A brief hiatus...
But I'll be back soon!
I’m away for rest and recuperation over the next few weeks, so I won’t be posting over the next fortnight — I’ll be back refreshed in September with some exciting projects I’ve been working on! In the meantime, here’s some recommended listening for the beautiful summer weather.
A new label promoting music by women has just launched, called La Boîte à Pépites. Their first recordings feature the French composer Charlotte Sohy. I particularly like the chamber music CD — this is for you if you like Germaine Tailleferre, Maurice Ravel, or Vaughan Williams. They’ve also recorded CDs of her orchestral and piano music.
The BBC Proms ‘Sea’ Prom. Disclaimer — obvious bias here because I did the interval presenting with Georgia Mann and Linton Stephens. But my goodness the performance was incredible. It’s a programme of Doreen Carwithen’s Bishop Rock, Grace Williams’s Sea Sketches, and Vaughan Williams’s Symphony No. 1 — the audience applause was so loud at the end that we could barely hear each other in the gallery. Well worth catching up on here.
I’m rather fond of the Swedish composer Hugo Alfvén, so I’m delighted to see his jubilant Second Symphony getting an outing on this new release from Łukasz Borowicz and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. They’re recording his complete symphonic works, so the good news is that if you like this there’s more to come.
From the BBC Proms again, Glyndebourne’s production of The Wreckers. It’s so rare to get the opportunity to hear one of Ethel Smyth’s operas performed live, and this one is a real treat. The cast are fantastic, and the power of the chorus really comes through in this rendition. I’m in the first interval with Kate Molleson, discussing Smyth and her work — and I’ll also be at the 20th August performance of her Mass, which I am so looking forward to. I love the Mass and, again, it’s too rarely performed. You can catch up on The Wreckers here.
Released by the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective, this all Samuel Coleridge-Taylor disc is one of my favourites so far this year. The performance is electric, the sound quality excellent, the compositions stunning…
…and they’ve just gone and followed it with an equally splendid album of Fanny & Felix Mendelssohn. It’s a triumph in every way.
Enjoy!