 Concert Review: Paul McCreesh conducts Handel's Jephtha at the Barbican Although librettist Thomas Morrell changed the death sentence of the Old Testament into a permanent state of virginity, the plot of Jephtha - Handel's last oratorio - is still unsettling. Handel was on the verge of loosing his eye-sight, so the resignation of Jephtha's daughter Iphis (to her eternal virginity) might... more> |
 Concert Review: Thomas Hampson, Joseph Calleja and Joyce DiDonato in concert with Pappano at Covent Garden This concert given at the Royal Opera House had a somewhat troubled genesis. Originally announced as a celebrity recital for Rolando Villazon accompanied on the piano by Antonio Pappano, Dmitri Hvorostovsky agreed to step in after Villazon was instructed by his... more> |
 Concert Review: Week 2 of the Agora Festival in Paris> A noble venture: but unfortunately the realization left quite a lot to be desired. The main problem was the excruciatingly bad libretto. Both plot and characters were wafer thin. A female scientist, seeking to slake her thirst for knowledge, pursues her theories to the point that she somehow enters the 'fifth dimension'... more> |
 Concert Review: Britten-Pears Orchestra shine in carefully-themed programme For their appearance at this year's Aldeburgh Festival, the Britten-Pears Orchestra put in several days work with the young Italian guest conductor Antonella Manacorda (including a Sunday morning open rehearsal) and then played a stunning concert in a packed Snape Maltings on the Monday night.... more> |
 Concert Review: Colin Davis, Nelson Freire and the LSO celebrate a milestone at the Barbican It might be a measure of Sir Colin Davis's modesty and generosity towards musical colleagues – characteristics praised by several luminaries providing tributes in the programme – that he chose to share the limelight for the bulk of his 50th anniversary concert with the London Symphony... more> |
 Concert Review: Goerne and Eschenbach perform three Schubert cycles at the Wigmore Hall Performed by Matthias Goerne (baritone) and Christoph Eschenbach (piano), Wigmore Hall's Schubert song cycle had been judged by many as a must. Tickets were sold out early on and return tickets were hard to come by. The hall was packed, with several people standing at the back... more> |
 Concert review: Radius ensemble premiere pieces by Tim Benjamin and Paul Newland at Wigmore Hall Sarah Watts opened proceedings with a performance of Boulez' Domaines in its solo clarinet version. Watts gave a thoughtful, methodical reading that took care to properly service each gesture. The range of expression was secure, with the repeated multiphonics and... more> |
 Concert Review: The Staatskapelle Dresden and Daniel Harding shine in Dublin One of the oldest orchestras in the world, and one of Gramophone's top ten world's best orchestras, the Staatskapelle Dresden reached Dublin on Saturday evening, marking the end of the 2008-09 International Orchestral Series. If the orchestra, along with condiuctor Daniel Harding and guest soloist Renaud... more> |
 Concert Review: Colin Davis with the LSO and Paul Lewis in Beethoven and Brahms Paul Lewis underlined his status as a discerning Beethovenian at the Barbican this week with a searching account of the Emperor Concerto. With Colin Davis drawing sturdy and responsive playing from the LSO, Lewis and the conductor juggled a stately grandeur with a significant degree of shade in the rhythmic.... more> |
 Concert Review: Week One of the Agora Festival in Paris The Agora festival is held annually by IRCAM around Paris, this year running for two weeks. The theme of this year's festival is complexity in the arts – the forking paths taken by and thematised by art and science in the contemporary era. This theme has paved the way for two weeks of multidiscplinary activity... more> |
 Concert Review: Mitsuko Uchida solo recital at the Royal Festival Hall Mozart floated into the Royal Festival Hall on Wednesday night under the fingers of Mitsuko Uchida. His Rondo in A minor K 511 is an elegant little piece in its own right, but Uchida made its enigmatic sadness sing to a disquieting degree. Her touch was full of grace, and her expression deeply moving, both in the.... more> |
 Concert Review: Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart and SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart in Paris The Quatrieme Biennale d’Art Vocal festival currently running at Paris' Cité de la Musique already saw a remarkable performance of Berio's Passaggio. On Friday night came a more contemporary offering in the shape of Georges Aperghis' Wölfli-Kantata. This large scale a capella work... more> |
 Concert Review: The King's Singers impress in Oxford Returning to Oxford for the first time in over a decade, Thursday night's concert was a celebration of the Romance du Soir, with music exploring those perennially associated themes of love and the night. Wending its way from the madrigals of Weelkes to the part-songs of Elgar and Sullivan via a healthy dose of Saint-Saens (not to mention... more> |
 Concert Review: Broschi Ensemble and Cenk Karaferya perform Handel and Vivaldi Cenk Karaferya is a young London-based countertenor of Turkish descent more in keeping with the American branch of the countertenor tree than what the conductor and musicologist Denis Stevens once dubbed the 'Cambridge Coo.' In some circles these higher, richer falsettists are know as... more> |
 Concert Review: Endymion Ensemble celebrate British music The concert was both part of the week-long celebration of Endymion (many of the works by professional composers had been written for the occasion) and the crowning of a day of workshops for young composers doing their A-levels. Two pieces among the many workshopped throughout the day were... more> |
< Concert Review: Endymion Ensemble celebrate thirty years of music The weekly theme at King's Place is a celebration of the 30th anniversary since the formation of the much acclaimed Endymion ensemble. The celebration takes the shape of a performance marathon by the Endymion ensemble themselves, with music ranging from Mozart to world premieres... more> |
 Concert Review: Philip Glass performs chamber works at the Barbican So it is in Glass' Songs and Poems for Cello, an extended, non-programmatic (as far as I could tell) solo suite rich in contrapuntal dexterity, rhythmic alacrity, and through-composed movement. Repetition is used, but it often comes in the way it does in early post-romantic works, as a straining against ordinal... more> |
 Concert Review: Phantasm perform English viol consort music On the penultimate day of the 2009 Lufhansa Festival of Baroque Music, Phantasm – an award-winning consort of viols – presented what their founder director Laurence Dreyfus described in his pre-performance talk as 'the glories of English viol consort music.' To be more precise... more> |
 Concert Review: Martha Argerich plays Prokofiev at Dublin's National Concert Hall A mesmerising performance of Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major was the centrepiece of an all-Prokofiev programme by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with guest soloist Martha Argerich in Dublin on Sunday night. Concerto appearances by Martha Argerich are increasingly rare and as expected... more> |
 Concert Review: Nelly Miricioiu sings Verdi and Berkeley in a rare London recital To hold an audience rapt for over two hours is no mean feat, but it seemed to be all in a day's work for Nelly Miricioiu at this, her first public recital in London for many years. At the age of 57, the Romanian soprano shows no sign of vocal wear and tear, indeed she continues to grow both artistically and technically... more> |
 Concert Review: Early Opera Company in Eccles and Purcell at the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music Five years after Purcell's death — that is in March 1700 — 'Several Persons of Quality having, for the Encouragement of MUSICK advanced 200 Guineas, to be distributed in 4 Prizes…to such Masters as shall be adjudged to Compose the best…'...more> |
 Concert Review: Handel's Athalia at the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music Originally performed in 1733 to an audience of a staggering 3,700 people, Athalia was the composer's first purpose-written oratorio. Both Esther and Deborah – Handel's earliest oratorios – were mere assembly-jobs, refashioned and pieced together... more> |
 Concert Review: Ether Festival: Heiner Goebbels' Sampler Suite and Songs of Wars I have seen At its best Heiner Goebbels' music exemplifies the eclectic spirit that runs through contemporary music. It kites around generic and stylistic boundaries with unabashed candour, at times creatively capturing a sort of head-spinning free association across styles and media which other music... more> |
 Concert Review: Underground Chinese Music at LSO St Luke's The Beyond the Wall festival that is currently running at the Barbican and LSO St. Luke's boasts an impressive array of Chinese talent; Lang Lang, Wu Man, Liu Sola, and Tan Dun have all been or will be involved. The focus is clearly on classical and contemporary notated work. But the festival is nothing if not multi-faceted, and... more> |
 Concert Review: Mischa Maisky gives the UK premiere of Benjamin Yusupov's cello concerto This was a terrific evening in the concert hall, with the LPO on top form, Jurowski as subtly persuasive an interpreter as ever and a fascinating trio of works by living composers that bore the tag line 'post-Soviet tapestries'. The evening's soloist Mischa Maisky had wondered a few weeks... more> |
 Concert Review: The LSO and Lang Lang give a Tan Dun premiere After much fanfare, Tan Dun's Internet Symphony: Eroica was finally given its world premiere at Carnegie Hall last week, where the motley gang of musicians who had made it through the YouTube auditions came together and gave a reasonably well-received concert of it, and other works. Here in London we were not so... more> |
 Concert Review: New Finnish works plus Britten and Bridge with the BBCSO at the Barbican The BBC SO's concert at the Barbican on Friday last came in slightly unusual proportions. Four works were given, with two relatively new Finnish pieces sitting alongside two classics from the modern British repertoire. The program was thus substantial, but the weighting was well-judged... more> |
 Concert Review: Lang Lang in Baden-Baden It may have been only partially due to meretricious and tasteless promotion that Lang Lang has become a popstar. For a long period he himself was ready to pose as a popstar and celebrity entertainer, using his truly phenomenal pianistic skills more as a musical acrobat than an inspired musician reaching out to the spheres of a Pollini, a Schiff... more> |
 Concert Review: Andreas Scholl at the Barbican London boasts some of the most gloriously intimate concert venues – the Wigmore Hall, St John's Smith Square, the Purcell Room and now the new Hall 2 at King's Place – so when you find a programme for baroque chamber orchestra and counter-tenor presented in the cavernously unsympathetic bunker that is the Barbican Hall... more> |
 Concert Review: Red Priest - 'Pirates of the Baroque' Red Priest's only London performance of the year took place at Cadogan Hall on Tuesday night, presenting their new programme of music, whimsically titled Pirates of the Baroque. This is also the title of their latest album, released on 1 March under their own, newly-formed label, Red Priest Recordings. The group have... more> |
 Concert Review: Sargasso: C - the Sargasso label at Kings Place Sargasso is an independent label that specialises in experimental music from across the broad spectrum of contemporary sound. The wide and varied currents of today's musical sea, from the notated avant-garde, to ambient electronica, to sound art and collage, and plenty in between, meet and merge... more> |
 Concert Reviews: Vienna Philharmonic and Mehta in Bruckner; LPO and Jurowski in Strauss (RFH) A coincidence no doubt, the visit of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra to the Royal Festival and the London Philharmonic Orchestra's concert the next evening gave us a snap shot of quite how varied the motivations behind musical endeavour at the end... more> |
 Concert Review: James Cohen conducts the Isis Ensemble at St James Picadilly The most remarkable aspect of this concert, given in aid of the Macmillan Cancer Support, was its integrity Although – presumably - the Isis Ensemble operates on modest funds, everything needed for a professional artistic event was in place. Their programme notes - printed on two sides of a simple... more> |
 Concert Review: The 200th anniversary of Ricordi at Kings Place The Ricordi publishing house celebrated its bicentenary in 2008, and to mark that occasion two recitals were organised in London, in addition to other similar events held around the world. The first of these British ventures took place last November, and featured Ensemble Elision in a scintillating programme of music... more> |
 Concert Review: Contemporary music in Basel Basel's Gare du Nord plays host to a busy programme of music, ranging from contemporary to jazz, offering a stage to leading national and international ensembles and performers. The venue is located in the city's Badischer Bahnhof railway station – hence the name. This makes for a strange congruence of scenes on one's way in... more> |
 Concert Review: Colin Currie and the Scottish Ensemble at the Wigmore HallThe Scottish Ensemble brought a solid and typically well-thought out programme of old and new works to a highly receptive (albeit only about 60% full) Wigmore Hall last night, with their artistic director Jonathan Morton directing the semicircle of string musicians from first violin with great poise.... more> |
 Film Review: Beethoven Unwrapped: String Quartets (Kings Place) Kings Place is a venue that can toy equally interestingly with musical conventions as well as with the spectators' nerves. An annoying series of technical inaccuracies made this fifth event within the Beethoven Unwrapped film series a difficult one to enjoy. This was true despite the unquestionable worthiness of such... more> |
