The Bangor Music Festival (1st–6th March) begins with a St. David’s Day choral extravaganza performed by Côr Glanaethwy. The programme includes music by a number of living composers, including Karl Jenkins, Gareth…
From his exuberant Opus 1, the Sonata for Solo Trumpet written for Elgar Howarth, music for brass has been an important part of the Maxwell Davies catalogue. This disk provides a useful…
The shenanigans at English National Opera would seem to be an obvious vindication of Micawber's advice regarding fiscal contentedness. We are entitled to ask, however: to what extent should an arts organisation…
I don’t often like themed collections of music, especially where they emphasise those qualities – 50 relaxing classics! The Only Classical Chillout Album You'll Ever Need! – that seem to require that…
Thanks to Orchestration Online for this nice comment about Composition Today and my blog: 'This website doesn’t screw around. It’s got up-to-date information about concerts, recordings, news affecting composers, and…
A very happy birthday to Henri Dutilleux, that other great post-war French composer, who would have been 100 on Friday. If you are in Paris for his anniversaire there will be a discussion…
The death of Pierre Boulez marks the end of a remarkable, and often controversial, era in Western music. The last, and arguably greatest, composer of the postwar avant garde, he…
The Shadows of Time, Le temps l’horloge, Mystère de l’instant. Henri Dutillleux was a composer always interested in the concept of time. And, as I write this on a cloudy day in…
A recent release on Harmonia Mundi contains two important Dutilleux works for cello, the diminutive but weightily-argued, Trois Strophes sur le nom de Sacher, for solo cello and Tout un monde lointain (effectively a cello concerto…
The works included on Seattle Symphony Orchestra’s recent Dutilleux disk make a good introduction to the composer’s music, even if I think arranging them chronologically would have given a better insight into his…