Author: Michael Church
Stephen Hough, 2016
Trailing acclaimed recordings, and laden with awards including a $500,000 MacArthur ‘genius’ grant, 54-year-old Stephen Hough is the undisputed top dog among British concert pianists. He is even m... Read MoreThe music of Thomas Larcher, 2016
A quicksilver art If the music of Thomas Larcher reflects conflicting impulses at a very deep level, it also reflects the triumphant resolution of those conflicts. He’s a virtuoso concert pianist ... Read MoreReview of ‘Franz Liszt: Musician, Celebrity, Superstar’, Oliver Hilmes, Yale
Sardonically christened ‘Lisztomania’ by the German poet Heinrich Heine, an infectious disease swept through musical Europe in the mid-nineteenth century. Women were its main victims, with fetishi... Read MoreRecital and concerto roundup, International Piano Magazine, July 2016
Barbican: Murray Perahia Jun 20 Royal Festival Hall: Richard Goode May 25 Wigmore Hall: Till Fellner May 30; Yevgeny Sudbin June 16; St James’s Church, Piccadilly: June 17 Murray Perahia is o... Read MoreErmonela Jaho, 2016
When dictators stifle dissent, the art which survives is music, and it’s no surprise that the soprano recently taking London’s Royal Opera House by storm should have been born and bred in Enver Ho... Read More‘Nothing’, Glyndebourne, 2016
A youth opera about adolescent alienation? We’ve watched too many of them founder in their own plodding worthiness, and the heart sank at the prospect of yet another, particularly one travelling und... Read MoreOedipe at the Royal Opera House: a revelation
Given its accessibility and musical magnificence, it seems extraordinary that Enescu’s Oedipe – premiered in Paris in 1936 – should have had to wait until now for its British premiere. But... Read MoreRoyal Philharmonic Society award for The Other Classical Musics
On the 10th of May 2016, the Royal Philharmonic Society presented its annual gongs, and I am delighted to report that The Other Classical Musics won the Creative Communication award. An extract fr... Read MoreThe Barbican’s new Centre for Music – the case against
(The first in an irregular series of musical blogs.) From now on, every time Simon Rattle raises his baton at the Barbican he will offer a hostage to fortune: the more musically successful the concert... Read More- 14 of 14
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