Beethoven’s homage to nature

Premières Symphonies Works by Bizet, Gounod and Saint-Saëns Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo/Kazuki Yamada Alpha Classics ALPHA1149 89:27 mins (2CD) The most familiar of these three classically

A luxury spa hotel in the Bavarian Alps, where a day of mountain views and gourmet food is topped by a world-class concert? Schloss Elmau, south of Munich near Garmisch-Partenkirchen, seems a positive

Often admired and adored during their lifetimes, the great composers would, you might think, enjoy similar reverence after death. Once the last rites had been read, surely these great cultural icons w

Echoes of Exile Works by Bartók, Ben-Haim, Enescu, Ysaÿe and Zimmermann Sueye Park (violin) BIS BIS-2332 63:06 mins Turbulence from the Second World War impacts most of the composers on this album. Th

After a life-threatening illness spurred Helene Kröller-Müller to make plans for a museum, she bought modern art voraciously, forming an extraordinary collection that shaped the early-20th-century perception of Vincent van Gogh

I enjoyed reading Francesco Piemontesi’s Concert Heaven, Concert Hell interview (September) about his ‘best’ and ‘worst’ performance... in the semi-final of the Elisabeth Competition in 2007! In fact,