Michael Wise News
English composer and organist
- organ
- Kingdom of England
- organist, composer
Last update
2024-03-29
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2024-03-15 10:40:00
KammermusiksaalMendelssohn: Psalm 115, ‘Nicht unserm Namen, Herr’, MWV A 9 Fanny Hensel: Hiob Mendelssohn: Ave Maria, op.23 no.2, MWV B 19 Mendelssohn: Hör mein Bitten, MWV B 49 Bach: Cantata, ‘Die Elenden sollen essen’, BWV 75: Sinfonia to the second part Mendelssohn: Psalm 114, ‘Da Israel aus Ägypten zog,’ op.51 Anna Prohaska (soprano)Benjamin Bruns (tenor)Ludwig Mittelhammer (bass)RIAS Chamber ChoirKammerakademie PotsdamJustin Doyle (conductor) A delightful and enlightening concert from the RIAS Chamber Choir, Kammerakademie Potsdam, Justin Doyle, and an excellent trio of vocal soloists: focusing on Mendelssohn, but also including a cantata by his sister Fanny Hensel and a sinfonia by the family’s musical house god, Johann Sebastian Bach. Mendelssohn’s setting of verses from the 115th Psalm was the first of five such large-scale settings he made for soloists, chorus, and orchestra between 1829 and 1844. It revealed almost equally strong influence from Bach and Handel, the latter in particular occasionally […]
2024-02-27 09:59:00
Classical music must not cease from exploration
Today is a poignant personal anniversary, so I have been listening to Valentin Silvestrov's Stille Lieder (Silent Songs) in the 1986 ECM recording. This morning that performance by baritone and Sergej Jakowenko accompanied by Ilja Scheps was, for me, the most sublimely appropriate masterpiece. But that is because of the personal conditions relating to today. Tomorrow, depending on the conditions, a Sibelius symphony, a Mozart string quartet, Iiro Rantala's jazz improvisations, or Steve Roach's electronica will be sublimely appropriate. Masterpieces, like every human condition, are impermanent. They come and go, and return and return - Silvestrov's Stille Lieder first featured here back in 2008, many years before the Ukrainian tragedy gave their composer his 30 minutes of fame. (Newcomers to Silvestrov's music should know that Stille Lieder are the root from which his better known masterpieces, the Fifth Symphony and Requiem for Larissa grew.) For decades classical music has been trying, without […]
2024-02-06 18:50:00
Rusalka, Staatsoper Unter den Linden, 4 February 2024
Rusalka – Christiane Karg Prince – Pavel Černoch Foreign Princess – Anna Samuil Vodník – Mika Kares Ježibaba – Anna Kissjudit Gamekeeper – Adam Kutny Kitchen Boy – Clara Nadeshdin Nymphs – Regina Koncz, Rebecka Wallroth, Ekaterina Chayka-Rubinstein Huntsman – Taehan Kim Director – Kornél MundruczóDesigns – Monika PormaleLighting – Felice RossVideo – Rūdolfs BaltiņšChoreography - Candaş BaşDramaturgy – Kata Wéber, Christoph Lang Staatsopernchor Berlin (chorus director: Gerhard Polifka)Staatskapelle BerlinRobin Ticciati (conductor)Images: Gianmarco BresadolaRusalka (Christiane Karg) Director Kornél Mundruczó comes like a breath of fresh air to unsettle our conceptions of Dvořák’s last and, by some way, greatest opera and thus to do precisely what the material demands; or rather, it comes as something bitterly stale, menacing, even poisonous to accomplish what fresh air on its own might not be able. It is certainly refreshing, though it should not be, to have a production that takes class seriously as a form […]
2024-01-16 20:02:00
New Jersey Symphony. Xian Zhang, conductor; Augustin Hadelich, violin. January 13, 2024.
Count Basie Center, Red Bank, NJ. Orchestra (Seat H-104, $68).Augustin Hadelich and Xian Zhang after the Beethoven Violin Concerto.ProgramI am a white person who __ Black people by Daniel Bernard RoumainViolin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61 by Beethoven.Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorgsky/Ravel.The main draw for the program is of course Hadelich performing the Beethoven violin concerto. Indeed that's the headline on the Program Notes handed out at the concert. For me the Mussorgsky/Ravel piece is also interesting on two fronts: the music itself is very enjoyable; and, having listened to it at a NY Phil concert a couple of months prior, I wonder how NJS would compare.Roumain (DBR) is NJ Symphony's "Resident Artistic Catalyst." No idea what the job description is, but seeing his work on the program would not surprise anyone. He did come on the stage to talk a bit about the work. It was composed […]
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