(2004 Archived Page)
Welcome to the Classical Music Page of Rainlore's World of Music. This page covers all types of classical and related music, from ancient and medieval to contemporary.
News
2004/04/27
Good news for those who either missed the splendid Lucie
Skeaping and The Burning Bush with the BBC Concert Orchestra concert
back in February or would like to repeat this extraordinary experience.
The concert is to be repeated on Thursday, 3rd February 2005, 7.30pm at
the Chichester Festival Theatre in Chichester, West Sussex. Full details
can be found on the newly set up 2005
Jewish Music UK Calendar page. This repeat performance is part of the BBC
Concert Orchestra's new residency at Chichester, comprising five
concerts between October 2004 and February 2005 as well as a series of
education workshops and broadcasts on BBC Radio 2 and Radio 3.
Details of the other concerts in this series are also listed on the calendar
pages. A price reduction is available for those attending all five
concerts, and the BBC CO have also set up a special discounted room
rate with The Ship Hotel in the centre of Chichester for those visiting
for the occasion and wishing to stay overnight. Full details are in the BBC
CO's new season brochure and shortly on the BBC CO web
site.
Slowly catching up on the backlog of CD reviews - I'm doing the best
I can. There are another six albums reviewed in the Jewish Music, Jazz,
and Other World Music categories, and what an outstanding crop they are!
The next site update will include an illustrated review of the fabulous Daphna
Sadeh and The Voyagers in concert at London's Purcell Room late
last month, and, also from the Nomadica - Roots Revisited concert series, the excellent The Soul of the Fiddle concert
at the Queen Elizabeth Hall will follow shortly, with more illustrated
live reviews coming up soon.
Staying with the latter topic for a moment, if tangentially, whenever
an illustrated review goes online I tend to get a good few emails from
aspiring music photographers asking about how they could make a start photographing
live music events, gaining access to events and permissions, and what equipment
and film I use and other technical matters. It is obviously impossible
for me to answer such inquiries individually apart from a brief polite
acknowledgement. So, if you're one of those people please accept my apologies
but it simply can't be done. This site is dedicated to music, not photography,
so an article addressing these kinds of queries would be rather tangential,
and certain aspects of such queries would be difficult or impossible to
address without mentioning brand names, which further disinclines me to
engage in this matter. After all, that would practically amount to free
product/brand advertising, something that goes totally against the grain
as far as I am concerned.
Finally, the Other World Music page is active as of now. This will cover anything that broadly falls into
the world music category and that generally isn't already covered in the
Jewish Music section of this site.
More soon.
Rainlore's World of Music
2004/04/13
More computer problems, including the best part of two weeks offline,
have unfortunately delayed this update further. (A proper replacement computer
is now being sought, and then a few weeks will be taken up installing applications
and migrating data - argh! The joys of computers!) A temporary "migration"
from home was alas also necessitated by a major utilities crisis and resultant
lack of heating and cooking (still no proper heating, if at least electric
cooking of sorts now).
A little delayed then, we have the review of The
Burning Bush with the BBC Concert Orchestra, conducted by Robert
Ziegler, concert at the Royal Festival Hall at last. Lavishly illustrated
as usual, this one is spread out over two pages, with extra photos on the
second page. The concert itself was a sensation. And after having heard
recordings of the other events in this BBC Radio 3 series of East
Meets West concerts, the BBC CO / The Burning Bush one stands out even more as clearly and far and away the best and most
successful of them, which certainly also seems to be born out by audience
reactions on various online message boards. Perhaps the less said about
the other concerts in this series the better, and instead to concentrate
on the positive side and the BBC Concert Orchestra with The Burning
Bush event. It was a most memorable occasion indeed, where East really
did meet West in a musically productive and meaningful way, with an excellent
selection of orchestral pieces by Jewish composers or on Jewish themes,
an orchestral arrangement of traditional Sephardi pieces by conductor Robert
Ziegler, traditional Yiddish songs, klezmer tunes, Ladino songs and
Chassidic nigunim from Lucie Skeaping and The Burning Bush, and
a world premier of a specially commissioned work by Roderick Skeaping, The
Vanished Shtetl, for band and orchestra, and more.
Associated with this splendid concert was a series of pre-concert performances
in the Royal Festival Hall foyer, presented by the BBC Concert Orchestra as part of Concert Connections / BBC CO Learning under the
title Vessels of Sound. Featuring a number of performances
by students who were the beneficiaries of the BBC CO's learning
programme as well as a spoken word poetry performance by the most excellent Leah
Thorn, one of the facilitators in the learning programme, Vessels
of Sound was an outstanding event celebrating Jewish culture and
surely an occasion for Jewish pride. This delightful celebration is therefore
given its own illustrated review.
The Classical Music Reviews index page
is now also active and lists all reviews of music broadly falling into
the classical category or overlapping with it.
More soon.
Rainlore's World of Music
2004/03/04
Just a quick interim update. Regrettably, I've been falling further
behind, not least thanks to an uncooperative computer that insists on being
on its last leg (a couple of its aging disks have been failing intermittently).
