Chamber Music & Recitals

In the early 19th century, while Haydn and Mozart remained revered, many of their once admired contemporaries quickly fell into oblivion and with them much delightful, finely crafted music. In a recital centered on songs of parting, Carolyn Sampson and...

In the compositions of Yoshihiro Kanno (b. 1953) he bases himself on three idioms: Western instrumental music, Japanese traditional instruments and computer music. Combining these various elements freely, he creates scores for Japanese instruments and...

In the Art of the Fugue, his last great work, Bach brings to bear all conceivable contrapuntal artistry and inventiveness, and sets the result in a planned architectural layout. The new recording was made by Samuel Kummer on the magnificent Baroque organ...

In terms of genre, Allan Pettersson was uniquely single-minded: during his entire career as a composer (1953-80) he produced only a dozen or so works that were not symphonies. By name, Violin Concerto No. 2 is one of these, but it is fair to say that it...

In summer 2013 Roman Brogli-Sacher ended his employment in L?beck as general music director and opera director. For more than 12 years he had shaped the musical life of L?beck and formed the L?beck orchestra into a widely respected ensemble. During his...

In Stockholm during Johan Helmich Roman's lifetime, the recorder was the most common wind instrument, used throughout the social spectrum - including the Royal music establishment. The transverse flute, however, was generally the preserve of the...

In Russian chamber music, a rather special tradition evolved around the piano trio, with a number of composers turning to the genre to write 'instrumental requiems'. First out was Tchaikovsky with his Piano Trio in A minor, Op. 50, '? la m?moire d'un...

In Rossini's Petite Messe solennelle (1863-1867), sacred tones blend in seamlessly with allusions to his comic operas. "Is this sacred music which I have written or music of the devil?" the composer tellingly asked himself in a personal letter. Rossini's...

In opera, specific voice types are often associated with certain types of characters. Numerous and diverse associations exist also for the bass voice, who can be a father, a villain, an elderly man, a religious figure, a comic character- or, indeed, a...

In musical notation in Germany, the letter 'h' is used to represent the note b natural. So, the name 'Bach' forms an elegant phrase of two pairs of falling semitones. This proved an inspiration to Johann Sebastian, whose musical 'signature' appears again...

In January 2014, the Choir of King's College Cambridge were joined by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and former choral scholar Gerald Finley to make the first recording of Marc Rigaudi?re's new reconstruction of the first complete liturgical...

In Hubert Parry's Orchestral Variations he sees "a masterful composition, which is particularly close to my heart, in the tradition of orchestral variations such as those by Brahms, Dvork and Elgar". Granville Bantock's Pagan Symphony is for him "a truly...