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Virtuoso Display by Choir of Trinity College Cambridge
Less than fourteen hours after taking part in fine performances of Poulenc and Fauré in, Gloucester Cathedral (Review), Stephen Layton and his Cambridge choir were back in action but this time they had the stage to themselves.
Cheltenham College Chapel is a substantial Victorian building. All the seating is arranged choir stall-style, facing...
Virtuoso Display by Choir of Trinity College Cambridge
Less than fourteen hours after taking part in fine performances of Poulenc and Fauré in, Gloucester Cathedral (Review), Stephen Layton and his Cambridge choir were back in action but this time they had the stage to themselves.
Cheltenham College Chapel is a substantial Victorian building. All the seating is arranged choir stall-style, facing...
Evening of French Music Raises the Temperature in Gloucester
On the evening of what was the hottest day so far in 2013 it was a relief to escape into the cool interior of Gloucester Cathedral for this concert of French music in which the Cheltenham Festival gave pride of place to Francis Poulenc.
To open proceedings David Briggs, Organist Emeritus of Gloucester Cathedral, returned to the...
To recap: there are five extent “versions” of Bach’s St. John Passion. I say this because today’s listening audience doesn’t always get what’s on the inside of the recording package by reading what is on the outside. To complicate things, the version that Layton has chosen follows the Neue Bach-Ausgabe, a respected edition that offers plausible solutions to the problem of this multi-sourced work...
Not short on action, the Old Testament book of Joshua charts the entry of the Israelites into the Promised Land, the razing of Jericho, several massacres and the suspension of time while sun and moon stand motionless so the enemy can be avenged in daylight. (Apparently Nasa, failing to confirm an appropriately timed late bronze age eclipse, has no category to account for divine intervention.)...
The Star of David is everywhere, as a symbol of Jewish unity. The senior Israelite wears a kippah, denoting respect for God’s law. Joshua starts off with a machine gun, the archetypal freedom fighter, and ends in a suit, every bit the modern statesman. There’s only one place this could be – Palestine in the 1940s. An 18th-century oratorio has been turned into a metaphor for the establishment of...