Classical Reviews
Prom 19, Hallé, Elder review - cinematic drama, and plenty of itMonday, 01 August 2022
Trickling or gushing in torrents, lapping rhythmically or slopping out all over the floor: water was the constant, flowing steadily through the centre of the Hallé’s Proms performance. Read more... |
Prom 17, Walshe, Tsallagova, Shenyang, NYC, BBCSSO, Volkov review - the sublime and the (enjoyably) ridiculousSaturday, 30 July 2022
The giraffe still baffles me. This model beast appeared stage right at the Royal Albert Hall during Jennifer Walshe’s The Site of an Investigation, only to be loudly wrapped by a pair of percussionists and then removed. A critique of mindless consumerism, a satire on the destructive domination of nature (both among this work’s sprawl of themes), or a little absurdist interlude of the kind Walshe evidently enjoys? Read more... |
theartsdesk at the Pärnu Music Festival 2022 - conductors from 15 to 85, and the greatest playersWednesday, 27 July 2022
When I first came to Estonia with a then still-exiled Neeme Järvi and his Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra in 1989, the world-class young musicians who dazzled at this year’s Pärnu Music Festival hadn’t been born. Read more... |
Quo vadis, Three Choirs Festival review - a hundred minutes of smug serenity and flowing pietyTuesday, 26 July 2022
Once upon a time the Three Choirs Festival conjured up a single image, that of the English Oratorio – the grand choral solemnification of everything that was most profound in Anglican thought (though ironically its greatest exemplar, Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius, was irretrievably Catholic, and one Anglican bishop is supposed to have said he wouldn’t allow it into his cathedral). Read more... |
Prom 9, Finch, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Matiakh review - thrilling, conceptually fascinating eveningFriday, 22 July 2022
The spirit of Sir Richard Burton loomed large over the Royal Albert Hall last night – a man who wrote about everything from falconry to erotica and whose death-defying expeditions took him across the Middle East, Africa and the Americas. Read more... |
Prom 8, Kozhukhin, BBCSO, Stasevska review - Russian classics meet contemporary IcelandThursday, 21 July 2022
Russia meets Iceland: not the most obvious of juxtapositions. Read more... |
Prom 7, Dido and Aeneas, La Nuova Musica review - bold and original from the startWednesday, 20 July 2022
How do you celebrate one of epic poetry’s richest female characters, a queen renowned across the Middle East and North Africa for being as politically powerful as she was magnetic? For Nahum Tate, the librettist for Dido and Aeneas, the curious answer is to push aside Dido’s achievements as a ruler and city builder and replace Virgil’s stirring metaphor for her plight with something, well, a little tamer. Read more... |
Prom 6, BBC Philharmonic, Davis review - a bracing pair of British symphoniesWednesday, 20 July 2022
The ferocity of Tuesday's heat wasn’t reflected in the pleasantly air-conditioned Royal Albert Hall – the coolest I had felt all day – but was in the intense playing of the BBC Philharmonic, in a pair of knotty and urgent British symphonies. Read more... |
Gillam, Brodsky Quartet, Manchester Camerata, Buxton International Festival 2022 review - a freshness in classic ElgarWednesday, 20 July 2022
It’s an ill heatwave that brings nobody any good, and Buxton International Festival’s decision to move its highlight concert, by Manchester Camerata with Jess Gillam and the Brodsky Quartet as their guests, from the Buxton Octagon to St John’s Church meant not only that it was heard in probably the only coolish venue in town yesterday afternoon, but also that it benefitted from an acoustic that’s excellent for instrumental music. Read more... |
Prom 5, Power, BBC Philharmonic, Mena review - detail and breadthTuesday, 19 July 2022
I had anticipated a sweltering evening at the Albert Hall. Sadly, though, the heatwave prevented me from even getting there – buckled rails or some similar problem led to the cancellation of my train. So this review is of the Radio 3 broadcast, heard on headphones in the comfort and relative cool of my back garden. Read more... |
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