Classical Reviews

Schwanewilms, Connolly, Crowe, LSO, Elder, Barbican

David Nice Friday, 09 May 2014

Mozart usually makes a fine concert bedfellow for his most devoted admirer among later composers, Richard Strauss.

Comment

Ysaÿe Sonatas, Ibragimova, Royal College of Music

Sebastian Scotney Friday, 09 May 2014

Next week, the 28-year-old Russian-born violinist Alina Ibragimova will step into a studio, to record some of the most technically unforgiving works in her instrument's repertoire, the solo sonatas by the Belgian violinist, composer and conductor Eugène Ysaÿe (1858-1931). She has just performed them over two evenings at the Royal College of Music.

Concert Dansé, Symphony Hall, Birmingham

Hanna Weibye Monday, 05 May 2014

On the back wall of Birmingham Symphony Hall’s great oval space, two musicians are poised on a glass balcony that gives the illusion of not being there at all. A small square of warm light picks them out, vivid against the hall’s darkness. So framed, Saint-Saëns’ gentle Prière for cello and organ keeps its intimacy even in that large space, the two instruments blending into one equal sound that is clear, golden, and not too sweet.

Shostakovich Cycle, Jerusalem Quartet, Wigmore Hall

David Nice Thursday, 01 May 2014

Under what circumstances can Shostakovich’s Eighth String Quartet, the most (over)played of the 15, sound both as harrowing as it possibly can be and absolutely fresh? Well, the context helps: hearing it at the breaking heart of the fourth concert in the Jerusalem Quartet’s Shostakovich cycle gave it extra resonance with the works on either side of it.

Tippett Retrospective, Osborne, Heath Quartet, Wigmore Hall

David Nice Sunday, 27 April 2014

For those of us who’d held fast to the generalisation that Michael Tippett went awry after 1962, it seemed emblematic that pianist Steven Osborne and the Heath Quartet were never to meet in a concert of two halves. After all, didn’t Tippett’s music split and splinter into a thousand, often iridescent atoms after his second opera, King Priam? Its satellite piece, the Second Piano Sonata, seems to sit restlessly, and quite deliberately, on the fault line.

Quartet for the End of Time, Village Underground

David Nice Thursday, 24 April 2014

Take a cushion or two among the beautiful young people gathered around the players – no Proms Arena crowd, this - pull up a chair or find your standing place; sit bolt upright, lie back, stretch your legs, tweet during the music if you like (an invitation thankfully declined).

Miklós Perényi, András Schiff, Wigmore Hall

Sebastian Scotney Wednesday, 23 April 2014

Miklós Perényi makes the listener re-think how a cello should sound. Forget the huge tone of the Russians - think Rostropovich or Natalia Gutman, or the attention-grabbing of Americans or even the flamboyance of the French. No floppy hair, no vanity or mannerisms here. Perényi plays with simplicity and accuracy, but with phenomenal craft and musicality. He dosn't force the tone, yet knows exactly how to project right to the back row of the hall.

Comment

Messiah at the Foundling Hospital, BBC Two

Jasper Rees Sunday, 20 April 2014

The last time the BBC dramatised the creation of a great musical work, it didn’t quite hit the spot. Eroica starred Ian Hart as Beethoven glowering at the heart of a drama which had rather less of a narrative through-line than the symphony it honoured. For Messiah at the Foundling Hospital, the BBC have gone to the other extreme and kept eggs out of the one basket.

Comment

Classical CDs Weekly: Britten, Poulenc, Peter Whelan

graham Rickson Saturday, 19 April 2014

Britten to America – music for radio and theatre Hallé/Sir Mark Elder, Ex Cathedra/Jeffrey Skidmore Samuel West (narrator) (NMC)

Uchida, LPO, Jurowski, RFH

David Nice Thursday, 17 April 2014

Vladimir Jurowski is a master of the through-composed programme. Yet at first this looked like a more standard format: explosive contemporary work (if 1966 can still be called “contemporary”) followed by popular concerto and symphony.