(Harmonia Mundi) / Born in Vienna and briefly married to Mahler's daughter, Ernst Krenek (1900-91) was one of that group of composers banned by the Nazis for writing "Entartete" or "degenerate" music. He left Europe in 1938 ...
Royal Opera House, London; Symphony Hall, Birmingham Could Plácido Domingo have made Handel's Tamerlano fly by? We'll never know… / Plácido Domingo is a name that sells seats. We all know ...
(Naxos) / To complete our choral selection this week, here's a dazzling collection of unashamedly tonal new music from James Whitbourn, the extravagantly talented composer, conductor, clinician, writer and – for the ...
(Ramée) / Mozart heard a Bach motet when he visited Leipzig and was inspired ("Here's something I can learn from!"). These small choral pieces, some written for funerals, have inspired many different performance styles ...
While Lynsey Hanley's article (Comment, 12 March) is a welcome antidote to the Guardian's excessive attention to pop music, she is wrong to believe that all those untrained in listening to classical music find it difficult. When I taught a ...
MGMT, LondonWith MGMT, it's proved to be a case of "careful what you wish for". Their great Time To Pretend single was a fantasy about their – as yet hypothetical – lives as rock stars. And then look what happened! Though their response ...
Royal Festival Hall, London / / The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment's Beethoven cycle reached its mid-point with a concert that didn't scale the same heights the series has so far. Iván Fischer was again the ...
Colston Hall, Bristol / / In maturity, Alexander Scriabin became a law unto himself; so hearing his early Piano Concerto in F sharp minor is a valuable reminder of his indebtedness to Chopin. And in the latter's ...
Then find your way back with NMC's music map: music lovers could spend hours in these two amazing and little-publicised sites / Something for the weekend: a couple of sites that you could profitably lose a few idle hours ...
Gustavo Dudamel was its first ever winner. The Gustav Mahler conducting competition has a lot to live up to. Kate Connolly heads to Bamberg for the finals / If proof were needed that the International Gustav Mahler ...
