Indian-born, of Jewish-Viennese parents and raised in Paris, virtuoso pianist Jean-Rodolphe Kars converted to Catholicism in 1976 and was baptised in 1977. Mysteriously, in 1981, he put an end to his career as a pianist, entering the priesthood in 1986. During the late-1960s and early 70s Kars made a few recordings for Decca, all of […]

‘If I were condemned to hear only one voice for the remainder of my life I think it might well be hers. If I wanted to be charmed, to laugh or cry I would find her the perfect companion. In her singing … we hear someone whose every utterance bespeaks natural sincerity and truthful feeling’ […]

‘If I were condemned to hear only one voice for the remainder of my life I think it might well be hers. If I wanted to be charmed, to laugh or cry I would find her the perfect companion. In her singing … we hear someone whose every utterance bespeaks natural sincerity and truthful feeling’ […]

‘If I were condemned to hear only one voice for the remainder of my life I think it might well be hers. If I wanted to be charmed, to laugh or cry I would find her the perfect companion. In her singing … we hear someone whose every utterance bespeaks natural sincerity and truthful feeling’ […]

The name of Pierre Monteux inevitably brings Stravinsky’s ‘Le sacre du printemps’ to mind; he conducted the notorious first performance in Paris in 1913 which degenerated into a brawl broken up by the police. This historic event has slightly overshadowed other Ballets Russes commissions, such as Ravel’s ‘Daphnis et Chloé’ and Debussy’s ‘Jeux’ which were first […]

That Richard Strauss loved and understood the soprano voice is an inescapable fact. He was married to soprano, Pauline de Ahna and thus had a living laboratory for his song-writing. Even after Pauline had retired from the stage, he continued to favour sopranos in his operas and other vocal compositions. And sopranos repaid him with […]