Midlands Classical Music Making

  SLIMMED-DOWN STRAVINSKY STILL DAZZLES CBSO at Symphony Hall ★★★★ You wait for ages for a bus and then two come along or, in this case, works by Hindemith. Having been delighted last month with the CBSO's masterly 'Symphonic Metamorphosis of the Themes by Carl Maria von Weber' - performances of the German master's music being in the blue moon region of frequency - here was an exquisitely crafted powerhouse performance of the 'Concert Music for Strings and Brass'. Hindemith ought to have inserted the words "Lots of" in the title for this was no modest chamber piece. A huge array of brass, including a horn section, was perched impressively all along the rear of the platform, looking down on a massive string section, with first and second fiddles six desks deep. The opening direction is "mit Kraft" (with power) and the CBSO obliged in what sounded like the opening skirmish of a battle. You want loud? We'll give you loud... as the brass sect...

                                      JOE DAVIES CONDUCTS MAHLER’S SYMPHONY OF A THOUSAND                                                                         By Christopher Morley   Mahler’s Eighth Symphony, the “Symphony of a Thousand”, does not quite live up to its name. For its world premiere in Munich, in 1910 there were only around 400 people on the platform, performing under the composer’s baton. This monumental work has as its first part a ...

                               NICKY SPENCE AND DYLAN PEREZ                                            Royal Pump Rooms, Leamington Spa *****   Jetlag? What jetlag? Such was the exhilaration and emotional energy communicated by this captivating recital in the Leamington Music Festival 2026 it was difficult to credit that the singer had flown in overnight after performing in Paris and that the pianist had landed from New York that very morning . This poignant, brilliantly-constructed programme devised by tenor Nicky Spence and accompanist Dylan Perez was all about the mystery of childhood and its relationship with the adult wo...

  Norman Stinchcombe reviews the latest classical CD releases Bach 'Goldberg Variations': Radek Baborák  et.al . (Animal Music CD) ★★★★ Bach's aria and thirty variations were composed for a keyboard player called Goldberg to induce sleep for his insomniac aristocratic employer. "Dear Goldberg, do play me one of my variations," he would insist, so Bach's biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel tells us. A good tale but probably apocryphal; what's certain is that it's one of Bach's crowning achievements and was, as the 1741 published score puts it, "Composed for connoisseurs, for the refreshment of their spirits." There are dozens of keyboard recordings to choose from, played on the two manual harpsichord, the instrument Bach composed it for, and the modern concert grand. Musicians cannot resist the Goldberg spell and there are also recordings of transcriptions for an immense variety of soloists and ensembles including: solo harp, solo accordion,...