This day marks the anniversary of the premieres of two Haydn symphonies, from the group of 14 known as the ‘London’ symphonies.
The two works in question are the Symphony no.97 in C major, and the last of Haydn’s symphonies, the one known as the ‘London’ symphony – no.104. Both can be heard below:
Published post no.2,522 – Sunday 4 May 2025
by Ben Hogwood
What’s the story?
Lawrence Hart enjoyed a roundabout route to his debut album. From the age of five he was learning the piano; fast forward to 15 and he was studying jazz trumpet at SUNY Purchase in New York.
More recently he has explored electronic music writing, supported by close friend and Domino labelmate George FitzGerald. Hart already has an impressive history of releases on labels including Hotflush, Attack Decay Sweet Release and LG105, but now he releases a debut album he describes as an ‘emotional garage record, euphoric and therapeutic’.
What’s the music like?
Hart writes from the heart, you could say – and the result is a record that acts like an exploding sweet. By that I mean that everything on the surface is as it should be – strong production, tight structures, good tunes – but that once you start getting into each track there are clear emotional threads, sudden and euphoric highs, thrilling beats and an approach to music that speaks of pure enjoyment.
Out Of The Rain is excellent, with a real spring in its step and big room hooks, while Just Belong has an equally strong rush. Fucking Mega piles up beats to thrilling effect, while NoMoreLuv4u is a pulsating gem of a groove.
The vocals are often helium-inflected but to really good effect, layered up in the likes of Love U Bring to complement the clipped beats and spacious, big room textures.
Does it all work?
It does. There is no messing about, no padding, just straight ahead musical thrills and a love of dancing. Hart takes in older garage influences but makes it all sound freshly painted.
Is it recommended?
Very much so – thrills and spills to be had on a record full of feeling and positive energy.
For fans of… Jamie xx, James Blake, Wookie, Todd Edwards
Listen / Buy
Published post no.2,521 – Saturday 3 May 2025
by Ben Hogwood
A personal post for today, which marks the 10th anniversary of the passing of my mother Coralie. If you’ve been reading Arcana for a while you might know that I have a lot to thank my mum for, not least in terms of musical inspiration! Here is a post I wrote nearly ten years ago, detailing her influence.
Here, though, I would like to leave one of her favourite classical pieces, Dvořák‘s Symphony no.8 in G major – not least because it’s a beautiful spring day in the UK, which she would have loved! Keep resting peacefully, Mum.
Published post no.2,520 – Friday 2 May 2025
From the press release:
The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) today announces its 2025-26 season, presenting a compelling programme of concerts deeply connected to the city’s vibrant cultural identity.
Findings from the orchestra’s new “Listening Project” – a West Midlands focused research initiative reveals Birmingham’s strong cultural confidence. The new research shows 60% of Birmingham residents consider attending arts and cultural events to be a vital aspect of their free time. In addition, public support for Birmingham’s music venues is strong: 79% of people say they have attended a Birmingham venue in the last year – and 57% say they haven’t felt the need to travel beyond the city for music concerts.
In line with this, the CBSO has crafted a season that brings together world-class classical performances, diverse cultural collaborations, and accessible community events that reflect what Birmingham audiences value most.
CBSO Music Director, Kazuki Yamada, comments: “Our 2025-26 season celebrates both our classical heritage and Birmingham’s diverse cultural voices. We’re bringing orchestral music directly to communities across the city – honouring traditional masterworks while creating experiences that reflect what Birmingham audiences have told us they value most.”
The CBSO’s 2025-26 season at a glance
Classical tradition at its finest
The 2025-26 season offers ambitious classical programming:
· Kazuki Yamada enters his second year as Music Director by beginning a full Mahler Symphony Cycle with Symphony No.1, and leading more than 10 concerts in Birmingham, including as part of CBSO in the City.
· Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius opens the season with the full CBSO Chorus.
· Puccini’s Tosca in concert featuring Natalya Romaniw, Gwyn Hughes Jones and Sir Bryn Terfel.
· The CBSO season has drawn top international soloists, including; Isata Kanneh-Mason, Benjamin Grosvenor, and Lisa Batiashvili.
Celebrating Birmingham’s cultural diversity
Building on successful past collaborations, the CBSO continues to champion the city’s rich cultural tapestry:
· Black Lives in Music brings a taste of their celebrated classical music festival to Birmingham with the return of award-winning singer-songwriter Laura Mvula to her hometown.
· The CBSO & The Orchestral Qawwali Project, a glorious blend of Sufi poetry, Indian Classical dance and symphony orchestra returns to Birmingham.
· Rushil Ranjan leads an evening that celebrates the musical and spiritual connections between western and eastern classical music.
· Satnam Rana presents Bringing the Light, an evening dedicated to celebrating light and winter festivals, including new commissions from contemporary voices including Cassie Kinoshi, Joan Armatrading and Roxanna Panufnik.
Taking music to Birmingham’s communities
The CBSO continues its commitment to bringing music directly to communities across the city:
· CBSO in the City week (23-28 July 2025) will return – as the CBSO delivers free music in public spaces throughout Birmingham.
Music for everyone
The season includes accessible programming designed to welcome new audiences:
· The complete Star Wars Original Trilogy performed over a full weekend, with live orchestra (24-26 October 2025).
· Symphonic Queen celebrating one of the UK’s greatest-ever rock bands.
· Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush with live orchestra.
Inspiring music experiences for children and students
The CBSO’s 2025-26 season will also feature a strong focus on young people, giving more than 20,000 young people enriching music experiences through 36 concerts specifically designed for young people:
· Targeted Schools’ Concerts for different key stages, reaching thousands of children who might otherwise never experience live orchestral music.
