Goodwill was in the air at this August 28 concert before even a single note had sounded. First of all, there was the inclusion of the no-longer to be axed BBC Singers. Their late-in-the-day appearance at the 2023 Proms followed a … » Read

The International Contemporary Ensemble, an invaluable new-music collective founded in 2001, used to cut a higher profile than it has lately, or at least it seems that way. In a 2007 New York Times article , founder Claire Chase spelled out the … » Read

LONDON—Last year, the BBC Proms offered a f ine account of Handel’s Solomon , though its grandeur was slightly scuppered by overly modest forces. The Royal Albert Hall is big, and the otherwise excellent BBC Singers rattled around in … » Read

The Salzburg Festival’s choice of operas this summer scarcely ventured beyond the tried and true with one notable exception, Behuslav Martinu’s Greek Passion , a work ardently admired by many but here making its festival debut (viewed … » Read

LONDON—Back in the 19th century, Das Paradies und die Peri (Paradise and the Peri) was Robert Schumann’s most popular work. A mishmash of decorative Orientalism and Christian morality, its slushy sentiment appealed to pious Victorian … » Read

This has been a summer of epic thunderstorms and steamy heat in Bayreuth, paralleling the controversy surrounding the storied festival’s future. Through four generations of Wagners, and legendary internal and external squabbles, the … » Read

Although it has remained a bastion of conservatism musically, devoting itself exclusively to the operas of Richard Wagner, productions at the annual Bayreuth  Festival have become increasingly radical and provocative under the management of … » Read

LONDON—This year’s BBC Proms have largely steered clear of the most challenging contemporary music, making this August 17 concert at the Royal Albert Hall a welcome exception. And unlike Samuel Beckett's endlessly awaited Godot, … » Read

A surprising word came to mind during a concert August 13 at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music. The occasion was the second night of Time:Spans, an annual festival of contemporary classical music. The performers were the JACK Quartet, … » Read

U.S. ensembles continue to champion new music with a trio of recent standouts. Julius Eastman Volume 3 The music of once-forgotten composer Julius Eastman, who died unremarked in a Buffalo hospital in 1990, continues to prove an especially rich … » Read