tue 23/09/2025

David Nice

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Bio
The classical music and opera editor of theartsdesk, David writes, lectures and broadcasts on music. A former music critic for The Guardian and The Sunday Correspondent, he has made regular appearances on BBC Radio 3, not least in the long-running series Building a Library. He has written short studies on Elgar, Richard Strauss, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky and the history of opera, and is currently working on the second volume of his Prokofiev biography for Yale University Press. He runs two Zoom lecture series, Opera in Depth on Mondays and a symphonies course on Thursdays.

Articles By David Nice

Jerusalem Quartet, Leonskaja, Wigmore Hall review - freedom and rigour in perfect balance

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Boris Giltburg, Wigmore Hall review - tonal beauty trumps subjective romantics

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LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - exhilarating, hilarious mock-heroics

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Dmitri Alexeev, Leighton House review - shadows and light from a master pianist

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DVD: Babylon Berlin, Season Four

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Philharmonia, Hrůša, RFH review - total brilliance in Bartók, Dvořák and Strauss

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Tannhäuser, Royal Opera review - true goodness triumphs in the end

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Leonskaja, Staatskapelle Streichquartett, Wigmore Hall / Secret Byrd, St Martin-in-the-Fields review - genuine versus theatrical

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Jansen, LSO, Noseda, Barbican review - hearts of darkness

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Castalian String Quartet, Wigmore Hall review - genius in works and performance

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Lowe, The Mozartists, Page, Wigmore Hall - an education, not quite a triumph

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Least Like the Other, Irish National Opera, Linbury Theatre review - the harrowing of Rosemary Kennedy

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Faust, Tamestit, EBS, Gardiner, St Martin-in-the-Fields review - countless shades of brilliant

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Katya Kabanova, LSO, Rattle, Barbican review - living every bar of Janáček’s tragedy

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National Youth Orchestra, Bloch, Barbican review - blazing and surging odysseys

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Jaan Kross: A Book of Falsehoods review - plague, power and deception in 16th century Tallinn

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Between bouts of that far from shabby, still shocking masterpiece Tosca, Royal Opera music director Jakub Hrůša ...

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Why are the Irish such good storytellers? The historical perspective is that the oral tradition goes way, way back, allied to the gift of the gab...

Hadelich, BBC Philharmonic, Storgårds, Bridgewater Hall, Man...

Concerts need to have themes, it seems, today, and the BBC Philharmonic’s publicity suggested two contrasting ideas for the opening of its 2025-26...

Album: Mulatu Astatke - Mulatu Plays Mulatu

The tour by the 81-year-old Mulatu Astatke which is currently under way and this album seem to be giving off different...

Music Reissues Weekly: Sly and the Family Stone - The First...

The remarkable The First Family: Live At Winchester Cathedral 1967 represents the first-ever release of a previously...

Monteverdi Choir, ORR, Heras-Casado, St Martin-in-the-Fields...

35 years ago, persona-now-non-grata John Eliot Gardiner revealed how performances of Mozart’s Idomeneo and La Clemenza di Tito...