Lord of the ring

Verdi’s dramatic operas are among the most popular, but grief nearly halted his output and the Italian composer and countryman only returned to creativity after finding solace on his farm, reports Henrietta Bredin

‘We’re going to have a tonal centre and tap our feet, and that’s the way it is.’ Steve Reich is in full flow, talking to me from his home in New York. ‘The big break, the knife down the line, was betw

Robert Thicknesse on Opera ● WE HAVE THE ...

Cappella Amsterdam; Noord Nederlands Orkest/ Daniel Reuss Pentatone PTC5187489 72:42 mins ‘He always was and still is ahead of everybody.’ The words of Stravinsky’s musical assistant and colleague, Ro

Georges Bizet is probably not the first name to come to mind when we think of French composers of piano music. Indeed, few of us would think of Bizet as a piano composer at all, such is the towering s

National Symphony Orchestra/ Gianandrea Noseda NSO NSO0022 75:12 mins Mahler’s mad-cap Seventh is the toughest of his symphonies to conceptualise and to execute. Lacking any explicit programme, two of