Classical Explorer
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A fresh approach to Classical music. Exploring the repertoire with a ferocious curiosity, from pre-Renaissance through to the music of today. Recommendations, interviews, explorations.
Classical Explorer
6d ago
What a difference a conductor makes: Puccini’s less-wounded butterfly
Two years ago, I reviewed a matinée performance of Madama Butterfly at Covent Garden; the review was titled “A Wounded Butterfly”. The beautiful production by Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier was then counterpointed by a massively distended account of Puccini’s courtesy of conductor Dan Ettinger. Here, it was Kevin John Edusei, a fine conductor – and the realignment and new-found congruence between stage and pit made all the difference.
The evening was not without unplanned drama: a late start due to a technical ..read more
Classical Explorer
1w ago
This is the first recording of John Wilson's own performing edition of Ravel's masterpiece, Daphnis et Chloé. Wilson spent some of the lockdown correcting score and parts of the score. with his own Sinfonia of London and a hand-picked chorus of professional singers, the Sinfonia of London Chorus, Wilson offers what is now the standard in this piece. The chorus offers both male and female alto singers.
This is the complete ballet, note - not the famous Suites. That needs someone who can provide a connecting thread through the labyrinth, and in this Wilson succeeds beyond any doubt. It seems an ..read more
Classical Explorer
1w ago
Angliss Giant. Cast; Stephe Hiscock (percussion); Reiki Ichise (viola da gamba); Olwen Foulkes (recorder); Nicola Hicks (viola); Tiaho Soares Silva, Amalia young, violins); Ben Smit, conductor/harpsichord. Linbury Theatre, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden 12.03.2024
Production:
Director – Sarah Fahie
Set Designer – Hyemi Shin
Costume Designer – Nicky Gillibrand
Lighting Designer – Adam Silverman
Cast:
Charles Byrne – Karim Sulayman
John Hunter – Jonathan Gunthorpe
Rooker – Galina Averina
Madame DuVal / Curator – Anna Cavaliero
Siste ..read more
Classical Explorer
1w ago
Icons Rediscovered: Wagner’s Gand Festival Rachel Nichos (soprano); Peter Wedd(tenor); Derek Welton (bass-baritone); Royal Philharmonic Orchestra / Vasily Petrenko (conductor). Royal Albert Hall, London13.03.2024
Huldigungsmarsch
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg: Prelude to Act I; Was duftet doch der Flieder
Das Rheingold: Abendlich strahlt der Sonne Auge
Die Walküre: Walkürenrittt; Wotan’s Farewell and Magic Fire Music
Götterdämmerung: Prologue; Dawn, Duet & Siegfried’s Rhine Journey. Brünnhilde's Immolation
It always feels a bit odd traveling to the Royal Albert Ha ..read more
Classical Explorer
2w ago
Chinese pianist Di Xiao is a musician of exquisite sensibility; her new album celebrates the coming of Spring and was one of the discs I referenced in a recent article on Spring piano music for the UK magazine Pianist, to which this post may be seen as supplemental (or indeed read as an entity in its own right).
The sequence of music presented here is carefully considered, and begins with one of Xiao's own compositions, Wistful Spring. The Oriental, pentatonic harmonies are unmistakable, as is the sense of slightly melancholic reflection, with a timbrally richer, more chordal, central section ..read more
Classical Explorer
2w ago
Ladies first: so it was at the Deutsche Oper, when Die Walküre (which refers to Brünnhilde, of course) was the first part of Stefan Herheim's new Ring cycle to be performed; Das Rheingold followed on a couple of months later for the first stagers (the cycle was later performed in sequence).
Herheim's Ring succeeds Götz Friedrich's iconic staging in Berlin, anchored at the Deutsche Oper. There are striking images aplenty, not least at the opening, a concert grand piano in a stark, dark setting with a sword protruding from its keyboard. Siegmund and Sieglinde are in modern dress; the walls are ..read more
Classical Explorer
2w ago
Cambridge Music Festival Jasdeep Singh Degun (sitar), with Harkiret Bahra (tabla). Pembroke College, Cambridge, 07.03.02024.
In the setting of the John Davison stage of Pembroke College’s wonderful new concert hall, Royal Philharmonic Society award-winner Jasdeep Singh Degun performed a short concert together with master tabla exponent Harkiret Bahra. The actual concert itself featured one raag, Jhinjoti, with a short encore based upon Charukeshi (also seen transliterated as ‘Charukesi’).
The performance of raag is a high art form. A raag may be ascribed different parts of the day, and ..read more
Classical Explorer
2w ago
This is the penultimate volume of Robert Levin's epoch-making Mozart Concerto series with the Academy of Ancient Music; you can find a previous post on the concertos K 242, 315f and 365 here.
All three concertos here - No. 6, in B flat, K 238, No. 7 for Three Pianos in F, K 242 and Concerto No. 8 in C, K 246) - were composed in early 1776, in Salzburg.
Mozart's designation of his concertos as for 'cembalo' is a generic indication for 'keyboard,' and Cliff Eisen in his scholarlynotes explores the ramifications o this ins some detail. No. 6 is performed on a Tangentflügel (as is K 246), in desi ..read more
Classical Explorer
2w ago
This is Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques' 13th Lully opera recording. That should tell us something about the musicians' immersion in this repertoire; and how it shines in this Atys. There is sheer sonic beauty here, for sure; but there is also a complete understanding of dramatic situation, resulting in recitatives and ariosos that are gripping musical statements in themselves. No mere linking passages; instead, suddenly the whole of Lully's glorious edifice is illuminated.
It is illuminated from within, too; the myriad colours available to Les Talens Lyriques. There is real immedi ..read more
Classical Explorer
2w ago
A timely set of awards (the below courtesy of the Royal Philharmonic Society press release, slightly annotated), given that this very day (March 7), I travel to Cambridge to cover a concert by award-winner Jasdeep Singh Degun, to appear both here, and on Seen & Heard International. Here are the highlights:
The Royal Philharmonic Society Awards – ‘the biggest night in UK classical music’ (The Sunday Times) – have been presented this evening at the Royal Northern College of Music.
Staged in Manchester for the first time, the event featured live music from the city’s musicians and an award ..read more