Musicke & Food

One often has the impression listening to the music for violin and orchestra of Camille Saint-Saëns that the soloist has played it once too ...

Niccol ò Paganini was a great virtuoso of the violin. Also, by all contemporary accounts, he was a great showman, as befits someone growing ...

An admirable new CD purports to reproduce an evening in Vienna in 1784 where Josef Haydn played the first violin, Mozart the viola, Baron vo...

In 2024, interesting new recording releases appear to be drying up. Perhaps the back catalogues are now too daunting to encourage new record...

Georg Friedrich Händel was born in Halle, Brandenburg on 23rd February 1685. A few weeks later, Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, ...

Isabelle Faust with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks conducted by Jakub Hrusa give a truly magnificent performance of Benjam...

I have been listening to the violinist Johan Dalene accompanied by Peter Friis Johansson, on a CD entitled "Souvenirs". A medley ...

Edward Elgar's only violin concerto is echt late 19th century romantic music, superbly written for the violin (Elgar was a violinist )...

It transpires that I have around 70 different recordings of Tchaikovsky's violin concerto on my shelves. Not my favourite concerto, but ...

I have known and loved Brahms' three sonatas for violin and piano for over seven decades now, and they have entered the canon of works t...

Both my parents came from poor homes, and both left school at 13 years old. Both of them were fervently musical and were determined that the...

With 42 recordings of the Sibelius violin concerto, and 25 of the first Prokofiev violin concerto on my shelves, one would have thought this...

There is no better duo partnership in Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert than Arthur Grumiaux and Clara Haskil. An off-air recording of the duo...

I have always had a soft spot for the music of both Ernest Chausson (1855-99) and Guillaume Lekeu (1870-94). Dying the day after his 24th bi...

One can easily overlook the music of Ludwig van Beethoven. I have had his only opera, Fidelio , on my shelves for nearly 30 years now, and ...

Decades ago, in a record store in Paris (in the days when there were such things) I picked up, out of curiosity, a CD by a group of Adriatic...

I have always had a soft spot for Dmitry Shostakovich's music. He is almost alone in 20th century composers in speaking directly to me. ...

There are few of the great composers I would have wanted to meet in person; certainly not Mozart, nor Beethoven. But I would like to have me...