Elgar from America, Volume 1 on SOMM
This might be Classical Explorer‘s first encounter with Arturo Toscanini, the great enigma. For years, I railed against him, both of my feet firmly in the Furtwängler camp. Cue a sheaf of reviews for the […]
reviews
Polish Chamber Music from the DAFO String Quartet on DUX
This box set was apparently issued to celebrate the 30-year anniversary of the DAFO String Quartet. But you would never know that unless you read the enclosed booklet very attentively, where it is inconspicuously mentioned […]
Omer Meir Wellber’s miraculous Butterfly
I was very, very take by Omer Meir Wellber’s appearance with the London Philharmonic Orchestra in March. So much so that I sought out this, the 2019 release of Wellber’s Butterfly from Glyndebourne. And while […]
Opinion: Physical music shops have an instrumental role to play for rising musicians
A Major Music Supplies In this guest posting, Roger Foxcroft of A Major Music Supplies in Staffordshire talks about the important role that physical music shops have to play for rising musicians. Roger Foxcroft It’s […]
.png?w=510&resize=510,510&ssl=1 "Secret rendezvous and Queens in disguise: Pegasus Opera stage Ethel Smyth's Fête galante and Philip Hagemann's The Dark Lady of the Sonnets")
Secret rendezvous and Queens in disguise: Pegasus Opera stage Ethel Smyth’s Fête galante and Philip Hagemann’s The Dark Lady of the Sonnets
Ethel Smyth wrote six operas of which the best-known is The Wreckers though it is hardly common currency. But what about the others, after all she wrote three more after The Wreckers. The Boatswains Mate gets performed, […]
Glasshouse in Gateshead announces its 2025/2026 season: from Haydn & Mozart to Kurtág, Gubaidulina & Berio
Royal Northern Sinfonia at the Glasshouse The Glasshouse International Centre for Music has announced its 2025/26 season. The Royal Northern Sinfonia form a large component of the season, the orchestra celebrating both Dinis Sousa’s continuation as […]
The Rite of Spring in Strasbourg
Debussy (orch. Büsser), Mozart, Stravinsky Jan Lisiecki (piano); Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg / Aziz Shokhakimov (conductor). Salle Érasme, Palais de la musique et des Congrès, Strasbourg, France, 25.02.2025 Debussy Printemps, L 68 (1887, orch. Büsser 1912) […]
Something of a revelation: forgotten songs by Robert Gund & William Grosz receive ardent championship from Christian Immler & Helmut Deutsch
Be Still My Heart: songs by Robert Gund and William Grosz; Christian Immler, Helmut Deutsch; Alpha ClassicsReviewed 29 April 2025 Two Vienna-based late-Romantic composers whose songs have disappeared from sight on a disc where the […]
New song cycles inspired by 10th-century Persian poetry, the Magdalene Laundries & Baba Yaga as storytelling in song takes centre stage at this year’s Oxford International Song Festival
Konstantin Krimmel (Photo: Guido Werner) This year’s Oxford International Song Festival takes as its theme Stories in Song and from 10 to 25 October 2025, artistic director Sholto Kynoch and his team are presenting 67 […]
A genre finding its way: Maurice Greene’s Jephtha reveals different English oratorio before Handel consolidate the form
Maurice Greene: Jephtha; Andrew Staples, Mary Bevan, Michael Mofidian, Jeremy Budd, Early Opera Company, Christian Curnyn; CHANDOSReviewed 28 April 2025 Written well before Handel really welded oratorio in his own form of music drama, Maurice […]
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