by Music Editor | Mar 3, 2019 | Music
Grace notes by Robert Thicknesse As with nearly all innovations in 19th-century opera, it was Gioachino Rossini who discovered the obvious truth that Queen Elizabeth I was a born coloratura; handy for Gaetano Donizetti, who later put the queen at the heart of two...
by Music Editor | Feb 1, 2019 | Music
Family planning by Robert Thicknesse A lot of supporters of the London Philharmonic Orchestra couldn’t get into last February’s cycle opener (this is a pretty leisurely Ring, culminating in a full cycle in 2021) because of its “gala” billing and concomitantly ruinous...
by Music Editor | Jan 27, 2019 | Music
Hungry hearts by Robert Thicknesse Not many groups can sell out St John’s for a concert of a nearly 300-year-old opera; it says a lot for the vaulting reputation of David Bates’s outfit La Nuova Musica that the place was packed. In what looked a neat gimmick (and...
by Music Editor | Dec 6, 2018 | Music, Uncategorized
Weeping songs By Robert Thicknesse How many gloomy songs can you take at one sitting? The Spitalfields Festival invited its audience to test its mettle in this programme of downbeat (or even deadbeat) numbers by Purcell, Blow, John Dowland, Pelham Humfrey, and one...
by Music Editor | Nov 22, 2018 | Music
On the hoof | by Robert Thicknesse | As everyone knows, the journey can be more diverting than the destination – even when the destination itself is pretty tasty. The culmination of Haydn’s great oratorio, the duet between Eve and Adam, is a momentous thing – the...
