Gregory Rose at 70 @ St John’s, Smith Square, London

Gregory Rose is best known as the founder of the contemporary-music group Singcircle (who performed their swansong with Stockhausen’s Stimmung in November last year), but...

Occasional Oratorio @ St George’s, Hanover Square, London

The 2018 London Handel Festival closed with a performance of the composer’s Occasional Oratorio HWV 62, so called because it was written in response to...

Philharmonia @ Royal Festival Hall, London

The items in Sunday evening’s Philharmonia concert formed a strange mix: Biber’s 1673 La Battalia, Beethoven’s second symphony from 1802 and Unsuk Chin’s 2016 work...

Homage to ‘Switched-On Bach’ – Art of Moog @ Kings Place, London

“Plugging into the Steinway of the future” declared the American magazine Newsweek in 1968 about Switched-On Bach, Wendy Carlos’ first album of J S Bach’s...

Teseo @ St George’s, Hanover Square, London

Handel’s Teseo HWV 9 was immensely popular on its premiere, enjoying thirteen performances between January and May 1713, and even surviving theatre manager Owen Swiny...

Giulio Cesare @ St John’s, Smith Square, London

Although Giulio Cesare is an opera that lends itself quite readily to being staged, this concert performance from the Early Opera Company, conducted by Christian...

Fairest Isle @ Wigmore Hall, London

If you created an iTunes playlist entitled ‘English Music’ and set it on shuffle for fourteen items, you’d probably end up with something akin to...

Coraline @ Barbican Theatre, London

Coraline began life in 2002 as a novella by Neil Gaiman. Henry Selick directed an animated film version in 2009, and now it has received...

Skylark: Seven Words from the Cross @ St John’s Smith Square, London

The watchword for the American choral group Skylark’s concert on Good Friday was ‘compact’. Lasting only an hour, the concert (including encore) contained 17 pieces...

Bach, St John Passion @ St John’s, Smith Square, London

Is the St John Passion a deeply emotional experience, in which the soloists and choir aim to sear the narrative into our souls, or is...

The Marriage of Figaro @ Coliseum, London

Don Basilio cannot be played by the same person in The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro because one is a bass, the...

Harmonic Spiritual Theatre @ St John’s Smith Square, London

Ex Cathedra’s contribution to the St John’s Holy Week Festival might have been subtitled ‘I wouldn’t start from here’. The primary – slightly academic –...

Macbeth @ Royal Opera House, London

The 32-year old Verdi was taking a risk when he wrote Macbeth for the Teatro della Pergola in Florence in 1846. All of his operas...

Amadigi di Gaula @ St George’s, Hanover Square, London

While Opera Settecento has tended to focus on pasticcios at the London Handel Festival, with Elpidia being presented in 2016 and Ormisda last March, its...

Workers and the State @ Royal Festival Hall, London

The Soviet authorities’ ever-changing definition of what constituted ‘appropriate music’ still remains a mystery to unravel, but, for some odd reason, Reinhold Glière’s lush, tuneful...

Acis and Galatea @ St John’s, Smith Square, London

Acis and Galatea is not the easiest of pieces to present in the concert hall. Concert performances of Handel’s operas work best when there is...

Applausus @ Cadogan Hall, London

Although there was a BBC studio recording in 1958 featuring Joan Sutherland and Richard Lewis, Classical Opera’s presentation of Haydn’s cantata Applausus of 1768 represented...

Rinaldo @ Barbican Hall, London

Following Orlando in 2016 and Ariodante last May, The English Concert, directed from the harpsichord by Harry Bicket, brought Rinaldo of 1711 to the Barbican...

Giulio Cesare @ Bury Court Opera, Bentley

Founded in 2007 by John Coke and Suzanne Lemieux, Bury Court Opera brings a touch of that summer opera feeling to the final months of...

Denis Kozhukhin @ Wigmore Hall, London

The combination of music by Claude Debussy and George Gershwin in a piano programme feels a little odd, but it works. Both composers provide an...