Classical
What would Tanner say?
On the train home from the Royal Festival Hall I learned of the death of Michael Tanner, who wrote this…
In defence of noise music
It’s curious to consider what a venerable old thing noise music is. That this most singularly untameable of musics –…
Funny, faithful and inventive: Scottish Opera’s Barber of Seville reviewed
A violinist friend in the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra used to talk about an orchestra’s ‘muscle memory’; a collective…
The miracle of watching a great string quartet perform
Joseph Haydn, it’s generally agreed, invented the string quartet. And having done so, he re-invented it: again and again. Take…
Glorious data dump
At the beginning of the 1980s a former ice-cream salesman called Ted Perry drove a London minicab to raise money…
Taking the biscuit
The fun starts early in Beckett’s Endgame. Within minutes of opening his mouth, blind bully Hamm decides to starve his…
Sonic enchantment
We used to call it a ‘meat and two veg’ programme, back in my concert planning days: the reliable set…
A performance with teeth
It’s the Edinburgh International Festival, and Barrie’s back in town. Once, Edinburgh was pretty much the only place that you…
Suspended reality
Aix is an odd place. It should be charming, with its dishevelled squares, Busby Berkeley-esque fountains, pretty ochres and pinks.…
Winging it
‘Audience Choice’ was the promise at the Budapest Festival Orchestra’s Sunday matinee Prom, and come on – who could resist…
Comrades in arms
There were times during last Friday’s First Night of the Proms when it felt as if we’d been transported back…
Alsatian string-breaker
One of the most intriguing piano concertos of the late 19th century is unknown to the public – and no…
Florid flummery
Lightning sometimes strikes twice. English Touring Opera hit topical gold last spring when, wholly by coincidence, they found themselves touring…
A feast for the ears
Sir Hubert Parry was upgraded from knight bachelor to baronet by King Edward VII in 1902, and my goodness he…
Imperial march
If being asked to write music for the coronation of a king is an honour, then doing it for an…
Heaven sent
Haydn’s The Creation is Paradise Lost without the Lost. True, the words aren’t exactly up there: translated into German by…
