Bildungsroman about enlightenment from the forces of darkness and evil (represented by Tamino and Pamina) and […]

Verdi’s Macbeth masterfully compresses Shakespeare’s play into a compelling four Act opera that fulfils all the expectations of a mid-19th century musical melodrama while also adding the theme of a people liberated from oppression, addressing […]

With Barrie Kosky’s ongoing Covent Garden production dominating metropolitan perceptions of Wagner’s tetralogy and Longborough Festival Opera having set a high bar for country house Wagner, it was brave of Grange Park Opera to embark […]

Three cheers for Sir Peter Wright and three cheers more for Birmingham Royal Ballet who drew balletic attention away from the capital for once to focus it firmly on England’s second city. Wright is now […]

The Royal Ballet’s standing as a serious classical dance company takes another hard knock with its latest programme, a double bill by the resolutely contemporary choreographic duo of Sol León and Paul Lightfoot which contributes […]

A curious programme with which to bring down the curtain on a successful season. Vasily Petrenko began with one of his well-intended homilies, promising us an evening of extremes but trailing off into unintelligibility when […]

Audience members had come from far and wide, making a kind of pilgrimage to this unlikely, austerely magical venue set in the Hampshire countryside. In recent years John Wilson and his hand-picked, high-octane orchestra have […]

The elements were no less a presence in the final concert of this week-long festival and provided the thematic ‘glue’ to an otherwise seemingly unrelated sequence of music. Proceedings began with a slice of juvenilia […]

Jennifer Higdon’s six-minute Fiery Red forms the second part of her two movement Piano Trio (a 2003 commission) and continues her preoccupation as to whether colour can convey mood. Whatever the answer, Emma Roijackers (violin), […]