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This was the 20th anniversary of the now-legendary performances of Messiah by Polyphony and Stephen Layton at St John’s Smith Square, and my eleventh review of the event; so what is there left to say? Quite a lot, given that, as with all masterpieces and great interpreters, each re-telling brings not only consolidation of excellence but revelatory insights. Some things, however, never change,...
While the embers of the concert year are dying out around the country, you can be sure of a great blaze-up at St John’s Smith Square. The annual Christmas Festival of quality early-music groups and top choirs – this is the 29th – now traditionally culminates in two great works for chorus and orchestra. Over the past three years I’ve reeled at the best of Messiahs, four cantatas out of the six...
Bach has bite under Layton's masterly direction* * * * *
Bach’s Mass in B Minor is a mystery and a miracle, and had to wait a century for its premiere; as the summation of all Bach’s vocal ideas it demands exceptional performers. And that’s what it got in this lovely Baroque auditorium, with four fine soloists, the Choir of Trinity College Cambridge, and the Orchestra of the Age of...
This year’s performance of Handel’s Messiah in the Waterfront Hall in Belfast takes place just over two centuries since its first performance in the city, when organist Edward Bunting – better remembered today as the transcriber of the 1792 Belfast Harp Festival - introduced the work to a local audience in the small Presbyterian Church in Rosemary Street.
Then, in 1813, the Oratorio was heard...
Konsumeras med måtta. Det är mitt råd beträffande den här skivan. Arvo Pärt, 79, letade efter en egen musikstil och introducerade den för första gången 1976 i pianostycket Für Alina med spelföreskriften ”Lugnt, upphöjt, lyssnande”. Tintinnabuli, klockor, kallade han stilen. Denna musikstil, mjuka serier av treklanger, rytmiskt och för det mesta dynamiskt återhållsam har inte klarat sig utan...
The ever-excellent Polyphony and Stephen Layton have put together a very special disc of music by Pärt in readiness for the composer’s 80th birthday next year. The hour-long programme ranges from Solfeggio (1963) to the recent Virgencita (2012) in its first recording. The perfectly balanced, richly warm tones of Polyphony, especially its outstanding bass section, suit Pärt’s transluscent textures...