Midlands Classical Music Making

 BIRMINGHAM  BACH CHOIR CONCERT 14 MARCH 2026 St Chad's Cathedral   With its neo-gothic architecture and large crucifix hanging over the sanctuary, St Chad’s provided a highly appropriate backdrop for this concert of sacred music for Lent and Passiontide. The first half consisted entirely of Gesualdo’s Tenebrae Responsories for Holy Saturday, interspersed with four readings beautifully given by Archbishop Bernard Longley.   Gesualdo’s music is not for the faint-hearted and the Responsories are intense and passionate. The music is often highly chromatic and contains many surprising harmonic progressions, key changes, chromaticism and word painting at its most vivid. For the most part, the choir handled the music brilliantly and exploited the drama and text to great effect. The full throated exclamations of ‘Jerusalem’ and ‘Salvator’ in Jerusalem surge will stay long in the memory, as will some gorgeous singing by the small ‘versus’ ensemble. Whilst there were just a c...

 What is it with the culturally immature, Americans? Not only do we have a commentary two-hander before the opera which would even disgrace "Match of the Day", we have audiences determined to get in first with their applause even before the end of the magical Love Duet from Madam Butterfly. I have even heard them do this before the end of Wotan's Farewell in Walkure and the Liebestod in Tristan und Isolde, plus the rattling of their seats as they get up to leave. BBC Radio 3, do we really need to be receiving these juvenile relays from New York's Metropolitan Opera? Christopher Morley

                                                 PRESTO MUSIC OF LEAMINGTON SPA  I don't intend starting a twilight career as an influencer, but I have just had the most fantastic service from Presto Music of Leamington Spa.  I ordered a score online last night, but having placed the order I looked more closely at my cluttered shelves and realised I already possessed it. This morning I called Presto as soon as they opened, and the care and efficiency of the lady on the phone could not have been more charming. Order cancelled! At the bottom of a review there is always a mention if an event is to be repeated. This is a review of Presto Music, with its amazing range of sheet music, scores, CDs, and so much else. Christopher Morley

  THE CBSO BENEVOLENT FUND CONCERT: GREAT CAUSE, GREAT MUSIC! CBSO at Symphony Hall ★★★★★ Who is the greatest storyteller of all time? Homer, Shakespeare or Dickens perhaps? None of the above. It's a young girl of immense pluck and ingenuity called Scheherazade who captivated King Shahryar, murderously disgruntled at the infidelity of his first wife, with her ability to tell him a captivating tale every evening for 1,001 nights. She employed the two great rules of entertainment; the cliff-hanger ending, and "always leave your audience wanting more", spinning out the yarns of Aladdin and Sinbad the Sailor. She saved her life, got her man and became the inspiration for Rimsky-Korsakov's wonderfully colourful and gloriously romantic orchestral suite 'Scheherazade'. The composer gave the four sections titles, Sinbad is named in the first, but there's no strict programme, and he wrote, "All I desired was that the hearer, if he liked my piece as symphonic m...

  Norman Stinchcombe reviews the latest classical CD releases Ravel, Orchestra Works and Operas: Soloists, Orchestre National de Lyon / Slatkin (Naxos 8 CDs) ★★★★ Here's a musical treasure trove, very well played and recorded, adeptly conducted and at a bargain price. As well as Ravel's orchestral music, both rarities and favourites, we also have a selection of Ravel as orchestrator, most famously in his now standard version of Mussorgsky's 'Pictures at an Exhibition'; Ravel as completer of unfinished works as in the re-orchestrated selections from Rimsky-Korsakov's symphonic suite 'Antar' and opera 'Mlada', with interpolations of his own music for a theatre production, a premiere recording by Slatkin; Ravel the opera composer with his two delightful miniature masterpieces. Slatkin was a keen Ravel conductor in his early days with his St Louis orchestra and if the Lyon forces are less bold and dashing they have greater refinement and subtlety. In...

  NORMAN STINCHCOMBE REVIEWS A NEW BOX SET OF HERBERT VON KARAJAN'S 1970s CONCERT RECORDINGS WITH THE BERLIN PHILHARMONIC  Live in Berlin 1970-1979: Berlin Philharmoniker / Herbert von Karajan (Berlin Philharmoniker Recordings 20 CD / SACDs) ★★★★★ Herbert von Karajan was acknowledged as one of the great conductors of the 20th century in the opera house, the concert hall and on disc, selling 300 million LPs and CDs. He was appointed chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic in 1956 and under his leadership it became acknowledged as the world's finest and the combination led to Karajan being dubbed "General Music Director of Europe".  Their partnership ended acrimoniously in 1989 shortly before his death and while there had always been a small cadre of dissenting voices there now came a critical backlash. Some objections were personal as in Karajan's association with the Nazi Party although conductors like Bohm, Knappertsbusch and Furtwangler (infamously photograph...

