The Spin Doctor Europadisc's Weekly Column

More on Bach’s ‘Art of Fugue’: In Performance – Review

19th July 2022

The Spin Doctor took a trip to London on Saturday – there and back, thankfully, before the current heatwave peaked. The reason? Acclaimed harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani was performing Bach’s Die Kunst der Fuge as part of his ongoing Bach series at the Wigmore Hall. Almost ten years to the day since he directed the Academy of Ancient Music in an ensemble performance of the same work at the 2012 BBC Proms, Esfahani played the entire work – without an interval – on the harpsichord. The instrument, specially made for him by the... read more

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Works in Focus: J.S. Bach’s ‘Art of Fugue’

13th July 2022

In any reckoning of Bach’s most popular works, the great vocal masterpieces (St Matthew and St John Passions, Mass in B minor and Christmas Oratorio), concertos (particularly the ‘Brandenburg’ Concertos) and instrumental works such as the Cello Suites, Violin Sonatas and Partitas, and the Goldberg Variations, are likely to be the frontrunners. But for many Bach aficionados, the apex of Bach’s compositional output is Die Kunst der Fuge (‘The Art of Fugue’), a collection of fourteen fugues and four canons which,... read more

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The Hard Truth about Music’s Soft Power

6th July 2022

At one extreme, there is Stravinsky’s famous dictum that ‘Music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all’; at the other, Aldous Huxley’s oft-repeated quote that ‘Music is what feelings sound like’. The question of whether, at an objective level, music is capable of expression is one that has preoccupied philosophers, aestheticians, composers and musicians down the centuries. It came to the fore again recently with reports of a study by academics at Western Sydney University in Australia that... read more

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Bringing Vaughan Williams to new audiences: An interview with Midori Komachi

28th June 2022

There’s no doubt that among this year’s musical anniversaries, the sesquicentenary of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s birth ranks high for many performers and audiences. The ever-popular Lark Ascending, the symphonies, orchestral fantasias, choral works and song settings will be well-represented, but among the more enterprising musicians exploring RVW’s musical legacy is violinist Midori Komachi. In partnership with experienced pianist Simon Callaghan, she is releasing an album containing all of the composer’s works for violin and... read more

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Of Artificial Intelligence and lost music

21st June 2022

Ever keen to keep abreast of the latest trends, we’ve been given pause for thought by two recent news items and how they might relate to the world of classical music. The first was an article on the BBC News website about the impact that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is having on the world of professional tennis. Statistical analysis in the form of data analytics from matches involving leading professional tennis players has been harnessed in a range of apps and techniques. There are also video programmes that can analyse any... read more

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