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Remembering Alfred Brendel
24th June 2025
In the hushed closing bars of the development section, the solo pianist plays a blurred sequence of chromatically descending diminished chords over a rhythmicised dominant pedal in the horns. Suddenly, the piano interrupts itself with fortissimo octave Fs in the treble clef, and then a dramatic downward sweep of octave semiquavers leading back to the C major recapitulation in the full orchestra. This is the climactic midpoint of the first movement of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no.1, and in the first of his four commercially... read more
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Pearls of the French Baroque: Lully and Rameau
17th June 2025
In its combination of visual, verbal and musical elements, opera is world of heightened emotion but also of spectacle. And, if spectacle is your thing, few operas deliver so lavishly as those of the French Baroque. The masters of this genre, centred on the court of Louis XIV at Versailles, employed classical subjects mingled with references to contemporary politics as the basis for sumptuous entertainments in which dance and stagecraft occupied positions at least as important as the sung libretto and the music itself. This... read more
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An Imperfect Wagnerite
10th June 2025
In my (now very distant) youth, I was an ardent lover of the music dramas of Richard Wagner. While still at school, I had cheap tickets for the Götz Friedrich Ring cycle at Covent Garden (with memorable sets by Josef Svoboda, and a cast including the likes of Donald McIntyre, Berit Lindholm and Jean Cox). From there on, it was total immersion: the fabled Solti Ring on Decca; another live cycle, at English National Opera (the Byam Shaw/Blatchley/Koltai production, though sadly not with the original cast); Tristan, Parsifal,... read more
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The Bizet Sesquicentenary
4th June 2025
The death 150 years ago of the composer of Carmen – surely the best-known work in the operatic canon – is one of the great what-ifs of classical music. At that stage, the extent of its dazzling success was yet to become apparent. Teeming with attractive melodies harnessed to a powerful (and, at the time, scandalous) drama, might Carmen have unlocked the floodgates of creativity for an artist frequently plagued by periods of intense self-doubt? Or would the established pattern of brief periods of success alternating with... read more
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Orlando the Great: Gibbons beyond the vocal works
28th May 2025
The music of Orlando Gibbons – the 400th anniversary of whose untimely death falls next week – is still best represented in performance and on disc by his choral music. With the exception of the Cromwellian Commonwealth, his vocal works (such as the celebrated Advent verse anthem This is the Record of John) have maintained a lasting place in the cathedral and collegiate repertoire. His instrumental works, whether for solo keyboard or ensemble, have enjoyed less exposure, but are no less rewarding. It is Gibbons’s further... read more
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