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Claude Debussy

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BBC SSO/Runnicles, Royal Albert Hall - review

04.08.11
What better for a sultry summer evening than a Prom programme of reflective, sensual French music played by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under its chief conductor Donald Runnicles?... more

Pelleas et Melisande and the anguish of a love triangle

20.04.11
Debussy's opera performed on a brightly lit stage inevitably compromises a good deal of its richly symbolic atmosphere... more

Little drama for Musawama

19.04.11
John Gosden has made a fine start to the season and his Musawama will be hard to beat in the Investec Derby Trial at Epsom... more

A brave new plan battling the odds from London Arts Orchestra

21.01.11
Barry Millington wishes the London Arts Orchestra well, but if it is to make an impact in these straitened times, it needs to sharpen its presentation. ... more

Sleigh bells and spiritual stillness with Jurowski

02.12.10
Vladimir Jurowski’s Mahler Cycle with the LPO continued with the Fourth Symphony, his great song of innocence and experience... more

Proms 2010: Orchestre National de France have real sinew

08.09.10
The Orchestre National de France and its music director Daniele Gatti evoked a palpable sense of danger... more

William Buick's one in a million for proud John Gosden

23.08.10
Trainer was widely criticised for ditching his stable jockey Jimmy Fortune last winter but that decision was vindicated following Buick's big-race international double... more

Love triangle drama at Opera Holland Park

03.06.10
The gods blessed Carmen's premiere with much better weather than Debussy’s opera Pelléas et Melisande. Even the drone of an overhead plane harmonised nicely.... more

John Adams's screen test triumph

12.03.10
If a composer writes a piece paying tribute to cinema, will the results inevitably sound like a film score? John Adams's City Noir suggests the answer is “Yes”. ... more

Musical storms from Maazel

03.03.10
Lorin Maazel’s’s 80th birthday falls next Saturday. For the last month he’s been touring with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.... more

Tree of dreams blossoms with Gergiev

21.09.09
No promoter feels safe until Valery Gergiev's actually on the rostrum but once there, his absorption and charisma are all-encompassing.... more

Herbie Hancock to the rescue

13.07.09
Herbie Hancock and Lang Lang's strange concert, a thing of fits and starts, took the form of a mystery tour.... more

Derek Paravicini, the 'human ipod', is truly gifted.

09.06.09
Derek Paravicini has been called a musical savant, an autistic genius and, less flatteringly, the human iPod.... more

Crowded House Derby challenge is still not certain

01.06.09
Horse racing: Crowded House is a surprise inclusion among 13 entries unveiled at the six-day stage for the Derby at Epsom... more

Maazel shows his magic touch

03.04.09
If a little dramatic character went missing, the closing funeral march had a real feeling of grief barely choked back in Maazel's show.... more

Tokyo Sonata does credit crunch, Japanese style

29.01.09
Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa won a Jury Prize at Cannes for Tokyo Sonata, a drama about Ryuhei Sasaki.... more

Debussy's elusive masterpiece

19.11.08
Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande, premiered in 1902, may be the first great opera of the 20th century yet it remains marginal repertoire.... more

Stock exchanges at the Proms

04.08.08
Barely scratching the surface of Stockhausen's career, the Proms' tribute nevertheless demonstrated what makes him so fascinating.... more

Twice as impressive

20.05.08
The stimulating double bill of Hiromi and Mina Agossi offers an unusually wide spectrum of feminine wiles, says Jack Massarik.... more

Mehler shows more rhythm

15.01.08
Young New Yorker Elan Mehler plays jazz as Debussy, Ravel or Chopin might have done if teleported into a Manhattan basement jam session.... more

A full-frontal attack

21.11.07
Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos gave the players and singers of the Philharmonia their heads in an uncompromising performance.... more

Youths rise to Wagner challenge

26.09.07
The London Schools Symphony Orchestra was magnificent in this weighty programme, whispering sympathetically and soaring confidently. ... more

Rich sounds of the Concertgebouw

28.08.07
The sounds that the Royal Concertgebouw, led by Bernard Haitink, made at the Proms were as remarkable as ever.... more

Sex and death in Italy

30.07.07
A breathless eroticism pounds through Montemezzi's L'Amore dei tre Re as violently and noisily as a stampede of horses over cobbles, says Fiona Maddocks.... more

That's your Lott

15.05.07
Internationally acclaimed soprano Dame Felicity Lott sings a selection of French melodies at the Queen Elizabeth Hall.... more

Passion boxed in

14.05.07
Musical standards ruled, even if the tedium of the Pelléas and Mélisande production did its devilish and level best to hijack minds and flatten imagination.... more

Short on thrills

30.03.07
Valery Gergiev might be a regular visitor to the London concert scene, but Barry Millington warns against prejudging his music. The Russian conductor is not as predictable as he makes out.... more

A faune in combat with the present

17.10.06
D'un soir un jour opens with a silent re-enactment of L'Apres-midi d'un faune, only with a woman rather than a man.... more

Hammering the ivories

03.10.06
Young Russian pianist Eduard Kunz runs the gamut from sensitive introspection to fullblooded, muscularity, says Barry Millington.... more

Rattle brings new fire to Philharmonic

04.09.06
Rumblings of discontent in the German media concerning Simon Rattle's stewardship of the Berlin Philharmonic can safely be discounted.... more


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