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Leningradskaya II- Moderato (poco allegretto)
(The ghosts of Leningrad, now St Petersberg, as captured by the great Alexey Titarenko I think it is fair to say that a great composer never wastes an idea- be it a musical motive or a technical...
View ArticleComparative listening- Don’t mess with Bobby.
It’s Bobby Schumann week on planet Earth, and all the nations of this blue planet are gathering their energies and chanting “Bobby, Bobby, Bobby” in honor of his 200th birthday. I’m celebrating the...
View ArticleThe best program you never heard in your life
You can call it the best program you’ve never heard in your life. You can call it the almost revelatory program that almost happened- what you can’t call it is the program for the final concert of the...
View ArticleReview- Surrey Mozart Players with Daniel de Borah, January 29, 2011
From the Surrey Advertiser, February 4, 2011 A splendid start to Players’ concert season THE Surry Mozart Players’ concert seasons are events to be anticipated with enormous plasure and thereafter to...
View ArticleA last minute substitution and a Beethovenian milestone revisited
I had hoped to avoid any unwanted drama surrounding my Lancashire Chamber Orchestra concert on Saturdayday by avoiding any travel that morning. . ‘Twas not to be. A couple of hours before our dress...
View ArticleThe Real 20 Greatest Piano Concerti of the 20th C., part II, no.’s 10-1
This is a list I’ve been thinking about ever since I first conducted the Prokofiev 2nd Piano Concerto with Daniel de Borah. I was amused at the thought of just how far down the list of the greatest...
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Uncle Dmitri says you must bring BEEG rabbit.
The excerpt above is the beginning of the 3rd movement of Shostkovich’s 10th Symphony, a work I conducted last week with the Kent County Youth Orchestra. Shostakovich 10 is a serious piece, and a...
View ArticleLvB 9- Furtwangler 1942
“A unique personality whose fatal flaw lay in his uncompromising belief that music and art must be kept apart from politics, a conviction that transformed him into a tragic figure.” Publisher’s blurb...
View ArticleWhatever happened to good old C major, anyway?
In the comments for my previous blog post on the Real Top 20 C Major Symphonies of All Time“, I assembled a list of the greatest “C minor symphonies that end in C major.” The first four pieces I...
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Explore the Score: Shostakovich- Symphony no. 5 in D minor
Welcome to a special edition of Explore the Score. I’ve told friends for years that some day I wanted to write a book about Shostakovich 5. Here’s the short version. Dmitri Shostakovich- Symphony...
View ArticleThe Greatest Unloved Symphonies
I just conducted Bruckner’s Second Symphony for the first time a few days ago- even many of the most pro-Bruckner opinion makers seem to think that only his symphonies from the Fourth onward are worth...
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Scotia Festival 2013 in review- Final Gala Concert
A review of the final Gala concert of the 2013 Scotia Festival of Music from critic Stephen Pederson at the Chronicle Herald. Read the original here. June 10, 2013 Concerto performances stunning...
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KW Messiah thoughts, 2013
It’s that time of year again, when musicians all around the world are taking another stab at Handel’s Messiah. For me, it means coming back to a piece I’ve done many times after a long-ish break....
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Special arrangements have been made
NOW AVAILABLE Elgar- Piano Quintet, Sea Pictures. Orchestrated by Donald Fraser. £12.00 Add to cart As many of you know, all of us at the English Symphony Orchestra are busy gearing up for our 2015...
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Explore the Score: Weinberg- String trio
The rediscovery and reevaluation of the music of Mieczyslaw Weinberg is surely one of the more positive stories in classical music in recent years. If this blog post piques your interest in Weinberg,...
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The official, definitive guide to the greatest D minor Symphonies of all time
It’s been hailed as “the saddest of all keys.” Andras Schiff called it “Beethoven’s key of existential struggle.” It was Brahms’s Tragic key- the world of his brooding First Piano Concerto and his...
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Explore the Score – Mieczyslaw Weinberg String Trio
Ensemble Epomeo- Penderecki, Kurtág, Schnittke and Weinberg String Trio’s £12.00 Add to cart “For its second disc – generously filled, and rewardingly programmed – string trio Ensemble Epomeo focuses...
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