There are those who would argue that Liza (Minnelli, that is) has become so much of a self-parody that the best of her impersonators are actually more convincing than she is. That’s the cynical view, of course,…
If you should take your seats prematurely in the London Coliseum you’ll find yourself confronted with a group of serving British soldiers. You’ll shift a little uneasily under their gaze. There they are, staring, smoking, loitering; there…
Vladimir Jurowski deemed this the most challenging of any programme in the South Bank’s year long The Rest is Noise festival and proceeded to tell us precisely why. That his little preamble lasted almost twice as long…
Liadov crafted more than his fair share of curtain-raisers – but to what end? One might imagine The Enchanted Lake – an atmospheric and beautifully scored miniature – as the prelude to an opera or full-length ballet;…
It was clear that there was an Italian on the podium. While muted strings invoked an atmosphere so crepuscular that that one involuntarily closed one’s eyes the murmur of voices intoning the words “Requiem aeternam” seemed to…
When Schoenberg made his steroidal orchestration of Brahms’ G minor Piano Quartet he saw and heard what many don’t – that Brahms was more of a radical than the music world was ready to acknowledge, that he…
There has never been any doubt in my mind that Lionel Bart was the quirkiest, the most extraordinary, and potentially greatest musical theatre talent that this country has ever produced. Quite apart from the scarcity of those…
We began with the most beautiful moments in all of Ravel and ended with the ugliest. For the final concert, the climax, of the Philharmonia’s revelatory Lutoslawski retrospective Woven Words the fastidious Frenchman proved the perfect framing…
With the news that Vasily Petrenko had extended his tenure as Chief Conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra “to eternity” (his words) the little bit of Russia that came to the soon to be refurbished Philharmonic…
George Benjamin and Martin Crimp’s Written On Skin arrives at the Royal House for its UK premiere trailing extraordinary plaudits from all who’ve seen it. One can understand why. Music theatre is such a delicate, precarious, business…