Classical

For his debut disc as the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic’s chief conductor, Domingo Hindoyan has brought together three of the most significant French ballet scores of the first half of the 20th century. Paul Dukas’s La Péri and Debussy’s Jeux, both arguably their composers’ greatest orchestral achievements, were first performed within 13 months of each other, in 1912 and 1913 respectively, while Albert Roussel’s Bacchus et Ariane dates from 1931. Hindoyan opts for the second suite that Roussel extracted from his score.The…

Apple is preparing to launch a standalone classical music app that will be available along with its flagship 'Apple Music' app.Apple said there would be a 'dedicated classical music app' coming this year, with the app combining Primephonic's classical user interface with 'more added features,' reports MacRumor.The music lovers are likely to get the standalone classical music app in future iOS 16 update that is planned before the end of the year.Apple Classical has already appeared in backend code used by the tech…

It may not attract headlines the way that its visual art and cinema siblings regularly do, but the International Festival of Contemporary Music has been part of the Venice Biennale family of cultural events since 1930. It now takes place every year across a fortnight in early autumn, and the composer Lucia Ronchetti is its current artistic director.Music theatre features prominently in Ronchetti’s own list of works, and it was no surprise that she made it the theme of this year’s programme. It was an appropriate theme for…

I confess I am a philistine when it comes to classical music. It’s not that I don’t like it – I went through a period as a teenager in Southend when I drove around with Classic FM blaring out of the speakers of my battered Fiat Uno. But even this, to tell the truth, was mostly in performative contrast to the music that pumped out of the souped-up cars of the local wideboys. Occasionally, when I particularly enjoyed a piece, I would listen out for the name of the composer. It was usually Vaughan Williams. That’s as far as…

Who was it who said that two of the most fascinating things in life are sex and the 18th century? Certainly for lovers of classical music it is a century of quite extraordinary riches: beginning with the late baroque joys of Bach and Handel, overseeing the rise of opera, the sonata, string quartet and symphony, witnessing the entire classical movement, and ending with a bang with Beethoven.Born smack in the middle of that century, in 1756, was one of the most intriguing and mysterious of all those marvellous composers,…

Here’s another bonkers-at-first-glance, brilliantly curated album from the guitarist Sean Shibe. He describes Lost and Found as “an emporium of curiosities”, and all the exhibits are for electric guitar. That doesn’t mean all the music is modern. Two tracks are Shibe’s interpretation of melodies by Hildegard of Bingen, 900-odd years old. O Viridissima Virga sounds as if it’s being played on a church organ, the notes stark and loud, swathed in fluctuating overtones. By contrast, much later in the playlist – and you mess…

Albums that sidestep familiar repertoire always deserve attention. The Irish Baroque Orchestra’s The Hibernian Muse (Linn), with the vocal group Sestina, is shaped around music played at festivals at the turn of the 18th century, one marking the centenary of Trinity College Dublin, the other celebrating the birthday of Queen Anne. The ensemble, directed by Peter Whelan, won an Olivier award earlier this year for their stylish production of Vivaldi’s Bajazet at the Linbury theatre, Royal Opera House.Their skill and…

I was still hundreds of metres from the Royal Albert Hall when I spotted the first Ukrainian flag. It was the first of many worn as capes, not to mention the badges, hats and colour-coordinated outfits scattered around the near-capacity auditorium. If this sounds reminiscent of the annual flag-fest on the Last Night of the Proms, think again: this crowd was sombre, even subdued. But that changed as members of the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra started to filter on to the stage, met by a battery of applause and an immediate…

With a stirring rendition of the Ukrainian national anthem, the first concert of the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra came to an end in Warsaw late on Thursday evening amid thunderous applause from a packed house at the Polish National Opera. It was hard to believe that two weeks ago this orchestra did not exist and that these musicians had never played together.The 74 musicians, all Ukrainian, come from many different orchestras inside the country and elsewhere across the world. They assembled in Warsaw 10 days before the…

The summer hiatus is the time to sample star players of the past and hear how performance styles have changed. The latest release on the Biddulph label, specialists in historic string players, is Nathan Milstein: The US Armed Forces Recordings. Born in Odesa, Milstein (1904-92) left Russia and became an American citizen, also familiar on the concert platforms of Europe. In Massenet’s Méditation from Thaïs – here in two versions – the Ukrainian violinist’s sweetness of tone, elegance and lyrical slides (portamento) define…