Giacomo Puccini honours his own code by bringing all those elements together in a single work, Il trittico, which is made up of three one-act operas. Finding the right librettos was not easy, but one month after the end of the First World War, his…

On occasion of this 90th birthday, internationally acclaimed pianist Joaquín Achúcarro delivers a magnificent performance, brimming with warmth, colour, and a full display of his unpaired technique, of some of his signature pieces by favourite…

When painter Gustav Klimt coated his famous paintings with gold leaf, Richard Strauss musically reveled in the opulence that was so typical of Vienna at the time. No fewer than five powerful Wagnerian voices are needed for his "Die Frau ohne Schatten…

His career is not yet ten years old, but already the star Pene Pati shines high in the firmament of the Opera. On stage the Samoan-New Zealander has an extraordinary presence carried by irresistible joie de vivre. A contagious happiness that is…

After over four decades together, the Emerson String Quartet disbands in the Fall of 2023 and plays in concert halls across the US and Europe for the very last time. We accompany the Quartet in Prague for a performance with music by the German…

The outstanding pianist Daniil Trifonov presents an eagerly-anticipated recital at the 2016 Verbier Festival. The former winner of the Tchaikovsky and Rubinstein Competitions has become a regular at the Verbier Festival over recent years. For this…

Following the success of King Arthur, which was presented at major European festivals, Vox Luminis is discovering Henry Purcell's "The Fairy Queen", a semi-opera in five acts written for the Dorset Garden in 1692. The dramatic plot of the work is…

In 1741 Johann Sebastian Bach published the fourth and last volume of his most extensive keyboard publication, the Clavier-Übung: an aria and thirty variations known universally as the ‘Goldberg’ Variations. This monumental work, which is about…

In 2020 Evgeny Kissin was awarded the prize of the Klavier-Festival Ruhr. In his laudatory speech following the award ceremony in 2021, music critic Wolfram Goertz praised the world piano star for his “spectacularly earnest” approach to piano playing…

The Italian composer Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) died before he could complete his final opera Turandot. Fortunately, his lesser-known colleague Franco Alfano managed to use the maestro's notes to complete the opera in time for its April 26, 1926…