The Spin Doctor Europadisc's Weekly Column

Works in Focus: Janáček’s ‘Jenůfa’

12th May 2022

Few music lovers today would disagree with the assertion that Leoš Janáček made some of the most distinctive and individual contributions to the operatic repertoire of the 20th century. His greatest operas, most of them comfortably under two hours in length, pack a powerful emotional punch out of all proportion to their compact dimensions, characterised by a pithy musical language that thrives on bold sonorities and contrasts, and a vocal style that is deeply rooted in the rhythms and shapes of the Czech language. Yet... read more

read more

Huffing and puffing...

3rd May 2022

Around this time each year, the British classical music-loving public (such as it is) takes part in a time-honoured sport: huffing and puffing about the newly-revealed programme for the summer’s BBC Proms season. This year, following two summers in which the concerts were severely curtailed thanks to the global Covid pandemic, the announcement was keenly awaited, and the scrutiny has been particularly intense.
The director of the BBC Proms, David Pickard, has an unenviable task in choosing a multi-themed programme for the... read more

read more

Aspects of Romantic opera

27th April 2022

Perhaps the most public manifestation of musical Romanticism was in the opera houses of Europe, from the many courtly and municipal opera houses of Germany and Italy to the grand theatres of France and Russia. Ever since opera had developed from a court occasion for a select, aristocratic elite to an entertainment for the wider public, the draw of its combination of music, drama and scenic spectacle had been immense – akin to the advent of movies and then television in the 20th century. And its capacity to tackle a huge... read more

read more

Remembering Birtwistle

21st April 2022

Those who know Harrison Birtwistle’s music only from such headline-grabbing works as Punch and Judy, Earth Dances and the now-notorious Last Night of the Proms premiere Panic may be surprised to know that the composer himself was one of the gentlest, sweetest souls one could ever meet. Certainly there was an underlying steely determination and self-belief that is evident even in the seemingly slightest of his works, not to mention the occasional grunting, curmudgeonly aside – the result of a fundamentally shy, introspective... read more

read more

Our Easter Highlights

12th April 2022

Easter, like Christmas, comes but once a year. The date varies (calculated according to the phases of the moon), but it always falls on a Sunday, the culmination of a particular intense period of reflection for Christians on the Passion, Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ. Although nowadays celebrated in the west with less extravagance and indulgence than in the churches of eastern orthodoxy, Holy Week and Easter have given rise to some of the greatest examples of visual arts and music across the centuries. Two of our... read more

read more