choral music
Prom 62: Barton, OAE, AlsopWednesday, 02 September 2015
A concert of Brahms chamber music I could understand, especially given a balance between early and late. An evening of orchestral Brahms, with or without voices, needs much more special pleading. It didn’t get nearly enough last night. An expanded... Read more... |
Prom 46: Znaider, Danish NSO, LuisiFriday, 21 August 2015
Praise be to Carl Nielsen. Praise always, of course, to one of the greatest symphonists, and happy 150th birthday (again), but gratitude on this occasion is due to a programme mostly lining up Nielsen works rare and familiar, for getting me to the... Read more... |
Prom 32: Bartlett, Elschenbroich, RPO, WhitacreMonday, 10 August 2015
The England cricket team recently went through seven Test matches alternating winning and losing, the longest such sequence in the history of the game. Eric Whitacre managed a similar, and similarly frustrating, series of hits and misses in his... Read more... |
Philharmonia, Davis, Three Choirs FestivalWednesday, 29 July 2015
In his memoir As I Remember Arthur Bliss is reticent about his experiences on the Western Front. He describes his “purely automatic” impulse to enlist in August 1914, and later recounts the nightmares that troubled his sleep for a decade after the... Read more... |
NYCC, NYJO, Southwark CathedralFriday, 03 July 2015
Cleopatra in her barge gliding down the nave of Southwark Cathedral? Only figuratively, in the hypnotic “Half the Fun” movement of Duke Ellington’s constantly surprising Shakespeare compendium Such Sweet Thunder. Still, it wouldn’t be that much... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Thuringia: Easter with BachSunday, 12 April 2015
Sing, dance, breathe: those are the three imperatives for successful Bach performance, and three superlative interpretations at the Thuringia Bach Festival glorified them in excelsis. Frankly, I would have thrilled even to a merely good performance... Read more... |
MacMillan's St Luke Passion, King's College ChapelSaturday, 04 April 2015
The St Luke Passion I heard last night was my second sung Passion of the day. The first was in a parish church as a central part of the liturgy of the day on Good Friday: nothing too fancy, as befits an amateur choir, the words of St John as set by... Read more... |
RLPO 175th Birthday Concert, Petrenko, Liverpool Philharmonic HallSaturday, 14 March 2015
When the curtain came down on Liverpool’s year in the limelight as European Capital of Culture, back in 2008, there may have been some who thought that the party was over. Things in the city’s arts world were never going to the same, however, and... Read more... |
Richard Alston Dance Company 20th Anniversary Performances, Sadler's WellsTuesday, 27 January 2015
Testament to the work of Richard Alston Dance Company (RADC) over the 20 years since its foundation was not just the première-filled celebratory programme performed at Sadler's Wells last night, but the enthusiastic audience there to see it. Alston'... Read more... |
James Dillon's Stabat Mater, London Sinfonietta, Volkov, QEHThursday, 22 January 2015
James Dillon calls this major work, premered at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival last November, a “Cubist Stabat Mater”. He sets the hymn, but adds in more recent words, texts on related themes by Picasso, Kristeva and Rilke, among... Read more... |
Latvian Radio Choir, Kļava, St John's Smith SquareWednesday, 21 January 2015
Latvia likes to be different. At least that’s the message they sent out with the cultural programme marking the start of the country’s presidency of the Council of the European Union. Pomp and circumstance were out, and instead we got a Cage-... Read more... |
Bach B minor Mass, Trinity College Choir, OAE, Layton, St John's Smith SquareTuesday, 23 December 2014
While the embers of the concert year are dying out around the country, you can be sure of a great blaze-up at St John’s Smith Square. The annual Christmas Festival of quality early-music groups and top choirs – this is the 29th – now traditionally... Read more... |
