Category Archives: Uncategorized

In mid-December 2019 I went to a keenly awaited concert  – Omer Meir Welber conducting his BBC Philharmonic in Bruckner 7 and Sofia Gubaidulina’s Triple Concerto for violin, cello and bayan. A greatly interesting programme choice, with a religious element to both of them – Gubaidulina focuses in her piece on the number 3, obviouslyContinue reading “December 2019”

Once back in the UK my first live musical event was in mid-November – Opera North’s Giulio Cesare, at the Lowry. Trying to remember it 14.5 months later, the main things that stick in the mind are the excellence of the singers and the sheer fertility, variety and inventiveness of the musical numbers – almostContinue reading “November 2019”

August 2019 All the blogs about live events from here on are memories after the event and not written at the time. Anything in 2021 and going forward is live!………. Late August 2019 I went to Jerusalem for a break from Yatta and the South Hebron Hills, the surrounding villages of the West Bank, andContinue reading “August – October 2019”

Normally I would go to 8-9 Proms but I only saw a few Proms this year, as I was starting my 3 months volunteer human rights observer work in Palestine from 2 August 2019. I got to see: Haydn’s Creation – which was in some ways the most enjoyable evening, because it was a reallyContinue reading “Proms 2019”

I went to a screen showing of the Glyndebourne Barber of Seville recorded in 2016, in Sheffield. The star of the show was definitely the conductor,  Enrique Mazzola, who produced a very zippy, energised and crisply articulated sound from the orchestra; very different from the slightly ploddy and muddy sound I remember from the ColiseumContinue reading “July 2019”

On Thursday I went to Dvorak’s ‘Rusalka’ at Glyndebourne, which was, I thought, very good indeed – 5 star stuff. It’s a fairy tale, with a mermaid creature giving up her tail and ability to swim to fall in love with a human, who then betrays her. I find  it a very haunting work –Continue reading “Rusalka June 2019”

I saw Boris Godunov last week at Covent Garden. I thought the performance was a mixed affair really. Part of the problem is the multifarious editions of the music – this was supposedly the original, which doesn’t have a Polish Act, and doesn’t have the extra colour of Rimsky-Korsakov’s edition. It ends with Boris dying,Continue reading “Boris Godunov at ROHCG”

I went to a – very good indeed – Mahler 5 with Rattle and the LSO at the Barbican in mid-May. This seemed to me to work well – unlike his conducting sometimes with the Berlin Phil, Rattle was not trying to over-beautify it, and the Adagietto felt moving rather than simply sounding lush andContinue reading “May/June 2019”

I listened via I-Player to the performance by Haitink and the LSO of Bruckner 4, which I thought was really excellent – there’s also an LSO video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00JMlBYgc7k is the 4th movement. IMHO, Bruckner is a tricky mix of Schubert, Wagner and God: if you produce a sound that’s too lyrical and light, orContinue reading “Haitink, Bruckner and Mahler – March/April 2019”

Still March 2019 On Wednesday I went to a Halle Orchestra rehearsal in the afternoon, – from 1400 to 1645 – a perk of giving them some money on a regular base. The conductor was a young Brit called Jamie Phillips, who seems to be gathering a reputation working with regional German and French orchestrasContinue reading “Still more 2019”