Friday's Top 50 Classical Music News & Stories
Labels:
Breaking News,
ClassicalBrief
-
Sir Simon Rattle conducts performance recorded for event at military cemetery near Mons to be attended by David Cameron Sir Simon Rattle has conducted an unprecedented collaboration of the London Symphony Orchestra and the Berlin Philhar...
-
Today is the day! For the 8th year in a row, medici.tv goes to Verbier, in the middle of the Swiss Alps, for over 2 weeks of concerts featuring the greatest artists on the classical music scene. In a few hours the festival will open unde...
-
In a gloriously sunny Buxton for our Alicia's Gift concert the other day, I took the opportunity to catch The Jacobin , a little-known opera by Dvorák that the doughty festival director Stephen Barlow, the conductor, had somehow, somewhe...
-
I’ve just discovered somewhere that I never knew about except in terms of schoolboy geography: a revelation by the name of Ryedale – which is an extensive tract of well-heeled rural bliss, with grand country estates like Castle Howard, p...
-
Tamar Iveri, the Georgian soprano hustled out of Australia after homophobic sentiments were found on her Facebook page, is starting to rebuild her career. She called a press conference in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, to announce she wi...
-
Tight-lipped company statement: San Diego Opera, Ian Campbell, and Ann Spira Campbell announced today that they have mutually resolved their differences arising out of their former employment relationships. Out of respect for each other...
-
Student animators are inspired at the Royal Opera House
-
The BBC Promenade concerts are always an important feature in any music lover’s calendar, and it’s a great pleasure to highlight the 2014 programme. The concerts start this evening and run for nearly two months; 76 concerts i...
-
By Claire Allen: Wow. I can't believe how many views I had on the first post in this series. That's what putting "Disney" in the title of a post will do for you, I guess. I hope we get just as many on this one, because just buying things...
-
Glyndebourne, Lewes This is not a critique of money and class, but a production that places Violetta's tragedy at its creative centre It's more than a quarter of a century since Glyndebourne last staged La Traviata . Those who have been ...
-
British composers faced a problem - all their training was German
-
Edward Elgar The Kingdom at the First Night of the BBC Proms, hot ticket in more ways than one. I shall brave the heat of the Royal Albert Hall and make the pilgrimage. As I predicted before this year's Proms were announced The Kingdom i...
-
By The Weekend Vote: A recent study has strongly pointed to nature over nurture, when it comes to acquiring musical skill. The study, published in Psychological Science , by Miriam Mosing of the Karolinska Institute, in Sweden, apparentl...
-
Sarah Crompton applauds the Peckham-based organisation proving that classical music belongs everywhere
-
We hear that Carlo Bergonzi, who turned 90 last week, has been taken to hospital in a serious condition. We pray for his full recovery.
-
Brighten your day with Joyce and Jessye.
-
One of the few things everyone agrees on in the London orchestras is that, when it comes to shoes, no-one comes close to Maxine Kwok-Adams of the LSO’s first violins. Maxine stnds out from the pack as she strides on stage in a grav...
-
The BBC Proms opens tonight with a performance of Elgar’s The Kingdom. Seldom has a season launched on a more sombre note. The world is mourning almost 300 people on board a passenger plane shot down as an act of war. Repercussions...
-
Glyndebourne's new production of Verdi's La Traviata is a satisfyingly elegant one
-
Join the jolly Prommers as they line up for another season
-
On Monday, at the St Michael Church in Munich, Valery Gergiev will conduct Brahms’s German Requiem in memory of Lorin Maazel. The orchestra will be made up of musicians from the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra and the Bavarian Radio ...
-
Levi Hammer is a young conductor who worked with the late maestro at the Castleton Festival. He has sent us a third intimate memoir to complement those we have published by a cellist and a violinist. Here’s a sample paragraph: He w...
-
Paul Laumann, the radio voice of classical music in Cincinnati, has died, aged 89. He founded Kitchen Koncert in 1958 and presented it for nearly 30 years.
-
Cor Pan, a drummer and singer, will be remembered forever for the pre-takeoff words her published at noon yesterday Amsterdam time on his Facebook page. Cor posted a picture of the plane he was boarding and captioned it: ‘If it sho...
-
Branscombe, Devon The Devon village of Branscombe has its second festival this year, running from 25-27 July 2014. Founded by Ian Rosenblatt (of Rosenblatt Recitals ), Branscombe Festival presents major musicians in a delightful country ...
-
Bruch Scottish Fantasy , traditional Scots music; Nicola Benedetti, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Rory Macdonald; DECCA Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Jul 15 2014 Star rating: 5.0 Brilliant combination of the Bruch Scottish Fantasy with...
-
Most people know about the curse of the ninth, but if you don’t, here’s a quick explanation. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Choral (8.550181) laid down a few benchmarks. Its influence was felt most recently, perhaps, durin...
