Peter Quantrill

Peter Quantrill  |  Oct 21, 2024  |  0 comments
Autobiography, revolution, angst and transcendence: music was never the same after the scandalous premiere of the Second Quartet. Peter Quantrill explores its history

There are pieces where you can hear the world - of music, of art, of human history - turning on its axis. Arnold Schoenberg's Second Quartet is one of those pieces. At the premiere in December 1908, one newspaper critic sensed and feared this (r)evolution in sound, saying it was 'like a convocation of all the neighbourhood cats'.

Peter Quantrill  |  Oct 21, 2024  |  0 comments
A century-old legend of suspicion and exceptionalism continues to haunt attitudes towards English music, says Peter Quantrill - and it appears that it's the English who won't let it go

The spring cleaning of schedules at BBC Radio 3 took its listeners by surprise, to judge from comments both within and outside the media. The 'shop window' of Record Review on a Saturday morning moved to the first floor, in the afternoon. The spoken-word programmes were shunted off to Radio 4, while Friday Night Is Music Night has resurrected an antique Radio 2 title. The channel's once-serious coverage of new and contemporary music is almost entirely effaced under the controllership of Sam Jackson, who formerly headed up Classic FM.

Peter Quantrill  |  Oct 02, 2024  |  0 comments
A jealous husband, a young nun, a cunning father... late-style lightness of touch is the key when it comes to this still-underrated masterpiece of verismo, says Peter Quantrill

By rights, every major opera company should be mounting Il trittico in this Puccini anniversary year, marking the centenary of his death. Yet they will likely revive the reliable house-fillers of Butterfly, Tosca and Turandot, and the reasons are not hard to find. Trittico lacks a true diva role. It demands instead a tightly knit company cast of diverse talents, and a conductor and director who both believe in the unity of the whole as its composer did.

Peter Quantrill  |  Sep 26, 2024  |  0 comments
This month we review: Orch National de France/MAcelaru, Sol Gabetta/Bertrand Chamayou, Michael Spyres, Les Talens Lyriques/Christophe Rousset, and Stéphany, Spence, Foster-Williams, Gabrieli Consort et al/McCreesh .
Peter Quantrill  |  Sep 12, 2024  |  0 comments
With programme notes now written and translated by chatbots, and record covers created by image generators, can the first classical AI recording be far behind? Peter Quantrill thinks not

It was the word homotonal that caught my eye. Surely no one writes like that in 2024, I wondered to myself. I read on. ‘Similar to Plato’s ideas of the imprint of moral virtues onto the human soul through music…’ – eh? Bear in mind I was reading a booklet note to accompany a new album of Mozart’s piano sonatas. I flipped the page to look for the author’s credit. No name given.

Peter Quantrill  |  Sep 09, 2024  |  0 comments
This month we review: Christina Landshamer, Akademie für das alte Musik Berlin/BERNHARD Forck, Yomiuri Nippon SO/Skrowaczewski, Asmik Grigorian, and Christophe Rousset
Peter Quantrill  |  Aug 30, 2024  |  0 comments
Centuries ahead of his time, Kraus was the master of Scandi noir, says Peter Quantrill, in a catalogue of symphonies and theatre pieces crying out for wider recognition

The title is neither original, nor strictly accurate. Born five months after Mozart in June 1756, Kraus grew up in the German town of Buchen im Odenwald. His father was a clerk who (not unreasonably) regarded music as an unstable profession and pressed his son into a law degree. The plan failed, and by the age of 20 Kraus had composed pieces for the church including a Te Deum, a Requiem and a Passion oratorio [see Essential Recordings, opposite].

Peter Quantrill  |  Aug 07, 2024  |  0 comments
They’re everywhere, says Peter Quantrill, but let’s dispel dyspeptic indignation and instead see young and gifted conductors as a sign of hope when it comes to the future of classical music. Tarmo Peltokoski is among the most youthful and gifted products of Jorma Panula’s conducting class at the Helsinki Conservatoire in Finland

As a follower of cricket and football, I got used years ago to seeing professionals at the top of their game (sorry), who had been born within the current millennium. But conductors? DG has lately been making a song and dance about their latest signing, Tarmo Peltokoski. Born in April 2000, he is now principal guest conductor of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, and DG has recorded and filmed them together in a trio of Mozart’s mature symphonies.

Peter Quantrill  |  Jul 28, 2024  |  0 comments
This month we review: Majeski, O’Neill, Dalayman, LSO/Rattle, Leonskaja, Lucerne SO/Sanderling, Magnificat/Philip Cave, BBC Concert Orch/Rebecca Miller
Peter Quantrill  |  Jul 28, 2024  |  0 comments
A simple Quaker hymn is the key to a classic mid-century ballet, says Peter Quantrill, as he surveys recordings of both the chamber original and the orchestral suite.

The Gift To Be Simple’, an old Shaker tune quoted and developed throughout Appalachian Spring, could be the motto for a major part of Copland’s work. Copland could write hard-edged pieces with the best of them, and did so especially at the beginning and end of his career with works such as the Vitebsk piano trio of 1928 and the magnificent orchestral Inscape (1967). By contrast, his famous scores of the 1930s and ’40s develop an aesthetic of simplicity and accessibility exemplified by Appalachian Spring, which he composed for the dancer and choreographer Martha Graham.

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