Zoë Martlew’s debut album: Album Z
Last seen (by me, at least) as composer at a Wigmore Hall concert featuring Héloïse Werner (The Plot: review). Zoë Martlew now steps forward into the limelight of the recorded arena with her first complete […]
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Fascinating, distracting & frustrating: Janáček’s Makropulos Case gets its first production at Covent Garden in director Katie Mitchell’s farewell to opera
Janácek: The Makropulos Case – Act 2: Heather Engebretson, Susan Bickley, Jenry Waddington, Sean Panikkar, Ausrine Stundyte – Royal Opera (Photo: Camilla Greenwell/Royal Opera) Leoš Janáček: The Makropulos Case; Ausrine Stundyte, Heather Engebretson, Sean Panikkar, […]
James Blades: Pandemonium of the One-Man Band – James Anthony-Rose on his new music theatre piece on the great percussionist
James Blades The percussionist James Blades (1901-1999) had a career that not only spanned much of the century but also moved from circus drummer and accompanist to silent movies at the Wisbech Hippodrome, to the […]
Exile: Koptachinskaja and Kaufmann
“Exile” is certainly a topic du jour, even more so Han wan Paicia Kpopatchinskaja and Thomas Kaufmann recorded this Alpha disc in March 2024 in Bern, Switzerland. So it is that most composers on this […]
From bel canto to Harlem Renaissance: Lawrence Brownlee & Iain Burnside’s recital at Wigmore Hall
Lawrence Brownlee Tenor Lawrence Brownlee is on of the premier bel canto tenors around at the moment. And he’s rightly busy, his season included a last-minute step-in as Elvino in Bellini’s La sonnambula at the […]
A somewhat quirky mood: Stephen McNeff’s new violin concerto for Fenella Humphreys & London Mozart Players mixes Baroque inspiration with something more contemporary
The London Mozart Players (Photo: Kaupo Kickkas) On Friday 21 November 2025, violinist Fenella Humphreys, the London Mozart Players and conductor Jonathan Bloxham will give the premiere of the Violin Concerto by Stephen McNeff at […]
Brahms & Mozart in Paris
Brahms, Mozart Axelle Fanyo (soprano); Agnieszka Rehlis (mezzo); Werner Güra (tenor);Guilhem Worms (bass); Chœur Orféon Donostiara; Le Cercle de l’Harmonie / Jérémie Rhorer, conductor. Philharmonie, Paris, 4.11.2025 Brahms Alto Rhapsody, Op. 53 (1869) Mozart Requiem, K 626 (1791, completed Süssmayr) Jérémie Rhorer […]
Nuit blanche: pianist Jodyline Gallavardin’s exceptional disc
Lyonnaise pianist Jodylne Gallavadin’s second album for Scala Music is a noctunal odyssey. recorded in September 2024 in Scala’s studio in Provnce and produced by Cécile Lenoir. Gallavadin’s own notes include a poem (in Freach […]
A new solo album from British pianist, Alexander Ullman, features a thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining selection of music by Edvard Grieg – ‘The Chopin of the North’
Edvard Grieg: Songs, Moods and Lyric Pieces; Alexander Ullman; Rubicon Classics Reviewed by Tony Cooper (31 October 2025) The prize of Ullman’s album, though, is his transcription of Peer Gynt Suite, No.1, drawing out the colour […]
Guildhall School of Music & Drama – Opera Double Bill – Smyth’s Der Wald and Respighi’s Lucrezia
Two rare one-Act operas featuring stories of jealous, murderous lust, offer some fascinating juxtapositions – Der Wald (premiered 1902), Ethel Smyth’s second opera, but a late essay in Wagnerian Romanticism if more sensational (and written in German); and […]
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