Classical Buzz
On the fifth day of Mozart...Wednesday, 05 January 2011
...your true love might do worse than bung over a brace of concertos. Which is what BBC Radio 3 is doing on "piano day" as it nears the halfway mark of its 12-day Mozart marathon. Is it a good idea? Does any composer, even Bach, stand up to the complete treatment, hour after hour? Read more... |
Boxing Day Bloat: theartsdesk recommendsSaturday, 25 December 2010
Yesterday was yesterday. Today there's the rest of the week. What are the options? You could go to the shops and exchange all your presents, or you could pursue something more in the cultural line. To which end, theartsdesk is delighted to propose some suggestions. Our writers strongly recommend that you do one or more of the following while opportunity knocks. ENGLANDRead more... |
Napoleon's revenge: a Russian orchestra in ParisThursday, 23 December 2010
Ninety-five per cent of Napoleon's army was wiped out on the freezing retreat from Moscow in 1812. The statistics weren't nearly as impressive nor, thankfully, so mortal for the Russian National Orchestra's concert in Paris's Salle Pleyel last Saturday. It happened under reduced circumstances that hardly affected the quality of the playing - though sadly nothing could be done about the wayward conducting of the controversial (though not, it seems, in France)... Read more... |
Captain SKA's anti-cuts song or John Cage - Xmas Number One?Tuesday, 07 December 2010
Of the runners and riders for an alternative Christmas hit, Captain SKA's jolly tune with samples of Osborne, Cameron, Thatcher and Clegg is the latest one to be gathering momentum. The other campaign, already rolling on nicely and more likely to succeed, is the one to get Cage's silent "4'33" to Number One for Christmas - a rather brilliant protest and a perfect present for the conceptualists and anti-consumerists in your life. Read more... |
Competition: Sarah Willis horn CDs to give awayMonday, 06 December 2010
We’ve got some CDs to give away, a recording of French horn music by Sarah Willis, the First Lady of the French Horn, who is also second horn in the Berlin Philharmonic. Our interview with Sarah in early September has proved to be one of the most popular pieces on theartsdesk. Read more... |
A Choral Christmas on Radio 3Tuesday, 30 November 2010
Christmas is coming, and prepare ye the way for a sledge-load of new music. It’s probably not just Stephen Cleobury’s annual commissioning of new carols for the King’s College Service of Nine Lessons and Carols that does it (though he must be partly responsible), but come Christmas every year there is a positive avalanche of new carols rumbling into the choral world. Whether broadcast to millions or sung to an audience of 37 in a tiny church carol service, Christmastide certainly gets the... Read more... |
At home with Jean SibeliusThursday, 25 November 2010
It will remain one of the most unforgettable times of my life - the privilege of spending four hours alone with the curator in the house of Jean Sibelius outside Helsinki, deep in a snowbound March scene. Read more... |
Remembering a great ProkofievianWednesday, 17 November 2010
She did more to make Prokofiev remembered and reassessed than most of the great performers. Read more... |
Farewell, Rudolf Barshai (1924-2010)Saturday, 06 November 2010
"Who?" many readers may be asking. You'll have to take it on trust - and a handful of outstanding recordings - that the Russian conductor, viola player and arranger, who died on 2 November aged 86, really was up there among the musical greats of his generation. He played with Rostropovich, Richter and David Oistrakh; he had as close a line to Shostakovich as any recreative artist. But he was no globetrotter following his emigration from the Soviet Union to Israel in 1976, and, as yet another... Read more... |
What price musical learning?Thursday, 04 November 2010
Last year I took my musical instrument to Tower Hamlets. The heartland of the capital’s huge Bangladeshi community is not a part of London where you expect to hear much orchestral playing. Nor are boroughs like Hackney and Newham ordinarily seen as wellsprings of classical musicians. But they all have a dedicated music services department among whose tasks it is to stimulate instrumental learning. Read more... |
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