Live, Video: Kritiken zu klassischen Konzerten, Opern, Ballett und Tanz finden | Holywell Music Room

Oxford Lieder's theme may be 'Winter into Spring', but in Schubert’s Winterreise, snow lies deep throughout with nary a glimpse of warmer prospects.

A deep-dive into the world of 14th-century Persian poet, Hafez, and his influence on song across the centuries. 

Julius Drake’s torrential postlude capped an evening in which he had been superb throughout.

Impeccable musicianship from the string soloists of the Oxford Philhamonic in stirring accounts of Brahms' String Sextet in G major and Strauss' Metamorphosen.

An old instrument, a veteran star singer, and a late rose all bloom at Oxford's annual songfest.

The Carducci Quartet’s appearance in the Holywell Music Room marked the halfway point in the Oxford Coffee Concert’s Autumn series. This late-morning concert saw the ensemble pair two D major quartets, from 1781 and 1949. It was the latter which received the more convincing performance, with the quartet clearly more engaged with Shostakovich’s troubled utterance than Haydn’s lean textures.

It was by coincidence that Tuesday’s Oxford Lieder Festival concert fell on Johann Mayrhofer’s 226th birthday. The Austrian poet was second only to Goethe in the number of texts chosen by Schubert, and the programme was a selection of the composer’s settings from 1817-1824. The lieder chosen for the recital fell under two themes: songs based upon classical myth, and those inspired by nature.

The penultimate concert in a three-year project to record the complete songs of Hugo Wolf, this Oxford Lieder Festival concert’s programme was based around settings of Goethe.

Oxford’s Coffee Concerts are a perfect recipe for a slow-paced morning. Preceded by complimentary coffee in a nearby café or pub, the series brings chamber music to the historic Holywell Music Room and finishes in time to let the audience find a spot for Sunday lunch.

Oboist Christopher Redgate pulled a number of facts out of the bag in his pre-concert conversation with composer Michael Finnissy. The performance would see the newest oboe (the Howarth-Redgate model) played in Europe’s oldest concert hall (Oxford’s Holywell Music Room).

Drawing names such as Sarah Connolly and Dame Felicity Lott to the dreaming spires, the Oxford Lieder Festival has defined itself as a leading musical exponent on an international level. It was fitting, then, that Alice Coote and Julius Drake should open the final weekend of the eleventh festival.

An introductory reading by local writer Philip Pullman was an appropriate introduction to the “Dusk to Dawn” concert, one of the last in this year’s Oxford Chamber Music Festival (themed “Fairytales and Fantasy”). The collision of a light-hearted surface with darker undertones was not just in Pullman’s retelling of the Grimm stories, but pervaded Artistic Director Priya Mitchell’s programming.

This was the first concert of Oxford Lieder's new season, and setting the bar pleasingly high for those who will come after was the partnership of tenor John Mark Ainsley, veteran of concert and opera stage alike, and Roger Vignoles, a name synonymous with the highest levels of professionalism in the accompaniment of song.

The Holywell Music Room in Oxford, with its bright and reverberant sound, was purpose-built as a concert hall, and opened in 1748. To hear four experienced and top-class singers last night, all of whom were able to work the specifics of this unique and historic room, to sing to it and use it as their instrument, was sheer joy.