The Spin Doctor Europadisc's Weekly Column

21st February 2024

Surely the most intriguing of all Handel’s oratorios is his antepenultimate work in the genre. Unlike the biblical works on Old Testament subjects with which the composer had enjoyed some of his greatest successes, Theodora is based on the story of an early Christian martyr, persecuted for her beliefs by the Roman authorities during the reign of Diocletian. The story is a bleak one. For her refusal to sacrifice to the Roman gods, Theodora is first ordered to serve as a prostitute, and then – when her beloved Didymus, a Roman... read more

14th February 2024

Seiji Ozawa, who has died at the age of 88, was one of the chief representatives of a new generation of conductors who emerged on the international scene in the 1960s. Others included Claudio Abbado, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta and Riccardo Muti. Replacing the largely self-taught conductors of earlier generations who had studied ‘on the job’ in junior Kapellmeister posts, many of the new cohort learned their craft on formal conducting courses, and debate continues to rage as to which is the best route for the budding maestro.... read more

7th February 2024

Of the many questions we’re asked by our customers, one of the most difficult – posed to us just recently – is how to start a classical music collection. Where to begin? Without knowing the person, their character, likes and dislikes over a wide range of subjects from film and literature to food and clothes, it’s almost impossible to give a helpful answer. In music, there’s no ‘one size fits all’. When the old and much-revered Penguin Guide to Classical Music wrote sniffily of one slightly esoteric album that ‘it will not... read more

31st January 2024

One of this year’s major musical anniversaries – the centenary of the birth of Luigi Nono on 29 January – has so far been little marked on the international scene. On the day itself, BBC Radio 3 broadcast none of his music (this week’s Composer of the Week is, instead, Stravinsky). A native of Venice, Nono was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant garde, and for many new music insiders his name ranks alongside those of Boulez and Stockhausen in the modernist Pantheon. Yet outside of his native Italy and the... read more

17th January 2024

Amid the seemingly constant flow of new Bruckner recordings being issued in anticipation of the composer’s 200th birthday on this September, it’s easy to overlook another important musical bicentenary that falls this year. Bedřich Smetana was born on 2 March 1824, six months and two days before his Austrian counterpart. Although he was raised in a German-speaking household and mastered the Czech language only later in life, Smetana formed the keystone in the musical Czech national revival of the 19th century. He had... read more