Perhaps the most compelling testament to the impact of ‘Innocence’ is that I’ve thought about little else since the curtain fell. Knowing I would want to write about it, I’ve felt the intricacies of the piece turning round in my mind, dovetailing with each other, not unlike the interlocking 3D jigsaw of a set that…
‘the music of evaporation’ – Música callada | Federico Mompou | Stephen Hough, piano
Federico Mompou’s piano work Musica Callada is a set of twenty-eight short pieces that were written between 1959 and 1967. It was the last piece of piano music published in the composer’s lifetime The title, borrowed from the Cantica spiritual by the Spanish mystic and Carmelite friar St John of the Cross, translates as “Silent…
A Bad Night in Los Angeles – piano music by Robert Matthew-Walker
The title alone invites further exploration of this interesting, varied disc of piano music by Robert Matthew-Walker, a British composer and an influential part of the classical music recording industry for more than half a century (he ran marketing and publicity departments for leading record labels CBS and RCA, and has been editor of the…
Lightbulb moments: Mike Nelson, ‘Extinction Beckons’, Hayward Gallery
Has dystopian unease ever been so much fun? Mike Nelson’s exhibition is as serious and sinister as it needs to be. But I felt strong notes of dark humour, and the interactive elements display unchecked, unabashed brio. * ‘Extinction Beckons’ is a suitably foreboding name for an exhibition that – as the accompanying text makes…
Interview with Composer Noah Max
Noah Max came to the notice of the wider public this year when his opera A Child in Striped Pyjamas, based on the book, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne, premiered at the Cockpit theatre. He was interviewed on Radio 4 and his opera received glowing reviews. Max is now set to premier his String Quartet…
Three dolours trilogy: Puccini, ‘Il trittico’, Scottish Opera
‘Il trittico’ – or, ‘The Triptych’ – is made up of three one-act operas, each roughly an hour long, that on the surface appear totally distinct. So much so, in fact, that companies often break the work up into something more manageable: presenting two parts as a double-bill, for example, or pairing one of the…
A Moving Production of Korngold’s ‘Dead City’ at ENO
The Dead City by Austrian composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold was an operatic hit in Europe in the 1920s. Korngold seemed destined for a brilliant operatic career. The opera however sunk into musical oblivion in the 1930s when Hitler’s censorship and the changing tastes of audiences sent Korngold to Hollywood. Invited by the great director and actor,…
Philip Glass’s Akhnaten Still Shines Brightly at the Coliseum
As Glass read Oedipus and Akhnaten about the Egyptian pharaoh Akhnaten, who ruled Egypt in 1351-1334 BC, he knew he had found his final hero to his operatic trilogy of ‘portrait operas’ he had been formulating, dedicated to the great thinkers of this world. By then, Glass had composed two: Einstein on the beach (on Albert Einstein) in…
Light fantastic: Mary Bevan, ‘Visions Illuminées’
It’s always a delight to come across an album so richly crafted and ingeniously programmed, you get an overwhelming sense that you’re hearing something intensely personal, a snapshot of what the artist wants to say ‘right now’. ‘Visions Illuminées’ feels like one of those records. Soprano Mary Bevan has featured on numerous recordings, but on…
Future Choral – where next?
In 1914, Oscar Schmitz declared that Britain was ‘das Lande ohne Musik’ and when it comes to the average fare on-offer at any of the myriad Choral Societies across the country, it feels that we’re trying to prove him right. Look across the sector and one can easily see how programming has become lazy, music…
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