 Concert Review: Total Immersion: Tristan Murail (Barbican) The Barbican is running three Total Immersion days this year, each consisting of concerts, films, talks and free events celebrating three interesting composers and their music. The first of these days took place in January, and it centred on Stockhausen. The third will feature the music of Xenakis and is scheduled for... more> |
 Concert Review: Martinů, Mendelssohn and Strauss from Elder and the LPO (RFH) Sir Mark Elder has long been an advocate of Strauss's Symphonia Domestica, joining a distinguished line of conductors – Karajan was another – willing to acknowledge its considerable musical merits. It remains a work by a composer at the height of his technical powers that is too seldom performed, here it... more> |
 Concert Review: Hélène Grimaud and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe (Paris) Discovering slightly lesser-known Richard Strauss was the original theme of a series of January concerts to be given in France by the Chamber Orchestra of Europe under the baton of Vladimir Jurowski. But illness intervened and cut down rehearsal time, so the soloist Hélène Grimaud omitted the Strauss... more> |
 Concert review: In the News and On the Stage (Kings Place) Being part of 'The Art of News' project organized at Kings Place, 'In The News and On The Stage' was the last event of a three-day immersion into hybrid forms of musical engagement. In fact, within this project, several artists offered their response to the potential for news stories to be fashioned into musical realization... more> |
 Concert Review: The Hallé Orchestra plays a programme of French works (Manchester) For me the most important aspect of this excellent concert was the presence of a great many school children – representing both the primary and secondary sector – accompanied by their class teachers (rather than by specialist music teachers, although they too might have been present)... more> |
 Concert review: A major Hugh Wood world premiere takes place in Milton Keynes The Milton Keynes City Orchestra is undergoing a vigorous make-over, which sees it taking up music by living composers (something it hasn't done for several years) and making visible efforts to attract the interest of the local community. Last Friday's concert bears witness to both these endeavours... more> |
 Concert Review: The BBCSO celebrates Stockhausen in the Total Immersion Festival (Barbican Hall) It's now the Barbican's turn to pay its posthumous respects to Karlheinz Stockhausen. If the Southbank Centre's Klang Festival was mostly a celebration of the composer's last works — and thus a goldmine of UK and World premieres — the Barbican's programme was less concerned... more> |
 Concert Review: The Scottish Chamber Orchestra celebrates the Mendelssohn bicentenary (Edinburgh) The idea of CL@SIX is to schedule performances at an earlier-than-normal six o’clock, featuring repertoire that is not so much demanding as politely enquiring. Rather than a meat-and-two-veg presentation, it is more of a light bite or, at an hour’s duration, a fast food operation... more> |
 Concert Review: Sir Colin Davis conducts the LSO in Verdi's Requiem (Barbican Hall) During this performance of Verdi's Requiem at the Barbican Hall, the last lines of a poem by John Donne came powerfully into my mind. Verdi, an atheist (or an anticlericalist, others would say), composed the Requiem for novelist Alessandro Manzoni's death – an event that had touched him deeply. On the other hand... more> |
 Concert Review: Thomas Quasthoff & René Jacobs in Haydn's Die Schöpfung (Barbican) Much of the Barbican's Great Performers programme is now devised around key artists who get to pick and choose their repertoire and collaborators. German baritone Thomas Quasthoff is one of the select few (Ian Bostridge is another) and this performance of Haydn's Die Schöpfung ... more> |
 Concert Review: An Evening of Experimental Music from the Sub Rosa (King's Place) Since opening last year King's Place concert hall has provided London concert goers with an impressive array of interesting musical performances and events. The This is Tuesday series of concerts that focuses on an admirably wide range of new music across the spectrum, from contemporary classical... more> |
 Concert Review: London Sinfonietta: Al Farabi Concerto (QEH) Al Farabi Concerto is a showcase series of concerts in which new pieces written by Arabic composers who work predominantly in the Western classical tradition, are performed alongside recent compositions from their Western peers. The third concert in the series took place on Monday night at the QEH... more> |
 Concert Review: Special premieres celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the London Sinfonietta The London Sinfonietta, one of the world's leading contemporary music ensembles, celebrated their fortieth birthday last night with a typically forward looking concert of new and newish works from composers young and old. Eight of those works were receiving their world premieres... more> |
 Concert Review: Nicholas Kraemer conducts the Scottish Chamber Orchestra It was extremely pleasing to hear a well-articulated performance of Handel's Concerto Grosso in G, which in recent decades has been adopted by school string groups and youth orchestras. Directed by Nicholas Kraemer from the harpsichord, the performance exuded confidence and personality with the... more> |
 Concert Review: Alfred Brendel's penultimate performance in Baden-Baden When a performer of eminence, universally respected and admired, decides to end his or her public performances, a gap is felt that in today’s world of music, so generously blessed with uniquely talented performers, can be expected soon to be filled. Not so in the case of Alfred Brendel’s often declared... more> |
 Concert Review: Mitsuko Uchida and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe The combination of Mitsuko Uchida and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe is a winning one and the Festival Hall was a sell-out for their Monday evening concert. On the programme was an idiosyncratic combination of Mozart and Stravinsky, the latter being represented by his ballet score, for strings only, Apollon... more> |
 Concert Review: Elision Ensemble at King's Place The music publishing house Ricordi celebrates 200 years of new music promotion and publication this year, and to mark the occasion they have organised a series of concerts around the world. In London two celebratory recitals honour the bicentenary. The first of these, given in partnership with the Elision Ensemble... more> |
 Concert Reviews: The Ensemble Contemporain celebrates the centenaries of Messiaen and Carter The Ensemble intercontemporain marked two very different centenaries with their London concerts this week at the Southbank Centre. The first took place in the Royal Festival Hall on Wednesday, and it celebrated the fact that Olivier Messiaen had been born on that date one hundred years... more> |
 Concert Review: Slava: A gala tribute to Mstislav Rostropovich Although, in spite of their promotional material, Rostropovich was neither seen on film or heard on CD in Dvorák's Cello Concerto and in Rostropovich's Humoreske, The London Cello Society presented a deeply moving two-part tribute to the late Mstislav Rostropovich, their former honorary patron... more> |
| Concert Review: London Sinfonietta: Al Farabi Concerto (QEH) Al Farabi Concerto is a showcase series of concerts in which new pieces written by Arabic composers who work predominantly in the Western classical tradition, are performed alongside recent compositions from their Western peers. The third concert in the series took place on Monday night at the QEH... more> |
 Concert Review: Gil Shaham and the BBC Symphony Orchestra It is striking that the world premiere of Hayden's Substratum should be placed at the opening of the evening's concert: world premieres are usually safely embedded in the middle of the concert program. This is, partly, to buffer up the uncertainty of the reception of a new piece with a few numbers that are tried-and... more> |
 Concert Review: A world premiere for the Guildhall Symphony Orchestra & Vasily Petrenko at the Barbican What has emerging British composer Edmund Finnis to do with two Russian giants? The best answer can perhaps be found in the sharp and sophisticated interpretation of a group of talented young musicians, namely the Guildhall Symphony Orchestra. Conducted by the almost... more> |
 Concert Review: Scottish Chamber Orchestra present a world premiere The Scottish Chamber Orchestra's performance of Mozart's Idomeneo Overture was one of the best overture renditions I have heard for a long time - and the acoustics of Queen's Hall seemed to agree. With the fundamentals of delicacy, finesse and accuracy all in place, the vibrancy of this performance under... more> |
 Concert Review: Anne-Sophie Mutter performs the Brahms Violin Sonatas (Baden-Baden) A full house, and in the Festspielhaus of Baden-Baden that means 2500
seats, expected the appearance of Anne-Sophie Mutter and Lambert
Orkis in their Brahms Sonata evening, with which they are now touring
in three Continents. One still remembers the beginning of her meteoric career some... more> |
 Concert Review: The OAE, Rebecca Evans and Charles Mackerras in Mozart and Beethoven (Festival Hall) On paper, this look set to be a great concert, with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment reunited with their Emeritus Conductor Sir Charles Mackerras and leading Classical-period soprano Rebecca Evans for a programme of Mozart and Beethoven. But in the event, it was a somewhat low-key... more> |
 Festival Review: The Greenwich Early Music Festival 2008 The Greenwich Early Music Festival offers the Early Music enthusiast not only the largest exhibition of its kind in the world, but a weekend packed full of workshops, masterclasses and concerts. This year's festival was no exception, with a varied concert programme featuring some of the Early Music scene's brightest stars... more> |
 Concert Review: The LSO and Marin Alsop perform Dvorak and Bartok (Barbican) The latest concert from the LSO's Last Words Series had nothing less than Dvořák's much-loved Ninth (and indeed, last) Symphony as its 'read-thread' piece, coupled up with Bartók's The Wooden Prince and Liszt's Second Piano Concerto. The evening opened with a truly dazzling performance of the... more> |
 Festival Review: Part 2 of Klang, the Southbank's celebration of Stockhausen (London) Placed right in the middle of the week-long Festival, the concert on Wednesday 5 November was an intimate affair. The choice of the Purcell Room (the smallest concert hall in the Southbank Centre) was appropriate both to the esoteric mysticism of the works and to the acoustic requirements... more> |
 Concert Review: Freddy Kempf plays Ravel with the NSO (Dublin) The National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, led by the gifted French conductor Pierre-André Valade, last night gave as part of their regular Friday night subscription series a concert of French orchestral music that moved in reverse chronology through works by Dutilleux, Ravel, and Cesar Franck. The guest conductor was well chosen... more> |
 Concert Review: Radu Lupu joins the Halle for Bartok's Third Piano Concerto (Manchester) Šárka, the third symphonic poem from Smetana's cycle Má Vlast [My Country], is not a pretty story. According to the legend, Šárka is a beautiful Czech maiden who, betrayed in love, decides to seek vengeance on all men. She tricks a group of soldiers who are led by the knight Ctirad and murders them... more> |
 Festival Review: The opening weekend of Klang, the Southbank's Stockhausen Festival The SBC’s Klang festival, which began this weekend and will continue its run of music, installations, lectures and other events right up to next Sunday night, was originally conceived as a celebration of the eightieth birthday of the extraordinary German modernist mystic composer Karlheinz Stockhausen... more> |
 Concert Review: Contemporary music with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (Edinburgh) Contemporary music in Scotland is thriving thanks to the Scottish Chamber Orchestra's generous programming of new works in their latest season. Works by Takemitsu, Brett Dean and a world premičre by Swedish composer Karin Rehnqvist were a mixed bag, but were directed beautifully by conductor.... more> |
 Concert Review: Charlemagne Palestine's Schlingen Bangen Concerts of this nature - inordinately long and consisting of only one, highly rigorous minimalist work - are rare, and they require a special type of commitment of their audience. Morton Feldman's second string quartet for instance is a famous example of affect dominated by duration. That work's six hour span crystallises through... more> |
 Concert Review: Stéphane Denève and the RSNO (Edinburgh) There's a local phrase that gets used in British concert life: meat and two veg. 'Vegetable' is always abbreviated to 'veg'. A meat-and-two-veg programme would invariably start with an overture, continue with a concerto, and (after the obligatory interval) conclude with a symphony. I had always assumed that the term referred... more> |
 Concert review: Nagano conducts Messian's La Transfiguration (RFH) The mass onstage at the Royal Festival Hall had come together to perform one of Messiaen’s largest-scale works, La Transfiguration de Notre-Seigneur Jésus-Christ. The formidable job of conducting them went to the seasoned and able Kent Nagano. The Philharmonia Orchestra and Voices were expanded on the night... more> |
 Concert review: Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Evgeny Kissin join forces to perform Russian songs (Barbican) This recital from the Barbican's Great Performers series was, first and foremost, an electric evening of high quality music making from two of the best known performers on today's international concert scene.
