ManchesterOnline

Roger's journey to Proms

RADIO 3's supremo is tackling the ultimate musical challenge with gusto, writes Robert Beale.

‘The Poacher’ and ‘Samson’ @ Buxton Festival

THE 30th Buxton Festival and the biggest and the best, they’re saying. But is biggest automatically best?

Street Scene/A Chair in Love @ Buxton Opera House

PICTURE a downbeat tenement in New York’s Bronx in the 1920s and you have the setting of Kurt Weill’s dazzling piece of musical theatre.

Carmen @ Clonter Theatre

WITH a new “earthy” translation by Rory Bremner in serious mode, Clonter’s Carmen promised to be an exciting prospect.

Dido and Aeneas 1700 @ Buxton Festival

THE New London Consort’s version of Purcell’s Dido And Aeneas, directed by Jonathan Miller, is a considerable scoop for Buxton Festival.

Chester Summer Music Festival

THIS year's Chester Summer Music Festival seems designed to prove that good things can come in small packages.

Festival fun in Buxton

IT'S Buxton Festival time again - and enterprising artistic director, Old Mancunian Andrew Greenwood, is hoping everyone will have a ball, with an opera about billiards the main attraction.

Russell Watson @ M.E.N. Arena

THE Salford born tenor known simply as The Voice, bravely defied the odds last night as he stepped back on to the stage to a hero's welcome.

Jenkins to hit Arena high notes

OPERA fans have a treat in store as singing sensation Katherine Jenkins is on song for a pre-Christmas M.E.N. Arena date.

Boogie down to Tatton

THE annual Tatton Park picnic concerts have been announced - and are set to attract thousands of music lovers from across the region.

Ewa's first on Halle podium

THE world-famous Halle Orchestra is to have its first permanent female conductor.

Romeo et Juliette @ The Lowry

AS the Andrew Lloyd Webber of the 19th century, Gounod knew what he could do well and stuck to it, which makes his style seem very limited in emotional range today.

BBC Philharmonic: Brahms & Schumann @ Bridgewater Hall

"DISCOVER Brahms and Schumann" was the invitation from the BBC Philharmonic for the final four concerts of their season.

Dido and Aeneas @ Manchester Cathedral

DOING opera without scenery and in come-as-you-are costume is not a new idea, but it certainly saves on the outgoings account.

Viva La Diva @ M.E.N. Arena

KATHERINE Jenkins and Darcey Bussell’s song 'n dance show first appeared at The Lowry last year. They went down such a storm with audiences that they are back, filling arenas, bowing out at the M.E.N. Arena.

BBC Philharmonic @ Bridgewater Hall

THE BBC Philharmonic's idea of offering music of 'neglected genius' took on a new aspect in Saturday's concert: in Berg's Seven Early Songs we had a neglected work by an undoubted genius.

Halle Orchestra @ Bridgewater Hall

VIOLIN virtuosa Alina Pogostkina had appeared with Mark Elder and the Hallé before this week, but not in Manchester.

Halle Orchestra @ Bridgewater Hall

IT was a brave decision by Mark Elder and the Halle to honour his predecessor, Hamilton Harty, as a composer by giving his setting The Mystic Trumpeter, Walt Whitman’s visionary poem.

Iolanthe @ RNCM

IF you take your imagination and sense of humour with you, you’ll enjoy this production by the award-winning Manchester University Gilbert and Sullivan Society.

Die Fledermaus @ Altrincham Garrick

THE lilting waltzes in Johan Strauss, the younger’s ‘Die Fledermaus’ are a far cry from the frenetic tempo of Sullivan’s music.

English Touring Opera @ Buxton Opera House

PRAISE be to ETO for introducing us to the American composer Carlisle Floyd’s captivating “Susannah”.

The Elixir of Love @ Clonter Opera

CLONTER Opera have form with Donizetti’s The Elixir Of Love.

Crazy For You @ RNCM

CRAZY For You by George and Ira Gershwin based on Ken Ludwig’s book, is one of those light-hearted musicals that make you feel better on the way home.

Barry Douglas @ Bridgewater Hall

THERE was something almost adsurdly generous about Barry Douglas's piano recital at the Bridgewater Hall on Monday.

Akademie Fur Alte Musik Berlin - Solomon (Harmonia Mundi)

IT must be the season for Handel oratorios - and, historically, of course, it always was, as he wrote them for use in the London theatres during Lent when normal entertainments were banned.

Amanda Roocroft, Konrad Jarnot - Elgar songs (Channel Classics)

THIS is a strange collection. It's a good idea to bring together all Elgar's songs for voice and piano - even if some exist in orchestral versions, too - but the major item in this volume is Sea Pictures.

