Neilsen’s Mother …
Carl Nielsen’s music to The Mother: A Play in a Prologue and Seven Scenes by Helge Rode was recorded in full for the first time here. Some excerpts have found their way in into record […]
reviews
Beautifully well-matched casting & superb singing brings alive the latest revival of David McVicar’s production of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro at Covent Garden
Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro – Andrey Zhilikhovsky, Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha, Louise Alder, Alex Esposito – Royal Opera House (Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic) Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro; Alex Esposito, Louise Alder, Andrey Zilikhovsky, Masabane Cecilia […]
Mining the contemporary: two American opera releases by Ricky Ian Gordon & Tobias Picker take inspiration from the AIDS crisis & an historical figure of trans identity
Tobias Picker: Lili Elbe – Lucia Lucas – Theater St. Gallen 2023 Ever since John Adams and Alice Goodman focused on Richard Nixon’s 1972 visit to China, contemporary opera (and contemporary American opera in particular) […]
Bach Goldberg Variations (as you’ve never heard them)
There are kazilliions of Goldbergs out there. Here’s one with a difference: an arrangement by Tomáš Ille (born 1971) for French horn (Radek Baborák), violin (Dalibor Karvay), marimba (Andrei Pushkarev) and bass clarinet (Petr Velášek). […]
Early Richard Strauss: Beecham’s Macbeth (and more!)
Macbeth, Op. 23 (1886-8) Richard Strauss’ first tone-poem, is not heard much. Norman del Mar devoted much space to it in his fine Strauss books, though, and that piqued my interest many, many years ago […]
A 4,000-year-old lullaby inspires Freya Waley Cohen’s new piece for sister Tamsin as part of Lullabies programme with Cordelia Williams
Lullaby (noun) – A song sung to children to soothe them to rest. Also, any song which soothes to rest. (Oxford English Dictionary online) Inevitably the idea of a lullaby is immediately associated with children but […]
125 years young: the Wigmore Hall celebrates, Lise Davidsen headlines
Happy “birth”- day to Wigmore Hall (inasmuch as bricks and mortar are birthed). On the hall’s actual 125th anniversary, it was Lise Davidsen and the equally astonishing collaborative pianist James Baillieu who did the honours: […]
Flow Interrupted: prepared piano performance by Teodor Doré in a space conceived by Zaha Hadid
Teodor Doré: Flow Interrupted It’s not often that I write about the London Festival of Architecture, but on 5 June 2026 Renaissance-21 is presenting Flow Interrupted, a prepared piano performance by Teodor Doré at Roca […]
Strauss & Korngold: little known works by well-known composers in passionate performances from Francesca Dego & Alessandro Taverna at Conway Hall
Alessandro Taverna & Francesca Dego Korngold: Violin Sonata, Schoenberg: Phantasy, Richard Strauss: Violin Sonata; Francesca Dego, Alessandro Taverna; Conway HallReviewed 31 May 206 Youthful Korngold and Strauss before he was Strauss in a remarkable pair of big late-romantic […]
Ho-hum (plus a couple good things)
“God it’s just so boring.” That’s the extent of my listening notes for this new album from John Wilson and company. So do I even need to go on? (I suppose I could elaborate a bit. […]
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