The Toccata Classics Blog
A Birthday Present for Ronald Stevenson — by James Reid Baxter
This Friday, 6 March, Ronald Stevenson will celebrate his 87th birthday. In a different world, or even just a different country, one where human life…
Tully Potter on the Tully Potter Collection
Tully Potter is not only the author of the massive Toccata Press biography of Adolf Busch (currently out of print but undergoing preparation for a…
David O’Brien — Dreams Come True: Recording my Grandfather’s Orchestral Music
On Monday, 4 August, one hundred years to the day after the start of the first World War, I found myself flying via Frankfurt on…
Tim Collins Reporting from Lillehammer: Celebrating Leif Solberg’s 100th Birthday
If the name of the small town of Lillehammer in Norway rings any bells for you, it is probably as the site of the 1994…
Teenage Truths
Professional involvement in an activity has its dangers: you can become so pre-occupied with the detail of the building you’re examining that you fail to…
John Kinsella: A Tale of Two Symphonies
My Symphonies Nos. 5 and 10 were premiered eighteen years and a millennium divide apart, in 1994 and 2012. They were also written in very…
Orlando Jacinto García — A Project Realized: Three Orchestral Works on Toccata Classics
My new Toccata Classics CD is a labor of love and, as with many such projects, came together through the support of a number of…
Paul Mann: Solberg Sessions — A Report from Liepāja
Tucked away on the west coast of Latvia is the town of Liepāja, home to fewer than 100,000 people, but boasting an especially fine orchestra,…
Stefan Koch: Why Richard Stöhr Has Nearly Taken Over My Musical Life
Greetings to fans of Toccata Classics. If you are reading this blog posting, hopefully you are either listening to my new recording of Richard Stöhr’s…
John Mauceri, New Patron of Toccata Classics
We are delighted to announce that Toccata Classics has a new patron, the distinguished American conductor John Mauceri. He joins a panel of esteemed names:…
Toccata Podcast: Norbert Meyn talks about C. P. E. Bach’s ‘Spiritual Songs’
Tenor Norbert Meyn talks about his new Toccata Classics release, C.P.E. Bach: Spiritual Songs, in the latest Toccata Podcast. Listen here, or subscribe in iTunes.…
A Visit to Elsa Respighi: Rome, May 1984
In May 1984 I was invited on holiday with some friends who had rented a villa in the hills outside Viareggio in Tuscany, were…
Remembering Alice Herz-Sommer
News has come through of the death this morning, 23 February 2014, of Alice Herz-Sommer, at the age of 110. Alice had become an icon,…
Steven Elcock, symphonist
UPDATE – STEVE ELCOCK: ORCHESTRAL MUSIC, VOLUME ONE IS OUT NOW! You can imagine that, running a recording label, I get approaches from all sorts…
Maxim Vengerov, new Patron of Toccata Classics
I am delighted to announce that, hot on the heels of Sir Roger Gifford (see the blog posting on 24 January), now Maxim Vengerov joins…
Farewell, Sasha
This morning news came through of the death, yesterday evening, 31 January, of Alexander Ivashkin, scholar, academic, conductor and, above all, wonderful cellist. Word got…