-
CPO has devoted 13 previous releases to Heinrich von Herzogenberg (1843-1900), whose wife Elisabeth (1847-1892) was a favorite pianist of Brahms. It should be mentioned that the label’s latest endeavor on the Austrian composer’s behalf d...
-
By Trevor Dick: I had the presence of mind to video-tape a few takes of the tracking of this "East of Sinai - Prelude" on my NS 5-String Electric Violin in my home studio and caught the "keeper". This will be another track on the upcomin...
-
An Al Fresco La bohème on the Big Screen BP Big Screens 2014 – Puccini, La bohème:broadcast to The Forum, Southend-on-Sea, Essex, from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, 15.7.2014. Directed for the screen by Kri...
-
Riccardo Chailly in conversation with Michael Cookson, Leipzig, June 2014 On one of the hottest days I can remember I left the stifling Leipzig Hauptbahnhof and walked to Riccardo Chailly’s hotel. It was indeed a privilege to have the ...
-
New music New York's formidable Flux Quartet has made something of a specialty of Morton Feldman's terrifying six-hour String Quartet No. 2 (including a fine recording), so the group's new recording of the String Quartet No. 1 - which cl...
-
Mozart, Judith Weir and Ravel from the Lawson Trio at Buxton, heard by Mike Wheeler
-
Giuseppe Pennisi experiences 'Il Bajazet'
-
Busy researching an article, with classical music agony aunt Alice McVeigh
-
Here’s a very pleasant, expertly played and recorded collection of works from the repertoire of the Dresden Court Chapel in the first half of the 18th century. According to the detailed and informative notes, this particular progra...
-
Mozart, Idomeneo: Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of Teatro Colón. Conductor: Ira Levin , Teatro Colón , Buenos Aires . 11.7.2014. (JSJ) Cast: Ilia: Verónica Cangemi / Marisú Pavón Idomeneo: Richard Croft / Gust4avo López Manzitti Idaman...
-
The almost indestructible diva has died at the age of eighty-nine. Sarah Larson remembers her on the New Yorker website. Stritch's immortal versions of "The Ladies Who Lunch" have been widely shared, so I thought I'd feature this clip fr...
-
Antonin Dvorák, The Jacobin. (sung in English, with surtitles): Soloists, Northern Chamber Orchestra, / Stephen Barlow (conductor), Opera House, Buxton, 12.7.2014 (RJF) Cast: Count Harasova, Andrew Greenan Bohuš, Nicholas Lest...
-
Välkki/Hotter/Watson/Vickers/Gorr/Royal Opera/Solti (Testament, four CDs) Georg Solti took over as music director at Covent Garden in 1961. His first new production there was Die Walküre; it was originally intended to be the first i...
-
Armonia Ensemble (Berlin Classics) Richard Strauss' s two Sonatinas for an ensemble of 16 wind instruments are late works, part of the so-called Indian summer of his composing career that followed the completion of his final opera Capric...
-
What's in a name? Plenty, especially when used in song about any real or fictional Jones, or in other senses of the word "What's in a name?" she asked. For if only she had not been called Capulet nor he Montague, but instead Ju...
-
Concerto Italiano/Alessandrini (Naive, CD & DVD) When Monteverdi moved from Mantua to Venice in 1613, to become maestro di cappella at St Mark's, he set about raising musical standards in the choir of which he took charge. The Selva ...
-
Beck/Diaz/Odense SO/Yoo (Bridge) Peter Lieberson 's first orchestral work was a piano concerto, and it was that magnificent, hugely ambitious score, based upon the Buddhist principles of Heaven, Earth, Man, that made his international re...
-
In the build up to a special Sport Prom concert, we pick 10 of the best sports theme tunes, including Match of the Day, Test Match Special and Ski Sunday
-
Wright leaves BBC to become chief executive at Aldeburgh Music, taking on responsibility for annual Aldeburgh festival The performance of Elgar's oratorio The Kingdom that opens the BBC Proms on Friday is more than usually significant. A...
-
St Paul's Cathedral, London The 13-second reverberation of the venue muddied the sound and buried all detail, minimising Beethoven's 9th Any review of a concert in St Paul's Cathedral is a tale of a battle between a performance and the a...
-
Robin Carlson Peery The Carmel Bach Festival presented the first of its many Chamber concerts Wednesday afternoon in the Church in the Forest on the campus of the Stevenson School. It is a lovely venue for concerts with its high … ...
-
Roger Wright tells Ivan Hewett the music he doesn't like
-
The Proms, the world's biggest classical-music festival, opens this Friday at the Royal Albert Hall. Celebrate some of the concerts' less expected moments from the last few decades with our quiz Continue reading...