However, it also raised interesting questions about the... more> |
 Concert Review: Sir Thomas Allen at the Oxford Lieder Festival The Oxford Lieder Festival entered its second week by welcoming Sir Thomas Allen, one of the festival's patrons, to the University Church for a programme of French Song.
Accompanied by Roger Vignoles, Allen produced intelligent, suave and finely-nuanced intepretations of songs by Duparc, Fauré and Ravel which... more> |
 Concert review: The UK premiere of Gérard Grisey's Les espaces acoustiques (QEH) As Julian Anderson noted in his programme note, tonight's first UK performance of Les espaces acoustiques was a significant event for anyone in the country interested in contemporary music. Although completed in 1985, this work has waited some time to be tackled here in performance. ... more> |
 Concert review: The BBCSO open their new season under Belohlavek (Barbican) The BBCSO opened their 2008/2009 season on Friday last with a sure and stirring account of that most troublesome of works, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis. Their chief conductor Jiří Bĕlohlávek led the assembly, which was completed by the massed ranks of the BBC Symphony Chorus and the four ... more> |
 Concert review: LSO/Harding (Barbican) Daniel Harding is clearly a gifted conductor, and the LSO of course a fantastic orchestra. The opportunity that this concert presented to see them combine in an outwardly diverse and enticing programme was tantalising enough. But their performance last night at the Barbican was merely solid, with only the powerful soprano Sally Matthews' appearance... more> |
 Concert review: Mahler & Schoenberg: Budapest Festival Orchestra/Fischer (RFH) At the beginning of the last century, Budapest was the second city of the vast Austro-Hungarian Empire. Mahler's connections with the city are well-known, he was director of the opera there before graduating – via Hamburg – to the Court Opera in Vienna, and the city plays host to a festival each... more> |
 Concert review: RSNO/Deneve (Edinburgh)
There was a microphone by the podium. One notices these things, distractedly watching the musicians percolate onstage, pausing to wonder why, if the men are dressed as butlers, the women aren't dressed as maids? It is the opening concert of the season, so maybe there will be a few words from the conductor by way of introduction. more> |
 Concert review: Free Radicals: The Music of Thomas Larcher/Toru Takemitsu (QEH) The London Sinfonietta under Martyn Brabbins gave a concert on Tuesday last at the Queen Elizabeth Hall that focused on the music of Thomas Larcher, a relatively young (b. 1963) Austrian composer whose strong standing in central Europe is not matched in Britain, though as evidenced by this concert... more> |
 Concert review: Ramadan Nights - the Kronos Quartet (Barbican)
The Ramadan Nights mini-festival at the Barbican - given around the end of the holy month of Ramadan in order to 'highlight outstanding music of the Islamic world in all its diversity' - has reached its fourth year.
Judging by the strength of this year's programme, and the diversity of the audience at this concert, the goals of... more> |
 Prom 76 Review: Bryn Terfel and Sir Roger Norrington lead the Last Night of the Proms As the 2008 BBC Proms finally draws to a close, let us reflect on what has, ultimately, been a successful first season for new director Roger Wright. We've seen the anniversaries of four major twentieth-century composers acknowledged and their works honoured. There's been a pioneering willingness... more> |
 Concert review: The Dresden Staatskapelle and Helene Grimaud in Edinburgh Two significant changes to the original advertised program brought interesting new perspectives to the Staatskapelle Dresden concert: Schuman's Piano Concerto was replaced by Beethoven's Concerto No 4, and there was the addition of Bernhard Lang's Monadology II to the end of the evening... more> |
 Concert Review: Vladimir Jurowski conducts the LPO in a new Turnage work (RFH) The LPO and their principal conductor Vladimir Jurowski began their new season on Tuesday at the Royal Festival Hall with an eccentric concert full of odd juxtapositions and unexpected twists and turns. But despite the unconventional programming, it was in fact the style and tactics of the interpretations that... more> |
 Proms 71 & 72 Review: Bernard Haitink leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra The last of this season's double visits to the Proms by a big touring orchestra featured the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Principal Conductor, Bernard Haitink.The bulk of the programmes was made up of whopping symphonies by Mahler and Shostakovich, coupled respectively with... more> |
 Prom 70 Review: Ingo Metzmacher conducts Messiaen's St Francis of Assisi With over four hours of music, and a running time including intervals usually somewhere in the region of six hours, Messiaen's only opera requires a certain degree of commitment in its listeners. Especially, of course, when it is included in a large festival of music as the 77th event, and on a Sunday moreover... more> |
 PCM 8 Review: Elizabeth Watts and the Aronowitz Ensemble The concluding concert of the Proms Chamber Music series for 2008 was a slightly anti-climactic affair, with the seven young musicians of the Aronowitz Ensemble failing to imbue a fairly tepid programme with any great insight or spirit. Despite the presence of a world premiere on the agenda, and the able presenting... more> |
 Prom 65 Review: Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic in Brahms & Shostakovich No beating around the bush with this programme: for his second Prom with the Berlin Philharmonic (now, it seems, fully rebranded as the Berliner Philharmoniker in the programme), Sir Simon Rattle presented two pillars of the repertoire in symphonies by Brahms and Shostakovich.... more> |
 Prom 62 Review: Sir Colin Davis and the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester One of the strengths of the Proms is the way the festival brings together a healthy number of top-notch youth orchestras every year, and for Prom 62 it was the turn of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester.The overriding impression of the concert was one of professionalism: not for nothing did Claudio Abbado... more> |
 Prom 58 Review: Lorin Maazel and the New York Philharmonic As America's oldest orchestra, and a band that can legitimately lay claim to being in the international elite, the New York Philharmonic was given two consecutive evenings to show its mettle to the Proms audience. Music Director Lorin Maazel pitted two twentieth century greats against Tchaikovsky... more> |
 Concert Review: Ian Bostridge at the Snape Proms What could go wrong? Three first class musicians in a light-hearted programme of songs for Bank Holiday Monday. Snape Maltings was full for The Bostridge Songbook, a selection of songs by Noel Coward, Kurt Weill and Cole Porter. But it was a pretty tepid evening. The format was simple – a grand piano, a couple of chairs and a table... more> |
 Concert review: Antonio Pappano and the National Youth Orchestra at the Snape Proms Hooray for adventurous programming! The three works featured at the twenty-first Snape Prom were all takes on America – by Edgard Varèse, Sergei Rachmaninov and Aaron Copland. And how fascinatingly different they all were – from the atonal Varèse through the lush post-Romanticism... more> |
 Prom 48 Review: Markus Stenz and the Gürzenich Orchestra in Mahler & Stockhausen Part of this season's programming at the Proms has been the happy idea of recreating concert programmes from the past. After the marathon of Prom 9, this three-parter from Markus Stenz and the Gürzenich-Orchester Köln set out to recreate the 1904 concert in Cologne's Gürzenich Hall... more> |
 Concert review: Kim Criswell sings music by George and Ira Gershwin at Cadogan Hall Continuing their summer of in-house-produced American songbook concerts, Cadogan Hall offered a programme featuring Broadway and West End star Kim Criswell. Although it was billed as being part of the Gershwin and Friends season, Criswell eschewed the temptation to follow too predictable... more> |
 Concert Review: Prom 45: BBC SSO in Electronic Music by Jonathan HarveyStanding in the hall before tonight's concert, I overheard an usher warn two prospective concert-goers who had wandered in – 'Tonight's music will actually be all electronic music' – to which both frowned, before wandering back out of the building. For those of us who stayed on to witness the concert... more> |
 Concert Review: Gergiev's Sleeping Beauty and Belohlavek's Osud in Proms 46 and 47 On consecutive nights, the Proms gave opportunities for two conductors central to London's musical life to showcase music from their home countries. Valery Gergiev and Jiří Bělohlávek might be worlds apart in terms of temperament but as Principal and Chief Conductors of the LSO and BBCSO... more> |
 Prom 41 Review: Handel's Belshazzar with Charles Mackerras It is hard to believe that Sir Charles Mackerras is an impressive 82 years old, merely because he continues in his illustrious career with no perceivable signs of slowing down. He received a rousing surge of applause as he entered on stage – something that the audience repeated with increasing fervour upon each... more> |
 Prom 43 Review: City of London Sinfonia/ Richard Hickox One of a number of unfair casualties of the Arts Council's savage cuts and reallocation of funds earlier in the year, the City of London Sinfonia has battled on regardless.Its education programmes and regional performances – two qualities which one might expect to be worthy of public subsidy – remain in place... more> |
 Concert review: Steve Reich Evening at the Edinburgh International Festival There are two loudspeakers, upturned, front-stage, one in front of the other. Suspended above each is a microphone, hung from far above. At the edge of the stage, a chair faces the arrangement from either side. Two male dancers walk on and face each other with the microphones between them. One withdraws... more> |
 Concert Review: Handel's Athalia with Richard Egarr at the Snape Proms For young performers there is huge excitement in evenings such as we enjoyed at Snape Maltings on Sunday night: glorious, alert rhythmic and authentic Handelian playing by the excellent Britten-Pears Baroque Orchestra, expert leadership by the highly experienced conductor Richard Egarr... more> |
 Prom 37 Review : Gustavo Dudamel conducts the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra The day after the first episode of the BBC's new Maestro series, Gustavo Dudamel's appearance at the Proms could not have provided a better showcase for the conductor's art.
