In their most recent recording of choral music by Sir James MacMillan, Phillip Cooke, Henrik Dahlgren, and Andrew Smith, the Caritas Chamber Choir gathers new works. All the works on the album are world premiere recordings. The major composer on

Inspired by night, the Nocturne first came into our musical language in the 18th century, but the idea of a night-time work comes from the ancient church, where ‘nocturn’ was the last of the seven prayers of the day. Held

For the summer season in 1912 and for three weeks in the Spring of 1913, Ralph Vaughan Williams was invited to Stratford-upon-Avon to compose incidental music and conduct for the Shakespeare productions. Vaughan Williams was invited by Sir Frank Benson,

A new recording on Ulysses Arts of the string quartets of British composer Paul Henley’s String Quartets Nos. 1 and 2 is a far cry from Goethe’s imaginary discussion between 4 intelligent people. This isn’t a rational discussion but rather

English composer George Benjamin (b. 1960) started working with British playwright Martin Crimp (b.1956) in 2006, resulting in four operas: Into the Little Hill (2006), Written on Skin (2012), Lessons in Love and Violence (2018), and Picture a Day Like

In his new 2-CD recording for Deutsche Grammophon, pianist Grigory Sokolov (b. 1950) gives a very thoughtful recording of two musical giants who rarely appear on the same program together: Henry Purcell and Mozart. Better known in Europe than in

The music of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893) has come in and out of favour over the decades – listeners love his ability to tell stories in music. Then they tire of what seems to be the superficial aspects of his

Written for the Leeds Festival and given its premiere on 6 October 1898, the Te Deum by Charles Villiers Stanford (1852–1924) brought opera to the English choral tradition. Written to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the accession to the throne