Andrew Nethsingha and the Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge, announce eight-week series of daily virtual services, encouraging people to pause and reflect together during the global pandemic
The Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge today [21 April] launch eight weeks of daily virtual services, hosted on its Facebook page, seeking to continue Chapel worship whilst the Chapel is closed due to COVID-19. The services feature recordings from recent live...
![Mark my words, Sir – Elder conducts Sibelius & Debussy [Hallé]](http://www.colinscolumn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/halle-3-400x250.jpg)
Mark my words, Sir – Elder conducts Sibelius & Debussy [Hallé]
Unless he has designs on Kullervo, with numbers 4 & 6 Sir Mark Elder completes his Sibelius Symphony Cycle for the Hallé’s own label; superb performances that make me regret I have not yet heard the previous issues in this series. The bleak and tragic Symphony 4,...
Neeme Järvi conducts Artur Kapp, Artur Lemba & Mihkel Lüdig [Chandos]
Neeme Järvi (head of the Järvi conducting clan) digs well below the core repertoire line for this collection from Estonian composers schooled in St Petersburg. On the evidence of these selections, Kapp (1878-1952), Lemba (1885-1963) & Lüdig (1880-1958) all wrote...
Many Happy Returns to Sir John Eliot Gardiner, 77 today.
![The Early Horn – Ursula Paludan Monberg [Hyperion]](http://www.colinscolumn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/horn-400x250.png)
The Early Horn – Ursula Paludan Monberg [Hyperion]
The Early Horn – the title bringing Carry On connotations to my mind – is explained thus in Hyperion’s annotation: “Exploring the natural horn’s pivotal role in eighteenth-century chamber music, this album celebrates the instrument’s dramatic arrival from its rustic...
Met Orchestra to tour internationally in June 2021, for the first time in almost 20 years [belated News posting]
New York, NY (February 24, 2020)—The Metropolitan Opera today announces that the Met Orchestra will tour Europe in the summer of 2021, immediately following its annual residency at Carnegie Hall. With all performances conducted by the Met’s Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer...
Classic FM & The Hebrides … and Rob Cowan
Mendelssohn’s overture, that is. It’s a regular on Classic FM, as are numerous other pieces, to their detriment when they appear for the umpteenth time, and usually in the same recording, in Mendelssohn’s case Edward Gardner’s on Chandos, making whoever is presenting...
Arlene Saunders RIP
From Alexander Campbell. "Just hearing that American soprano Arlene Saunders has died from Covid-19. She was a lyric soprano who later in her international career took on rather more demanding repertory. She sang Pamina at Glyndebourne in 1966, and her Covent Garden...
![Thomas Adès & Boston Symphony Orchestra – Adès World Premiere Recordings of Piano Concerto & Totentanz [Deutsche Grammophon]](http://www.colinscolumn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/ades-400x250.jpg)
Thomas Adès & Boston Symphony Orchestra – Adès World Premiere Recordings of Piano Concerto & Totentanz [Deutsche Grammophon]
Thomas Adès’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, a conscious title of equal billing, premiered in 2019 (see link below), and his Totentanz (first heard at the BBC Proms in 2013) are captured from Boston Symphony concerts in excellent performances (Adès is a fine...