His Proms debut was with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra three years ago was as a last minute replacement... more> |
 Prom 38 Review: Daniel Barenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra The Proms are really hotting up and it's unusual to have two outstanding but so fundamentally contrasted concerts in quick succession before the final weeks. After Gustavo Dudamel brought a trio of works laden down with extra-musical associations, Daniel Barenboim's West-Eastern Divan Orchestra gave us a different... more> |
 Concert Review: The Edinburgh Festival opens with Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny Because the Edinburgh Festival has its resemblances to the transient city created by Brecht and Weill, Mahagonny would be a ripe and mordant programme choice in any year, as bien pensants throng to Edinburgh seeking their hearts' desire. Just now, a temporary facade clads... more> |
 Prom 34 Review : Gianandrea Noseda conducts Rachmaninoff and Puccini This was just the kind of unusual coupling in which the Proms excels: a hefty symphony in the first half and an amply cast one act opera in the second. The symphony was Rachmaninoff's first, a work of his early twenties with which he was fundamentally dissatisfied. It was counterbalanced by Il tabarro.... more> |
 Prom Review: Stockhausen Day (Proms 20 & 21) The timing could not have been better. Less than eight months after Karlheinz Stockhausen's death, this day of celebration of the composer's life and work was a much-awaited effort in marking the moment of Stockhausen's music finally bursting out of the bubble that the composer had created around himself for decades by secluding... more> |
 Prom 25 Review: Yakov Kreizberg and the Netherlands Philharmonic with Julia Fischer The pleasant yet unremarkable first half of this concert – in which the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra performed Wagenaar's Cyrano de Bergerac Overture and Dvořák's Sixth Symphony under the baton of Chief Conductor Yakov Kreizberg – was followed by Julia Fischer's... more> |
 Concert review: BBC Scottish Symphony/ Solyom (Snape Proms 2) The first orchestral concert in this year's Snape Proms (1 – 31 August) was a full-blooded affair. An overwhelming wall of sound came from the stage at the packed house and there was much to enjoy (although those responsible for the European Noise Directive might have had something to say). The programme... more> |
 Concert Review: A Swell Party with Cole Porter (Cadogan Hall) Following on from the success of last year's Simply Sondheim concerts, Cadogan Hall has decided to present four performances of A Swell Party, John Kane and David Kernan's 1991 cabaret-style show which interweaves songs by Cole Porter with a narrative about his life and works. Maria Friedman, Daniel Evans, Mary Carewe... more> |
 Concert Review: Rebecca Evans and the Classical Opera Company present Mozart: The Truth about Love Even on paper, this concert by the innovative Classical Opera Company seemed delectable: seventeen arias and duets interspersed by a range of love poems read by Zoe Wanamaker and Simon Russell Beale. The concert was brilliantly executed by the COC under their artistic director, Ian Page. more> |
 Concert review: Paul Lewis, Vasily Petrenko and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic (Prom 19) Much as the appointment of Vasily Petrenko as Principal Conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic has worked wonders for the orchestra's morale – shown not least by their warm ovation for the maestro at the close of the concert – this Prom suggested that there's still a long way to go before... more> |
 Concert Review: Alice Coote and Danielle de Niese in The Coronation of Poppaea (Prom 18) The first of four complete operas to feature in this summer's Proms season, Robert Carsen's innovative production of The Coronation of Poppaea – first performed earlier this summer at Glyndebourne – was greeted with a full house and soaring temperatures. Indeed, these soaring temperatures were... more> |
 Concert Review: Prom 9: BBC Symphony Orchestra/Belohlavek (RAH) Yesterday, the Proms organisers transcended the last fifty years by reincarnating a magnificent programme – originally given on 3 September, 1958 by Basil Cameron's London Philharmonic Orchestra – that consisted of Mendelssohn's Ruy Blas overture and 'Italian' Symphony, and Brahms' Second Piano Concerto. more> |
 Concert Reviews: BBC Proms 7 and 8 (RAH) Roger Norrington brought the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra to the Albert Hall for Prom 7, in a concert that showed just how powerful and revitalised the central repertoire can become when performance practice is taken beyond normal convention. Later in the evening, the Tallis Scholars sang music by Josquin des Prez... more> |
 Concert Review: Prom 6: Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France/Chung (RAH) The Royal Albert Hall was host on Monday night to a visit from the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, under their Musical Director Myung-Whun Chung, for an evening of unevenly matched but uniformly well performed French music written for various permutations of organ and orchestra.... more> |
 Concert Review: The First Night of the BBC Proms (RAH) The First Night of the Proms is invariably an evening of familiar faces, familiar surroundings and – most importantly of all – familiar sounds. Yet the format of these proceedings adopted a rather nonconformist guise on this occasion. The traditional overture-concerto-symphony programme of last year's event was abandoned... more> |
 Concert Review: Chamber Prom 1 with Pierre-Laurent Aimard (Cadogan Hall) Pierre-Laurent Aimard opened this year's series of Proms Chamber Music today at Cadogan Hall with an accomplished, if at times a little cold, recital of romantic and modern piano worksThe programme itself was well selected, with late Schumann preceding Elliot Carter, Messiaen and Bartok in a tightly... more> |
 Opera Review: Jette Parker Young Artists' Summer Concert (ROH) Every summer, the Royal Opera's Jette Parker Young Artists close the season with a concert of staged extracts from a variety of operas. This year, the concert united three portions of operas featuring Counts and Countesses with a French theme thrown in.In theory, being given part of Tanya McCallin's handsome set... more> |
 Concert Review: Juan Diego Flórez sings bel canto (Barbican) Juan Diego Flórez's reputation as the world's pre-eminent Rossini tenor has been established now for the best part of a decade. As with all tenors, it seems, the Peruvian star has been expanding his repertoire to include some slightly heavier roles, although all still well within the realms of bel canto. This concert, planned... more> |
 Concert Series Review: Lorin Maazel's Brahms Concerts with the Philharmonia at the RFH For me the most gratifying element of Lorin Maazel's presentation of Brahms symphonic works is the transparency of the large structure as well as the lucidity of even the tiniest details. Maazel clearly knows every single note and conducted the whole cycle, including the massive Requiem, from memory... more> |
 Concert Review: The Alban Berg Quartet bids farewell to London This was the Alban Berg Quartet's last concert in London so it might have seemed strange that they chose to share their final moments on the platform of the Queen Elizabeth Hall with three high profile colleagues. Choosing two quintets by Schubert – the 'Trout' and the String Quintet D.956 – seemed like a propitious decision ... more> |
 Concert review: Harry Bicket conducts the English Concert at the Wigmore Hall Harry Bicket is less than twelve months into his directorship of The English Concert, and yet as only the third artistic director of this ensemble since their inception in 1973, he appears calm and confident at the helm of this grand musical ship. Bicket led from the harpsichord in a programme of music from J.S. Bach. more> |
 Concert Review: London Sinfonietta/ Knussen (Queen Elizabeth Hall) This concert by the London Sinfonietta, conducted by Oliver Knussen, afforded listeners a rare chance to hear the music of Niccolò Castiglioni in performance. Castiglioni (1932-1996) was an Italian composer of the same generation as Donatoni, Nono, Clementi and Berio, who, like these... more> |
 Concert Review: Maurizio Pollini (Royal Festival Hall) Visitors to the Royal Festival Hall on Tuesday night were fortunate to experience a performance by the Italian pianist Maurizio Pollini that conveyed a depth of intelligent insight – along with a wellspring of subtle feeling and emotion – that befitted his now legendary status. Pollini's pianistic technique is bewildering, in twentieth century... more> |
 Concert Review: Brendel with the LSO and Haitink: Mozart & Strauss (Barbican) It's not long now before Alfred Brendel's retirement and this concert – and its repeat on 10th June – marks his final appearance with the LSO. We've only now got his final solo recital at the South Bank to come later this month and a concerto appearance there in the Autumn. As a result, all his performances... more> |
 Concert Review: Krystian Zimerman in recital at the Royal Festival Hall To speak of Krystian Zimerman's mastery of the piano is to overlook the rare feeling of equality that exists between him and his instrument. There was hardly a sound in this recital that gave the impression of not having been thought through in the minutest detail, voicing and timbre calculated with loving precision. more> |
 Concert Review: Philippe Herreweghe at the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music In his pre-concert interview with Lindsay Kemp – new artistic director of the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music – acclaimed Bach interpreter Philippe Herreweghe emphasized Gustav Leonhardt's strong sense of rhythm as an important influence on his early baroque performances. more> |
 Review: Dame Kiri Te Kanawa - A Masterclass at the Guildhall School Since her farewell to opera took place in America and her UK concert appearances are few and far between nowadays (a forthcoming Brahms German Requiem at Winchester notwithstanding), the opportunity to attend a three-hour masterclass given by Dame Kiri Te Kanawa at the Guildhall in London was irresistible. more> |
 Review: Gergiev's Mahler 2 with the LSO Valery Gergiev's Mahler cycle with the London Symphony Orchestra seems now to be taking shape and this thrilling account of the 'Resurrection' Symphony, heard on the second of two consecutive evening performances, bore many of the hallmarks that have distinguished the series so far: dramatic, driven and occasionally impatient.. more> |
 Concert Review: The Ebene Quartet at the Wigmore Hall The Ebene String Quartet gave a rapturously received recital of Haydn, Webern and Schubert at the Wigmore Hall last night. The most notable characteristics of this young French quartet are its technical prowess and its ability to adjust its style of playing to give the most faithful and authentic interpretation to each work on its programme. more> |
 Concert Review: Sarah Connolly sings Dido with the Gabrieli Consort and Paul McCreesh (Wigmore Hall) The grand surroundings of the famous Wigmore Hall buzzed in anticipation of this visit one of today's finest Early Music ensembles, the Gabrieli Consort. Despite the small number of players, there seemed to be quite a squeeze on stage. And as if this wasn't bad enough, eight singers... more> |
 Concert Review: Ivan Fischer & the Budapest Festival Orchestra play Mahler The genesis of Ivan Fischer's orchestra shares similar features with
Mikhail Pletnev's Russian National Orchestra. Both had to fight against the leaden indifference of a state-run apparatchik system that permeated even the world of art. Both found a powerful sponsor to help them. Without Kodaly's support, always a... more> |
 Concert Review: Roberto Alagna sings Verdi with the LSO (Barbican) It's perfectly normal to complain about concerts of Wagner's music as being made up of 'bleeding chunks', where audience and performers lose track of the music's dramatic context. Here, Roberto Alagna and the LSO under Ion Marin made it clear that it's rare that any opera composer benefits from this sort of treatment.... more> |