· Notelets performances specifically designed for toddlers and young children’s first music experiences – these fun-filled interactive concerts give children the freedom to dance, sing and learn about musical instruments for the first time.
· Relaxed Concerts created for pupils attending Special Schools to enable pupils to experience live music in a supported, accessible and engaging environment.
· Four dedicated family concerts including “Music from the Movies”, “CBSO Family Christmas”, “Tunes & Tales” and “Dance Across America.”
“Our new season is a magnificent celebration of music” says Emma Stenning, CBSO Chief Executive, who promises that 2025-26 will deliver “joy filled concerts for everyone, whether you find us at Symphony Hall, across Birmingham and the West Midlands, or on national and international tour led by our incredible Music Director, Kazuki Yamada”.
She adds: “Birmingham is our inspiration. Our home city is fantastically musical, and full of diversity and creative adventure. This new season is drawn from exactly that spirit, and presents us to the world as a truly future facing orchestra, that both celebrates the great classical repertoire, and dares to try something new”.
“As you delve into what’s on offer, we hope that you will discover music that moves you, uplifts you and offers you moments of celebration and reflection. We very much look forward to welcoming you to a concert soon”.
Catherine Arlidge, Director of Artistic Planning and former CBSO violinist, added: “Our season marries the global with the local. Whilst the diversity of our season programming is informed by understanding our wide-ranging audiences locally, we are also delighted that so many top international artists are joining us for the new season – Sir Bryn Terfel, Lisa Batiashvili, Osmo Vänskä, Vilde Frang and the Jussen brothers to name but a few. At a time of international geo-political tensions, our concerts celebrate different geographies and cultures – and remind us all about music’s power to unite people. Through our research, we have a strong sense of the musical experiences that speak for the city today – yet in terms of repertoire, guest artists and composers, the season is richly international in flavour. It is a season about celebrating home – but on the world stage.”
To explore the 2025-26 CBSO season in full visit the CBSO website. Tickets for the new season go on sale from Wednesday 21 May 2025, 10am.
Published post no.2,519 – Thursday 1 May 2025
Bruckner, ed. Kito Sakaya Symphony no.9 in D minor WAB109 (1887-96)
with performing edition of finale by Nicole Samale, John A. Phillips, Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs and Giuseppe Mazzuca (1983-2012) as revised by John A. Phillips (2021-22)
Hallé / Kahchun Wong
Hallé CDHLD7566 [two discs 88’24’’]
Producer Steve Portnoi Engineers Tony Wass, Edward Cittanova
Recorded 26 October 2024 at Bridgewater Hall, Manchester
Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse
What’s the story?
The Hallé furthers its association with principal conductor and artistic advisor Kahchun Wong in this recording of Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony, the finale heard in a new edition prepared by John A. Phillips as the ostensible culmination of a process extending back across four decades.
What’s the music like?
Although his introductory note leaves no doubt as to his advocacy for Bruckner Nine, Wong’s approach is not an unqualified success overall. Doubts such as they are centre on the opening two movements, the first of which lacks that sustained inevitability and cumulative intensity necessary to make its extensive span cohere. Aptly contrasted in themselves, its three themes follow on each other without establishing any greater continuity and while the approach to its development yields tangible ominousness, the ensuing climax conveys less than the ultimate terror, though its coda does attain a fearsome majesty. Wong’s take on the second movement succeeds best in its trio’s speculative flights of fancy, which only makes the relative stolidity and emotional disengagement of its Scherzo sections the more surprising and disappointing.
The highlight is undoubtedly the Adagio. Without intervening unduly in its evolution, Wong ensures cohesion over a movement manifestly riven if not outright fractured by the starkness of its thematic contrasts. The journey towards its seismic culmination feels as eventful as it is absorbing and while that climax is less shattering than it can be, the clarity afforded its dense harmonies could not be bettered. Wong is mindful, moreover, not to allow its coda to broaden into an extended postlude but instead to keep this moving in anticipation of what is to follow.
This is hardly the place to go into the whys or wherefores of the ‘SPCM’ edition of the Finale. Given his intensive research into the issues of what is extant and what Bruckner intended for the crowning movement of his grandest symphonic design, Phillips is ideally placed in making his revisions to a completion which renders some striking yet often disparate material from a focussed and convincing perspective. The main alterations are those made to its latter stages, more streamlined and with less overt rhetoric than in the 2011 revision as recorded by Simon Rattle (Warner) though, to this listener at least, the 2008 revision as recorded by Friedemann Layer (Musikalische Akademie) still remains the most convincing in context. Whatever else, Wong conveys the extent of this gripping torso right through to the elation of its apotheosis.
Does it all work?
How well this performance succeeds depends on how one judges the necessity of that closing movement and the persuasiveness of Wong’s interpretation as a whole. Pertinent comparison might be made with the Hallé’s previous recording (also on its own label) – Cristian Mandeal drawing a response that, in the first two movements, has a power and intensity in advance of this newcomer. Interesting he should eschew the finale while instilling into those three earlier movements a sense of completion which, whether or not intentionally, is its own justification.
Is it recommended?
It is, whatever the reservations here expressed. This is not the final word on a four-movement Bruckner Nine any more than on Wong’s evolving interpretation though, with realistic sound alongside Phillips’s detailed while informative annotations, it is evidently a mandatory listen.
Listen / Buy
You can read more about this release and explore purchase options at the Hallé website
Published post no.2,518 – Wednesday 30 April 2025
Arcana.fm 