Ravel may have lived most of his live in Paris but the Basque National Symphony Orchestra are bound to wear this particular badge with pride. And with that pride, of course, comes an added responsibility that the…
Surely here was an opportunity to stray a little from the well-trodden path and offer perhaps Mussorgsky’s startling original version of Night on the Bare Mountain instead of Rimsky-Korsakov’s popular sanitisation? And given the hugely imaginative title…
Some artists leave a legacy which far transcends the excellence of their work. We remember their performances as surely as we remember the stages of our own lives and development. We remember where we were, how we…
Sunday 29th August 2021 3.00pm Crazy Coqs, Brasserie Zédel Comparing Notes brings stars of the West End and Broadway to Crazy Coqs. In a lively and informal mix of performance and conversation host Edward Seckerson will be getting…
Music journalist Edward Seckerson reveals his must-have recording of Bernstein’s choral masterpiece, the Chichester Psalms. Leonard Bernstein’s exuberant Chichester Psalms was one of the composer’s many strong connections with the UK, commissioned for the 1965 Southern Cathedrals…
Out of the darkness, a voice (Géza Szilvay), a whispered invitation to enter the darkest recesses of Duke Bluebeard’s mind. That spoken introduction to Bartok’s operatic masterpiece – quiet and confidential – invokes solitude and nothing but…
You would expect a seasoned Mahlerian like Eliahu Inbal to offer an emotive response to this extraordinary symphony – but I really hadn’t anticipated quite how powerfully he and his young orchestra (the SWR Symphonieorchester Stuttgart is…
As Adam Fischer’s Dusseldorf Mahler cycle has evolved a clearer picture has emerged of his choices and priorities. He’s a very sympathetic and clear-headed Mahlerian whose nose for beauty and atmosphere (clearly led by very personal convictions)…
LSO Live have billed their new Simon Rattle recording of Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony as ‘the complete version’. Doesn’t that go without saying these days? Surely no reputable conductor performing the piece now would countenance anything less? But…
Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre’s new podcast on the music of Rodgers & Hammerstein‘s CAROUSEL with Edward Seckerson talking to our Musical Supervisor & Orchestrator Tom Deering is now live! They discuss the enduring legacy of this…
