Orchestral & Symphonic

In Ravel's output, themes of Classical order and choreographic gesture run parallel to a sensibility in touch with the macabre and grotesque. All these aspects of his music are illustrated by the second volume of Oleg Marshev's Ravel survey, from the...

In perfecting the newly developing form of the Italian solo concerto, Vivaldi wrote nearly five hundred concertos, of which 39 are for the bassoon with strings and continuo.1. Allegro 2. Larghetto 3. Allegro Molto 4. Allegro Non Molto 5. Andante 6...

In partnership with Oxford University Press and authorized by the Vaughan Williams Charitable Trust, this major new initiative brings the incredible catalog of Ralph Vaughan Williams to the wind band community, with scholarly transcriptions by leaders in...

In our series "Music from Wolfenb?ttel Castle," the sixth concert in the series featured and recorded parallel settings of sacred works by Michael Praetorius and Heinrich Sch?tz. One does not immediately think of counting the great Dresden composer...

In November 2022 Fretwork return for the second instalment of their cycle of works by Matthew Locke. Matthew Locke was born 400 years ago in 1622, and while he is often ranked as one of England's finest composers, he is still unaccountably neglected: his...

In November 2021, Emmanuelle Ha?m led two celebratory charity concerts - one in Berlin, the other in her home city of Paris - to mark 20 years of her ensemble Le Concert d'Astr?e. The music, mostly from operas, was by Handel, Rameau, Purcell, Vivaldi and...

In nocte consilium - the night brings counsel. Poets have always found the night to be a time of appeasement; for astronomers it is a long-awaited moment to observe the stars and planets. Mystics, however, have spent entire nights searching for the...

In New York it is impossible, almost forced, not to end up trapped by the music of Philip Glass. His operas sound at the Metropolitan Opera, his portrait by Chuck Close on the 86th Street subway and that "Mad Rush" of the city that never sleeps. This...

In musicology, it has always been difficult to name the transitional period after the Baroque. Terms such as "sentimentalism", "Sturm und Drang" or "pre-classical" are usually borrowed from other art forms and are potentially fraught with judgements or...

In music, "ostinato" (Latin obstinatus: "obstinate") is a constantly repeated sequence of notes. A constantly repeated bass motif is perfect for improvisation - which in turn inspired many Baroque composers to write numerous masterpieces. Gunar Letzbor...

In music history the name of Johann Christian Schieferdecker (1679-1732) appears mostly as a footnote, although he shared the orchestra pit during opera performances with many of the greats and worked with them, including Reinhard Keiser, Johann...

In memory of the faithful departed, Graham Ross directs the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge in a program of English and Spanish music for the Feasts of All Saints and All Souls. The program culminates in Toms Luis de Victoria's last published work, his...