Latest stories
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Episode 42: A Great Musical Dett - Choral Music by Black Composers with Dr Marques Garrett
23rd Sep 2023
A discussion of the OUP's recently-published collection of sacred and secular choral works by Black composers, with its editor Dr Marques Garrett - taking in Vicente Lusitano, Undine Smith Moore, R Nathaniel Dett (Dr Garrett's own particular labour of love) and more.
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John-Henry Crawford on Rachmaninoff
13th Sep 2023
The cellist talks about his new album of Rachmaninoff cello works, built around the sonata in G minor and exploring the relationship between the cello's timbre and the human voice.
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Peter Maxwell Davies: A postcard from Hoy, and a farewell to Stromness
9th Sep 2023
An account of a miniature Presto Pilgrimage over the summer holiday, in search of the former home of Peter Maxwell Davies in the Orkney Islands.
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A fin-de-siècle voyage with Barbara Hannigan and the Emerson String Quartet
8th Sep 2023
The quartet - joined by Barbara Hannigan and Bertrand Chamayou - go out on a high after nearly fifty years of music-making, with a programme of early twentieth-century works themed around journeying and longing.
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Jonathan Sells on motets by two Bachs
6th Sep 2023
The founder and director of early music collective Solomon's Knot talks about the group's new album of motets, pairing Johann Sebastian Bach's six motets with those of his ancestor and precursor Johann Christoph.
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Monteverdi's Vespers from Raphaël Pichon and Pygmalion
1st Sep 2023
Raphaël Pichon and his Pygmalion ensemble offer a vivid, contrast-filled account of Monteverdi's sacred masterwork. A new benchmark recording of the Vespers? Quite possibly.
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Monteverdi: Vespro della Beata Vergine
Pygmalion, Raphaël Pichon
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Suzi Digby on Sanctissima
28th Aug 2023
The founder and director of the ORA Singers talks about her new album of music inspired by Vespers, and her ongoing mission to celebrate choral music from two Golden Ages centuries apart.
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Julian Perkins explores Handel's Attick
15th Aug 2023
The man BBC Radio 3 dubbed the "Indiana Jones of Early Music" talks about his new album of music for the clavichord - an instrument that most definitely doesn't belong in a museum.
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Coleridge-Taylor and Dvořák from the Takács Quartet
4th Aug 2023
The Takács Quartet present a double-bill of works from the year 1895: a youthful Coleridge-Taylor, barely into his twenties but already carving out a distinctive style, and a mature Dvořák, recently returned to his beloved Bohemia from the New World.
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Carl Davis (1936-2023)
3rd Aug 2023
The American-born, British-resident composer and conductor, known for his wide range of music for film and television, has died at the age of 86.
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Benjamin Nicholas on Orchestrated Anthems
25th Jul 2023
Merton College Choir, the Britten Sinfonia and Benjamin Nicholas present a selection of magnificent orchestrations of favourite church music.
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Early Music Round-Up - Summer 2023
24th Jul 2023
Monumental Obrecht from Cappella Pratensis, Philips and Dering from the Choir of Gonville & Caius (gilded by the addition of In Echo's period instruments), a travelling composer's biography-in-music from La Serenissima, a thrilling Venetian 'battle of the bows' from Chouchane Siranossian and the Venice Baroque Orchestra, and more.
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Ysaÿe's six sonatas for solo violin from Hilary Hahn
21st Jul 2023
Hilary Hahn finds magic, morbidity, merrymaking and much more in a brilliant new account of Ysaÿe's six affectionate character-sketches for his violinist friends.
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Owain Park on performing and dramatising Byrd's sacred music
17th Jul 2023
The Artistic Director of The Gesualdo Six talks about the group's new anniversary-year album of Byrd, and their exciting new staged performance based around the music of Catholicism-in-hiding during England's Tudor era.
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New Release Round-Up - 14th July 2023
14th Jul 2023
Ysaÿe from Hilary Hahn, an all-horn programme from the horn section of the Munich Opera, archive recordings of Dvořák's Mass and Te Deum from the Prague Philharmonic Choir and Prague Symphony Orchestra under Václav Smetácek, and Brian Smith Walter's LGBT song-recital with Adam Johnson.
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Kirill Troussov on his EP of violin duos with Julia Fischer
11th Jul 2023
The violinist discusses his recently-released EP, pairing Shostakovich's Five Pieces for Two Violins & Piano with Prokofiev's Sonata for Two Violins.
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Episode 38: Belle de nuit – Chatting to Emmanuel Despax about 'Après un rêve'
8th Jul 2023
The pianist discusses his new album, weaving together a nocturnal theme, a deeply personal poetic connection, and the French piano repertoire of the 'belle époque'.
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Choral works by the late Kaija Saariaho
7th Jul 2023
The Helsinki Chamber Choir under Nils Schweckendiek perform choral music by Saariaho that explores a wide range of subjects – from atmospheric invocations of night and Roman mythology to the seasons of the year and spacefaring science fiction.
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Karim Sulayman on Broken Branches
5th Jul 2023
Tenor Karim Sulayman talks about his recently-released eclectic album of works for guitar and voice with Sean Shibe.
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Broken Branches
Karim Sulayman (tenor), Sean Shibe (guitar)
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William Byrd
4th Jul 2023
A selection of some of the best recent recordings of music by the giant of English early music, for the 400th anniversary of his death.
