Archive for Editorial
A Narrative of Paul Creston’s Three Narratives
My introduction to Paul Creston was through his Virtuoso Technique – a book of finger exercises so demanding and so unusual that I couldn’t help…
Why We Mustn’t Forget Gideon Klein: Music Triumphing in Adversity
The narrative seems to have all the ingredients of a tragic, if not epic, film. The young genius, his potential cruelly crushed by an evil…
Arranging Wagner and the Ensuing Obsession
The release of Wagner by Arrangement, Volume Three (TOCC 0673), is the first part in a personal masterplan of Wagnerianism that has been going on for the…
Borrowed Time
It is something of a myth that composers tend to die after completing their ninth symphony, based on the relatively few that did so and…
Hans Gál In Conversation
This conversation, first published in the Journal of the British Music Society (Vol. 9, 1987, pp. 33–44), was recorded at Dr Gál’s Edinburgh home in…
An Estonian Excursion for the Heino Eller Award
Toccata Classics has now released five albums of the piano music of the Estonian composer Heino Eller – enough for Toccata founder Martin Anderson to…
A Tribute To Pascal Bentoiu
This Friday, 7 April, the Romanian Cultural Institute in London plays host to the first of two events paying homage to Pascal Bentoiu, one of…
‘We Should Know Who We Are’: Veljo Tormis in Conversation
Learn More I am much saddened by the news of the death of Veljo Tormis on Saturday, 21 January. Tormis was as significant a figure…
The Re-Emergence of Leo Zeitlin
The story of Leo Zeitlin and his music’s re-emergence is so remarkable that it has already been duly reported in several online and printed articles.…
Einojuhani Rautavaara, Symphonist
THE FINNISH COMPOSER TALKS TO MARTIN ANDERSON In the light of the death of the Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara, on 27 July 2016, in a…
Toccata e due CD: Rediscovering Early Martinů – Part II
The publication of Martinů and the Symphony in 2010 brought a few unexpected opportunities my way. Even before the book appeared, I had taken part…
Toccata e due CD: Rediscovering Early Martinů – Part I
In April 2013, Toccata Classics released a recording entitled Bohuslav Martinů – Early Orchestral Works, Volume 1, launching what is hoped will be a series…
Where are the Women Composers?
Women Composers Bundle Time for a little controversy on this blog – but that’s not my aim, which is to try to understand why, when…
Rebels without a cause?
Is there really music after midnight? At Classical:NEXT in Rotterdam at the end of May I attended a panel discussion entitled ‘Music after Midnight’. I…
More Questions Raised than Answered
I approached Classical:NEXT 2015 – the trade fair for classical music – at De Doelen, Rotterdam, at the end of May, with an open mind…
Gary Brain Remembered
It has not been a good week. On Friday Yodit, my beloved fiancée, partner of the past seven years and mother of our five-year-old Alex,…