However, things are running reasonably smoothly again now (for now!), and
coming up very shortly is an illustrated review of the Lucie Skeaping
and The Burning Bush with The BBC Concert Orchestra concert, with conductor Robert
Ziegler, at London's Royal Festival Hall last week. If you missed this
outstanding performance of orchestral music on Jewish themes or by Jewish
composers and traditional Jewish music performed by the Burning Bush, as
well as the Burning Bush with the BBC CO (including a world premiere of
of a specially commissioned work by Roderick Skeaping) you can listen
to it on BBC Radio 3 90-93 FM (also online at the BBC
web site) on 10th March, 7.30pm (BST). Presented alongside the
main concert was an excellent series of free pre-concert recitals in the
Royal Festival Hall main foyer as part of the BBC Concert Orchestra's Concert
Connections, the BBC CO Learning Programme, entitled Vessels
of Sound, and there will be seperate review of this as well. The Vessels
of Sound performances will also be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 during
the wekk of 8-12 March as part of the BBC Radio 3 'Diverse Orchestras' Project. Taken altogether, the evening was a superb celebration of Jewish
culture on which the BBC CO really cannot be congratulated, and indeed
thanked, enough.
Whilst on the topic of broadcasts, also don't miss Daphna Sadeh and
the Voyagers live on Charlie Gillett's The Sound of the
World show on BBC London Radio (94.9 FM) on Saturday, 13th
March, 8-10pm. If you're not in the London area, you can listen anywhere
on the planet online anytime during
the week following the broadcast.
Finally, anybody I owe email, please accept my apologies, I'll try and
catch up as quickly as I can after the weekend. I estimate I should be
more or less up-to-date with mail by the end of next week, with a bit of
luck.
More soon.
Rainlore's World of Music
2004/02/04
Back in 1984, a remarkable performance of Shostakovich's song
cycle From Jewish Folk Poetry, Opus 79, took place in London
as part of the first London Festival of Jewish Music. What was so remarkable
about this performance was that the songs had been translated back into
Yiddish from Russian. Fortunately, this performance in Yiddish was recorded
shortly afterwards with the same performers and released on audio cassette
by B'nai B'rith Recordings. The performers were Helen Lawrence,
soprano (now mezzo), Carole Rosen, mezzo, Louis Garb, tenor, Louis
Berkman, baritone, and Antony Saunders, piano. In addition to
the Shostakovich cycle, the recording included extracts from Samuel
Alman's Yiddish opera King Ahaz, with piano accompaniment.
This historical release is still available in limited quantities and is
now reviewed, along with another historical B'nai
B'rith Recordings release from the same year, featuring Sybil Michelow,
soprano (now alto) and the late Master of the Queen's Music Malcolm
Williamson In Recital. This features an outstanding
selection of songs covering the period from the late Romantic to the late
20th century, all by Jewish composers or on Jewish themes. Both of these
historic releases are available from Jewish
Music Distribution UK, and CD re-issues are being contemplated.
Also reviewed is Asaf Sirkis & The Inner
Noise's album Inner Noise, an outstanding work of monumental
proportions. Sirkis is perhaps best known as the drum genius in phenomenal
world jazz band Gilad
Atzmon & The Orient House Ensemble, but here is playing with
his own trio comprising in addition to the drummer, organist Steve Lodder on church organ and guitarist Mike Outram. Inner Noise is one of those
impossible to confine to any genre works, blending elements of jazz, progressive
rock, classical music and Middle Eastern music in a fantastic (in the original
sense of that word as well as the common) fusion for the 21st century.
Influences range from Olivier Messiaen to Emerson, Lake and Palmer, and
the recording took place at St. Michael's Church, Highgate, North London.
More soon.
Rainlore's World of Music
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Reviews
The reviews pages are one of the major features of this site. Generally, reviews feature CD albums, but they will by no means be limited to CD releases. Previews and live performances, and even the odd demo, will also be covered as and when opportunities present themselves. Also, reviews are not necessarily of the latest releases
only, rather, I aim to generally cover the best of what's around and that will often include reviews of older releases. Also, there is a page listing all CD reviews available on Rainlore's World of Music, which includes reviews of music from other genres, for example Jewish music, steel pan music, Jazz, in fact just about anything, and
another one listing all live music
reviews.
Latest reviews as of 2004/04/13:
BBC Concert Orchestra, Cond. Robert Ziegler, with The Burning Bush : In Concert at the
Royal Festival Hall, London, 25th February 2004 (2004/02/26)
The BBC Concert Orchestra Presents as part of Concert Connections/BBC
CO Learning : Vessels
of Sound - A pre-concert programme in the main foyer, Royal Festival Hall,
London, 25th February 2004 (2004/02/26)
Latest reviews as of 2004/02/04:
Helen Lawrence et al : Shostakovitch
- Song Cycle: From Jewish Folk Poetry / Alman - King Ahaz - Opera Excerpts (2004/01/27) (Audio Cassette)
Sybil Michelow & Malcolm Williamson : In
Recital (2004/01/27) (Audio Cassette)
Asaf Sirkis & The Inner Noise : Inner
Noise (2004/01/18)
Previous classical reviews:
Mariejan van Oort & Jacques Verheijen : Mayn
Fayfele - Songs of Gebirtig (2003/12/31)
Mariejan van Oort & Jacques Verheijen : Brikele
- A Concert Of Yiddish Songs (2003/12/29)
Mariejan van Oort & Jacques Verheijen : Benkshaft
- Yiddishe Lider (2003/12/17)
The World Quintet (formerly known as Kol Simcha) : Live
at Union Chapel, Islington, London, 20th November 2003 (2003/11/26)
Lloica Czackis and Tangele : Tangele
- The Pulse of Yiddish Tango at Union Chapel, Islington, London,
9th November 2003 (2003/11/12)
The Giora Feidman Quartet : TangoKlezmer:
Giora Feidman Quartet at Union Chapel, Islington, London, 23rd October
2003 (2003/10/24)
Daphna Sadeh : Out
of Border (2003/06/30)
Shirim Klezmer Orchestra : Klezmer
Nutcracker (2003/04/01)
Adrianne Greenbaum, Alissa Lieser : Sounds
of America (2003/02/20)
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