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Austrian opera singer
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2024-04-24
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2024-04-03 06:35:00
A wondrous snapshot of British singing: Ralph Vaughan Williams' Serenade to Music and the sixteen singers chosen for the first performance
[…] song repertoire that veers between Victorian charm and the more contemporary, Isobel Baillie in the Bach-Gounod Ave Maria, Elsie Suddaby in Somervell's Shepherd's Cradle Song, Muriel Brunskill in Bantock's Serenade, Astra Desmond in the traditional Mull Fisher's Love Song, Mary Jarred in Parry's England, Walter Widdop in Woodforde-Finden's A Request, Parry Jones in Warlock's There is a lady sweet and kind, Heddle Nash in Linden Lea, Norman Allin in Silent Noon, and Keith Falkner in Butterworth's Is my team ploughing.Some tracks are real highlights, demonstrating just why that particular singer was notable. The opening track might only be Gounod's take on Bach but Isobel Baillie is never louder than lovely and the purity of her upper register (notable for the lack of vibrato) demonstrate why she got the the final note in Serenade to Music. Eva Turner's 'Vissi d'arte' also demonstrates her laser-like clarity, and also highlights one of the […]
2023-12-06 07:44:00
A lifetime's experience: John Nelson finally records Messiah in a finely engaged performance, with a fantastic quartet of soloists
Handel: Messiah; Lucy Crowe, Alex Potter, Michael Spyres, Matthew Brook, the English Concert & Choir, John Nelson; EratoReviewed 4 December 2023Superb musicality and a life-time's experience from John Nelson make this a finely engaged performance, with a fantastic quartet of soloists and an appendix with eight alternative readingsHandel wrote Messiah in 1741 for performances in Dublin in 1742. Unusually for Handel, the work was written without knowing quite who the soloists would be. The enthusiastic reception in Dublin was not repeated when Handel presented the work in London in 1743 and the work was only intermittently revived until Handel's charity performances for the Foundling Hospital began in 1750. From then on, Foundling Hospital performances of Messiah were a part of the London scene, and it is to these later performances that we owe the version of Messiah generally performed today.Handel constantly adjusted the work, revising and tweaking. For the 1749 revival the castrato Gaetano […]
2023-04-29 19:32:00
Dalia Stasevska at San Francisco Symphony
Davies Symphony HallPhoto by Lisa HirschUkranian-Finnish conductor Dalia Stasevska made her debut at SFS this week, in a program of Sibelius standards with an opener of Anna Meredith's brief Nautilus. Davies had a big crowd last night, and it took me some time to realize that the reason was not the Sibelius or Stasevska herself, but the presence of violinist Joshua Bell on the program.I was not particularly enthused about the perpetually boyish Bell myself; at 55, throwing his head back, closing his eyes, and communing with his bow and violin are wearing thin. Of course, I could close my eyes myself, or focus on Stasevska and the orchestra during the Sibelius violin concerto, a great work and among my favorites.And mostly I did that! But here I have to make a confession: I imprinted strongly and early on the Ormandy/Oistrakh/Philly LP of the piece, which was issued with a […]
2022-06-11 08:25:00
Review of Concerto Budapest with Angela Hewitt
Angela Hewitt (cr Fotograf Ole Christiansen) Touring international orchestras are back, thanks to the mighty IMG, and the Bridgewater Hall mustered a small but very enthusiastic audience to welcome Concerto Budapest (formerly the Hungarian Symphony Orchestra) and its chief conductor and artistic director, András Keller, along with Angela Hewitt, the peerless pianist who is always a draw in her own right. The programme offered to Manchester (slightly different from other venues so far on the tour) had two pieces full of folksong and dance and two mainstream classical ones. Top of the menu was Kodály’s Dances of Galánta – played for the first time on the tour but no doubt bread-and-Butter to these musicians back home. Their string tone is rightly something to be proud of, and the eight celli made a superb […]
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