 Concert Review: Joshua Bell joins the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra in Mendelssohn (Dublin) Avery Fisher Prize winner Joshua Bell made a welcome return to the National Concert Hall, Dublin for a second appearance in their International Concert Series. Currently on a demanding tour, Bell gave an accomplished performance of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64...more> |
Concert Review: Sarah Connolly sings Dido with the Gabrieli Consort and Paul McCreesh (Wigmore Hall) The grand surroundings of the famous Wigmore Hall buzzed in anticipation of this visit one of today's finest Early Music ensembles, the Gabrieli Consort. Despite the small number of players, there seemed to be quite a squeeze on stage. And as if this wasn't bad enough, eight singers... more> |
 Concert Review: BBCSO under John Storgårds in Brett Dean and Sibelius (Barbican) Shakespeare was, to the unsuspecting or unknowing mind, the common theme that united the BBC Symphony Orchestra's engaging concert on Friday night at the Barbican. In an interesting piece of programming, Brett Dean's clarinet concerto Ariel's Music was paired with a... more> |
 Concert Review: Kremer joins Pletnev and the RNO in Sibelius & Beethoven (Baden-Baden) It would take the multilingual erudition as a master of musical aesthetics of a Gidon Kremer or a Mikhail Pletnev, turning his visions into magic performances as a virtuoso and conductor, adequately to find words to describe this concert. These two stars, so unwilling to play the role... more> |
 Concert Review: SCO performs MacRae, Hallgrímsson & Strauss (Edinburgh) The Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s commitment to commissioning new work created an interesting and unusual programme of Stuart Mac Rae, Haflidi Hallgrímsson and an old favourite, all too rarely performed, Metamorphosen: A Study for 23 Solo Strings by Richard Strauss. All fairly modern works dating from... more> |
 Concert review: LSO/Gergiev Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony (Dublin) The cult of Valery Gergiev returned to Dublin this week, concluding a short tour with the London Symphony Orchestra that also included Paris, Madrid and Barcelona. Breaking from the current Mahler cycle at the Barbican Centre in London, Gergiev conducted another all-Russian programme... more> |
 Concert review: Edita Gruberova in recital (Wigmore Hall) Edita Gruberova is approaching living legend status, having debuted in Bratislava in 1967, but shooting to fame in 1976 when she played Zerbinetta in Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos under Karl Böhm at the Vienna State Opera. Ever since, she has had a serious claim to be the world's number one coloratura soprano... more> |
 Concert review: Jonathan Nott conducts the Bamberger Symphoniker The genesis of the Bamberg Orchestra is little known. Bamberg is a small town in the hills of Upper Bavaria and does not have any further distinctions other than the one that attaches to the Orchestra. When millions of Germans were driven out of the newly-reformed Czech Republic after the end of the war, many members... more> |
 Concert review: Kent Nagano conducts the Munich State Orchestra in Schumann A couple of years ago, Kent Nagano took over the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, an orchestra steeped in traditions going back almost to Schumann's days and in the course of which it was shaped, honed and moulded by some of the leading maestros of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. more> |
 Concert review: Viktoria Mullova and Katia Labèque in Dublin Viktoria Mullova and Katia Labèque seem to be all the culture industry desires: young, attractive, incredibly talented, and, as their press release states, as comfortable with Baroque repertoire as they are with 'creative contemporary music'. Their programme at Dublin's National Concert Hall, however, did little to... more> |
 Concert review : Valery Gergiev leads the LSO in Mahler's Symphonies Nos. 5 & 7 (Barbican) These two concerts took Valery Gergiev's Mahler cycle with the London Symphony Orchestra purposefully past the half way mark and showed how the Russian conductor's approach to this music can be both revelatory and disappointing; driven, unsentimental, neurotic, at generally fast speeds... more> |
 Concert review: The Warsaw Philharmonic: Shostakovich and Dvorak (Dublin) A capacity audience greeted Antoni Wit and the Warsaw Philharmonic at the National Concert Hall. Founded in 1901, the history of the orchestra is not unimpressive, having enjoyed relationships with Grieg, Klemperer, Rachmaninoff and Rubenstein, for example, and the title of National Orchestra... more> |
 Concert review: Valery Gergiev and the Vienna Philharmonic (Barbican) Without doubt among the hottest tickets in the Barbican's Great Performers series, these two concerts brought together the Vienna Philharmonic and Valery Gergiev to produce a potent mixture of aristocratic poise and raw passion. It was a heart-felt, impassioned and stunningly well-played account of the Pathétique...more> |
 Concert review: Anne-Sophie Mutter & friends play Beethoven (Baden-Baden) With their delicate winsomeness, Beethoven's String Trios were not meant to be performed in such a splendid concert hall as Baden-Baden's Festspielhaus, but that doesn't mean that the works did not get an immaculate and beautiful airing at this concert. The interaction between Bashmet and Harrell and their... more> |
| Concert Review: Alban Berg Quartet in Haydn, Berg and Schubert (Southbank Centre) The Alban Berg Quartet's decision to disband later this year is going to leave the musical world an impoverished place. That this concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall fell on Valentine's Day was no doubt coincidental but it highlighted the strange romance surrounding this great ensemble... more> |
 Concert review: Christine Schäfer (Wigmore) On paper, the programme presented by Christine Schäfer and Graham Johnson in this Wigmore Hall recital had the potential to be an absolutely fascinating study of femininity as seen through the eyes of Teutonic male poets and composers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I couldn't help feeling, however, that something about... more> |
 Concert review: Dame Felicity Lott at Wigmore Hall Everything about Dame Felicity Lott delineated her star status at this Wigmore Hall recital, from the nobility of her bearing to the finesse of her technical preparation, her easy platform manner and her spectacular gowns. And whilst she has more claim than most to be referred to as a diva, only the positive connotations of that word... more> |
 Feature-review: The RTÉ Living Music Festival 2008 devoted to the music of Arvo Pärt This weekend Ireland welcomed Arvo Pärt to its capital in one of the most eagerly anticipated festivals of music in Ireland since Steve Reich's appearance at the Living Music Festival in 2006. Running from Friday 15 to Sunday 17 February this year's festival included 6 concerts in 4 venues across the city... more> |
 Concert review: Wolfgang Holzmair (Wigmore Hall) Wolfgang Holzmair and Imogen Cooper presented an all-Wolf programme at this Wigmore Hall recital that displayed the amazing breadth that exists within the output of a composer who, in a sense, we can be forgiven for thinking of as quite limited. Although it is the case that Wolf is known almost exclusively for his songs... more> |
 Concert review: Kate Royal (Wigmore Hall) Kate Royal's recital at the Wigmore Hall on Saturday night consisted of an immaculately prepared and presented selection of songs by Brahms, Debussy, Poulenc and Strauss. But while Royal's now-famous poise and innate class was brought to the music of all four composers, it was only in the Strauss group where she went beyond this sublime... more> |
 Concert review: COE/Schiff (Dublin) András Schiff made a welcome return to Dublin's National Concert Hall for this concert, performing the dual role of conductor and soloist with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Founded only in 1981, the COE has garnered a formidable reputation. Under Schiff's baton, the orchestra performed a programme of Mendelssohn and Schumann... more> |
 Concert review: Beethoven, Bartok and Dvorak with the LPO and Adam Fischer (RFH) Conductor Adam Fischer is not as well known in the UK as on the continent but hopefully, in the not too distant future, time and circumstance will allow him to perform more frequently here. I was happy during and after this performance of the New World Symphony: can one wish for more? more> |
 Concert review: A Sally Beamish world premiere with the SCO (Edinburgh) The Scottish Chamber Orchestra were on top form as they performed an all-modern programme of Gruber, Beamish, Wilson and Stravinsky. Two of these works took their inspiration from Bach's Brandenburg Concertos: Stravinsky's 'Dumbarton Oaks' and Sally Beamish's Chamber Concerto. more> |
 Concert review: Kremer/LPO/Krivine in Sibelius and Zemlinsky (RFH) In his lifetime Alexander Zemlinsky never quite found the recognition he probably deserved. He lived through the first decade of the twentieth century in the shadow of Gustav Mahler, a man of unparalleled charisma and drive who not only diverted the musical limelight from the already insecure... more> |
 Concert review: Simon Keenlyside (Wigmore Hall) It was very interesting to hear Simon Keenlyside perform Schumann's Dichterliebe so soon after Thomas Hampson's inclusion of the same work on his recent programme in the same hall. Although both men are fine lyric baritones regularly billed on the rosters of the worlds greatest opera houses, their respective interpretations could not have been... more> |
 Concert Review: Röschmann/Bostridge/ Quasthoff Trio: Schubert (Barbican Hall) After Billy Budd in December, Ian Bostridge's 'Homeward Bound' series did indeed take us into more homely surroundings for an evening of Lieder and vocal ensembles by Franz Schubert. In what was something of a stellar line-up, he was joined by Dorothea Röschmann and Thomas Quasthoff... more> |
 Concert review: Thomas Hampson at the Wigmore Hall Thomas Hampson recorded Schumann's Kerner Lieder Op. 35 in December 1989 with Geoffrey Parsons. It was immediately apparent when he started to sing them at this concert, eighteen years later, that his voice has deepened in colour, but lost none of its flexibility. After an absence of five years from London's Wigmore Hall... more> |
 Concert review: LSO/Gergiev - Mahler (Barbican Hall) There was an ecstatic response to Valery Gergiev's performance of Mahler's First Symphony on Sunday. However, it remains unclear that what the audience were responding to was really Mahler's First. Indeed, if one feature characterises Gergiev's latest instalments of his Mahler cycle with the London Symphony Orchestra, it was a refusal... more> |
 Concert review: Cecilia Bartoli (Barbican) There is an irony at the heart of Cecilia Bartoli's current tour and associated CD, inspired by the career of the great Maria Malibran, one of the nineteenth century's very biggest opera stars. Malibran achieved huge fame singing operas in the greatest opera houses of her day, and the fact that it had an intercontinental reach is remarkable. more> |
 Concert review: Holl and Schiff perform Schubert (QEH) It was not easy to prepare for Robert Holl and András Schiff's Schubert Lieder recital given at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on 12 December. I am of the opinion that concerts should entertain, inform, educate and give pleasure. Even if the artists perform beautifully communication with the audience should also be considered. more> |
 Concert review: Philharmonia/Muti (RFH) The then 31-year old conductor Riccardo Muti made his debut with the New Philharmonia orchestra on 2 December 1972. The programme included Beethoven's Overture The Consecration of the House, Brahms' Second Piano Concerto and Ravel's orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. The concert resulted in the appointment of Muti as the... more> |
