The Rite of Spring may have caused a riot, but this oratorio needed the police to keep the audience in order. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
We talk with the soprano about life, musical loves and the remarkable year she experienced in 2015. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
★★★★☆ A bold new collection of Australian songs makes for an intense experience. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
★★★½☆ Snippets from Australia’s future choristers and a provocative Mozart Requiem. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
Four hours in a theatre is one of our Editor’s not-so-secret pleasures. But is this becoming an impossible ask for many?
Zubin Mehta, an outspoken genius among conductors, shares his astonishing life story. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
We know what Shakespeare gave to the stage, but music has also thrived on slices of the Bard.
The Australian soprano and wife of Rafael Kubelík has passed away at the age of 91. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
Mozart and Salieri were classical music’s biggest rivals… or were they? A newly discovered piece rewrites history. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
Daniel Bonic-Goodwin remembers the Japanese-American countertenor, who died earlier this week aged 49. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
Ensemble Bios is an Italian group led by conductor Andrea Vitello, dedicated to performing works of the 20th and 21st centuries. Their first outing for Italy’s Continuo label features “actress of the voice” Anna Clementi in Schoenberg’s 1912 song cycle Pierrot Lunaire. Broken into three lots of seven (reflecting the composer’s obsession with numerology), it famously utilises Sprechstimme, a semi-spoken technique associated at the time with melodrama and to some extent Lieder and cabaret. Clementi’s delivery is deft, mocking and expressionistic, soaring and plunging while detailing Pierrot’s macabre exploits as the instrumentalists sensitively weave around her vocalisations. A century on, it still sounds thrillingly modern. It’s paired here with a recent work by Florentine composer Andrea Portera (b. 1973), whose symphonic, theatrical and chamber works (over 120) have met with critical acclaim and two silver medals from the President of the Italian Republic. Red Music consists of three quite beautiful pieces for chamber ensemble, all just over four-minutes long, and dedicated to Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Rostropovich respectively. Each work subtly evokes the subject of its dedication – the frenetic dynamism of Prokofiev’s piano works, Shostakovich’s deeply unsettling strings, or… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe…
Australia’s versatile vocalist has a story to share – the Australian story – and she’s not afraid to tell it as it is. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
★★★★☆ Baroque trio and friends take us where court meets pub. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
