GRAMOPHONE: From Where I Sit – December 2021
Sitting down last week to experience the music of Florence Price for the very first time reminded me yet again that there is nothing quite like the thrill of first-encounter – a moment by moment sense of…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Price Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3 – The Philadelphia Orchestra/Nézet-Séguin
This has been a fascinating experience. I chose to come to this music – exhumed as it is from nearly a century of neglect – as new music. That’s how I wanted to hear it for the…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Sounds of America – Jon Manasse, Park Avenue Chamber Orchestra/Bernard
I am not familiar with the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony or indeed their conductor David Bernard but there are many issues here that make me wonder why they might have chosen such hotly contested repertoire for a…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Bernstein Candide – Soloists, London Symphony Orchestra/Alsop
Absence doesn’t make the heart grow any fonder of this performance. I heard (and saw) it live back in 2018 and it was in so many ways a mirror image of what the composer himself tried to…
GRAMOPHONE: From Where I Sit – November 2021
We all love a drama, most especially one that stems from an unforeseen crisis. During this year’s foreshortened Prom season tenor Simon O’Neill, the eponymous hero of Glyndebourne’s Tristan und Isolde realised after act two that his…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Rachmaninov Symphony No.2 – Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin/Ticciati
This is very much in keeping with the impression I have always had of Robin Ticciati’s work: exhaustively prepared, immaculately turned, eminently musical. The sense of unfolding over the many, many pages of the introduction, a flower…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Lloyd Webber Cinderella – Original London Cast
Tale as old as time… but clearly with half an eye on the Instagram age. Hearing this concept album before actually seeing Andrew Lloyd Webber’s latest West End opus (and remember that’s how both Jesus Christ Superstar…
GRAMOPHONE: From Where I Sit – Awards Issue 2021
Richard Bratby’s affectionate tribute to glorious Malcolm Arnold on the 100th anniversary of his birth (September issue) has prompted a few reflections of my own. Not least among them was the weekend I included the slow movement…
STEPHEN SCHWARTZ: WICKED at 15
Wicked UK’s new podcast with composer / lyricist Stephen Schwartz and Edward Seckerson, to mark the 15th anniversary of the show in London’s West End. They discuss the enduring popularity of this musical theatre phenomenon, as well…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Andrew Lloyd Webber Symphonic Suites – The Andrew Lloyd Webber Orchestra/Lee
The Symphonic Suite has quite a pedigree, from those seeking to bask in the drama and hit tunes of favourite operas without words or voices (conductor Carlo Rizzi has been doing so with Puccini, I gather) to…