BBC Concert Orchestra - Leroy Anderson (Naxos)

A SURVEY of American radio output of orchestral music once showed that the most frequently performed composer on the air was... not Beethoven, Mozart or any of the obvious 'greats' but... Leroy Anderson.

BBC Philharmonic - Gregson concertos (Chandos)

IF one of the touchstones of enduring worth in clasical music is the ability to keep in touch with the popular language of the time then Edward Gregson's music is going to be valued long after the more esoteric creations of today are consigned to the museum.

Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra - Stanford (Naxos)

ELGAR had a very low opinion of Stanford's music - despite the latter ensuring that he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Cambridge University - and, listening to the `Irish' symphony (1887), you can hear why.

Christian Gerhaher - Schumann Lieder (RCA)

A CD with a theme, this is entitled Melancholie, and the songs which are grouped around the Eichendorff Liederkreis are indeed pretty misery-laden.

Danielle De Niese - Handel arias (Decca)

I WONDER whether Universal signed Danielle de Niese before they'd actually heard her sing? I wouldn't blame them.

European Brandeburg Ensemble - Bach (AVIE)

I'VE been playing these CDs repeatedly over the past few days, and there could hardly be a better cheer-up sound for dark winter days than the lively and melodious sounds of Bach's great collection of instrumental inventiveness.

Imogen Cooper - Beethoven, Mozart, Ravel (Wigmore Hall)

IMOGEN COOPER'S piano playing is something of a legend in her own lifetime, as anyone who has heard her perform will know.

Hebrides Ensemble - Messiaen Chamber Works (Linn)

OLIVIER MESSIAEN was born 100 years ago this year, and celebrations of his music are coming thick and fast.

Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra - Beethoven (Harmonia Mundi)

SO do we really need another Beethoven 'Eroica'? One thing this disc affords is a little scholarly background, as they have included the Twelve Contredances in which the little tune first surfaces which Beethoven turned into, first, the finale of the Prometheus ballet music (also on the CD), and then the great variation finale of the 'Eroica'. (No room for the piano Eroica Variations as well, but you can't have everything).

Peter Donohoe, Royal Scottish National Orchestra - John Gardner (Naxos)

JOHN GARDNER is a Manchester-born composer, and, at the age of 90, still with us, though most of his life has been spent down south.

St Louis Chamber Chorus - Commissions (Regent)

THE St Louis Chamber Chorus is one of the best of many small vocal ensembles in the United States and has close links with this country, being conducted by Old Mancunian Philip Barnes (and having been founded by Britisher Ronald Arnatt).

London Handel Orchestra and Choir - Esther (Somm)

HANDEL'S Esther was his first attempt at oratorio in English - its first short version of (probably) 1718 being revised for what was still an experimental art-form in 1732.

Leland Chen, John Lenehan - Beethoven (Leland Chen)

THERE'S no shortage of recordings of Beethoven's sonatas for piano andviolin, but this pairing of two of the greatest of them all, byManchester-based virtuoso Leland Chen and John Lenehan, can stand proud with the best.

Malmo Symphony Orchestra - Ives (Naxos)

CHARLES IVES is now recognised as one of the first truly American composers and, simultaneously, as one of the greatest individualists in all music.

Pamela Thorby & Andrew Lawrence-King - Garden of Early Delights (Linn)

RENAISSANCE music,when offered by today's performers on CD, can seem to be an unvarying succession of dirges and empty flourishes - but this collection shows how wonderful some of it can sound in the right hands.

Manchester Chamber Ensemble - Antiphon: A tribute to John Manduell (Epoch)

THIS CD celebrates the 80th birthday of Sir John Manduell, whom I remember both as the dapper, flaired-trouser-wearing young boss of the Northern College of Music (before it got its 'Royal') back in 1972, as well as the ever-kindly, encouraging patriarch he is today.

Royal Scottish National Orchestra - Roussel (Naxos)

ALBERT ROUSSEL, who died in 1937, was a teacher of Satie, Varèse and Martinu and occupies a small but secure niche in French musical history.

Scottish Chamber Orchestra - Miracles (Delphian)

THERE are a lot more composers based in Scotland than Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and James Macmillan, though sometimes you would not think it. This disc is mainly filled with the recent second symphony of Edward Harper, recently retired after 40 years' teaching at Edinburgh University.

Warsaw Philharmonic - Szymanowski (Naxos)

HE may not be a household name, but the Polish composer Karol Szymanowski - born 18 years after Richard Strauss, but dying 12 years before him - left a remarkably varied set of works for orchestra, many of which are deeply fascinating.

Weimar Staatskapelle - Richard Strauss (Naxos)

STRAUSS'S Four Last Songs, written in the last 18 months or so of his life, after the ending of the Second World War, are a hauntingly beautiful evocation of the autumnal mellowness of life - and love - in old age.