Classical Reviews
Prom 66: Berlin Philharmonic, RattleSunday, 04 September 2016
The BBC Proms is perhaps the only music festival in the world that would (or could) have programmed performances of Steve Reich in a Peckham car-park and Brahms by the Berlin Philharmonic within a few hours of each other. The audacity of it is glorious, the breadth exhilarating, and the fact that both sold out intensely heartening. Read more... |
Prom 64: Berlin Philharmonic, RattleSaturday, 03 September 2016
What do Boulez's Éclat, for 15 instruments, and Mahler's Seventh Symphony, for over 100, have in common? Most obviously, guitar and mandolin, symbols of a wider interest in unusual sonorities. But while Boulez aims, as often, for needle point precision, Mahler uses selective groups, at least up to his finale when he exuberantly exchanges night for day, to create peculiar and unsettling grades of chiaroscuro. Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Melartin, Rachmaninoff, RzewskiSaturday, 03 September 2016
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Prom 63: B Minor Mass, Les Arts Florissants, ChristieFriday, 02 September 2016
The BBC Proms is the largest classical music festival in the world – an event whose ambition, accessibility and breadth wouldn’t be possible without the Royal Albert Hall and its capacity of well over 5,000 people. But the building that makes this festival possible, that provides the space for the hundreds of Prommers who fill the arena each evening, is also its biggest curse. Read more... |
Prom 62: Skride, BBCSO, YoungThursday, 01 September 2016
Branding, as any marketing manager will tell you, is everything when it comes to selling, and when it comes to selling, classical music is no different from cars, cornflakes or shampoo. It explains why a Mahler orchestral song-cycle would fill the Royal Albert Hall while a similar work by his love-rival and near-contemporary Alexander von Zemlinsky last night left it half empty. Read more... |
Prom 60: Gerhaher, Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, JordanWednesday, 31 August 2016
There is no reason why young musicians shouldn't make something special out of mature thoughts on mortality. Nor is the Albert Hall problematic when it comes to haloing intimate Bach as finely as it does massive Bruckner. The Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra glowed in both the large scale and the small last night. Any shortcomings were in senior hands and hearts - possibly those of a usually great conductor, Philippe Jordan, more likely the infirm purpose of his composer, Bruckner. Read more... |
All Together Now: The Great Orchestra Challenge, BBC FourWednesday, 31 August 2016
The ingredients should be familiar by now. A plucky range of contestants drawn from across the geographic and social spectrum. A selection of interesting back stories. Demanding judges, their prickly edges softened by a fluffier presenter. Read more... |
Edinburgh Festival 2016: Così fan tutte, Pekka Kuusisto, GurreliederMonday, 29 August 2016
It began with opera – Cecilia Bartoli’s pretty much universally adored Norma from Salzburg. And the Edinburgh International Festival ended with opera, too – Mozart’s Così fan tutte, in a co-production with the Aix-en-Provence Festival. Like Norma, it was an updating to more modern times – but one that in this case prompted the International Festival to send out a letter warning of the production’s explicit adult content. Read more... |
Prom 55: Hannigan, CBSO, Gražinytė-TylaSunday, 28 August 2016
If ever there was a Prom to put London’s classical crowd in their place, to remind us (as those outside the capital so frequently and justifiably do) that the city isn’t the be-all and end-all of concert-going, then this was it. It featured three major debuts – all of them overdue, two of them musical hand-me-downs from Birmingham. Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Beethoven, Shostakovich, Tommy SmithSaturday, 27 August 2016
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Erkki Melartin: Traumgesicht, Marjatta, The Blue Pearl Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra/Hannu Lintu, with Soile Isokoski (soprano) (Ondine)
Beethoven: Symphonies 5-8 Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra/Lan Shui (Orchid)Pages
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