 Concert review: LPO/Alsop - The Rite of Spring(RFH) If energy alone could guarantee the success of a performance, then Marin Alsop's latest concert with the London Philharmonic Orchestra would have been one of their most enthralling to date. As it was, however, a number of more subtle issues meant that what was an otherwise thrilling evening stopped just short of being superb. more> |
 Concert review: LPO/Rozhdestvensky in Mahler 3 (RFH) If he hadn't spent most of the evening hardly moving at all, then I probably would have interpreted Rozhdestvensky's motionlessness at the end of his and the LPO's performance of Mahler's Third as a sign that he was simply too moved by his own outright genius. In one of the most moving concert performances I can remember more> |
 Concert review: Schubert Symphonies 8 & 9: Philharmonia/Schiff (RFH) This final concert in András Schiff's Schubert series with the Philharmonia seemed very much aimed at those already converted to the composer's music. I'm sure hardened Schubertians would have been able to forgive the fact that the concert went on for twenty five minutes longer than scheduled... more> |
 Concert review: LSO/Davis in Berlioz (Barbican) After the hotchpotch of Billy Budd with Daniel Harding at the weekend, it was good to see the London Symphony Orchestra back on form under their President, Sir Colin Davis, in an all-Berlioz programme. So natural is the relationship between the orchestra and their former Principal Conductor that there is no panic and no histrionics... more> |
 Concert review: Bach's Christmas Oratorio (English Chamber Orchestra) The Choir of the 21st Century is an amateur group but their performance of Bach's Christmas Oratorio (accompanied by the English Chamber Orchestra) would have been difficult to better by any professional ensemble. Indeed, rarely can one hear such clarity of musical and verbal diction, dynamic range, variety... more> |
 Concert review: Das Paradies und die Peri (RFH) Eric Sams once described the text of Schumann's Das Paradies und die Peri as 'a crassly saccharine sob-story of guilt and redemption.' It's also difficult to see how this work fits into the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment's 'Revolution' series. Under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle, though, it received a performance that did much to... more> |
 Concert review: RSNO plays Shostakovich 6 with Järvi (Edinburgh) At this concert, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra performed a lively programme of Grieg, Nielsen and Shostakovich at the Festival Theatre. And although it was comparatively short, the RSNO rose to a top performance under the direction of Kristjan Järvi. Grieg's Lyric Suite got the RSNO off to a flying start. more> |
 Concert review: Denis Matsuev's 'Unknown Rachmaninov' (QEH) This recital by Denis Matsuev seems initially to have been planned as very much the concert of the CD (his 'Unknown Rachmaninov' disc on RCA). Somewhere along the line, though, it was decided that he should be joined by the Russian National Orchestra conducted by Dmitry Liss... more> |
 Concert Review: Giltburg, Philarmonia/ Pletnev (RFH) Under the tight control of Mikhail Pletnev, the Philharmonia dished up a programme of traditional fare for a dank November evening. Starting with Borodin's In the Steppes of Central Asia, we moved on to Rachmaninov's ever-popular Piano Concerto No.2 with Boris Giltburg a forthright soloist … more> |
 Concert review: LSO/Gergiev - Mahler 6 (Barbican) Although Valery Gergiev is a renowned and much-in-demand conductor, it is typically for his interpretations of Russian repertoire that he’s most famous, aided in no small way through his twenty-year tenure as Artistic Director of the Mariinsky Theatre. If there were any doubts concerning his approach to traditional Austro-German... more> |
 Concert Review: Camerata Ireland/Barry Douglas (Dublin) The National Concert Hall in Dublin was a fitting venue for the opening concert in Camerata Ireland's International Series 2007, given the ensemble's reputation as a platform for young Irish musical talent and all-Ireland commitment. A host of celebrated guests attended the evening's performance, including Mary McAleese more> |
 Concert review: Rachlin, Rysanov, Maisky: Bach (Dublin) It is either an exceptionally brave or intensely naïve move to attempt to arrange not only a work by Bach, but a work that looms large in the musical canon and popular consciousness of the last three centuries. Nonetheless, Dmitry Sitovetsky's is, with little exception, a worthy equal of the original keyboard version... more> |
 Concert review: Lang Lang (RFH) Lang Lang's recital at the Royal Festival Hall showed clearly what's made him a pianist of unrivalled celebrity and why he's yet to convince much of the musical fraternity. Technically, his playing is often stunning, however, there is a gulf between his dexterity and his interpretative gifts. Much has been made of the young Chinese... more> |
 Opera review: LPO/Jurowski: Korngold Wunder der Heliane (RFH) The climax of the London Philharmonic's Korngold festival was this performance, the UK premiere, of his grandest, most extravagant and flawed work. At some three hours long, it's scored for vast orchestra, large chorus and soloists; the two main roles, those of the stranger and Heliane are among the most taxing... more> |
 Concert review: ONF/Kurt Masur (Leeds) The year 2007 has seen a full diary for Kurt Masur. In celebration of his eightieth birthday he has undertaken concerts with each of the orchestras of which he has been Music Director within the last thirty years: the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the New York Philharmonic, the London Philharmonic, and his current tenure, the Orchestre National de France. more> |
 Concert review: Joshua Bell in recital (Dublin) The fourth concert in The Irish Times Celebrity Series 2007-08 in Dublin's National Concert Hall featured two American artists, Joshua Bell (violin) and Jeremy Denk (piano). Both successful performers in their own right – Denk received an Avery Fischer Career Grant and Bell has recently been awarded the Avery Fischer prize – the evening's recital promised... more> |
 Concert review: Scottish Chamber Orchestra: 'Classic Meets Jazz' (Edinburgh) Admiration for the SCO has once again rocketed with a fine concert of contemporary music. Three out of four of the works performed were marked by a serious exploration into the world of jazz which was tastefully presented despite the unpromising title of the concert, 'Classic meets Jazz'. more> |
 Concert review: LPO/Jurowski - Korngold Violin Concerto (RFH) Both the London Philharmonic Orchestra and their Principal Conductor Vladimir Jurowski were on top form for this somewhat unfamiliar programme at the Royal Festival Hall. Although I cannot be sure, I suspect that a great many people in the audience might not have heard of Zemlinsky's Sinfonietta. more> |
 Concert review: Janina Fialkowska plays Chopin's piano works (QEH) The third of the eight concerts that comprise the South Bank's International Piano Series 2007/08 was witnessed by a near-full audience this week at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. The exceptional Polish-Canadian pianist, Janina Fialkowska, was the soloist in a recital of Mendelssohn, Schubert and Chopin. more> |
 Concert review: Itzhak Perlman (Barbican) Itzhak Perlman was greeted by unusually huge applause while - aided by two crutches - he slowly walked across the stage to start his Barbican recital. Judging by the warm reception, the violinist could have done no wrong for his devoted audience. In the event, Perlman and pianist Bruno Canino did not disappoint. more> |
 Concert review: Bavarian Radio SO/Jansons (RFH) London can count itself extremely lucky to have had three visits by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Mariss Jansons in as many months. While their concerts at the Proms were special events, this appearance at the Royal Festival Hall was simply breathtaking. In a programme covering both ends of the ... more> |
 Concert review: Halle/Elder (Manchester) While the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Esa-Pekka Salonen were coming to the conclusion of their high-profile complete Sibelius symphony cycle at the Barbican, the Hallé's alternative (and by no means less distinguished) celebration of the 50th anniversary of the composer's death was beginning nder Mark Elder. more> |
 Concert review: Sibelius Unbound (3&4) LAPO/Salonen (Barbican) As Esa-Pekka Salonen's Sibelius cycle with the Los Angeles Philharmonic developed, I couldn't escape the feeling that something so alluring on paper had failed to deliver quite all that it promised. It also occurred to me that Sibelius's symphonies are really not that well suited to the completist treatment... more> |
 Concert review: OAE/Jurowski (RFH) There can be few more famously incomplete works in classical music than Schubert's 'Unfinished' Symphony. For almost a hundred and fifty years since its first performance, music lovers have been happy enough to make do with the two movements that Schubert did finish and it seems strange to me that Anton Safronov, a composer, should have... more> |
 Concert review: RSNO/Remmereit (Edinburgh) British cellist Natalie Clein has returned to the British classical music scene with a sophisticated and polished performance of Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 1. The Royal Scottish National Orchestra also performed Arvo Pärt's Festina Lente and Sibelius' Second Symphony. Clein is best known to the British public for her performance of the... more> |
 Concert review: Sibelius Unbound (1&2) LAPO/Salonen (Barbican) It seems astonishing that Esa-Pekka Salonen is only now conducting his first full Sibelius cycle and it's definitely something of a coup for the Barbican to have bagged him and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra for four concerts juxtaposing works of Salonen himself, Steven Stucky and Kaija Saariho... more> |
 ORR/John Eliot Gardiner: Brahms (RFH) This was the second of two concerts which mark the beginning of a two year long Brahms project by John Eliot Gardiner and his Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique. The aim of the venture, Gardiner explains in the programme, is to demonstrate the influences that shaped Brahms' style and through understanding those influences acheive a greater... more> |
 Concert review: LPO/Elder (RFH) When Mark Elder became Music Director of the Hallé in 2000, he decided to reach back to the orchestra's Elgar connections. Subsequently, with successful Elgar recordings under his belt, Elder was eminently well chosen to lead the London Philharmonic Orchestra's tribute to Elgar. The concert included both well-known and rarely-heard compositions. more> |
 LPO/Simone Young - Strauss' Four Last Songs Mahler's on the menu for several of London's big orchestras this season. As well as the highly publicised cycle with Gergiev and the LSO, the London Philharmonic Orchestra is tackling a handful of the works over the next few months. This mini-series got off to an auspicious start with a dramatic, driven performance of the 'Resurrection'... more> |
 Quatuor Mosaiques (QEH) Although rightly renowned for their recordings of Haydn, that master of musical humour, the Quatuor Mosaďques chose an unapologetically cerebral and serious programme for their appearance at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Starting with three 'Contrapuncti' from Bach's Art of Fugue, they moved on to Mendelssohn's astonishing Quartet Op. 80. more> |
 LPO/Jarvi - Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto/Mahler's First Before this concert, I was not familiar with the pianist Alexander Markovich. Judging from his illustrious biography though, I felt entitled to expect something rather more from his playing of Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto. The famous opening was full-toned and despatched with a certain steely bravura but the rest of his performance failed... more> |
 Gabrieli Consort's Missa Solemnis (Barbican) Some wit once described Verdi's Requiem as 'the best opera he never wrote' and hearing Paul McCreesh and the Gabrieli Consort and Players perform Beethoven's great Missa Solemnis made me wonder whether this bon mot couldn't be applied to this work instead. It's a piece that sounds like no other in the composer's output and one that can... more> |
