Music

Chair: Mark Pullinger pullingercc@btinternet.com
Hon Secretary: Amanda Holloway Amanda@mandah.net

The aims of the Music Section of the Critics’ Circle are: a) to promote the art of criticism and to uphold its integrity in practice; b) to foster and safeguard the professional interests of its members and to provide opportunities for social intercourse among them; and c) to support the advancement of the arts. Though the Circle is decidedly not a trade union, it tries to encourage best practice.

We meet to discuss and decide bread and butter matters three times a year. Occasionally we host meetings with a leading figure from the music world. We also hold luncheons or dinners to celebrate the lifetime achievement of some very special artist, writer, composer or instrumentalist. The music section has about 80 members. At present, it consists overwhelmingly of classical music and opera critics, though we welcome critics of other kinds of music (jazz, pop, and world music).

News & Reviews

The Creation, St John’s, Smith Square

On the hoof | by Robert Thicknesse | As everyone knows, the journey can be more diverting than the destination – even when the destination itself is pretty tasty. The culmination of Haydn’s great oratorio, the duet between Eve and Adam, is a momentous thing – the...

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The Fairy Queen, St John’s, Smith Square

Echoes of dreamland | by Robert Thicknesse | Anna Dennis and Carolyn Sampson are our go-to sopranos for Purcell; you’d have to look hard to find better anywhere, so getting them in harness at St John’s with the Gabrieli Consort in The Fairy Queen was a toothsome...

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The Rake’s Progress, Royal Festival Hall

Shadow play Almost exactly a year ago OperaGlass Works brought Stravinsky's 1951, Hogarth-inspired opera to Wilton’s Music Hall – a setting so pungent with resonance that all the company had to do was keep out of the way as the ultimate London opera came alive in the...

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SALOME, ENO

The cast in ENO’s new production of Strauss’s biblical opera are on good form. Stuart Jackson’s Narraboth rings out in the opening scene. The eponymous Alison Cook’s voice is not used to ring out but to extremely dramatic effect as the girl caught up in a world in...

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