Veteran bass Richard Angas, made famous as Jonathan Miller’s Mikado, has passed away at 71. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Ten maestros discuss the music they are passionate about, Isserlis on his newest recording, Ibragimova on hers and the stories behind the most famous musical portraits. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

From Haydn's rheumatics to Hindson's supernova, this young quartet is an object lesson in ensemble.

Flu lays low both leads but this tale of municipal committees and May Kings is still quids in.

British company offers to have your remains pressed into a vinyl LP. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Jonathan Meese claims a triumph of art over bureaucracy, as court finds him not guilty. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Seen through the eyes of a six-year-old, this film about the spectre of divorce makes for haunting viewing.

Czech composer Jan Zelenka (1679-1745) was held in high regard by masters such as JS Bach and Telemann. Today his majestic church music is finally receiving the attention it deserves. But his six sonatas ZWV181 have been popular with modern wind players since the mid-1950s. Unsurprising, given the virtuosic treatment. These sonatas are superb examples of the quadro sonata, a genre in which all four voices were given fully independent parts. In Janice B Stockigt’s excellent booklet to this equally excellent recording, she quotes one of Zelenka’s students, JJ Quantz referring to the quadro sonata as “the true touchstone of a genuine contrapuntist”. Ensemble Marsyas, named after the satyr of Greek mythology who challenged Apollo in a reed-playing competition (he was skinned alive for his trouble), here perform sonatas III, V and VI; they are joined in Sonata III by that doyenne of the Baroque violin, Monica Huggett. Performances are dazzling throughout, with Josep Domenech Lafont and Molly Marsh (oboes) and Peter Whelan (bassoon) negotiating Zelenka’s dazzling, inventive and sometimes dense but never unclear writing with style and élan. Violone player Christine Sticher likewise relishes her part while keyboardist Philippe Grisvard and theorbo player Thomas Dunford add harmonic richness to…

Francesco da Milano (1497-1543), known to his contemporaries as “il divino”, was undoubtedly the greatest lute composer of his era. Working in the service of three successive Popes, his fame was such that copies of his music appeared in manuscripts well into the 1600s and form the largest body of work for the instrument from the previous century. His hundred or so ricercars and fantasias, contrasting dense counterpoint with improvisatory scale passages, give some idea of his renowned skill as an improviser, plus some intabulations of contemporary vocal chansons; all exquisite pieces with a unique flavour and a cool, chaste beauty that recalls early Renaissance painters. The great American lutenist Paul O’Dette, responsible for many fine recordings of Renaissance music including the complete lute works of Dowland (try his disc of Simon Molinaro if you can find it), has assembled a selection of favourites into ‘proto-suites’ to make a coherent program that one can either dip into or listen straight through. He plays with his usual impeccably clean technique, pure bell-like tone and rhythmic elan, internal lines clearly voiced, virtuosic runs crisp in articulation and flexibly phrased – a careful balance of brilliance and contemplation. Recorded with Harmonia Mundi’s usual……

When they weren’t putting ancient kings on stage, Baroque opera composers nursed a fascination with witches, sirens and nymphs whose doings provided rich pickings for adventurous vocal and orchestral writing. Anna Prohaska’s Enchanted Forest gathers together a clutch of these characters for a program of otherworldly arias. More nymph than vengeful witch, Prohaska’s pure, slender soprano is at its best in the earlier selections: Restino imbalsamate, from Cavalli’s Calisto and Monteverdi’s Lamento della Ninfa are ethereal yet dark-edged, with gently rippling coloratura and effective use of straight tone which elsewhere can turn a little strident. At top speed the voice loses some of its lustre, although there’s a vehement accuracy to these pieces – notably Vivaldi’s Alma oppressa and Handel’s Combattuta da più venti – which is not without excitement. Of the excerpts from Purcell’s The Fairy Queen, it’s the mesmerising O let me weep which is most successful, Prohaska overcoming a needlessly imperious start to deliver a lyrical, moving Plaint. Best of all, though, is Cavalli’s O piu d’ogni ricchezza, an understated tour de force whose recitatives are as vibrantly delivered as its dance rhythms and vocal effects. Jonathan Cohen and Arcangelo are atmospheric partners, but make the strongest…

Parry and Stanford seem to have emerged at last from the shadow of stuffy Victorianism to take their places as respected contemporaries and, in some instances, equals of Elgar. This recording, however, is special in two particulars. Firstly, it offers rich and rare orchestral versions of sacred music more familiarly accompanied on the organ. And second – and I can’t think of a previous instance – the music is played on period instruments; that is, those in use 100 years ago. Stanford’s first setting of the Morning and Evening Service hails from 1879 and is a remarkable achievement for a 27-year-old. Conceived orchestrally, with the rules of symphonic development underpinning the whole edifice, the work was a breath of fresh air blowing through the Victorian Church of England. Three more of Stanford’s services are included here showing the level of melodic invention and sheer variety of this considerable contrapuntalist. Parry is represented by Elgar’s orchestration of Jerusalem, the Coronation Te Deum from 1911, the refulgent Blest Pair of Sirens (his ode to music for Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee), and I Was Glad, the coronation anthem to end them all. The players and singers of the King’s Consort have this music…

After 500 commercial recordings, mainly together, Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields have been one of the most dependable names in the business for half a century. So with the great man turning 90 next year, there’s more than a bit of interest in how American violinist Joshua Bell goes in his very first recording as the new music director of the venerable institution founded in Sir Neville’s living room back in 1958. Short answer: really well. Nothing to scare the warhorses in his choice of Beethoven’s Fourth and Seventh of course, which he and the Academy worked up during a favourably reviewed American concert tour. But succeeding a legend? Well, Bell’s never been one to shy away from potential humiliation, as he famously demonstrated by busking in a Washington DC metro (net result: $32 in 45 minutes and only seven people stopping to listen). Here, he doesn’t try to impose his personality on music most of us could whistle in our concert-hall sleep. And in this day of new editions of everything, and bold personal statements, and authentic blah-blah-blah, it’s refreshing to hear a guy on a high-profile mission simply standing with his…