by Music Editor | Oct 8, 2020 | Music
Melancholy never seems far away from any concert these days, and the final celebratory piece aside, the English Concert gave us a Purcell programme to milk it. St John’s, completely cleared of furniture, the orchestra luxuriously spaced in the wide-open nave, a very...
by Music Editor | Jun 16, 2020 | Awards, Music, Uncategorized
The Music Section of the Critics’ Circle is delighted to announce the winners of our Annual Awards for 2019. The Lifetime Achievement Award is a special category, rather than an annual award, and is given here by the music section to a conductor whose career has had a...
by Music Editor | Nov 10, 2019 | Music
Brexcalibur by Robert Thicknesse Who will write the King Arthur for another fractured age? Purcell’s sweet pageant is unlikely to serve as a rallying point, I fear. But that’s surely what it was in 1691, as England and Britain began a long climb out of a half-century...
by Music Editor | Nov 9, 2019 | Music
Growing pains by Robert Thicknesse I confess I wasn’t expecting huge things from Ian Page and Classical Opera’s Così. Nice cast, for sure, but Page isn’t (despite his unswerving devotion to the composer) the greatest Mozart conductor, and his orchestra is only a bit...
by Music Editor | Nov 9, 2019 | Music
Potent potion Pleasing crowds since 2007, Annabel Arden’s sunny production of Donizetti’s perfect sentimental comedy runs around the country on tour before returning to the main festival again next year. I guess it will run for ever, and why not? – really it’s an...
