1857 research outputs found
Sort by
Review of 'A biographical dictionary of English court musicians (1485–1714)' by Peter Holman, Fiona Kisby, Andrew Ashbee, and David Lasocki
No full textIn the doll's house: review of 'Sviatoslav Richter: notebooks and conversations' by Bruno Monsaingeon, translated by Stewart Spencer
No full textPlaying early clarinets: the lure of history and the myth of authenticity
No full textAsks whether the clarinet has improved since Mozart's day or has merely changed. Provides an overview of the clarinet's performance history and examines what historically aware musicians are trying to achieve, how recording has influenced performance, and the practicalities of playing old instruments that the modern-day player must take into consideration
Robert Saxton in the 1990s
No full textThe recent NMC recording of chamber music by Robert Saxton has broadened our knowledge of his oeuvre, complementing the perspective on his music that had been opened up by recordings of his orchestral works and the opera Caritas in the early 1990s. Certainly, the period 1990 to his fortieth birthday in 1993 represented a highpoint in terms of public recognition, but in recent years much of Saxton's composition has been in the more private sphere of chamber or solo music, or in the less prominent medium of choral writing, and it has received less sustained attention than its quality deserves. But while most composers are subject to fluctuations of interest, the not unalloyed distinction of being called a sucéss d'estime is a very real hazard of today's musical climate, especially for a composer who writes the sort of serious music that Saxton does; and from being frequently programmed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, his work currently seems to present less of a fashionable surface while continuing to be highly regarded by many serious commentators. But Saxton has made creative use of the 1990s as a time for thinking through the implications of his earlier music and reconsidering aspects of his style and approach to structure. This article looks at some of the music of almost the decade from Caritas (1991) to his current major project, The Legend of the Wandering Jew, an opera being conceived specifically for the medium of Radio. In the music of this period, Saxton has continued to demonstrate the ability to harness his wide intellectual interests to an essentially consistent compositional style and a single-minded artistic vision
