As he gets ready to conduct the Vespers for the 19th time, John Eliot Gardiner explains how it was Monteverdi's masterpiece that made him choose a career in music / My relationship with Monteverdi goes back to when ...
Queen's Hall, Edinburgh / This programme of American and antipodean choral works, from Ars Nova Copenhagen and director Paul Hillier, certainly tied in with the festival's New World theme – but it also showcased the ...
Concerto Italiano/ Alessandrini (Naive) / Most of the sacred music by Alessandro Melani (1639-1703) appears to have remained unnoticed and unperformed – until this recording and the concerts that led up to it – ...
Siirala/Lahti SO/Vänskä (BIS) / Though Osmo Vänskä is hardly known for his conducting of contemporary music, he regularly makes an exception for the works of Kalevi Aho. Vänskä has been working ...
Kathryn Tickell has played the pipes with shepherds, jazz trios – even Sting. But her favourite collaboration is with the Penguin Cafe Orchestra / 'I never really wanted to learn the pipes," says Kathryn Tickell over ...
Jonathan Plowright (Hyperion) / The latest in Hyperion's series devoted to piano transcriptions of Bach brings together pieces by British composers, the centrepiece of which is a collection assembled by the pianist Harriet ...
Neubauer/Emerson String Quartet (Deutsche Grammophon, three CDs) / With the exception of the well known F major work Op 96, often known as the American Quartet, these are the last four string quartets that Dvorák ...
That opening A of the composer's stunning first symphony, to be played at the Proms tomorrow night, still touches more than words / The offer of an exclusive pre-publication interview with Tony Blair about his memoir wasn't ...
Pestova/Meyer Piano Duo (Naxos) / Mantra, for two pianos with ring modulation, was a watershed in Stockhausen's development. Composed in 1970, it was the work that not only signalled his return to composing fully notated ...
