Last night diva to next-gen: Leave Britain now
Louise Alder is the first British singer for a decade to feature in the BBC’s Last Night of the Proms. (Don’t ask why, just happened that way.) Louise, who spent a decade at Frankfurt Oper, […]
classical music
Dohnanyi: My advice to young conductors
From an interview with Bruce Duffie in 2005: Many young conductors come up and ask for advice. It is hard, you know. The first thing is that real talent needs not so much advice. It […]
An album of intimacy: Palestrina 500 from Augsburg Cathedral Boys’ Choir
Palestrina 500: Palestrina, Pierre de Manchicourt, William Byrd, Lassus, Victoria; Augsburger Domsingknaben, I Fedeli, Stefan Steinemann; ARS ProduktionReviewed by Andreas Rey (7 September 2025) A brotherhood in which noise would be replaced by silence, in […]
The Great English Anthem: Chapel Choir of the Royal Hospital Chelsea at the Chelsea History Festival
From 24 to 28 September 2025 it is the Chelsea History Festival with a wide range of activities at the National Army Museum, the Chelsea Physic Garden and the Royal Hospital Chelsea. On the opening […]
An artist’s response to Classical Music for Palestine
The latest UK lobby group is organising a ‘culture workers march’. The German countertenor Andreas Scholl is troubled by it. He writes: Open letter in response to the statement of “Classical music for Palestine”. The […]
Year’s worst album cover rises in the charts
Here’s this week’s Applce Classical streaming top ten, released exclusively on slippedisc. The fastest rising entrant is a confection of Beethoven for piano trio. On its ghastly cover, Yo Yo Ma looks like Gustav Mahler, […]
A focus on women composers and poets: London Song Festival returns
Nadia and Lili Boulenger, photographed in 1913. Nigel Foster’s London Song Festival returns next month for a season of 10 concerts exploring the work of women composers. As ever, the concerts are at Hinde Street […]
Conductors remember Christoph von Dohnanyi
Alan Gilbert: Very few people have had such an impact on my musical life as Christoph von Dohnányi, here in a picture from after conducting a memorable Deutsches Requiem. Esa-Pekka and I were just this […]
Making restitution: Sir Arthur Bliss’ The Beatitudes returns to BBC Proms after a gap of 60 years
Bliss: The Beatitudes – Elizabeth Watts, Laurence Kilsby, BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Singers, Sakari OramoBBC Proms (Photo: Chris Christodoulou/ BBC) Ruth Gips: Death on the Pale Horse, Grieg: Piano Concerto, Bliss: The Beatitudes; Elizabeth Watts, Laurence […]
Christoph von Dohnanyi, personal
In 1991, a few months after my book The Maestro Myth was published, I had a call from Dohnanyi, who was in his fourth season as principal conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra. ‘We’ve never met,’ […]
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