Ottorino Respighi’s ‘mystery in three episodes’, Maria Egiziaca (Saint Mary of Egypt) started out as a concert triptych. Some have suggested its dramatic/symphonic slant puts it midway between oratorio and opera, but stagings are fairly […]
This is truly special. Rogier Michael, born in Mons, Belgium in around 1553 and died 1623, was a late example of the polyphonic Franco-Flemish school. His setting of the Weihnachtshisorie (Christmas story) dates from 1602 […]
For many, Arnold Schönberg is, pardon the niche family-basd pun, a no-no. His rigour, his new system of dodecaphonic (twelve-tone rows) offers challenges for sure; but before that, his late-Romantic lushness is captivating. This release […]
Looking towards the sixtieth anniversary (2025) of Elizabeth Poston’s Penguin Book of Carols (1965), initially undertaken with Ralph Vaughan Williams, this new recording presents music associated with these two composers (including Poston’s arrangement of Peter […]
Nice to see a disc celebrating Eudice Shapiro. A pupil of the great Efrem Zimbalist, long-lived Shapiro (1914-2007) shines on this release. She was known as an orchestral and quartet leader, and here we hear […]
Daniel Barenboim is a living miracle. e seemed to remain boyish in his looks for decades and decades after was humanly fair; he is equally at home the piano stool as on the podium. He […]
This post forms the middle bit of a Porpora sandwich. Back in September (which feels ages ago now!) I covered Ncolai Porpora’s Iphigenie in Aulide at Bayreuth Baroque with Christophe Rousset conducting Les Talens Lyriques […]
A Christmas tale to warm the heart here. Debbie Wiseman and Alan Titchmarsh isn’t a combination that immediately springs to mind, but here it is, and a very successful one at that. Titchmarsh has a […]
Described, accurately, by the notes as a “Parisian noir,” Il tabarro,” intended as the first of Puccini’s Trittico (a cycle of three opera designed to be performed in on evening).We reviewed the ENO incarnation of […]
Every horn player knows Benjamin Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings. One of that composer’s most beautiful, and cogent, pieces, it often sends tingles of dread in the bravest of hornists; it was, after […]
