Colin Clarke

Chinese

The China-UK Cultural Exchange Programme at St Martin-in-the-Fields

The Guangdong players are fine ambassadors of Chinese culture

Piano

Hamamatsu Winner Manami Suzuki's debut disc

An auspicious recording debut from the Hamamatsu winner

Preview: Edinburgh Festival 2025

Following on from our coverage of the Britten Pears 2025/26 season yesterday, here are details of this year's Edinburgh Festival: The Edinburgh International Festival opens on 1 August and features 1700 artists from 42 countries across a curated programme of music, theatre, dance and opera * Click here

News

Britten Pears Arts announces its 2026/26 Season

An exciting season looms!

Schubert

Ian Bostridge and Saskia Giorgini in Schubert

For all of the insights - particularly from the keyboard side of things - this remains an interesting but imperfect Müllerin

Charpentier, Missa Assumpta est Maria (& La Fête du Reuil)

We have covered a number of concerts and releases of music by Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704) on Classical Explorer: one overlap is that this concert of the Leçons de Ténèbres at Wigmore Hall began with the sinfonia from the present Missa Assumpta est Maria; we also covered a performance of the

Tchaikovsky

Thaxted Festival 2025: Wild Arts presents "Eugene Onegin"

Wild Arts seems to flourish on challenge; its Onegin counts as a notable success

Brahms

Chiaroscuro Quartet and Cédric Tiberghien at Wigmore Hall

A remarkable evening at Wigmore Hall

Mendelssohn

Shani shines in Mendelssohn

it is in the Third Symphony and the Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage that the rue value of this disc lies

Donizetti

Donizetti Songs #2: Nicola Alaimo joins Carlo Rizzi

Another fabulous, and fabulously useful, release in the Donizetti Song Project

Haydn

The Chiaroscuro Quartet return in Haydn

The Chiaroscuro Quartet can, it seems, do no wrong

Live Performance

Morceaux en forme de poire: Hommage à Erik Satie from Ensemble Ricercata

A fascinating concert, beautifully presented and performed

Mäkelä's Berlioz

In terms of career trajectory, thee is no equalling Klaus Mäkelä. He collects principal positions with the World's major orchestras like others collect stamps. And yet, should we believe the hype? This release suggest not; and there have been warning signs for previous concerts, too ... There is such

Yunchan Lim's epoch-making performance of Rach 3

Yuncham Lim cerainly made waves wt this performance: live at the 2022 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. He was 18..  Lim's debut studio album Chopin Étude was the subject of a post on Classical Explorer here. Dominic Fyfe, Label Director, Decca Classics, says: The creation of a recorded

18th century

More Pleyel: The London Mozart Players on cpo

A beautifully produced and executed disc of refreshing rarities

Donizetti Songs, #1: Lawrence Brownlee & Carlo Rizzi

We began our coverage of Opera Rara's Donizetti Songs #4 because of the inclusion of a setting of some of the libretto for La Straniera, and we covered Bellini's opera of that name recently. now back to the beginning - Genesis, as it were - with

Live Performance

Evgeny Kissin at the Barbican: Bach, Chopin, Shostakovich

Kissin remains a force to be reckoned with

Live Performance

My Father's Son: Nicky Spence and Dylan Perez at Thaxted Festival

This is programming at the highest level realised by the finest of executants

Nicolas Namoradze stuns at Wigmore Hall

Scriabin, Bach, Beethoven Nicolas Namoradze (piano). Wigmore Hall, 23.06.2025 Scriabin  Piano Sonata No. 10, Op. 70 (1912/13)  Bach    Prelude & Fugue in E, BWV 878 (WTC II)  Scriabin   Fugue in E minor, WoO 20 (1892)  Bach    Prelude & Fugue in G sharp minor, BWV 863 (WTC I)

Love and Loss in Thaxted: Alexander Chance and Toby Carr

Love and Loss: Music for Countertenor & Lute Songs by Dowland, Danyel, Rosseter, Campion, Purcell, Blow and Cynthia Harper. Alexander Chance (countertenor); Toby Carr (lute). Thaxted Parish Church, 22.06.2025 (9pm)  A stroll through Elizabethan lute song as the sun sets is just the ticket, Especially after Nicky Spence

A Mafia Widow: Lehár's ever-popular score undergoes a transplant

It’s been a while: well, over 40 years, since I heard Lehár's Die lustige Witwe, in an amdram production just outside of Manchester in which I was playing French horn. Has absence made the heart grow fonder?  Well, there is no doubting that having the orchestra of

#MOZART250: The Mozartists at Wigmore Hall

#MOZART250: Rachel Podger plays Mozart. Rachel Podger (violin); The Mozartists / Ian Page (conductor). Wigmore Hall, Londo, 18.06.2024 (CC)    Haydn  Symphony No. 66 in B flat  (1775/6)  Mozart Violin Concertos: No. 2 in D, K 211 (1775); No. 5 in A, K 219. Symphony in D, K   196,

Donizetti: Songs on Opera Rara, #4

Opera Rara's Donizetti Song Project is the latest in their alchemical mix of musicology and performance. But why say with Volume Four first? Because recently we heard Bellini's La straniella (see this post), and Donizetti sets part of the source text by Charles Vivto Prévost, Viscose

Dresden Festspiele II: Britten and Shostakovich in Dresden

Britten, Shostakovich Augustin Hadelich (violin); Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra / Michael Sanderling (conductor). Kulturpalast, Dresden, 13.06.2025 Britten Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 15 (1939)  Shostakovich Symphony No. 8 in C minor, Op. 65 (1943)  Great programming here: a celebration of the famous meeting of Benjamin Britten with Dmitrii Shostakovich

Heinrich Heine. Paris. Musik: Dresden Festspiele 2025 (I)

Heinrich Heine. Paris. Musik Benjamin Appl (baritone); James Baillieu (piano); Barbara Auer (narrator); Jens Harzer (narrator); Helmut Butzmann (concept). Palais im Großen Garten, Dresden, Germany, 12.06.2025   Lieder with readings might be an Appl preference, when one considers his Alpha Classics disc, again with pianist James Baillieu, Forbidden Fruit.