It’s a neat idea framing Dvorak’s ubiquitous ‘New World’ with two miniatures of authentic Americana – one rural, one urban – from perhaps her most famous sons: Ives and Copland. But that’s about as far as my…

School of Barbirolli. That was my first thought as the faltering pulse of the opening bars ushered in the warm and consoling first theme, first heard, of course, in the second not first violins. No hint so…

A Mahler 4 as insightful and as individual as we have come to expect from this source. How rarely we hear the opening bars of the symphony delivered precisely as Mahler instructs: Bedächtig. Nicht eilen (Deliberate. Don’t…

Just Sibelius’ First Symphony? That is exceptionally short measure for a CD. The ratio of quality over quantity needed to be especially dramatic – not least because barely a couple of months back Santtu-Matias Rouvali and the…

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…

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…