‘Elegy’ is a heartfelt, thoughtfully-programmed recital disc that – aside from being a beautiful listen – also shows us something of art’s quieter powers: that living inside music, allowing it to respond to you as much as the reverse, can summon its healing qualities. Bevan began to assemble this collection of songs following the death…
Tag: Signum Classics
EARTHCYCLE – A Four Seasons for the 21st century
EARTHCYCLE Orchestra of the Swan An innovative and timely project from ever-inventive Orchestra of the Swan (OOTS), Earthcycle finds a compelling way to engage with the threat of climate change, and the human impact on the Earth’s environment and the disruption of its natural rhythms through music inspired by or evoking the natural world,…
Despax’s ‘Après un rêve’ is a dream of an album
Emmanuel Despax’s boyhood was spent discussing music and poetry with his poet grandfather, Jacques Charpentreau, over French patisseries. Memories of those perfect moments spent with his beloved relative, listening to Debussy, Poulenc, Ravel, Saint Saëns, has led to Despax’s latest piano release, Après un rêve. Some works are daringly familiar. Debussy’s Clair de Lune, for instance, is…
ECHOES: genre-busting inventiveness from Orchestra of the Swan
‘Echoes’ is the latest in Orchestra of the Swan’s ‘mixtape’ series, following on from ‘Timelapse’ and ‘Labyrinths’ (which has received over 8 million audio streams since 2021 and was shortlisted for Gramophone award in the Spatial Audio category). As with their previous mixtape albums, ‘Echoes’ is an eclectic mix of music encompassing a variety of…
Karine Hetherington’s music highlights in London and Paris and CD Choice for 2022.
In 2022 it was a joy to be back at the Wigmore Hall, King’s Place, English National Opera, Royal Opera and Opera Holland Park. In February, Royal Opera House offered up an imaginative staging of Handel’s oratorio Theodora. Theodora came with a great cast, featuring the fabulous Joyce DiDonato as Irene and new countertenor, Jakub…
Cantus Covid Sessions A Singing Tour de Force
American ensemble Cantus recorded The Covid-19 Sessions back in March 2020 on their home territory in Minneapolis, Minnesota. At the time, Cantus were facing a year of cancelled concerts. The future was so dire, they believed that the recordings would be the last time they would perform together. I failed to listen to their album when it released in August 2020….
Karine Hetherington from ArtMuseLondon presents her recording highlights for 2021
Despite the restart of live performance this year, the climate continued to be challenging for artists and audiences alike. 2021 however was a good year for recordings and I felt lucky to be able to listen to a number of fantastic new releases from Orchid Classics, Pentatone, Signum Classics, Deutsche Grammophon and Naxos. From the…
Tedd Joselson Records Grieg and Rachmaninov Concertos at Abbey Road Studios
Throughout his composing career, Edvard Grieg stayed mostly clear of large-scale works. In 1868 however, he did write his piano concerto in A minor during a holiday with wife, singer Nina Hagerup, and their young child. He finished revising his concerto much later, in 1907, and it is this version which has lasted in the…
Despax plays his dream concerto
Brahms always preferred to let his music do the talking rather than explain the origins of his work. That said, it is certainly interesting to look at what was happening in Brahms’s life when he started to write his first large scale composition – his Piano Concerto No.1 in D minor. By then he had…
New recording of Arne’s Eighteenth Century Hit Impresses
I sat down to Arne: Artaxerxes over the Bank Holiday and believed, at first, that I was listening to a newly discovered Mozart opera. Young Mozart may well have seen Artaxerxes in London in the mid-1760s when he was touring. He loved opera with a capital L and Thomas Arne’s hit work must have fuelled Mozart’s boyhood passion…
ARTMUSELONDON 