featuring Wen-Sinn Yang, cello The NSO finished their concert season two years ago, in the spring of 2015, with Bruckner’s eighth symphony, a monumental work with which I was unfortunately not familiar enough to appreciate in full at the time. … Continue reading NSO’s Bruckner 7
performed by the Coull String Quartet and Allan Schiller, piano; or below by the Sorrel Quartet with Ian Brown, piano Alice Elgar was quite right: it is a new urgency, pointed and refined by the discipline of writing chamber music, a … Continue reading Elgar Piano Quintet in Am, op. 84
I was not prepared for such excellence. The last two years were big years for foreign ensembles coming to grace our concert hall. Truth be told, though, I’m sure there’s been a continuous string of five-star visitors, but it’s only been in … Continue reading Oslo Philharmonic in Taipei
performed by the London Symphony Orchestra under Sir Colin Davis, or below with Davis and the Staatskapelle Dresden I’ll be honest: this is a work that really never made a single impression on me until I sat down to focus … Continue reading Elgar Symphony no. 1 in A-flat major, Op. 55
performed by the Coull Quartet, or below by the Maggini String Quartet (do note that the video below is both the quartet and the quintet; the quartet itself is only about a half hour in performance) It is full of golden sounds … Continue reading Sir Edward Elgar: String Quartet in E minor, Op. 83
Fugue for Thought 