Music
More than a yard of tickets to the Proms!
I visited the Keswick Oxfam shop on my way to buy local bread and milk. Keswick’s charity shops have beguiled me on many occasions and have provided pretty things to gather dust as well as useful stuff. Sometimes called Keswick’s department stores, they are famous as places to browse, especially on a wet afternoon when it’s not worth hiking any more: the shop is dry and their stock is generally good quality and interesting. This time I got “caught” by new stock of classical CDs. Here are my thoughts on trawling through some other music collector’s trove.
Quatuor pour la fin du Temp, Olivier Messiaen - Église de La Grave, Festival Messiaen 2026
An extraordinary concert, marked by the extreme commitment of both the musicians and the audience, resulting in an exceptional partnership for the performance. La Grave isn’t easy to get to so everyone had made effort to be at the concert.
Standing ovation for Patrick Geel’s dynamic performance of the Bach Toccata & Fugue in D minor BWV 565
AUDITIONS DU MARCHÉ 2025-2026
Grand Orgue de Notre-Dame du Mont, Marseille
Standing ovations for Patrick Geel at the end of his performance of JS Bach’s D minor Toccata and Fugue, then again after Widor’s well-known Toccata from his Fifth organ symphony, the final piece in his programme at the Grand Orgue de Notre-Dame du Mont, Marseille; the organ was built (1847-49) by Pierre-Alexandre Ducroquet.
Read more: Patrick Geel at the organ of Notre-Dame du Mont, Marseille
Tonight’s First Night of Siegfried had to be one of the most fantastic staging and singing ever of Siegfried’s forging song. Andreas Schager’s characterisation of the wild boy Siegfried smelting and forging using machines that look Heath-Robinson but appear convincing in their metalworking functions was utterly compelling. He gave us muscular singing, sparks from the anvil, juggling with forging hammers and joyous characterisation with the vitality of the youth who knows no fear. One of the great Siegfrieds and a highlight of the whole cycle.
Brilliant new production in English by ENO at the London Coliseum of The Rise and Fall of The City of Mahagonny. Brecht tackles the big themes: food, sex, fights and whiskey: so basically decadence. Weil’s music fortifies this, both in songs and underpinning dialogue and speeches. The Coliseum is one of London’s largest stages but the austere staging and lighting managed to convey the aesthetic of an intimate production, as in the early Berlin performances at the Kroll theatre.
The Rise and Fall of The City of Mahagonny is an opera that is still difficult to take in because of its overt political commentary, much of which seems simplistic and now dated. The first night of Mahagonny in Berlin in 1930 was besieged by protesters, not the only opera in history to trigger riots but these were Nazis and eventually they destroyed almost all of copies of Mahagonny when the publishers were raided then burnt out.
Read more: The Rise and Fall of The City of Mahagonny - ENO at the London Coliseum
