chamber music
Splendid revival of an unsurpassed production: Royal Opera’s Turandot reviewed
Puccini’s Turandot is back at the Royal Opera in the 40-year old production by Andrei Serban and… well, guilty pleasure…
Classical music has much to learn from Liverpool
They do things their own way in Liverpool; they always have. In 1997 the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra launched a…
The stupidity of the classical piano trio
It’s a right mess, the classical piano trio; the unintended consequence of one of musical history’s more frustrating twists. When…
Why is Fauré not more celebrated?
It is 100 years since the death of Gabriel Fauré, a composer whose spellbinding romantic tunes emerge from harmonies and…
A lively and imaginative interpretation of an indestructible Britten opera
Scottish Opera’s new production of Albert Herring updates the action to 1990, and hey – remember 1990? No, not particularly,…
Very much NSFW: Jean-Efflam Bavouzet/Quatuor Danel at Wigmore Hall reviewed
‘Drammatico’, wrote César Franck over the opening of his Piano Quintet, and you’d better believe he meant it. The score…
Exuberance and class: Ariadne auf Naxos at Edinburgh International Festival reviewed
For some reason, I’d got it into my head that the main work in the Gringolts Quartet’s midday recital at…
Alan Rusbridger on the joys of four-hand piano
One of the few social activities not yet prohibited under lockdown laws is four-handed piano playing. I don’t mean sitting…
The joy of going to a real concert: OHP's Heart of Delight reviewed
I went to a concert! Not a livestream or download: a real concert, with real musicians, a real conductor, a…
The joy of Haydn's string quartets – here are the best recordings
As Joseph Haydn was getting out of bed on the morning of 10 May 1809, a cannonball landed in his…
Warmth, energy and gripping momentum: Stephen Hough’s Wigmore Hall residency reviewed
In the summer of 1878 Johannes Brahms finally succeeded in growing a beard. It was his third attempt. ‘Prepare your…
Handsome and revivable but I wasn’t moved: Royal Opera’s Death in Venice reviewed
Premièred within two years of each other, Luchino Visconti’s film and Benjamin Britten’s opera Death in Venice both take Thomas…
Why are Haydn’s operas so lousy? La fedelta premiata reviewed
There’s a book about musicals that every opera lover should read. Not Since Carrie by Ken Mandelbaum is a history…
In his new piano concerto Thomas Ades’s inspiration has completely dried up
There’s nothing like a good piano concerto and, sad to relate, Thomas Adès’s long-awaited first proper attempt at the genre…
The forgotten masterpieces of Amy Beach
At the Wigmore Hall last Friday, the Takacs String Quartet and Garrick Ohlsson played a piano quintet that was once…
