Sydney Symphony Orchestra
Podcast - Something we need to know about Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius – a catechism
2008
For most people, as for Elgar himself, the religious content of The Dream of Gerontius will be the touchstone. The overwhelming effect of - repellent, maybe, to some, compelling, surely, to more - is the intensity of Elgar’s musical response to his subject…
Podcast - Mahler-Nietzsche
Sydney Symphony Orchestra, 2010
In 1901, about to marry Alma Schindler, Gustav Mahler discovered an edition of writings by Nietzsche on her bookshelves and ordered her to throw it into the fire. But he had made a setting of Nietzsche’s words in 1896. What had changed his mind about the great German philosopher in the next five years? ...
Interval feature Avoiding Catastrophe - Conducting Haydn and Bruckner
ABC Classic FM, August 2009
The concert we’re listening to has a feature which is quite unusual. The program consists of two symphonies, one by Haydn, one by Bruckner, and there is no concerto, no soloist. This throws the emphasis on the orchestra itself, and even more on its conductor….
Piano Recital – Pierre-Laurent Aimard plays Messiaen’s Vingt Regards
14 March 2016
A huge single piece fills this piano recital. It is about the Christ –child, but I’ll call it ‘Vingt Regards’, not to show off my French, but because each of the possible translations tells us something about the music.