CLASSICAL ICONOCLAST

Last Night of the BBC Proms 2014. Thousands were there, having fun, and thousands more at open air Proms all over the country. I was at ...

The Last Night of the Proms is a wonderful party, but for music lovers the Real Last Night of the Proms is the night before, with Beet...

( For my review of the gorgeous Leipzig Gewandhaus Beethoven 9 Prom  Gilbert redeemed please see here ).  Because Riccardo Chailly was s...

The Cleveland Orchestra, with Music Director Franz Welser-Möst, made a most welcome return to the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall. ...

Calling Facade: an Entertainment the creation of William Walton is a bit unfair. The music in the piece comes primarily from Edith Sitwel...

Peter Sellars's Bach St Matthew Passion Prom with Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker can't have been anyone's top ...

Surprisingly symphonic - Igor Stravinsky's Firebird (L'oiseau d'or) with Simon Rattle conducting the Berliner Philharmoniker....

The presence of Andreas Haefliger should have alerted audiences to BBC Prom 61 with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Lan S...

Electrifying Strauss Elektra at BBC Proms 59 = Semyon Bychkov, Christine Goerke. Amazing on radio asnd even more so live. Indeed, this ...

My review, as pronised, is HERE.  Richard Strauss Elektra , BBC Prom 53 – an amazing experience!  Semyon Bychkov, Christine Goerke, Felic...

Stunning Nina Stemme Strauss Salome Prom 58.  Full review in Opera Today by Robert Hugill " The problem with Salome (written in 1...

Triumphant! An exceptionally stimulating Mahler Symphony No 2 from Daniel Harding and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, BBC Prom 57...

An article popped up in the Guardian just before 6 pm today, titled " Why does the BBC assume its audience won't like new music?...

When Unsuk Chin's Šu (2009) for sheng written for Wu Wei premiered in London at the Barbican in 2011, it didn't work for me at a...

Wonderfully evocative!  In BBC Prom 49, Sakari Oramo conducted the BBC SO showing how exotic dreams and magical tales still inspire creat...

"Classical tectonics" - strange name for Ilan Volkov's Prom 48 , but pretty good for a Prom featuring the music of Ice...

Andris Nelsons conducted Benjamin Britten's War Requiem at Prom 47. Nelsons'  War Requiem with the City of Birmingham Symphony...

Blockbuster Prom 43, sure to be seared into the memory of all who were there. Queues round the block, punters turned away in droves. Tch...

 "They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man, The lads that will die in their glory and never be old."   A E ...