Classical Reviews

Classical CDs Weekly: Britten, Debussy, Schumann, Weinberg

graham Rickson Saturday, 24 May 2014

BBC Young Musician of the Year 2014, BBC Four

Sebastian Scotney Monday, 19 May 2014

No quibble about the result. Pianist Martin James Bartlett deservedly became BBC Young Musician of the Year 2014 at Usher Hall in Edinburgh last night. The 17-year-old, a student at the specialist Purcell School in Hertfordshire, and at the Junior Department of the Royal College of Music took the title with a very strong performance of Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.

Comment

Santa Cecilia Orchestra and Chorus, Pappano, RFH

Kimon Daltas Sunday, 18 May 2014

Antonio Pappano addressed the audience before the start of the concert to explain the thinking behind this rather unusual programme, first performed in the early nineties and now a perfect fit for the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia orchestra and chorus, where he has been music director since 2005.

Gawain, Barbican

Kimon Daltas Saturday, 17 May 2014

Part of the Birtwistle at 80 series at the Barbican, this not-quite-semi-staged Gawain ended up being held back a little by its shoestring production, where a straight concert performance might have transcended its limitations.

Yende, Vaughan, Cadogan Hall

David Nice Friday, 16 May 2014

Lovely singer, consummate pianist, shame about the programme. “Art song” is a rather prissy term, but we could have done with a few to ballast a diet of old pop – French chansons, Italian canzonettas, Spanish canciones, Victor Herbert tralala. Even a few substantial operatic arias with piano accompaniment made have made a difference.

Lugansky, Queen Elizabeth Hall

David Nice Thursday, 15 May 2014

Am I alone in a readiness to sacrifice all four Rachmaninov piano concertos – though maybe not the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini – in favour of the second sets of Preludes and Études-Tableaux? Probably not, after last night, when Nikolay Lugansky unfurled the 13 Op. 32 Preludes as one discombobulating symphonic cosmos. This is probably as close as we can come today to being in the presence of Rachmaninov himself, the greatest recorded pianist I know.

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Apollo's Fire, St John's Smith Square

alexandra Coghlan Saturday, 10 May 2014

Last time I saw Apollo's Fire perform they danced. Halfway through the concert the chamber orchestra just put music stands aside, continued playing their instruments, and broke into a stately minuet on the Wigmore Hall stage.

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.

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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.