Brett Dean’s new opera can be accessed for a limited time on the Telegraph and Glyndebourne websites. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
Shaham's forward and back Brahms odyssey appeals to head and heart.
Brett Dean wrangles the moody Dane into two-and-half hours of thrilling music theatre.
Composers from Berlioz to Verdi have shied away from the complex Dane, but not Dean, whose opera is opening at Glyndebourne.
Richard Tognetti's new odyssey leads a line up including Brett Dean's Hamlet, Orwell's 1984, Messiaen's Turangalîla and more.
The renowned Australian stage director’s love of music and opera goes back to school days at Homebush Boys High. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
Skipworth has won the Orchestral Prize while Dean has taken out the Song Cycle category in the 2016 awards. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
Brett Dean (b. 1961), born and raised in Brisbane, took up composing during his 14-year tenure as violist with the Berlin Phil. In 2000, he returned to Australia where his appointments have included Artistic Director of ANAM and curating the Sydney and Melbourne Festivals. Shadow Music brings together works for various permutations of chamber orchestra, in addition to an arrangement for flute, clarinet and string orchestra of the (third) Adagio molto e mesto movement of Beethoven’s first Razumovsky Quartet. Dean’s arrangement is approximately half the length of Beethoven’s, and beautifully expands the harmonic intensity of the already symphonic original. This segues into Testament, a reference to the famous Heiligenstadt Testament, written by Beethoven in 1802, in which he despaired of his increasing deafness. These two works form a complementary whole, the latter a meditation on Beethoven’s inner world of tinnitus and chaos. Etüdenfest (2000) is a gloriously hectic melange of string exercises with piano evoking the panic of practice rooms as exam time approaches. Shadow Music is elusive and at various turns dark, veiled, ghostly and diaphanous; Short Stories are a series of five interludes with literary allusions. This… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe…
★★★★½ Weilerstein’s Dvořák demands to be seen as well as heard. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
Experience wins out over youth, but it’s slim pickings for opera Down Under. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
Aussie composer hopes to follow the success of Bliss with his version of Hamlet. 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.
Dean and Robertson’s brave new start to a brave new series.
