Bello tiempo passato
“Fine old days”: Boerio (probably)’s 1673 comic intermezzo We are in the world of the commedia dell’arte here. In the early 1670s, soon after Venetian opera became established in Naples, a series of comic figures […]
classical music
There is no iceberg, no skeleton key; Finnegans Wake is not a cipher. It is only itself.
A drawing of Joyce (with eyepatch) by Djuna Barnes from 1922, the year in which Joyce began the 17-year task of writing Finnegans Wake “Finnegans Wake has been ill-used by approaches that attempt to ‘decode’ it […]
Full circle: Blackheath Halls Community Opera celebrates 20 years with a return ‘Carmen’, the opera that launched the company
Twenty years ago, Blackheath Halls launched an ambitious annual community opera project with a production of Bizet’s Carmen. This September, the project returns to the opera that started it all, celebrating two decades of creativity, […]
Sir Stephen Hough to lead the Leeds Piano Competition
The Leeds International Piano Competition launches a bold new chapter with the appointment of one of the world’s most esteemed artists, British pianist Sir Stephen Hough, as Artistic Director and Chair of the Jury for 2027 […]
New research links Handel’s organist in Dublin with the Scottish fiddler & composer Charles Macklean
Dr Aaron McGregor (Photo: Campbell Parker) Advertisements for Handel’s performances in Dublin in 1741 and 1742 (when he premiered Messiah) give the name of his organist as “Mr M’Lean” or “Mr Maclaine” and that is all […]
Les Regrets, ou L’art de la Mélancolie: music by François Couperin
Music by François Couperin today, a perfect complement to a previous post on the harpsichord music of Louis Couperin at Wigmore Hall by Jean Rondeau (linked in to his monumental box of Louis’ keyboard works […]
John Wilson & Sinfonia of London: Ravel, Berkeley, Pounds
You think you know Ravel’s Le tombeau de Couperin? Wait until you hear this! John Wilson and Sinfonia of London illuminate every bar of the score afresh. In a score I’ve heard a kazillion times, […]
The Bridgewater Hall celebrates its 30th birthday drawing together various strands of Manchester’s music making
The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester The Bridgewater Hall in Manchester is celebrating its 30th birthday! The opening concert was on 11 September 1996 and the hall has just announced a celebratory 2026/27 season. Manchester’s historic concert […]
Jacob was wrestling in the arms of a stranger: London Concord Singers to premiere Robert Hugill’s ‘Aubade & Love Song’
Back in the late 1990s one of the origins for ideas for new musical works was the moment during mass when I tuned the homily out and my mind went into a sort of free […]
Gutsy & vivid: Verdi’s La traviata at St Paul’s Opera imaginatively reinvents the work as parable of punk London
Verdi: La traviata – Christian Joel, Isobel Hughes, Ted Day – St Paul’s Opera (Photo: Julian Guidera) Verdi: La traviata; Lizzie Ryder, Christian Joel, Owain Gwynfryn, director: Edwina Strobl, music director: Adrian Salinero, St Paul’s […]
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