  TRIUMPHANT HAYDN MASS DESPITE DODGY DECISIONS CBSO at Symphony Hall ★★★★ Sir Stephen Hough is a man of many talents: painter, poet, novelist, and author of books on music, religion and perfume, while still finding time to be a world-acclaimed pianist and a respected composer. Perhaps his biggest challenge was one made to him by the conductor Omer Meir Wellber's project, inviting composers to reimagine a classical work of their choice. Hough chose Beethoven's Piano Concerto No.3 in C minor, which he performed here with his own version of the second movement, possibly an act of musical hubris destined for an embarrassing fall. Hough was aware of the difficulties, "should I write something in his style? I felt it would have been pointless to write faux-Beethoven for this project, but I did want to use some of his original material as a starting point." The movement started intriguingly with a hushed wind chorale soon joined by other instruments with Hough ruminating mo...

                                             CINDERELLA                                                          The Wilmcote Players                                                           Wilmcote Village Hall ***** ...

CECILIA ENSEMBLE                                                           Elgar Concert Hall ***** Royal Birmingham Conservatoire graduate David Quigley, now a valued piano tutor there and at the University of Birmingham,(and I am proud to say a brilliant student of mine many years ago) has conceived a chamber ensemble whose opening concert on January 16 in the Elgar Concert Hall at the University proved a portent of an exciting future. Named after the patron saint of music, the Cecilia Ensemble will be flexible in its personnel; for this Barber Lunchtime Concert the line-up was violinists Caroline Pether, Marie Schreer, violist David Aspin, cellist Nicholas Trygstad, all with awesome credentials, an...

  RICHARD PHILLIPS OBITUARY Richard Phillips passed away in his sleep at the age of 85 on the night of January 30/31, and the world of music has lost one of its great promoters, champions and entrepreneurs. He has left a huge legacy in the West Midlands, as Helen Beecroft, who succeeded him as director of Warwick Arts Society and Leamington Music, says: “Richard was such a wonderful man - a true inspiration and an immense force for good in his unceasing championship of music. His incredible career in the arts has brought music to the ears and hearts of so many; from his first job at Sadler's Wells Opera, via the Yorkshire Arts Association, Warwick Arts Society, and Leamington Music, Richard created or directed 109 festivals including founding the York Early Music Festival and the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and his amazing work earned him many much-deserved awards - not least the MBE for services to music and the arts in 2016. ” He built an impressive network o...

  Norman Stinchcombe reviews the latest classical CD releases Shostakovich Complete Symphonies: Soloists, London Philharmonic Choir, London Symphony Orchestra & Chorus / Noseda (LSO Live 10 CDs & SACDs) ★★★★★ This must be the classical music bargain of the year. Ten discs, in both standard and high resolution formats, nearly twelve hours of music in a handsome box which includes a 190-page booklet with notes on all fifteen symphonies plus full texts and translations of those which include songs and choruses. It's currently retailing on Amazon at £35.60 which is less than the cost of three single discs. None of this would matter one iota if the performances were not first class  – they are. This set is a nine year collaboration between Gianandrea Noseda, the LSO's Principal Guest Conductor, but the live recordings show great consistency over that time span. The Italian conductor's deep knowledge of Shostakovich's music began when he was appointed Principal Guest ...

  STARS AND STRIPES FOREVER WITH THE CBSO CBSO at Symphony Hall ★★★★ Forget about Paris as portrayed by France’s great artists; the impressionist masterpieces of Monet and Pissarro, Renoir's bustling Montmartre and Seurat's painstaking pointillist Eiffel Tower. In 'An American in Paris' George Gershwin paints the city in bold, garish primary colours, the musical equivalent of Pop Art thirty years before the movement was invented. It's a crackling, zinging piece, the city seen from the viewpoint of a wide-eye naïf seduced and entranced by its romance and bustle, so busy soaking in the sights that he's almost knocked down by the traffic - listen out for the four parping taxi horns blasting out their warning. It demands a huge orchestra with the CBSO spread to the ends of the platform to accommodate its massively reinforced percussion and wind sections, the latter including three saxophones to add to the jazz-tinged flavour. All that power requires deft handling an...