Joana Carneiro & Gavan Ring Thomas Traherne was a Herefordshire clergyman who died in 1674 aged 38. Known now as a poet to equal his great contemporary religious writers John Donne, George Herbert and Henry Vaughan, […]
Mozart: Don Giovanni – Hurn Court Opera (Photo: Patrick Frost, BlackStar Pictures) Mozart: Don Giovanni: Sam Young, Samuel Lom, Lizzie Rydeer, Daniel Gray Bell, Hanna O’Brien, Harrison Chéné-Gration, Tilly Goodwin, William Stevens, dir: Joy Robinson, […]
Great name for a string quartet! It certainly got my attention (as did the repertoire) and enticed me to buy their debut recording which appears on a label new to me, Solo Musica, produced by […]
John Frederick Lampe’s opera The Dragon of Wantley (1737) is based on a Yorkshire legend about a ferocious dragon who terrorises the area of Wharncliffe Crags that was made better known in a ballad. The opera served […]
In these revelatory performances from the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under Sir András Schiff, no one could possibly doubt his passion for Mendelssohn who Hans von Bulow once waspishly declared “began life as […]
Through their work with the Hungaraton, Decca and Hyperion labels the Takács Quartet are very much associated with the core repertoire, so this release featuring five contemporary composers, bandoneón (a cross between a concertina and […]
I’m more than a fan. I think I’m even more than an aficionado. John Williams is an inspiration; a musical hero, really. And of course when I saw this production, I had to have it. […]
In a program showcasing music by the Mahlers, Yannick Nézet-Séguin led the Philadelphia Orchestra in the former’s Seventh Symphony, preceded by four elusive songs by his wife (née Alma Schindler) in skillfully crafted 1995 arrangements […]
Edward Gardner fashioned a clear-sighted account of the Tippett, controlling the first movement’s gnarly energy and gentle sonorities with ease and allowed a natural unfolding of the music’s tension and release. If its contrapuntal busyness […]
Although The Rake’s Progress is ultimately a moral fable, Polly Graham’s production doesn’t take it with too much po-faced seriousness. Rather it plays up its mordant humour by presenting it as like a cabaret, with a quirky […]
