Bach
Classical music/Opera direct to home 16 - putting freelancers firstFriday, 19 June 2020
The latest wave of musicians to make their voices heard comes from the freelancers who haven't been able to claim anything so far for their loss of income and of the ability to work together. As a group of top players putting out their plea observes... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Chopin, Rimsky-Korsakov, John Bullard, Fred ThomasSaturday, 13 June 2020
Chopin: Études Sonya Bach (piano) (Rubicon)Chopin’s solo piano études helped push the genre into uncharted territory. He would have practiced examples by Czerny and Clementi in his youth, but his own Op. 10 and Op. 25 sets make far more... Read more... |
Stephen Hough/Lucy Crowe, Anna Tilbrook, Wigmore Hall online/BBC Radio 3 review - the end of the beginningWednesday, 03 June 2020
After a devastating drought, even a light shower can feel like something of a miracle. Under normal circumstances, a 60 minute lunchtime piano recital from the Wigmore Hall would represent wholly unremarkable business as usual for BBC Radio 3. As it... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Bach, Zosha Di Castri, Dukas, RousselSaturday, 25 April 2020
Mike Block: Step into the Void (Bright Shiny Things)The packaging and art design are deceptive; two-thirds of this release is actually a classy set of Bach’s Cello Suites (“... attempting to comprehend all of the Cello Suites as a single... Read more... |
Classical Music/Opera direct to home 7 - Jeremy Denk's well-tempered Bach revelationsFriday, 17 April 2020
One person playing one instrument from home to the edification and delight of thousands: it's been a constant in these confining days, and well meant even if the sound isn't always up to it, a necessary substitute for live communication on both... Read more... |
St John Passion, Bachfest Leipzig livestream review - pocket quarantine gospelSaturday, 11 April 2020
Bach, being The Greatest, can take any amount of adaptation. I'm especially addicted, for instance, to CDs on which the Japanese percussionist Kuniko plays cello suites and violin sonatas on the marimba. So it was going to be fascinating to hear a... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Bach, Handel, PärtSaturday, 11 April 2020
Bach: St Matthew Passion The Choir of King’s College Cambridge, Academy of Ancient Music/Sir Stephen Cleobury (King’s College Cambridge)Bach Collegium Japan/Masaaki Suzuki (BIS)Both Masaaki Suzuki and the late lamented Sir Stephen Cleobury... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Bach, Poulenc, Simon HöfeleSaturday, 28 March 2020
Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier George Lepauw (piano) (Orchid Classics)How a pianist tackles the opening C major Prelude of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier can often set the tone for what follows. You’d expect Glenn Gould’s quirky traversal to... Read more... |
Bach St John Passion, Bach Collegium Japan, Suzuki, Barbican review - intense pain and dancing consolationWednesday, 11 March 2020
Eyes watering, heart thumping, hands clenched: no, not The Thing, but a spontaneous reaction to the opening of Bach's St John Passion in the urgent hands of Masaaki Suzuki. How his Bach Collegium oboes seared with their semitonal clashes while bass... Read more... |
Sean Shibe, Wigmore Hall review - mesmerising journey from light to darkSaturday, 07 March 2020
"All true spiritual art has always been RADICAL art": thus spake the oracular Georges Lentz, composer of the pitch-black odyssey for electric guitar that took everyone by surprise last night. In that vein, why not add that all the greatest... Read more... |
Beatrice Rana, Wigmore Hall review - fantasy and sonority writ largeSaturday, 08 February 2020
Not even the unengaged or terminally weary could have dozed through this. Pianists have often commented how the Wigmore Steinway is too big for the hall, and most adjust accordingly. Not 27-year-old Italian Beatrice Rana, but not in the bad way of... Read more... |
Bach Sunday with the Suzukis, RAM / Appl, AAM, Milton Court review - father, son and Holy GhostTuesday, 21 January 2020
Not long after noon on Sunday, strange bells began ringing. In just 11 bars, Bach summons pairs of flutes, oboes and violas da gamba against pizzicato strings and continuo to tintinnabulate against the alto's recitative lines about a "vibrating... Read more... |
