Richard Bratby

The composer of dog-food ads who also wrote one of the most original cycles of British symphonies

2 March 2024 9:00 am

Next month in London, they’re celebrating a composer you’ve probably never heard of, but whose work you’re sure to have…

Funny, faithful and inventive: Scottish Opera’s Barber of Seville reviewed

11 November 2023 9:00 am

A violinist friend in the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra used to talk about an orchestra’s ‘muscle memory’; a collective…

The miracle of watching a great string quartet perform

28 October 2023 9:00 am

Joseph Haydn, it’s generally agreed, invented the string quartet. And having done so, he re-invented it: again and again. Take…

Juicy solution to the Purcell problem: Opera North’s Masque of Might reviewed

21 October 2023 9:00 am

Another week, another attempt to solve the Purcell problem. There’s a problem? Well, yes, if you consider that a composer…

Ebullience and majesty: Opera North’s Falstaff reviewed

7 October 2023 9:00 am

Opera North has launched a ‘Green Season’, which means (among other things) that the sets and costumes for its new…

ENO’s Peter Grimes shows a major international company operating at full artistic power

30 September 2023 9:00 am

In David Alden’s production of Peter Grimes, the mob assembles before the music has even started – silhouetted at the…

Wagner rewilded: Das Rheingold, at the Royal Opera House, reviewed

23 September 2023 9:00 am

In Northern Ireland Opera’s new Tosca, the curtain rises on a big concrete dish from which a pair of eyes…

A euphoric meat-and-two-veg programme: Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich/Paavo Jarvi, at the Proms, reviewed

9 September 2023 9:00 am

We used to call it a ‘meat and two veg’ programme, back in my concert planning days: the reliable set…

Doesn’t get better than this: The Threepenny Opera, at Edinburgh International Festival, reviewed

2 September 2023 9:00 am

It’s the Edinburgh International Festival, and Barrie’s back in town. Once, Edinburgh was pretty much the only place that you…

Fast cars, minimalist design and en suite bathrooms: the real Rachmaninoff

2 September 2023 9:00 am

Fast cars, minimalist design and en suite bathrooms: Richard Bratby visits the composer’s starkly modern Swiss home