wed 24/04/2024

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

Pavel Kolesnikov, Wigmore Hall review - conjuring spirits from solstitial darkness

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Bach Christmas Oratorio, Monteverdi Choir, EBS, Gardiner, St Martin-in-the-Fields review - soul-piercing song and dance

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Don Pasquale, Irish National Opera review - stock comedy shines at close quarters

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Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, LPO, Jurowski, RFH review - a performance to make the heart beat faster

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It’s a Wonderful Life, English National Opera review - Capra’s sharp-edged sentiment smothered in endless schmaltz

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Watts, Williams, The Bach Choir, Philharmonia, Hill, RFH review - Vaughan Williams, from decadence to metaphysics

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Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective, Wigmore Hall review - nine haute cuisine courses, twelve happy musicians

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Alcina, Royal Opera review - sharp stage magic, mist over the pit

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The Yeomen of the Guard, English National Opera review - half-good shot at an unusual G&S misalliance

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Britten Weekend, Snape review - diverse songs to mostly great poetry overshadow a problem opera

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theartsdesk at Wexford Festival Opera - the bad, the good and the glorious

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Vaughan Williams Anniversary Concert, Wigmore Hall review - choices, choices

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La bohème, Glyndebourne Tour review - Death and the Parisienne doing the rounds

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Total Immersion: Sibelius the Storyteller, Barbican review - a feast of sagas and psychic masterpieces

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Boris Giltburg, Wigmore Hall review - power and grace in elegies and monuments

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Only an Octave Apart, Wilton's Music Hall review - instant charm, infinite variety

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latest in today

Ridout, Włoszczowska, Crawford, Lai, Posner, Wigmore Hall re...

Advice to young musicians, as given at several “how to market your career” seminars: don’t begin a biography with “one of the finest xxxs of his/...

Stephen review - a breathtakingly good first feature by a mu...

Stephen is the first feature film by multi-media artist Melanie Manchot and it’s the best debut film I’ve seen since Steve McQueen’s ...

Album: Mdou Moctar - Funeral for Justice

Despite its title, Mdou Moctar’s new album is no slow-paced mournful dirge. In fact, it is louder, faster and more overtly political than any of...

Blue Lights Series 2, BBC One review - still our best cop sh...

The first season of Blue Nights was so close to ...

Sabine Devieilhe, Mathieu Pordoy, Wigmore Hall review - ench...

Sabine Devieilhe, as with many other great sopranos, elicits much fan worship, with no less than three encores at her recent Wigmore Hall recital...

Jonn Elledge: A History of the World in 47 Borders review -...

In A History of the World in 47 Borders, Jonn Elledge takes an ostensibly dry subject – how maps and boundaries have shaped our world –...

DVD/Blu-Ray: Priscilla

There’s a scene in Priscilla where Elvis stands above his wife, who is scrambling to put her clothes in a suitcase. Priscilla has just...

Špaček, BBC Philharmonic, Bihlmaier, Bridgewater Hall, Manch...

Billed as a “Viennese Whirl”, this programme showed that there are different kinds of music that may be known to the orchestral canon as coming...

Banging Denmark, Finborough Theatre review - lively but conf...

What would happen if a notorious misogynist actually fell in love? With a glacial Danish librarian? And decided his best means of...

Album: Fred Hersch - Silent, Listening

The previous solo piano solo album from Fred Hersch, one of the world’s great...