Carl Heinrich Graun News
German composer and singer
Commemorations 2024 (Birth: Carl Heinrich Graun)
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2024-03-29
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2024-01-31 07:58:00
A crate of flowers, which experts assure me are very choice and of admirable rarity: Ensemble Hesperi's crowdfunder for their disc themed on Telemann's love of gardening
Peterstrasse in Hamburg (reconstructed in the 1960s) and the location for Telemann's housePhoto via the Telemann MuseumIn 1754, Handel wrote a letter to Telemann (who since 1721 had been music director in Hamburg). In it Handel talks about sending Telemann 'a crate of flowers, which experts assure me are very choice and of admirable rarity', and earlier in the letter he makes reference to Telemann's passion for exotic flowers.It is a chatty, genial letter, and worth bearing in mind that the two composers could hardly have met for around 40 years, and it seems that a strong bond had been formed between the two back in their student days in Leipzig. And whilst music director of Hamburg opera, Telemann would mount productions of Handel's operas.The exotic flowers never arrived, because the sea captain who acted as courier heard a (false) rumour that Telemann was dead. When Handel ascertained that Telemann […]
2023-12-01 10:37:00
Monteverdi's first opera, the historically informed Ring Cycle continues, Bruckner's 200th birthday, composer Sven Helbig live - Dresden's 47th music festival
Wagner: Das Rheingold - Derek Welton, Kent Nagano, Mauro Peter, Daniel Schmutzhard, Concerto Köln & Dresdner Festspielorchester - Dresden Music Festival 2023The 47th Dresden Music Festival runs from 9 May to 9 June 2024 under the title Horizons, presenting 60 events in 21 venues in and around Dresden. Things kick off in fine style with a concert performance of Wagner's Die Walküre with Kent Nagano conducting the combined forces of two period instrument ensembles, the Dresdner Festspielorchester and Concerto Köln, a continuation of the festival's exploration of an historically informed Ring Cycle that began last year with Des Rheingold [see my review]. Further historically informed performances include soprano Janine de Bique and Concerto Köln in arias by Handel, Graun, Broschi, Telemann and Vinci, Haydn's The Seasons with Jordi Savall and La Capella Nacional de Catalunya and Le Concert des Nations, Mark Minkowski and the Dresdner Festspielorchester in Wagner, Mendelssohn and excerpts from Offenbach's rare grand opera Die Rheinnixen. The ensemble […]
2023-09-22 08:44:00
Drawing us into Handel's magical world: Amadigi di Gaula from the English Concert with Tim Mead, Mary Bevan, Hilary Cronin, Hugh Cutting
Handel: Amadigi di Gaula - title page of the libretto - London 1715Handel: Amadigi di Gaula; Tim Mead, Mary Bevan, Hilary Cronin, Hugh Cutting, the English Concert, Kristian Bezuidenhout; St Martin in the FieldsReviewed 21 September 2023Much more than a concert, an evening of remarkable theatre where every single performer seemed to draw us in with their vivid enjoymentWhen Mark Minkowski's world premiere recording of Handel's Amadigi di Gaula came out in the early 1990s it was something of a revelation, so much terrific music. I saw James Conway's production for Opera Theatre Company in 1996 and then, virtually nothing. But in the last few years the opera seems to have come back onto everyone's radar, popping up in concert at the 2018 London Handel Festival, and then more recent productions at Garsington and English Touring Opera, directed by James Conway [see my review] along with catching it on-line from […]
2023-09-22 06:31:00
A terrific sense of relish: Charles Court Opera's new version of The Mikado delights at the Arcola Theatre
Gilbert & Sullivan: The Mikado - Charles Court Opera (Photo: Bill Knight)Gilbert & Sullivan: The Mikado; Matthew Palmer, Robin Bailey, Matthew Kellett, Matthew Siveter, Alys Roberts, Meriel Cunningham, Jennifer Clark, Amy J Payne, director: John Savournin, musical director: David Eaton; Charles Court Opera at the Arcola TheatreReviewed 20 September 2023Gilbert & Sullivan's classic delivered with consummate skill and artistry, great pacing and a terrific sense of relish, in a new setting bringing out the innate Englishness of the workFor an operetta, The Mikado is quite a complex, multi-layered piece and part of the work's endurance comes from the fact that all the pieces fit. There is no sense, as there can be with The Gondoliers, of two different works playing simultaneously. At the core of The Mikado is Gilbert's usual topsy-turvey-dom, here a condemned criminal placed as Lord High Executioner to foil the the Mikado's cruel edict, and the Mikado's […]
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