Author Archives: vhk10

Prom 66: Mahler’s 11th

Posted on September 7, 2010 by vhk10

One of my great regrets with regard to singing came back in 2002 when I was for a short time in the Cambridge University Musical Society (CUMS) chorus. Members were invited to join a performance of Mahler 8 later that … Continue reading →

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Being blackmailed

Posted on August 22, 2010 by vhk10

For obvious reasons I’m not naming people or organisations involved in this story. I am also falsifying the date. But I want my feelings to be on record. We have been invited to join another local choir to sing a … Continue reading →

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Prom 37

Posted on August 20, 2010 by vhk10

Others in the family got to this Prom, with the BBC Philharmonic conducted by Gianandrea Noseda. It was rather a mixed bag but went down well. After the overture to La Forza del Destino, there was the novelty of Dallapiccola’s … Continue reading →

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LPs batch 24: Liszt

Posted on August 9, 2010 by vhk10

Quite a lot of piano and chamber music remain to be done, and I tackled some of it in this batch. Beginning with two discs of quartets from Eastern Europe: a Supraphon of the Smetana Quartet playing Janáček’s and the … Continue reading →

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LPs batch 23: the end of romanticism

Posted on July 29, 2010 by vhk10

This batch began with the second LP of Dvořák’s Slavonic Dances and overture My Home. Then a treasured disc of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf singing Strauss; we have been unable to agree on whether her performance of the Four Last Songs or … Continue reading →

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a new organ at Llandaff

Posted on July 27, 2010 by vhk10

I got away for a weekend singing in Llandaff Cathedral with the Erleigh Cantors: a new venue for them, though one I’d sung in a couple of times before. This time there was a very new organ – we must … Continue reading →

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LPs batch 22: Op. 0

Posted on July 12, 2010 by vhk10

This batch was mostly the Æolian Quartet playing Haydn, including his very earliest quartets and the entertainingly numbered Op. 0. After that came Dvořák’s Slavonic Dances (together with another version of his Scherzo Capriccioso) played by the Bavarian Radio SO … Continue reading →

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LPs batch 21: Sibelius and Haydn

Posted on July 5, 2010 by vhk10

By this stage I felt like doing some blocks rather than odd single discs. I finished off the Sibelius symphonies, which are mostly conducted by Karajan or Ashkenazy but we have Kamu doing no. 2. Then it was onto a … Continue reading →

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LPs batch 20: displaying umlauts

Posted on June 29, 2010 by vhk10

Our Sibelius LPs are a nice tidy batch comprising six discs containing the symphonies and a few other well-known pieces. This batch included the ones conducted by Karajan. I’m now beginning to finish certain categories and the last of Mozart’s … Continue reading →

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LPs: batch 19 – trying to finish Shostakovich

Posted on June 15, 2010 by vhk10

I realised I’d been neglecting chamber music, so I moved on to an LP of Mozart’s piano quartets with the Beaux Arts trio, followed by a couple of string quartets performed by the Quartetto Italiano. Representing solo piano in this … Continue reading →

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a shortened Festival

Posted on June 7, 2010 by vhk10

The Navarra quartet was in the end the only Bath Festival concert I got to. (For most of the rest of the Festival we were away from Bath.) I considered going to hear Exaudi perform a programme that mixed Tudor … Continue reading →

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the Navarra quartet in Chew Magna

Posted on May 30, 2010 by vhk10

The late Miles Kington once passed an observation made to him that many Somerset village names could be those of lawyers from American TV mini-series. I can’t however imagine a lawyer called Chew Magna, one of my favourites, where I … Continue reading →

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