Classical Reviews

Prom 47: Britten War Requiem, CBSO, BBC Proms Youth Choir, Nelsons

Edward Seckerson Friday, 22 August 2014

Nothing has resonated through the unfolding First World War commemorations more than the poetry of Wilfred Owen; and in terms of its grim immediacy and enduring heartbreak nothing ever could. Benjamin Britten knew that when he set down his War Requiem for posterity, counterpointing religious posturing with Owen’s indisputable truths.

Wall, Mørk, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Davis, Usher Hall, Edinburgh

Christopher Lambton Friday, 22 August 2014

The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s Edinburgh Festival debut was the most telling example yet of the 2014 festival’s disregard for conventional concert programming. A programme that began with Strauss’ Don Juan and Four Last Songs could easily have settled into a comfortable evening of large scale late romantics, but instead turned on its heel to dip into Schumann’s Cello Concerto before concluding with Percy Grainger’s riotous The Warriors.

Comment

Prom 46: West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, Barenboim

David Nice Thursday, 21 August 2014

By the time we got to the end of this Prom, with four of the five encores – the whole of Bizet’s Carmen Suite – cannily crafted to bolster the short official programme, most of the rightly euphoric audience had forgotten the most unsatisfying first half so far this season. Perhaps I start from an ungenerous standpoint.

Prom 43: Skride, BBCSO, Gardner

Edward Seckerson Tuesday, 19 August 2014

The Russians were coming - and the prospect of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, even without the added attraction of hearing it in Igor Buketoff’s questionable choral arrangement where the Tsarist hymn is taken at its word and does a Boris Godunov on us, had the promenade queue fast stretching towards South Kensington.

I, CULTURE Orchestra, Karabits, Usher Hall, Edinburgh

Christopher Lambton Monday, 18 August 2014

It is easy to be blinded by the sensational history of Shostakovich’s ^Seventh Symphony, the “Leningrad”. We cannot forget the famous performance by a starving makeshift orchestra in August 1942, at the height of the siege of Leningrad, or the dramatic way in which the Soviet authorities spirited the microfilmed score out of Russia to America via Tehran.

Lemper, SCO, Foster, Usher Hall, Edinburgh

Christopher Lambton Saturday, 16 August 2014

Twenty years ago Ute Lemper came to the Usher Hall to sing Kurt Weill. The young pretender to the Lotte Lenya throne performed then on a bare stage with little more than a piano as accompaniment. Last night, she swept onto a platform crammed with a massively augmented Scottish Chamber Orchestra, with saxophone, guitar, banjo, rhythm section, accordion, grand piano, and a squadron of percussion. Microphones, foldback, and towers of gently whirring loudspeakers filled any remaining space.

Comment

Gerhardt, Osborne, Queen's Hall/Keyrouz, Ensemble de la Paix, Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh

David Nice Thursday, 14 August 2014

“Ah now, I can’t promise you sun,” says a Scots lady-in-waiting of her native weather to a novice Englishwoman near the start of Rona Munro’s masterly James Plays. It’s the first of many references to make the audience laugh knowingly. Well, after four days of the worst weather Edinburgh Festivalgoers can remember, the sun came out yesterday morning.

Prom 34: Piemontesi, BBCNOW, Søndergård

Geoff Brown Tuesday, 12 August 2014

Some things that spread like wildfire, like ebola and wildfire itself, are not good news at all. But performing Nielsen’s symphonies? That’s another matter entirely. In the next concert season, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Philharmonia both begin Nielsen symphony programmes, while the LSO several years ago cycled through one of their own with Sir Colin Davis. Yesterday, the BBC National Symphony of Wales and their current Danish conductor – will it ever be someone Welsh?

Quartet for the End of Time, Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh

Christopher Lambton Tuesday, 12 August 2014

If you want an image that defines, for this writer at least, the essence of the Edinburgh Festival, it is the sight of Greyfriars Kirk full to capacity at 5.30 pm on a blustery Monday afternoon. At other times of year this sort of event might be hopefully billed as a “rush hour concert”, sparsely attended by commuters en route to the suburbs, but at festival time Edinburgh has a whole new demographic.

Prom 33: Schwizgebel, National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, Gardner

David Nice Monday, 11 August 2014

After the European Union Youth Orchestra hit unsurpassable heights last week, the Proms plateau of excellence remained available to another youth carnival of weird and wonderful 20^th century monsters.