GRAMOPHONE Review: The Fellini Album – The Film Music of Nino Rota, Filarmonica Della Scala/Chailly
Enter the extraordinary world of Federico Fellini – a world where childhood dreams strive to lose touch with reality, where playboys and clowns rub shoulders and pretty much all life is a three-ring circus. In Fellini’s Italy…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Marsalis Violin Concerto/Fiddle Dance Suite – Nicola Benedetti, Philadelphia Orchestra/Măcelaru
A number of things become clearer as Wynton Marsalis’ Violin Concerto unfolds: first, that there’s a story to be told, an American story; second, that Charles Ives – musical America’s greatest pioneer – has not passed Marsalis…
GRAMOPHONE: From Where I Sit – August 2019
This month’s cover feature has prompted some age old cravings in me. I have travelled far and wide in the United States, I have repeatedly given my regards to Broadway, the American Songbook is as much a…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Sol y Vida – Elīna Garanča, Gran Canaria Philharmonic Orchestra/Chichon
So it’s vacation time for the Latvian mezzo. Sun, sea, and seduction. True love may never run smooth but it always sounds better in Spanish or Italian. Garanca’s selection of flamboyant Mediterranean and Latin American songs is…
GRAMOPHONE: From Where I Sit – July 2019
A number of years ago, during the run of my erstwhile BBC Radio 3 show Stage and Screen, I took to the stage of the Royal Opera’s Linbury Theatre with the soprano Renée Fleming for an in-depth…
Howard Goodall in conversation with Edward Seckerson
Thursday 3rd October 2019 7.30pm Bishopsgate Institute. Howard Goodall is a musician of many facets – composer, writer and TV presenter. He’s the Emmy, BRIT and BAFTA Award-winning composer of classic TV favourites such as The Vicar…
GRAMOPHONE: From Where I Sit – June 2019
There is an undeniable thrill in hearing special talent from other cultures embrace our music as their own. A few nights ago (at the time of writing) I had the pleasure of hearing Vassily Petrenko power the…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Elfman Violin Concerto ‘Eleven Eleven’ – Cameron, Royal Scottish National Orchestra/Mauceri
In his liner note introduction to these stand-alone concert works Danny Elfman asks the question so often asked, namely why it is that audiences for movie music and classical music concerts are so markedly different when from…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Mahler Das Lied von Der Erde – Larsson, Skelton, Düsseldorfer Symphoniker/Fischer
Adam Fischer’s fascinating (if slightly eccentric) liner notes speak of the words of Das Lied von Der Erde being almost incidental to the mood, of the music being significantly more important than the texts that inspired it.…
GRAMOPHONE: From Where I Sit – May 2019
I was a little late to the party in respect of Vladimir Jurowski’s scintillating new recording of the original 1877 version of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake with the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia (Yevgeny Svetlanov’s orchestra) but…