‘an impressive debut that leaves one wanting to hear more from this confident and imaginative musician’
Category: review
Schubert’s Winterreise: Love, Loss, and Hans Zender’s Modern Twist
If anything, Zender’s Winterreise is even bleaker than Schubert’s with its strong Expressionist flavour and rich sonic associations with contemporary repertoire and instrumentation.
Retrospecstive 2025: Adrian Ainsworth’s albums of the year
Putting this list together seems to take me a little longer each January, but I firmly believe that – my ‘winning’ approach to organisation aside – it’s simply because I’m privileged to discover so much more great music every year. Without any further delay, then, here are the (20)25 releases I’m keen to bring to…
Martin Helmchen Completes Schubert’s Sonata D571
The impulse to complete an unfinished work by a composer such as Schubert arises from a blend of artistic curiosity, historical empathy and creative challenge. For many musicians and scholars, an incomplete score feels like a fragment of a larger, untold story – and one that invites further exploration. Incomplete music, such as Schubert’s Unfinished…
Major breakthrough for Burstein’s opera
Keith Burstein may be a respected British composer, but his Manifest Destiny has given him a major headache since it first premiered in the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh 2005. The opera, set in the geopolitical context of the Middle East, is the tale of Daniel, a British Jewish composer; Leila, a Palestinian poet, and Mohammed,…
International anthem: Jo Quail and Friends, Enschede, Netherlands
When I first heard cellist-composer Jo Quail perform – back in 2013, in a solo support slot – it was immediately clear that she occupied a genre all her own. A kindred spirit, for sure, with other musicians active in the dark folk / neoclassical / what-you-will underground – especially fellow ‘loopers’ (like Matt Howden,…
Exploring Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie: A Musical Journey
Of all the musical jewels Olivier Messiaen left us, his Turangalîla-symphonie is most commonly associated with him. It is not a symphony in any traditional sense but rather a mosaic of ten movements that unfolds over an hour and twenty minutes
Slick and Soulful. ENO’s production of Partenope is a Handel Hit
Partenope was Handel’s first comic opera and was first performed in1730 at the King’s Theatre, London. It is the tale of Queen Partenope’s search for love and the romantic complications she and her circle of suitors encounter along the way. I attended the opening night of Partenope to see Christopher Alden’s award-winning staging of Handel’s…
“Why, I auteur…”: ‘The Makropulos Case’ (mostly), Royal Ballet & Opera, London
The latest in the Royal Opera’s Janáček cycle, this is their first production of ‘The Makropulos Case’ – and mine, too. I was excited to be seeing at last this piece that I’d read about but, appropriately enough, had difficulty imagining as a real experience. Please note that this write-up includes ‘spoilers’ to a certain…
Czech Centre launches its 29th Made in Prague Festival with ‘Caravan’
The 29th Made in Prague Festival is a celebration of Czech culture and one great film to emerge from this cultural initiative is Caravan, directed by newbie filmmaker, Zuzana Kirchnerová, who has managed to produce a tender and meaningful mother-son story. Single mother, Ester, has a Down Syndrome and autistic son. David is deprived of speech, however he journeys…
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