Handel / Mozart / Manners Messiah, HWV 56 / K 572 (sung in English). Hilary Cronin (soprano); Helen Charlston (alto); Laurence Kilsby (tenor); Morgan Pearse (bass); BBC Singers; Britten Sinfonia / Sofi Jeannin (conductor). Barbican Hall, 12.12.2023 Two Messiahs this year for me, neither ‘pure’. The first was accentus and Insula’s

Handel Messiah (abridged).  Marie Lys (soprano); Paul-Antoine Bénos-Djian (counter-tenor); Stuart Jackson (tenor); Alex Rosen (bass); accentus; Insula Orchestra / Laurence Equillbey (conductor). Auditorium Patrick Devedjian, La Seine Musicale, Paris, 05.12.2023 This somewhat abridged Messiah - one interval, 2 hours 20 minutes approximately from an 8pm start  - offered a

A Respighi opera double-bill at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London recently was the inspiration for searching out this DVD and reporting on the piece and performance - my review of that will appear in the magazine Opera Now. Respighi's Sleeping Beauty is a short

Glanert, Brahms Catriona Morison (mezzo); Christian Immler (bass-baritone); BBC Symphony Orchestra / Semyon Bychkov. Barbican Hall, London, 24.11.2023 Detlev Glanert Prague Symphony – Lyrical Fragments after Franz Kafka ( Symphony No. 4, (2019-2020, UK premiere)  Brahms Symphony No. 4 in E minor Two Fourth Symphonies, one co-commissioned by the BBC and

Command Performance: Music for an Empress Alexandrea Lowe (soprano); Academy of Ancient Music / Laurence Cummings (director/harpsichord). 23.11.2023 Maria Teresa Agnesi (1720-95) La Sofonisba (1748) - ‘Licenza’ (È questo il fausto giorno ... La tua sol fra l’alme belle)  Haydn Symphony No. 48 in C major, ‘Maria Theresa’

A glittering event at the British Film Institute (BFI) on the Southbank: The Ivors, 2023, with the great and the good of the music industry in attendance. This is the renamed Ivor Novello Awards, given by the Ivors Academy. The PRS is a partner (the Performing Rights Society), and the

It's that time of year again, and this one is top of an ever-growing pile of Christmas discs I aim to cover prior to the BIG DAY.Lise Davidsen is one of teh World's top singers today, and any release is a call for celebration. Here’