With her album Charmes, Ukranian soprano Olena Tokar shows her love of female song repertoire from the 19thand 20th century. Women composers have historically been thin on the ground, but the ones who received public attention, either in their time or more recently, were, and remain, utterly fascinating. On the album, we have the feisty Alma Mahler, who threatened…
Author: ArtMuseLondon
ArtMuseLondon is a site for reviews of art exhibitions and music in London, and general cultural musings, written by people with a keen interest and an honest, accessible approach.
‘Historical Fiction’ Forshaw brings sax to the baroque.
Karine Hetherington from ArtMuseLondon caught up with composer and saxophonist, Christian Forshaw, and soprano Grace Davidson, shortly before the release of their latest album, Historical Fiction. Christian’s arrangement of Handel’s ‘Eternal Source of Light Divine’ has already attracted 36,000 views on YouTube and was featured on Classic FM. Christian and Grace, what are your earliest musical memories? C: Beatles and choral…
Manc union: Prom 20, Manchester Collective with Mahan Esfahani
Back to the ‘dome from home’ for another evening, and for what turned out to be one of the most thrilling Proms I’ve ever attended, for a whole host of reasons. Mainly, I think it was the sheer energy sustained throughout – the performers set out to electrify the audience, and succeeded. Rewind to what…
‘The Piano: A History in 100 Pieces’ – a must-read for pianophiles & music lovers
It was perhaps inevitable that pianist and writer Susan Tomes would turn her attention eventually to the extraordinarily broad repertoire of the piano – her instrument, and mine, and that of countless others, both professional and amateur players. While her previous books have been concerned with the myriad aspects of “being a pianist” – from…
Kensington Igor: Prom 8, Pergolesi ‘Stabat mater’ & Stravinsky ‘Pulcinella’
It’s a phrase we’ll hopefully hear a lot more of in the coming weeks and months: “it’s good to be back”. Cliché, perhaps: but the thought filled me like a billowing sail when the Royal Albert Hall loomed into view for my first live Prom of the season. There isn’t another classical music experience quite…
‘De Profundis Clamavi’ – Duncan Honeybourne, piano
This recent release by Duncan Honeybourne on the EMR label makes a persuasive and enjoyable case for lesser-known English composers of the 20th and 21st centuries. Recorded in August 2020 at Potton Hall, between lockdowns, as it were, Duncan Honeybourne, by his own admission, feels this is his best work to date. While many of…
Memoir Dorothy Watson founder of The Bridge Pottery 1921-1961
Starting up a business has never been easy and historically much harder if you are a woman. Doubly tough if you were a single woman in the 1920s like potter, Dorothy Watson, who, having lost her fiancé, Arthur Prichard at Vimy Ridge during WW1, found herself single and in great need of work. An inheritance of…
In Opera Holland Park’s Amico Fritz, the love duets rule
In an age where maximum noise and drama seems to be a prerequisite to an opera’s success, Amico Fritz might be regarded as the cuckoo in the nest. Its pastoral, gentle story-line is likely to pass most opera goers by. Opera Holland Park on the other hand is championing Mascagni’s work in a new production – presenting…
Alpha tale: Pete Paphides, ‘Broken Greek’
I am extremely late to this party, as ‘Broken Greek’ has now been in paperback for a couple of months. Back in 2020, its initial appearance was greeted by a chorus of rave reviews and widespread, well-deserved appreciation. It not only won the Royal Society of Literature’s 2021 Christopher Bland Prize, it was also my…
Pianist Siqian Li plays Chopin’s Sonata in B-flat minor and a thrilling new arrangement of Ravel’s Valse
On a blistering hot afternoon in July, pianist, Siqian Li, delivered a spectacular performance of romantic repertoire at St James’s Church, Piccadilly. Chopin’s Sonata No.2, comprising the famous Funeral March, and a new arrangement of Ravel’s Valse, topped the virtuosic bill. Li drew quite a crowd*, even in the heat. Karine Hetherington of ArtMuseLondon went…
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