Bach – Prelude in E minor, BWV 955a (transcribed Siloti) Brett Dean – Hommage à Bach (2010): Prélude; Hommage à Kurtág (2011); Music for Drakenstein – Two Etudes (2018, world première); Hommage à Janáček (2009); Hommage à Lutosławski (2017); Hommage à Bach (2010): Chorale; Faustian Pact (Hommage à Liszt) (2023, UK premiere) Brahms – Klavierstücke, Op.119 (1893), interspersed with Dean’s Hommage à Brahms (2013) This concert launched a whole day at Wigmore Hall dedicated to the music ..read more

  Handel’s Arianna:  An unforgettable close to the London Handel Festival’s ‘Spring Awakenings’ festival  This is not the London Handel Festival’s first stab at Handel’s unjustly neglected opera, Arianna in Creta; it was previously staged at the Royal College of Music in March 2014. Here, it was heard in concert performance, with the church space used to good effect (and with characters occasionally having to sprint from the front, round the back and up the sides to the ‘holding benches’ behind the orchestra). Placement was carefully managed: the harpsichords even separated cha ..read more

We not only met the wonderful sitarist Jasdeep Singh Degun at Pembroke College, Cambridge recently, we also met one of the tracks here, Veer, which constituted the encore (see here). Obviously, that was just two performers; here he has a whole studio at his disposal, including a 16-piece string ensemble. We begin, though, with the titular track, Anomaly, for estraj (an Indian stringed instrument, played here by Kirpal Panesar), tabla (so far so traditional: Upreet Singh) and harp (an Indian harp, the swarmandal, here played by Kaviraj Singh) and cello (Elizabeth Hanks). This is a binaural rec ..read more

Here is a review that follows on from the String Quartet Competition in Geneva last year (possibly triggered by the Handel Singing Competition in London tonight!): the young NOVO Quartet won in Geneva with a stunning performance of Mendelssohn. A student of Bent Sørensen (whose St Matthew Passion on BIS we covered here), Mette Nielsen was born in 1985. Her first major orchestral work, Bevægelser, was only premiered last year (in the Carl Nielsen Hall in Odense, by the symphony orchestra there under Pierre Bleuse on April 20,. 2023). The String Quartet in One Movement of 2012 exemplifies Niels ..read more

This is a fascinating disc or transcriptions and a work by a sadly recently deceased contemporary composer, Gordon Crosse (1937-2021). You can hear excerpts on the following promo video: Fauré's First Cello Sonata in D-Minor is a late work (Op. 109, doing from 1917). The disquiet of the first movement almost feels unFauré-like. The first movement is notably jittery; Nigel Yandell is superb in his handling of the piano, Alexander Baillie the epitome of confidence: The slow movement moves towards what the booklet notes to this release by Richard Whitehouse call “an eloquent culmination suffus ..read more

Wigmore Hall, Monday, 15.04.2024 Gouond Oü voulez-vous aller?. Viens, les gazons sont verts  Edmond de Polignac Lamento.  Chausson La chanson bien douce, Op. 34/1. Les papillons, Op. 2/3.  Reynaldo Hahn Le rossignol des lilas. Séraphine. Paysage. Les cygnes. Aimons-nous!  Fauré Le papillon et la fleur, Op.1/1. Les berceaux, Op. 23/1. Les roses d’Ispahan, Op. 39/4.  Duparc   L'invitation au voyage. Canson triste.  Hahn    Trois jours de vendange. Etudes latines: Néère Le printemps.    A delight to see Wigmore Hall so full for a lunchtime off French song ..read more

From Vivaldi to virtual reality: Southbank Centre announces Classical Music Autumn/Winter 2024/25 programme I've picked Benjamin Grosvenor as the post header photo this time as not only is he performing next season but he's also at Wigmore Hall on Saturday (April 20th, 11.30 am) performing a programme of Brett Dean's Hommages as part of a day dedicated to that composer. The Southbank Centre and its family of six Resident Orchestras – Aurora Orchestra, Chineke! Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment ..read more

Born in 1954, Elisabetta Brusa studied in Milan before relocating (after winning first prize at the Washington International Competition for Composers for her String Quartet in 1982) to England on a Fulbright Scholarship to study with two greats, the composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and the musicologist Hans Keller. Later, via the US-Italy Fulbight Commission, she attended classes at Tanglewood. The Macdowell Colony afforded her space to concentrate solely on composition from 1988 to 1990; from 1985 to 2018, she was professor of composition and orchestration at the Milan Consevatory. Elisabe ..read more

Weir, Britten, Watkins, Mozart Nicky Spence (tenor); Ben Goldscheider (horn); Britten Sinfonia / Max Baillie (violin/director, Britten, Mozart); Michael Papadopoulos (conductor, Weir, Watkins)  Judith Weir   Heroic Strokes of the Bow (1992)  Britten   Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings, Op. 31 (1943)  Huw Watkins. Horn concerto (World Premiere)  Mozart    Symphony No.35 in D, K 385, ‘Haffner’ (1783)  The capacity audience at Milton Court was a surefire indication of the support the Britten Sinfonia enjoys. This was a typically adventurous programme, mixing World Pre ..read more

How sad and yet how celebratory to include this disc. John McCabe (1939-2015) was a fine composer and excellent pianist, composer and educator. My own experiences of him include a performance of Mozart's Piano concerto No. 19 in F, K 489 with the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester's Free Trade Hall on January 18, 1981 (Maurice Handford conducted: the other works were McCunn's Land of the Mountain and the Flood Overture, Op. 3, a piece those forces recorded for a wonderful Classics for Pleasure LP, Hallé Encore!, and Holst's The Planets Suite - I still remember the she power of "Mars" today, some 4 ..read more