Melodrama as a dramatic musical genre has a somewhat patchy history. Whilst Mozart would say of Georg Benda’s melodramas ‘I love these two works so much that I carry them with me’, and indeed works like […]
Willem Wissing (1656-87) – Mary II (1662-94) when Princess of Orange c.1686-87 (Photo: Royal Collection Trust RCIN 405643) A Choral Celebration of Queen Mary II: Clarke, Blow, Purcell, Handel; chapel choir of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, […]
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra’s 2024/25 season is its third with chief conductor Ryan Wigglesworth. Wigglesworth will be directing Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius and a new work by Helen Grime, along with playing the solo part […]
Wagner Götterdämmerung (semi-staged). Soloists; London Philharmonic Choir; London Voices; London Philharmonic Orchestra / Vladimir Jurowski, KBE. Royal Festival Hall, 27.04.2024 Production: Director – P. J. Harris Video Designer – Pierre Martin Oriol Lighting Designer – […]
Spitalfields Music Festival returns with events in iconic spaces across East London from 27 June to 10 July 2024. The festival opens with soprano Nardus Williams and lutenist Elizabeth Kenny in In the Shadow of the […]
An urban myth tells of how, one evening, Stalin made a surprise phone call to Radio Moscow demanding the urgent delivery of a record: a Mozart piano concerto played by Maria Yudina. Unfortunately, radio companies […]
Lampe: The Dragon of Wantley – Charlotte Badham – New Sussex Opera (Photo: Robert Knights) Lampe & Carey: The Dragon of Wantley; Ana Beard Fernandez, Charlotte Badham, Magnus Walker, Robert Gildon, director: Paul Higgins, conductor: […]
Portrait of Mendelssohn by Wilhelm Hensel, 1847 Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto, Symphony No. 2 ‘Lobesgesang’; Lucy Crowe, Hilary Cronin, Nick Pritchard, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Choir of the Enlightenment, Sir Andras Schiff; Queen Elizabeth […]
I recently wrote about Klaus Makela’s slick Debussy/Stravinsky Decca recording with the Orchestre de Paris, finding it superficial, completely devoid of character and interminably boring. And then there’s this – whatever it is John Wilson is […]
Following on from Brett Dean’s Wigmore Concert (we published my report just two days ago) here we have Dean’s take on Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat, Op. 73, the so-called “Emperor,” A […]
