Classical music
graham.rickson
There’s still so much good music being recorded and released; classical CD shops may be thin on the ground but the CDs themselves are still very much available. I’ll stream or download if forced to, but the appearance and feel of the physical product is part of the pleasure of listening, and listening through a pair of decent speakers will always trump a FLAC or an mp3. So these are all physical artefacts, things you can handle, read and pass on. My initial shortlist was voluminous but I’ve managed to whittle it down.An offbeat contemporary highlight was Liederkreis II by Judith Berkson, Read more ...
First Person: young composer Nicola Perikhanyan on a new immersive reality experience at London Wall
Nicola Perikhanyan
There's something really moving about standing in the centre of London Wall's Roman ruins and looking up at the city that has grown around it. Thinking about our past, present and future simultaneously. More than 2000 years have passed since the Romans created our city, and while much has changed there's still so much consistency in how our society exists, both the beauty and the flaws. As a civilisation, how far have things really shifted?London is a city of contrasts, it's a city you can never tire of because it's constantly evolving and every layer of its history contributes to its Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
It had been a tense week, explained Jonathan Sells, the artistic director and bass-baritone of Solomon’s Knot, from the stage of the Wigmore Hall: unsure if the concert would go ahead, unsure who exactly would be able to perform, unsure if there would be anyone in the audience.In the event it did go ahead, there was an audience present (although I was watching the livestream) and the hastily revised cast cramming the stage gave a joyful and uplifting account of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio that was a triumph in the circumstances.Solomon’s Knot’s credo is “to blow the dust off early music” and “ Read more ...
Simon Thompson
This time last year, the moment I knew things were really bad was when the Dunedin Consort cancelled Messiah. All performances since the summer of 2020 had been online films, but Dunedin cancelled even their online Messiah because it would involve performers travelling from all corners of the UK to do it. Sure enough, a couple of days later, what we then called the “Kent variant” appeared, and the grim winter lockdown began.Fast forward to December 2021 and another Covid shadow is hanging over us, though now we’re enlightened enough to name it after a Greek letter. Jo Buckley, the Dunedin Read more ...
graham.rickson
Charpentier: Un Oratorio De Noël Les Arts Florissants/William Christie (Harmonia Mundi)Just four minutes should be enough to convince anyone of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s genius. Try the central movement, “La Nuit” from Un Oratorio De Noël, composed in the 1690s, an exquisite, veiled nocturne, a brilliant curtain raiser for the joyous “Reveil des Bergers” than concludes the work. I’ve no idea whether the distant tolling bell heard in William Christie’s pioneering 1982 recording is authentic, but it’s a magical effect. Charpentier’s Pastorale sur la Naissance de Notre Seigneur Jesus Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
The Sixteen are one of the jewels of the choral world. For over 40 years they have led the way in singing excellence and programming that brings together old and new. This Christmas concert combined some traditional favourites with Renaissance and contemporary carols, all bound together by Bob Chilcott’s Advent Antiphons sequence, offering “a message of hope in renewal, in life itself” – something we can all get on board with.It arrived at London’s Cadogan Hall – one of my favourite venues – the day after the radio broadcast of the same programme from Symphony Hall, Birmingham. It was sung Read more ...
David Nice
Time, place and performers gave this performance of Berlioz’s typically original “Sacred Trilogy” a special significance. Nothing in it is more striking, in choice of text and the music to illustrate it, than the scene where Hebrew refugees Mary, Joseph and their child arrive in Egyptian Sais and are rejected by two heartless households before a kind Ishmaelite receives them. St Martin-in-the-Fields supports people “away from homelessness”, while Saturday evening marked the start of a new partnership between John Eliot Gardiner, his Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras and the church. Its Read more ...
graham.rickson
Michael Praetorius: Es is ein Ros Dresdner Kammerchor/Hans-Christoph Rademann (Accentus)Oliver Geisler’s witty booklet note makes the case for Michael Praetorius (1571-1621) as “one of the best unknowns in the history of music.” Reading the composer’s biography makes one wonder how he found the time to compose at all, and the seasonal choral pieces collected here are notable for their emotional immediacy and technical flair. The title track, “Es ist ein Ros entsprungen”, the closest thing to a Praetorious greatest hit, is beautifully sung here by Hans-Christoph Rademann’s ten-piece Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
This winter's evening spent at Wigmore Hall, completely immersed in performances of songs by Tchaikovsky, was a delight.Mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Semenchuk and pianist Semyon Skigin know these songs profoundly well. They described the proposal thus: “From [Tchaikovsky’s] 104 songs we have chosen 24, focusing on the widest possible range, from joyful exultation to the depths of pain and melancholy.” The words of these great songs might speak of hesitancy and mistakes and regret, but the melodies just flow.Semenchuk is one of the great mezzos of our time. She has performed no fewer than 30 roles Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
The shadow of the cross falls over James MacMillan’s manger. You may come for his work’s consoling, even transporting, beauty and mystery. It’s there in abundance in his new Christmas Oratorio. Yet what may grip hardest are his passages of crashing dread and horror. For MacMillan, the incarnation in Bethlehem triggers a journey across human suffering that only redemption, through Christ’s crucifixion, can close. Against the unearthly ripple of the celeste, or the playful tenderness of the solo violin (both frequently recur), a terrifying doomquake of timpani stands ever-ready to erupt. Read more ...
Robert Beale
Manchester’s oldest chamber orchestra has been gathering a new audience at the Stoller Hall in Chetham’s School of Music since that auditorium opened, and Sunday afternoon’s programme provided an excellent example of where the Northern Chamber Orchestra’s virtues lie.With Chloë Hanslip, the orchestra’s artist in association, appearing as both soloist and director, it also happened to have been selected by the BBC for recording for a radio focus on Manchester music-making, to come in January. (When you listen to that you may just detect some querulous cries and bumps arising from the presence Read more ...
Richard Bratby
As the conductor of English National Opera’s 2018 production of Porgy and Bess, there can’t be many maestros in the UK who can currently match John Wilson’s knowledge of that extraordinary score. And there are surely none who can rival Wilson’s understanding of – and passion for – the work of the great interwar Broadway and Hollywood arrangers (he built an entire orchestra around them, after all). Which is one way of saying that if you’re looking for an interpreter of Robert Russell Bennett’s 1942 “Symphonic Picture” of Gershwin’s opera, Wilson pretty much covers all the bases. So Read more ...