This is an elegant, ravishing album. On first encounter, it might place you firmly in a ‘traditional’ British orchestral soundworld, and lovers of that heritage should investigate this without hesitation. However, there are mysteries and idiosyncrasies waiting to be discovered on further listens – and no wonder, given Xuefei Yang’s distinctive brilliance and composer John…
Category: review
The Cutty Sark hosts Elgar and Vaughan Williams
The Cutty Sark has always captured the public imagination and one can see why. For one, it is the world’s only surviving extreme clipper. It still is an impressive sight at its dry dock in Greenwich, with its three raking masts, intricate rigging, and elegant, stream-lined hull, which, in its time, cut through the waves…
Apart songs: Carolyn Sampson & Kristian Bezuidenhout, ‘Trennung’
Given the musicians involved, it should come as no surprise to learn that ‘Trennung’ is an immaculately crafted and beautifully performed album. But it’s also an unusual record, turning up at the party dressed as a recital disc, but as time goes on, revealing more and more of its unique character. It’s a considerable sonic…
Every Good Boy Does Fine – A Love Story, in Music Lessons
Every Good Boy Does Fine, the title of pianist Jeremy Denk’s recently-published memoir, will be familiar to anyone who had piano lessons as a child. It’s a mnemonic of the notes e, g, b, d and f which sit on the lines of the treble clef – other variants include Every Good Boy Deserves Favour…
The Girl in the Green Jumper: The Story of Cyril Mann, The Forgotten Artist.
Set in London in the 1960s and 70s, The Girl in the Green Jumper, is both a memoir and art book written and compiled by Renske Mann, who for twenty years, lived with British figurative artist, Cyril Mann. In 1959 Renske van Slooten, as she was then, left The Hague for London. She met Mann the…
Young Artists provide a compelling Onegin at Opera Holland Park
Opera Holland Park has been mentoring young singers and conductors for a decade now and its efforts to nurture burgeoning talent continue to bear fruit. Young Artists performing Tchaikovsky’s Onegin impressed this week, the principal singers providing intriguing insights into the roles of Tatiana, Olga, Lensky and Onegin. Rory Musgrave’s Onegin in particular drew attention. For his…
Seductively swinging – William Bolcom: The Complete Rags by Marc-André Hamelin, piano
After his sparkling C P E Bach disc, released on the Hyperion label in January 2022, Marc-André Hamelin, that fearless master of the piano who seems to be able to playing anything (and I mean anything!) moves seamlessly from the precision and clarity of early classical keyboard music to an album of piano rags, written…
Picasso-Ingres Face to Face at National Gallery
In room 46 of the London National Gallery, two portraits hang, one by classical painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, the other by Pablo Picasso. Ingres’s portrait is of society beauty, Madame Moitessier (1856). Picasso’s portrait, several metres away, is of his mistress, Marie-Thérèse Walter, entitled Woman with a Book (1932). You may wonder why these works have been given…
Spear pressure: ‘Parsifal’, Opera North
‘Here is where time becomes space’: this is one of the most famous – and mysterious – quotes from Wagner’s final opera, ‘Parsifal’, which at its best can make that scientific impossibility seem real. Unhurried, epic storytelling punctuated with moments of overwhelming beauty or horror that somehow transcend a mere auditorium in what feels like…
Colin Riley’s ‘Isolated Pieces’
Composer Colin Riley writes: “ISOLATED PIECES is the culmination of the work of 27 contributors from across many genres of music. As an experiment on ‘connection’ and ‘trust’ during the isolating period of lockdown, I asked musicians I knew to respond to several small fragments of piano music I’d created. Everyone said yes and emailed…
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