 Scottish Chamber Orchestra: Brahms/Dvorak The principal players from the Scottish Chamber Orchestra united forces for a rare chamber music concert at the Queen's Hall, Edinburgh. Their performance of Dvorák's Quintet and Brahms' Sextet showed off the very best of SCO talent and confirmed their reputation as both capable chamber musicians and high-class orchestral players. more> |
 Kremerata Baltica/Gidon Kremer: Barbican Hall We witnessed art and - up to a point - music teaching at its best at the concert given by Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica. Ten years ago Latvian violinist Kremer founded his ensemble for several reasons, one being his aim to pass on his knowledge to young musicians from the three Baltic countries. more> |
 LPO/Simone Young - Mahler's 'Resurrection' Symphony Mahler's on the menu for several of London's big orchestras this season. As well as the highly publicised cycle with Gergiev and the LSO, the London Philharmonic Orchestra is tackling a handful of the works over the next few months. This mini-series got off to an auspicious start with a dramatic, driven performance of the 'Resurrection'... more> |
 Wagner Rarities (ROH) As part of the whole array of events organised around the Royal Opera House's Ring Cycle, this concert of 'Wagner Rarities' has to have been one of the most enlightening. Wagner's artistic development was by no means an easy road and the three fragmentary excerpts performed at this concert showed some of the directions he considered... more> |
 Dmitri Hvorostovsky (Barbican) Billed as 'a Russian journey', Dmitri Hvorostovsky's Barbican concert took us from the divine to the sublime and we were only saved from the ridiculous by the sheer quality of the Russian baritone's singing. He was accompanied variously by the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, the Academy of Choral Art Choir, Moscow and the Style of 5 Folk Ensemble. more> |
 LSO/Davis: Pure Mozart 80th Birthday Concert Mozart is one of the composers most closely associated with Sir Colin Davis, so it was highly appropriate that the main work on the schedule for his eightieth birthday concerts with the London Symphony Orchestra was the Requiem, K.626.The piece seems to get right to the heart of the question of our humanity - life and death. more> |
 Chicago Symphony Orchestra/Riccardo Muti Giving the programmes over the two evenings a certain symmetry, the second concert kicked off with a work which Serge Koussevitsky called 'the best symphony since Tchaikovsky's Sixth'. Based on material from The Fiery Angel, Prokofiev's Third is described by Philip Huscher in his programme note as containing 'some of the noisiest and most searing music'. more> |
 LSO/Davis: Pure Beethoven 80th Birthday Concert This concert, consisting as it did of two of Beethoven's best-loved and oft-performed works, posed one major question: how does one keep these works that have become part of the musical furniture fresh and exciting? This question was answered in contrasting ways by Evgeny Kissin and Sir Colin Davis. more> |
 London Philharmonic/Jurowski The 75th Anniversary season of the London Philharmonic Orchestra was opened in style last night by Vladimir Jurowski, leading his first concert as the LPO's new Principal Conductor. Jurowski is, of course, no stranger to the orchestra, having been Principal Guest Conductor since 2003 and Music Director of Glyndebourne... more> |
 Edinburgh Festival: A Celebration of Poulenc Under the baton of Stéphane Denčve, the Edinburgh Festival Chorus and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra gave an enthusiastic celebration of three of Francis Poulenc's best works.Starting the programme was his Stabat mater (1951). A memorial piece for Poulenc's friend, artist Christian Bérard, the work is a choral masterpiece... more> |
 Prom 71: Boston Symphony/Levine (2) Elliott Carter's Three Illusions for Orchestra was the obvious choice for the opening of the second of James Levine and the Boston Symphony Orchestra's second Prom concert, having been commissioned by Levine in 2002 for his inaugural season with the Boston SO. The orchestra too has a personal history with Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra... more> |
 Prom 69: Leipzig Gewandhaus/Chailly After the Vienna Philharmonic's unorthodox second concert, Riccardo Chailly and his Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchester were on far more familiar territory in their programming: Overture, Concerto, Symphony; Beethoven and Brahms. It was also encouraging to hear what a completely different sound this orchestra made to the Viennese... more> |
 Prom 70: Boston Symphony/Levine (1) Berlioz's music was often misunderstood during his lifetime, and La damnation de Faust was amongst his most roundly rejected works. However, this excellent performance by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under James Levine revealed it to be a stylish and intensely personal masterpiece. Levine's technically immaculate and inspiring... more> |
 Prom 68: Vienna Philharmonic/Barenboim (2) After their first appearance at this year's Proms, featuring Schubert and Bruckner, the Vienna Philharmonic and Daniel Barenboim left behind the 'world of comfort' of Imperial Vienna for an excursion to the farther reaches of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. However, it was as though on this tour to Hungary (Bartòk, Kodaly and Ligeti)... more> |
 Prom 66: Vienna Philharmonic/Barenboim (1) There is an apparent tradition of the last week of the BBC Proms to feature the some of the big names in orchestras, and this concert was no exception, showcasing the talents of what I consider to be the finest orchestra in the world, the Vienna Philharmonic. Appearing for two concerts with Daniel Barenboim, this first performance was an appropriately... more> |
 Edinburgh Festival: Optical Identity (T'ang Quartet) Dubbed as an enhanced musical experience for audiences, Optical Identity combined contemporary music and graphic lighting with the aim of creating a visual presentation of music. The Singaporean T'ang Quartet performed multi cultural contemporary music including works by the veteran composer Kevin Volans... more> |
 Proms 64 and 65: San Francisco Symphony/Tilson Thomas The programming for the San Francisco Symphony's two appearances at the Proms, under Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas, seemed carefully planned to showcase both the orchestra's virtues and Tilson Thomas's clean, no-nonsense approach. Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony and Mahler's Seventh are... more>> |
 Prom 62: Bavarian Radio Symphony/Jansons (2) It was difficult to understand the criteria for the selection of the repertoire for this Prom given by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Mariss Jansons. Honegger's Third Symphony and Beethoven's Ninth don't seem to share much on the surface (other than the fact that both composers had German blood)and Jansons did little to make... more> |
 Edinburgh Festival: San Francisco Symphony/ Tilson Thomas What better way for the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra to open a concert than with a performance of one of America's most famous fanfares, Aaron Copland's Fanfare for a Common Man? As if calling the audience to attention, the opening statements stand strong for the rights of the ordinary citizen as the piece calls... more> |
 Prom 60: Bavarian Radio Symphony/Jansons In the first of two appearances at this year's BBC Proms, Mariss Jansons and the Bavarian Radio Symphony performed a repeat of their programme from the Edinburgh Festival earlier this week, Strauss' Also sprach Zarathustra and Sibelius's Symphony No 2 in D major. Jansons also conducted the same programme here at the Proms twelve years ago... more> |
 Prom 59: LSO/Gergiev Considering Valery Gergiev's immense stature and partnership with no less than three major orchestras - Artistic and General Director of the Mariinsky Theatre, Principal Conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic and, most recently, the London Symphony Orchestra, it was no surprise that this Prom was completely sold out. Conducting an all-Russian programme with the LSO more> |
 Prom 58: An Evening with Michael Ball It was during the most nauseating rendition imaginable of the duet 'Au fond du temple saint' from Bizet's The Pearl Fishers that I felt 'An Evening with Michael Ball' had turned into the worst Prom concert I have ever had the misfortune to attend. In teaming up with tenor Alfie Boe, Ball evidently felt... more> |
 Prom 56: BBCSO/Belohlavek The big foreign orchestras are queuing up as the Proms gets into its final fortnight, so it's good to hear that the BBC Symphony Orchestra, 'the backbone of the BBC Proms', doesn't give away much in terms of professionalism and virtuosity. Granted, the orchestra might lack the last ounce of tonal allure and shine, but in this Prom, they were in their element. more> |
 Prom 55: RCO/Haitink (2) Bernard Haitink's second Prom with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra offered two lesser-known works by Debussy, sandwiched by famous bleeding chunks from operas by Wagner, one of the largest influences on his compositional technique. And although I had occasional doubts about aspects of... more> |
 Prom 53: RCO/Haitink (1) Perhaps the most impressive part of Bernard Haitink's conducting of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra at this Prom was his concentration in distracting circumstances. During the third movement, the fire alarm appeared to go off in the arena foyers and red lights started flashing inside the auditorium itself... more> |
 Prom 51: Lucerne Festival Orchestra/Claudio Abbado Claudio Abbado's Prom with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra was amongst the most highly anticipated concerts of the season. Playing Mahler's Third Symphony to a packed audience, this prestigious ensemble - which consists of leading orchestral and chamber musicians from around the world... more> |
 Prom 50: BBCSO/John Adams As Artist-in-Association with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, John Adams assumed the role of conductor in this Prom that presented the World Premiere of his latest orchestral work, Doctor Atomic Symphony. the concert juxtaposed contemporary and twentieth-century American music with the traditional European format... more> |
 Prom 49: Philharmonia/Dohnányi The programme for the Philharmonia's Prom was the ideal showcase for the high level of technical refinement they can achieve under their outgoing Principal Conductor, Christoph von Dohnányi. There is never a dull moment with this team onstage, because Dohnányi probes every score he conducts with the most enlightening results. more> |
 Prom 48: Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela/Gustavo Dudamel There has been a lot of publicity surrounding Gustavo Dudamel of late. One can scarcely read an article about him that does not proclaim his precocious talent, championed by Sir Simon Rattle, Claudio Abbado and Daniel Barenboim. But nothing could have prepared the Proms audience for the drama... more> |
 Edinburgh Festival: COE/Adčs (1) The Chamber Orchestra of Europe under the baton of Thomas Adčs created a magnificent performance on the fourth night of the Edinburgh International Festival. Opening the programme was Beethoven's Namensfeier Overture (Op. 115), one of the composer's best but least performed overtures. more> |
 Edinburgh Festival: COE/Adčs (2) The Chamber Orchestra of Europe's latest concert was an action packed affair. Four main works constituted the main body of the programme but squeezed into this marathon performance was a short overture by Jean-Philippe Rameau entitled Les Indes galantes ('The Elegant Indies'). more> |
 Prom 43: Bergen Philharmonic/Litton The programming for the Bergen Philharmonic's Prom debut under Music Director Andrew Litton seemed like a carefully planned piece of musical diplomacy, juxtaposing works by the figurehead of Norwegian music, Edvard Grieg, with a quintessentially English work, Walton's First Symphony. more> |
