Classical Reviews

Josefowicz, BBCSO, Oramo, Barbican

David Nice Thursday, 27 March 2014

Depth, height, breadth, a sense of the new and strange in three brilliantly-programmed works spanning just over a century: all these and a clarity in impassioned execution told us why the BBC Symphony Orchestra was inspired in choosing Finn Sakari Oramo as its principal conductor.

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Choral Pilgrimage 2014, The Sixteen, St John's College Chapel, Cambridge

Sebastian Scotney Saturday, 22 March 2014

The core pulse of Tudor polyphony is often deliciously slow. It gets down to a mesmeric pace of about 30 beats per minute. The listener just has to succumb to it, and the experience, even in the virtually unheated Cambridge College chapel where The Sixteen began its 2014 Choral Pilgrimage last night, was pure pleasure.

L'Arpeggiata, Wigmore Hall

alexandra Coghlan Saturday, 22 March 2014

Turning every concert into a party, baroque ensemble L’Arpeggiata are performers in the truest sense. Too often early musicians get away with being shy or downright awkward, visibly uncomfortable when forced to introduce an encore. Not so with these European virtuosi, whose signature improvisations give each member (yes, even the percussionist) the chance to step into a starring role. And don’t get me started on the baroque rap that concluded the group’s most recent London concert…

Classical CDs Weekly: Prokofiev, Schubert, Zemlinsky

graham Rickson Saturday, 22 March 2014

Organ Gala Launch Concert, Royal Festival Hall

Kimon Daltas Wednesday, 19 March 2014

The newly restored Royal Festival Hall organ was inaugurated in a celebratory atmosphere with this gala launch concert, which also marks the beginning of the Pull Out All the Stops organ festival.

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St Lawrence String Quartet, San Francisco Symphony, Tilson Thomas, RFH

David Nice Sunday, 16 March 2014

A voyage around Beethoven by Ives and John Adams, and then beyond him by Berlioz, added up to a vintage San Francisco Symphony programme from its music director Michael Tilson Thomas. Forty years on from his first concert with SFS, he’s still youthful in demeanour, still flapping with seagull (or albatross) like flamboyancy. But is there a chill behind the showmanship?

Classical CDs Weekly: Alwyn, Sibelius, Tenebrae

graham Rickson Friday, 14 March 2014

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Villa Lobos: Total Immersion, Barbican

Simon Broughton Monday, 10 March 2014

“This is not so much a total immersion, more of a quick shower,” said Simon Wright, biographer of Villa Lobos at the start of the day-long exploration of his music. With up to 1,500 works in existence – the exact number is unconfirmed – he promised we’d be “hacking our way through a tiny part of this immense jungle”, to use another metaphor that seems alarmingly appropriate with this composer.

Martinpelto, BBC Philharmonic, Storgårds, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

philip Radcliffe Sunday, 09 March 2014

No one could accuse Manchester’s musical forces of short-changing Richard Strauss on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of his birth. Under the title Strauss’s Voice, over two months three orchestras, eight conductors and a dozen soloists have delivered eleven concerts and several open rehearsals and talks.