Hugo Wolf’s Italian Songbook at the the Ryedale Festival
Hugo Wolf was, after Schubert, the supreme composer of Lieder and, given the recent revival of interest in the genre led by the Leeds and Oxford Festivals, it is disappointing that his songs are not performed more often. Perhaps it…
My Concert Highlights of 2018
Two electrifying performances by Rattle and the LSO: Mahler’s Ninth at the Barbican and Janacek’s Sinfonietta at the Edinburgh Festival. Honegger‘s masterpiece Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher performed by the Concertgebouw Orchestra under the inspired direction of Stéphane Denève. A superb…
Honegger’s Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher at the Concertgebouw
Arthur Honegger’s Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher, with a text by Paul Claudel, is a remarkable work. Joan on the stake, as she awaits deliverance into heaven, reviews her life. In contrasting the mystical and sublime with worldly and bestial humanity,…
Benjamin Appl’s Lieder Recital at the Ryedale Festival
Benjamin Appl is blessed with a beautiful baritone voice, burnished when singing out, but softly serene for quieter phrases at the top, as well as resonant in the lower register. He was apparently Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau’s last pupil and in the…
Rattle and the LSO in Mahler’s Ninth
There can hardly be a more appropriate work to display Simon Rattle’s talents than Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, with its combination of foreboding, wry parody of Ländler, cynically extrovert and sentimental take on orchestral romanticism and the final passive and very…
Joshua Redman and Still Dreaming at the Manchester Jazz Festival
Although I am fond of jazz, I do not normally write blogs about it, primarily because I have insufficient knowledge and vocabulary to confidently exercise critical faculties. But I had the urge to communicate my responses to this special occasion:…
Leeds Lieder: Mahler’s Knaben Wunderhorn
Although Mahler’s Knaben Wunderhorn songs with orchestra are well known, one rarely encounters them with piano; and this version, presented by Leeds Lieder at the University of Leeds, was a revelation. Of course one misses the variety of instrumental sound,…
My Concert Highlights 2016
Schoenberg’s massive Gurrelieder at the Edinburgh Festival conducted by Donald Runnicles: no wonder he turned to serialism; he couldn’t go any further with tonality Steven Kovacevich‘s piano recital at the Buxton Festival: a profundity, particularly with Schubert’s A Major Sonata,…
Leeds Lieder 2016
Founded in 2004 by Jane Anthony, Leeds Lieder has had the laudable aim of fostering performances of, and growth of audience interest in, an area of music making somewhat neglected in the regions. It has not been an easy challenge….
Lieder Recitals and Texts
A recital at this year’s Buxton Festival, given by soprano Sarah-Jane Lewis and baritone Gareth Brynmor John with pianist Simon Lepper, offered an interesting combination of duets and songs by Brahms, Mendelssohn, Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky. However, an audience cannot appreciate…
Roderick Williams: French Song Recital
I have said before, and I will say again, that for concert series which have good price/quality ratio I know nothing better venue than the Wesley Centre in Harrogate. For £6 a seat for an hour at Monday lunchtimes, you…
Festival of Czech Chamber Music at the RNCM
Each January at the Royal Northern College of Manchester there is a chamber music festival, focusing on a particular theme and presenting some prominent musicians alongside the talent of the College’s own students. This year it was Czech music, or…
My Concert Highlights 2014
Anna Prohaska‘s outstanding Lieder recital at Edinburgh: vocal assurance, combined with great interpretive skills and artistic integrity Thomas Allen‘s defiant and moving Winterreise in Oxford: an astonishing (and for me reassuring) celebration of reaching 70, and part of the extraordinary…
Schubert’s complete Rosamunde in Vienna
It was certainly enticing. The illustrious Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra under the venerable Nikolaus Harnoncourt were at home in the Musikverein giving a rare outing for the complete incidental music which Schubert wrote for the play Rosamunde. In some respects, it…
Cédric Tiberghien’s Bartok Piano Recital
An all-Bartok piano recital? In Harrogate? On a Monday lunchtime? You might not have expected much . But wait a moment! This is the Wesley Centre (previously known as Chapel) with its famous and wonderful Yamaha piano, and this is…
Oxford Lieder and the Schubert Project
Now you might think that Oxford Lieder with its Schubert Project boldly presenting all of Schubert’s songs was biting off more than can be chewed, or at least risked convincing its audiences that with such a multitude there must be…
Die Winterreise in Oxford by Thomas Allen (at 70)
Three days of Schubert Lieder at Oxford which made one gasp in astonishment at his extraordinary powers of invention, in capturing in song the heights and depths of human emotions. While many of the songs were unfamiliar, this was not…
Recital by Anna Prohaska at the Edinburgh Festival
My experience with lieder recitals which, though devoted to a single theme, jump around between languages, styles and composers has not always a been happy. The programme “Behind the Lines 1914-2014” given by Anna Prohaska and Eric Schneider at Edinburgh’s …
Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale at the Northern Aldborough Festival
The annual round of summer music festivals is upon us. What are our expectations of them? Some would seem to flourish on combining concerts with talks, walks and pleasurable social activities. Some attempt to bring quality music to geographical areas…
The Haydn Festival at Bridgnorth
For lovers of Haydn like myself the annual festival at Bridgnorth in Shropshire would seem to be a must. Performances in an attractive town of a range of his works, revealing what a brilliant composer he was, innovative, inventive and…