Bachtrack top ten: Gioachino Rossini

By Mark Pullinger, 28 February 2023

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“give me a laundry bill and I will set it to music”

Nahoko Gotoh, 13th March

The Japanese mezzo soprano is returning to the New National Theatre, Tokyo for her role debut in Massenet’s Werther. We talk about her love for Rossini, and expansions into later Romantic opera.

The art of memory: classical music for mourning

Danny Riley, 28th October

From fulfilling funerary functions, to eulogising friends and fellow artists, or lamenting the waste of war: here are some of the finest examples of music written in mourning.

Years of pilgrimage: Byron’s musical afterlives

Roy Westbrook, 22nd January

Lord Byron’s influence on musicians was immense – with Rossini, Verdi, Berlioz, Liszt, Tchaikovsky and Schoenberg among the many composers to create works inspired by his writings.

Bel canto and beyond: Kazushi Ono on New National Theatre, Tokyo

Nahoko Gotoh, 7th October

Kazushi Ono, Artistic Director at Tokyo’s foremost opera house, introduces this year’s bel canto-infused season – and explains his vision for the house’s distinctive Theatergeist.

Serious about comedy, obsessed by music: Laurent Pelly

David Karlin, 5th May

Ahead of his new production of Rossini's Il turco in Italia in Madrid, the prolific opera director talks about how he approaches a production – “it always starts with the music” – and about how he creates comedy.

Bachtrack top ten: Frédéric Chopin

Mark Pullinger, 1st March

Ten works revealing the paradox of Chopin: a composer outwardly delicate, inwardly steely; rooted in Polish dance rhythms, yet formed in Parisian sophistication.

Mark Pullinger

Mark has been a Bachtrack editor since 2014. He is also an experienced critic, writing hundreds of reviews for the site, as well as a freelancer writing for other magazines and newspapers. He also writes programme notes and blogs on Substack. Mark has a particular passion for the operas of Verdi as well as Russian and French repertoire. Outside the concert hall and opera house, Mark enjoys cooking and travel and is probably at his happiest let loose in a French patisserie or a Viennese coffee house.