 Prom 40: Frankfurt Radio Symphony/Jarvi This visit by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra under their principal conductor, Paavo Järvi, concentrated on the nineteenth-century Austro-German tradition, with a dash of twentieth-century colour in the form of Schoenberg's imaginative orchestration of Brahms' G minor Piano Quartet. more> |
 Prom 39: Götterdämmerung To end their four-year Ring Cycle, the Proms engaged their home orchestra, the BBC Symphony, and one of their regular conductors, the Scottish Music Director of the San Francisco Opera, Donald Runnicles. Compared with the earlier instalments, this was a rather ordinary affair... more> |
 Prom 38: EYO/Davis There are few more inspiring sights than an orchestra consisting of young players being led by a conductor of great stature. This was especially the case at this Prom with the European Youth Orchestra under Sir Colin Davis because the orchestra's one hundred and forty musicians... more> |
 Prom 22: Les musiciens du Louvre-Grenoble/Minkowski Another concert of French music at the Proms, this time mixing the well-known - Berlioz's Les nuits d'été - with some rarely explored parts of the repertory, in the form of incidental music by Fauré and Bizet. Marc Minkowski and his... more> |
 Prom 26: BBCSSO/Volkov Although Kurtag's 1994 work Stele marked his first return to writing for symphony orchestra since his student days, he was obviously in no way intimidated by the forces available to him. Written at Claudio Abbado's request for the Berlin Philharmonic, the instrumentation included an impressive array of... more> |
 Prom 19: Halle/Elder 'Music is Life, and, like it, Inextinguishable'. Thus proclaims the foreword to the score of Nielsen's Symphony No. 4, 'The Inextinguishable', which was the feature of the Hallé's Prom at Royal Albert Hall. Written during the First World War, and a personally unstable period of Nielsen's life... more> |
 Prom 15: Macbeth The first of his three completed Shakespeare operas, Macbeth was a work of which Verdi was particularly proud. He believed he had created a new fusion of music and drama, and even when writing deliberately banal music for the witches, the composer sought for new, individually characterised sounds. more> |
 Prom 14: The Seasons Roger Norrington, who since 1998 has been chief conductor of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, has been moving away from the period instrument bands with which he became synonymous in the eighties and nineties. However, from this performance of The Seasons... more> |
 Prom 13: BBCSO/Robertson Brett Dean is a composer who is not afraid to make to make sociological and political comment through his music, and the European premiere of this BBC co-commission, Vexations and Devotions, is not any different. Described by Dean as a 'sociological cantata', the work... more> |
 Prom 7: Kurt Masur at 80 Recently described by Norman Lebrecht as the 'doyen of the German conducting tradition', Kurt Masur took the podium at the Royal Albert Hall to conduct repertoire that undoubtedly earned him such a distinction, most notably Bruckner's imposing Symphony No. 7. more> |
 Prom 4: Academy of Santa Cecilia, Rome/Pappano Antonio Pappano's Prom concert with his Rome orchestra, the Academy of Santa Cecilia, juxtaposed works by two fellow Italians who both took revolutionary attitudes to the musical conventions of their day. Rossini, the founder of a new style of Italian opera in the... more> |
 Prom 1: BBCSO/Belohlavek It seemed rather ironic that the most disappointing incident during last year's BBC Proms centred on a work whose text exudes unremitting joyous ecstasy. Not only was the cancellation of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony - to be performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra... more> |
 Jette Parker Young Artists' Summer Concert The subtitle for this year's Jette Parker Young Artists' Summer Concert was 'A Journey Round the World', in token of the imaginatively chosen combination of extracts from operas that are set in seven countries (and one on board ship). But it's also salutary to note that the artists... more> |
 Philharmonia/Von Dohnanyi Commissioned by the John Feeney Charitable Trust for the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and recorded by the CBSO with Sir Simon Rattle in 1997, Asyla by Thomas Adčs is hardly a novelty. Nevertheless, it is likely that the majority of the audience at this concert... more> |
 Philharmonia/Mackerras This was my first visit to the renovated Royal Festival Hall and the first three pages of the programme notes for the evening dealt with the refurbishment. So, while music making on the highest level was part of the performance, let me start with the refurbishment...more> |
 LPO/Alsop The title of this Signature concert may have been Rites, but, as conductor Marin Alsop pointed out, it was also a concert concerned with innovation, featuring three composers who changed the way in which we perceive music: Philip Glass, Edgard Varčse and Igor Stravinsky. more> |
 LSO/Gergiev Whilst Valery Gergiev's partnership with the London Symphony Orchestra has thus far divided critics, this concert edged closer to fulfilling hopes of an illustrious collaboration. Even the initially confusing combination of Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Debussy came together in an evening characterised by flowing lyricism. more> |
 Schiff Bartok Festival Bartók enthusiasts, especially lovers of high quality solo and chamber music performances, had a memorable time during the Bartók mini-festival (5, 7 and 10 June) at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. This series of three concerts was the brainchild of the great Hungarian musician András Schiff... more> |
 Elgar in his Kingdom: Concert 2 For the second of their two concerts celebrating the 150th anniversary of Elgar's birth, the Hallé and Mark Elder presented the composer's third and final oratorio, The Kingdom. Originally conceived as part of a trilogy with the better-known The Apostles and The Last Judgement... more> |
 Charities Philharmonia/Young The players of the Charities Philharmonia, formed in 2006, are young, gifted and dedicated. It was no mean feat to deliver a demanding orchestral programme in such sweltering heat as they were faced with on this day. Yet not only did they deliver the music, they also provided... more> |
 Elgar in his Kingdom: Concert 1 Exactly 150 years ago to the day, Sir Edward Elgar was born in Worcestershire. The anniversary of arguably Britain's greatest composer is being celebrated by almost every orchestra in the UK. But if the first concert was anything to go by, I doubt any of them will match the Hallé Orchestra's festive weekend. more> |
 English Chamber Orchestra/Davis Sir Colin Davis' relationship with the English Chamber Orchestra goes back a long way - he led their first tour and recording over forty-five years ago and was at the helm for their magnificent anniversary concert in 2005 - and his rapport with the ensemble is considerable. more> |
 Jordi Savall Many famous performers are marketed as great artists, but in truth, the latter are in the minority. So it was both a privilege as well as utmost joy to be present at Jordi Savall's viola da gamba concert. Savall has an extraordinary technical command of his instrument and he is a profound musician with humility. more> |
 Petra Lang Although it was only an hour in length, German mezzo-soprano Petra Lang's lunchtime recital at the Wigmore Hall was so invigorating from first to last that it felt like a truly complete experience. Juxtaposing the eight songs of Robert Schumann's cycle Frauenliebe und -leben with Lieder by Richard Strauss... more> |
 Nash Ensemble/Felicity Lott So many concerts of chamber music are dominated by music from the German tradition that it might be easy to forget the contribution of the French to the development of chamber works. On that level, at least, this enthusiastically-performed recital by the Nash Ensemble was tremendously interesting and thought-provoking. more> |
 Alban Berg Quartet As seen at their second concert in the Queen Elizabeth Hall during the International Chamber Music Season 2006-07, the Alban Berg Quartet has a very strong fan base in London and deservedly so. All four members of this quartet are particularly disciplined in terms of physical manifestation... more> |
 Handel: Solomon The much-awaited performance of Handel's Solomon at this year's Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music was preceded by bad luck. For personal reasons soprano Veronica Cangemi withdrew, thus Joanna Lunn and Ann Murray stepped in at short notice; and presumably not long before the performance conductor Ivor Bolton became indisposed. more> |
 Oedipus Rex: LSO/Gergiev If one needed absolute evidence that the collaboration between the London Symphony Orchestra and its new Principal Conductor Valery Gergiev is a thing of greatness, this concert was more than sufficient proof of the suitability of the match. more> |
 Rossini: Salon Songs The South Bank Centre was rather brave to choose such unusual fare for a Monday night: Rossini's salon songs were hardly likely to pack in the masses, and indeed even the relatively small Queen Elizabeth Hall was half-empty for the occasion. Nevertheless, this latest instalment in the Song on the South Bank Series had much to recommend it... more> |
 Anthony Michaels-Moore Baritone Anthony Michaels-Moore presented an imaginative programme of songs and arias by Schubert, Ireland, Massenet, Vaughan Williams, Tosti and Verdi and performed them all with equal measures of emotional commitment and textual insight. Nobody could accuse him of giving himself an easy ride... more> |
 Murray Perahia Murray Perahia's solo piano recital was sold out well in advance and the queue for return tickets before the concert was long. In the event Peraiha did not disappoint the nearly 2000-seat capacity audience, as he delivered perfection. Although the large modern Steinway piano (with the lid wide open) was evident for all to see... more> |
 London Mozart Players/Kovacevich Pianist-conductor Stephen Kovacevich is presenting a nine-programme Beethoven cycle, spread over fourteen months, with the excellent London Mozart Players. This concert was the second programme in the cycle. As per the pre-concert publicity, the concert should have started... more> |
 St Matthew Passion In spite of outstanding central performances by Rufus Müller (Evangelist) and Peter Harvey (Christus) as well as excellent contributions by chorus and orchestra, a muddled concept and rotten bad luck resulted - at least for me - in a less than satisfactory event. I hasten to add that, judging by the final applause, many of the audience were content. more> |
 Robert Holl/Andras Schiff: Schubert Perfection is rare to come by in the concert hall, but Robert Holl and András Schiff achieved just that in their recital of Schubert songs. It is a great loss that this concert was not recorded. The 11 songs performed range from the year 1816 to 1828, that is from Schubert's... more> |
 Sarah Connolly/Bryn Terfel Few concerts overcome adversity quite to the extent that this one managed to. Originally billed as an evening of duets and arias from operas and operettas starring American singers Thomas Hampson and Susan Graham, first Hampson withdrew for personal reasons then Graham dropped out only a couple of days beforehand, due to ill health. more> |
 Charities Philharmonia/Young Though the players in the Charities Philharmonia are only in their twenties, their performance of Shostakovich's great Symphony No. 7 (also known as "Leningrad") was a triumph by any standard. Many of the orchestra are seasoned young professionals... more> |
Classical concert reviews
Concert Review: Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra perform in the Meltdown Festival Ornette Coleman's Meltdown has proved to be the most interesting in years, as many had hoped it would. After a run of somewhat safe choices, Coleman's selection as curator of the Southbank Centre's annual music festival came as a shock, but the decision seems to have paid off. Sell out concerts and an extremely positive critical response will hopefully encourage the organisers to venture as far into... more>