CLASSICAL ICONOCLAST

Pavel and Hugo Haas Pavel Haas and Hugo Haas : brothers from Brno who led very different lives.   Pavel, the composer, was incarcerated...

A new Piano Museum has opened in Chongqing in China. More than 200 rare pianos are displayed in 3000 sq meters of exhibition space in ...

It took artistic courage to choose Shostakovich Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk t o start the ENO's 2015-2016 season.  Shostakovich isn...

The Wigmore Hall's complete Schubert Songs series of 40 concerts began with a recital by Florian Boesch and Graham Johnson.  (Read...

"Sometimes people think they are holding a magic wand"says Valery Gergiev in a remarkably candid interview. Note the source - T...

The Wigmore Hall, London, has launched Schubert : The Complete Songs, a  40-concert series to run through the 2015 and 2016 seasons.  Th...

Alondra de la Parra conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra in Mahler's Symphony no 2. Alondra de la Parra?  A friend sent me a ...

More from Special Correspondent  GOM (Grumpy Old Man) That was the week that was. It’s over let it go” sang the wonderful Millicent Mart...

Wise words from Special Correspondent GOM (Grumpy Old Man) Does the current fad for so-called inclusion know no bounds. Certainly the ...

"Pour célébrer le tricentenaire de la mort de Louis XIV, l'orchestre des Arts Florissants , dirigé par William Christie , fait...

Infantrymen in the trenches

Christoph Willibald Gluck Orphée et Eurydice at the Royal Opera House.  John Eliot Gardiner conducted the English Baroque Soloists and t...

What went wrong? The Last Night of the Proms 2015 was a travesty.  Mechanically-processed mush. No one really expects serious music at t...

A singularly unique Elgar Dream of Gerontius  with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle, Prom 75 at the Royal Albe...

In Prom 73, at the Royal Albert Hall, London, Semyon Bychkov conducted the Vienna Philharonic Orchestra. The  VPO are so good that they ...