Classical music
theartsdesk at the Ryedale Festival 2021 - music returns to the moorsMonday, 02 August 2021
In its 40th anniversary year, the Ryedale Festival once again brought live music of the highest quality to the beautiful villages and venues of the Yorkshire Moors. Reinvented for the current climate, the festival featured 40 events to mark its 40... Read more... |
First Night of the Proms, Hyde, BBCSO, Stasevska review - levitational ecstasiesSaturday, 31 July 2021
Did absence from Albert’s colosseum from early September 2019 until now and a roof-raising finale hoodwink many of us into thinking Dalia Stasevska’s interpretation of Sibelius’s Second Symphony among the greats? Having listened to it again on the... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Big boxes, Russian ballets, wind concertos and baroque sonatasSaturday, 31 July 2021
Riccardo Muti – The Complete Warner Symphonic Recordings (Warner Classics)As with Warner Classics’s recent André Previn box set, begin at the end. Jon Tolansky’s audio documentary is on the last disc in this 91-CD box, chronicling Riccardo... Read more... |
theartsdesk at the Three Choirs Festival - Purcell, Gabriel Jackson and DurufléThursday, 29 July 2021
King Arthur, as every schoolgirl knows, never actually existed, so it made perfect sense that the Gabrieli Consort’s Worcester Cathedral performance of Purcell’s semi-opera about the mythical British king and his battles with the Saxon incomers made... Read more... |
Opera in Song, Opera Holland Park review – world-class singers in a brilliant recital triptychWednesday, 28 July 2021
Now that the summer opera-house companies have pulled off staged triumphs under the most difficult of circumstances, it’s time to celebrate semi-al-fresco concerts. Not so many have cropped up as I’d hoped after the success of the Battersea Park... Read more... |
Classical CDs: wolves, woodwinds and a masonic funeralSaturday, 17 July 2021
Martha Argerich Edition (EuroArts)Almost eight hours of Martha Argerich on film. What a glorious prospect! This six-DVD set mostly consists of recordings of live concerts. The set was released to celebrate the great Argentinian’s 80th birthday... Read more... |
East Neuk Festival 2021 / Benjamin Baker, Fidelio Orchestra Café review – singing in the rainFriday, 16 July 2021
The heading may be a bit misleading. There were no vocalists at this year’s ingeniously adapted East Neuk Festival – live events held exclusively in the big space of the Bowhouse, St Monans, to a compulsorily limited audience – and the only rain was... Read more... |
Carducci Quartet, Wigmore Hall review - complexity and depthMonday, 12 July 2021
This programme was a bit of a calling card from the Carducci Quartet. They have previously recorded all three works, and the three composers, Haydn, Shostakovich, Beethoven, clearly play to their strengths. Add to that a modest running time, the... Read more... |
'You have to be willing to kill your darlings': conductor Clark Rundell on advice from composer Louis Andriessen (1939-2021)Thursday, 08 July 2021
It’s taken me a day to try to find some words to share at the passing of my dear friend, mentor and guardian angel Louis Andriessen and I’m grateful to theartsdesk for giving me the space. It is such a profound loss because of the profound gifts he... Read more... |
Dunedin Consort, Butt, Wigmore Hall review – bijou BachMonday, 05 July 2021
The Edinburgh-based Dunedin Consort are regular visitors to the Wigmore Hall, and their concert on Saturday night was greeting by a full house. In these Covid times, that meant an audience of just 200, but from the applause, they were clearly... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Solo harp, solo trumpet and two discs of orchestral jazzSaturday, 03 July 2021
Reicha Rediscovered, Volume 3 Ivan Ilić (piano) (Chandos)Antoine Reicha’s L’Arte de varier tantalises before you’ve heard a note; the composer’s Opus 57, its theme followed by 57 variations. Reicha was an exact contemporary of Beethoven and... Read more... |
Never to Forget, Spitalfields Festival review – moving musical tributes to lost care and health workersFriday, 02 July 2021
During early lockdown in 2020 Howard Goodall published an article pondering the role of the composer in a pandemic. His answer was that music has throughout history been successful at memorialising people and events, and that it could do so again.... Read more... |
