Wednesday, 4 November 2026

Mentor and Muse: Songs by Vaughan Williams and the women around him.

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It is worth stating from the outset that Kitty Whately has a genuinely compelling voice. Her rich, warm mezzo-soprano, combined with her dra...
Sunday, 1 November 2026

Ralph Vaughan Williams: Six Studies in English Folk Song (1926)

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The Six Studies in English Folk Song were written a century ago in 1926. The previous year, Ralph Vaughan Williams had completed a number of...
Thursday, 29 October 2026

From Ursula, with Love: Unreleased Recordings of Vaughan Williams's Music.

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This CD collects a number of historic Vaughan Williams recordings curated by his widow, Ursula. These were entrusted to Stephen Connock, the...
Monday, 26 October 2026

John F. Porte’s “Gustav Holst” (Musical Courier, 1923): An Annotated Reprint: Part 2

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The second part of John F. Porte’s essay on Gustav Holst considers the music in more detail. A few notes are appended at the end of the essa...
Friday, 23 October 2026

John F. Porte’s “Gustav Holst” (Musical Courier, 1923): An Annotated Reprint Part 1

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John F. Porte was an early‑20th‑century British musical author best known for his accessible studies of composers and his advocacy for melod...
Tuesday, 20 October 2026

Rarities of Piano Music at Schloss vor Husum 2025

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Hong Kong born pianist Chiyan Wong gets this selection from Husum 2025 off to a great start with Naji Hakim’s Variations on “Auprès de ma b...
Saturday, 17 October 2026

Frederic Curzon: Simonetta (1933)

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Simonetta , the sophisticated and gently wistful lady suggested by Curzon’s Serenade, feels like a refined echo of inter‑war London society ...
Wednesday, 14 October 2026

Fusions: Piano Music of Nikolai Kapustin, George Gershwin and Earl Wild

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In 55 years of listening to classical music, this is the first time I have consciously heard anything by the Ukrainian composer Nikolai Kapu...
Sunday, 11 October 2026

Art and Charity in Harmony: Lady Radnor’s Concert at St James’s Hall

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A few days I posted about Charles Hubert Hastings Parry remarkable Lady Radnor’s Suite for string orchestra. It was premiered on the 29 Jun...
Thursday, 8 October 2026

A Year at Portsmouth...

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It was fifty years ago that I was last in Portsmouth Cathedral. There was no service on, the organ was not playing but the door was open, so...