One might not think Beethoven could fall victim to Covid-19 but in a way he has. With the closure of our concert venues live performances of his music have either been postponed or abandoned. Unfortunate really as this year celebrates the 250th anniversary of his birth. At the time of writing, the National String Quartet…

Had all gone according to plan, I should be in Salzburg – Mozart’s birthplace – this evening (August 6) at Richard Strauss’ opera Elektra. But, as ‘man proposes and God disposes’, I abandoned my travels. Anyway, the Festival, celebrating its centenary this year, cancelled its original programme, proposing something less adventurous instead. With a ‘select…

Mention Mozart’s operas and possibly four spring to mind immediately – The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, Cosi fan tutte and The Magic Flute – but there others not least La clemenza di Tito, which like The Magic Flute, was written in the last months of the composer’s life in 1791. But going back a…

In my previous column, I left Charles Villiers Stanford as deputy organist of Trinity College, Cambridge in 1873. He was promoted the following year but before accepting the principal post stipulated that he be allowed to study in Germany during the next two summers. Cambridge agreed and Stanford went to Leipzig. It didn’t work well.…

Relatively recently, I mentioned Charles Villiers Stanford in relation to his opera The Veiled Prophet. This spurred me on to delve further into the archives and discover more about the composer born in Dublin’s Herbert Street in 1852. His father, a well-to-do lawyer, John James, was a cellist and noted bass who sang the title…

Had all gone according to plan, I intended being in the National Botanic Gardens this evening (Thursday,  June 11) listening to music by Webern, Mendelssohn and Shostakovich played by the visiting Novus Quartet – a group of young Koreans creating a favourable impression wherever they perform. The Quartet’s visit was scheduled as part of the…

Had everything gone according to plan, Manchester’s Hallé Orchestra would be in the National Concert Hall next Tuesday (June 2) under Sir Mark Elder, its principal conductor since 2000. The concert promised an interesting Franco-Russian mix with Ravel surrounded by Rachmaninov and Stravinsky. I was looking forward to it, as the Hallé’s visits, despite the…

I am grateful for a recent email from Dr Una Hunt telling me that Charles Villiers Stanford’s opera The Veiled Prophet [of Khurassan] is now available to view on the RTÉ Player. The recording was made at last year’s Wexford Festival when David Brophy conducted its single performance. Excepting Polish baritone Simon Mechlieski as the…

Mozart’s two Piano Quartets date from the mid 1780s – a period that also brought, among many other things, five of his major piano concerti, two important string quartets and his opera Le nozze di Figaro. While there were earlier incursions by less well-remembered figures into the piano quartet arena, it took Mozart to raise…

In what has become a tradition, the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra has established Good Friday afternoon at the National Concert Hall as an occasion for Bach through either one of his two Passions or something else from the treasury of his choral works. Due to my commitment to my own church’s liturgies I have had…