Latest News: Classical
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Interview,
William Vann on Parry's Prometheus Unbound 28th September 2023
The conductor discusses the world premiere recording of Parry's 1880 setting of scenes from Shelley's lyrical drama - the first performance of which was described by the musicologist Ernest Walker as 'a definite birthday for modern English music'...
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Box Set Selections,
Boxed Set Selections - September 2023 27th September 2023
This month's heavyweights include Vladimir Ashkenazy's complete chamber music & Lieder Recordings on Decca, a celebration of Dame Janet Baker's ninetieth birthday, two collections released in anticipation of next year's Bruckner bicentenary, and a tribute to the late Nicholas Angelich on Erato.
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Recollections,
A Life With Shostakovich 26th September 2023In the first instalment of our Recollections series, Hoi F. Cheu PhD (Director of the Centre for Humanities Research and Creativity at Laurentian University and Director of Doran Planetarium) recounts how a teenage encounter with Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony shaped his extraordinary dual career - and several close relationships...
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Presto Music Classical Podcast,
Episode 42: A Great Musical Dett - Choral Music by Black Composers with Dr Marques Garrett 23rd September 2023
A discussion of the OUP's recently-published collection of sacred and secular choral works by Black composers, with its editor Dr Marques Garrett - taking in Vicente Lusitano, Undine Smith Moore, R Nathaniel Dett (Dr Garrett's own particular labour of love) and more.
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Recording of the Week,
Dvořák from Veronika Jarůšková, Peter Jarůšek and Boris Giltburg 22nd September 2023
Six years on from their award-winning recording of Dvořák's Piano Quintet No. 2, the first violinist and cellist of the Pavel Haas Quartet reunite with Giltburg for the complete piano trios in interpretations bursting with colour and vitality.
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New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 22nd September 2023 22nd September 2023
Offenbach's La princesse de Trébizonde from Opera Rara, Wagner's Siegfried from Sir Simon Rattle in Munich, a tribute to Agustín Barrios from guitarist Thibaut Garcia, and works inspired by the Amazon from Philharmonia Zurich & Simone Menezes.
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Interview,
John Corigliano and Mark Adamo on The Lord of Cries 21st September 2023
The composer and librettist discuss their spine-tingling new opera fusing elements of Bram Stoker's Dracula and Euripides's The Bacchae, released on Pentatone earlier this month and starring countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo as Dionysus.
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Obituary,
Stephen Gould (1962-2023) 21st September 2023
The American heldentenor, who spent almost a decade touring in The Phantom of the Opera before becoming a regular at the Bayreuth Festival, has died of bile-duct cancer aged 61.
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Coming Soon,
Verismo from Domingo Hindoyan and other forthcoming highlights 19th September 2023
The Venezuelan conductor and his Liverpool orchestra thrill in preludes & intermezzi by Mascagni, Cilea, Wolf-Ferrari et al, with other stand-outs for late autumn including Saint-Saëns from Les Siècles & François-Xavier Roth and a Norwegian Christmas album from Lise Davidsen.
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Gramophone Choices,
Gramophone Editor's Choices - October 2023 18th September 2023
Chris introduces next month's selection, headed by the world premiere recording of Parry's Scenes from Shelley's 'Prometheus Unbound' from the London Mozart Players, Crouch End Festival Chorus and William Vann on Chandos.
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Recording of the Week,
John Wilson conducts Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! 15th September 2023
A true labour of love for the conductor, John Wilson and Sinfonia of London's latest project presents the premiere complete recording of the first collaboration between the legendary partnership of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein.
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New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 15th September 2023 15th September 2023
A trip to the movies with Jonas Kaufmann, an album of Stephen Hough's choral music, Florence Price and William Dawson from Yannick Nézet-Séguin in Philadelphia, and Bartók's piano concertos from Pierre-Laurent Aimard, the San Francisco Symphony & Esa-Pekka Salonen.
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Video Interview,
John-Henry Crawford on Rachmaninoff 13th September 2023
The cellist talks about his new album of Rachmaninoff cello works, built around the sonata in G minor and exploring the relationship between the cello's timbre and the human voice.
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BBC Music Magazine Choices,
BBC Music Magazine - October 2023 Choices 12th September 2023
Chris introduces next month's selection, with Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in pride of place, 'investing every musical phrase with a wealth of insight, detail and colour' in their Tchaikovsky and Schulhoff album...
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Interview,
John Andrews on Ethel Smyth's Der Wald 11th September 2023
The conductor discusses the first-ever recording of Smyth's second opera - a deliciously dark fairy-tale in one act, which was premiered in Berlin in 1902 and subsequently transferred to the Metropolitan Opera.
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Favourites,
Peter Maxwell Davies: A postcard from Hoy, and a farewell to Stromness 9th September 2023
An account of a miniature Presto Pilgrimage over the summer holiday, in search of the former home of Peter Maxwell Davies in the Orkney Islands.
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Recording of the Week,
A fin-de-siècle voyage with Barbara Hannigan and the Emerson String Quartet 8th September 2023
The quartet - joined by Barbara Hannigan and Bertrand Chamayou - go out on a high after nearly fifty years of music-making, with a programme of early twentieth-century works themed around journeying and longing.
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Awards,
Gramophone Awards 2023 - Finalists Revealed 8th September 2023
The final contenders in each of the eleven categories were revealed this morning, with Rachel Podger, Mahan Esfahani, Marc-André Hamelin and Quatuor Ebène among those in the running…
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New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 8th September 2023 8th September 2023
Virtuosic Locatelli concertos from Isabelle Faust and Il Giardino Armonico, regal Haydn symphonies from the Kammerorchester Basel under Giovanni Antonini, finely-shaded Mahler from Semyon Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, and the world premiere recording of John Corigliano’s complex opera blending Gothic horror and Greek tragedy.
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Interview,
John Wilson on Oklahoma! 7th September 2023
In the run-up to the release of his new recording of Rodgers & Hammerstein's first musical, the conductor explains how a chance encounter with the piece at the age of fourteen changed his life - and why he considers it to be 'the Marriage of Figaro of the twentieth century'.
