Trifonov/LSO/Rattle, Barbican The Barbican is building a series of concerts round the young Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov, and his talent deserves the accolade. For his first outing he chose to pla...Read More
Stile Antico, Wigmore Hall The twelve-person conductorless democracy that is Stile Antico started out as a bunch of Oxbridge undergraduates singing for fun in their vacations. Cannily turning profess...Read More
Alexander Gadjiev, Purcell Room We’ve seen some blistering pianistic action in the Queen Elizabeth Hall over the past few weeks, but the place where lightning really struck was the humble little Pur...Read More
Beatrice Rana, Queen Elizabeth Hall Beatrice Rana’s recording of Bach’s Goldbergs marked an arresting entry into the lists: how could a young unknown possess such timeless musical wisdom? Her Sout...Read More
Katya Kabanova, Royal Opera House It never rains but it pours: three productions of Janacek’s Katya Kabanova running in the same week – excellent ones from Scottish Opera and Welsh National O...Read More
Nobuyuki Tsujii, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London Nobuyuki Tsujii was born blind thirty years ago, but a phenomenal talent for music has ensured that he won every prize going in Japan before reaching his...Read More
Perhaps, at this juncture, we should all remind ourselves of HL Mencken’s immortal dictum: ‘Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good a...Read More
The Queen of Spades, Royal Opera House, London When is a libretto not a libretto? When it falls into the hands of Stefan Herheim. For this Norwegian director, an opera is something out of which he ma...Read More
Hansel und Gretel, Royal Opera House The popularity of Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel und Gretel goes up and down like a yo-yo. After its premiere – conducted by Richard Strauss, who admired ...Read More
Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times By Alan Walker Faber £30.00 727 pp Farrar Strauss & Giroux $40.00 There have been many biographies of Chopin, and countless studies of his works, but this is the...Read More