The great practitioners of Broadway and Hollywood – composers, arrangers, orchestrators – spawned catalogues of what might be considered more ‘legitimate’ music that the world rarely saw or heard. Broadway’s ‘Music Man’ Meredith Wilson’s symphonies, Hitchcock’s Bernard…
It’s been a staggering 30 years since I reviewed the original Nonesuch recording of this masterwork right here in Gramophone. This true story of the cave explorer Floyd Collins whose quest for the ultimate sand cavern –…
You might say that Joseph Swenson comes at this piece from the perspective of the start of the romantic era as opposed to the summation of the classical. The dynamic range is immediately wide, the hushed questioning…
A dream team in the making, I suspect. Capucon and Pappano may be collaborating here for the first time but it’s a meeting of musical minds and sensibilities for sure. The coupling of these concertos is nothing…
I’ve followed this beautiful uplifting show from its inception at the postage stamp Southwark Playhouse to its arrival in the West End and a well deserved Olivier Award for Best New Musical. Its scale is small, its…
It took 15 years for Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey’s Pulitzer Prize winning musical to make it to London’s West End from Broadway – a staggering statistic in itself though its topicality with regard to mental health…
This is outstanding. The longest sunrise in music emerges through crisp clean air in Nicholas Collon’s wonderfully lucid account of the Fifth Symphony. Woodwinds are keenly profiled, rhythm and dynamics immediately a priority. Even in stasis there’s…
Should the opening trumpet solo be more ‘Last Post’ than ‘Reveille’? I am never entirely sure – it is decidedly low-key here. But what I am sure about is that the ensuing funeral march should feel more…
For our grand finale, join us for an enchanting celebration of Richard Rodgers, hailed as one of the greatest popular melodists of all time. Writer and broadcaster Edward Seckerson teams up with Radio 3’s Petroc Trelawny to explore Rodgers’ iconic collaborations…
Working with fellow theatrical legends such as Stephen Sondheim, Jerome Robbins, Betty Comden and Adolph Green he created iconic shows, ballets and concert works, including West Side Story, Candide, Mass and Dybbuk, winning numerous Emmy, Grammy and…
