Classical music
Polyphony/OAE, Layton, St John's Smith Square review - truncated triumphSaturday, 23 December 2023
Prior to their Messiah, due this evening, Stephen Layton’s choir Polyphony brought a version of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio to the seasonal festival at St John’s Smith Square. You can of course slice and serve Bach’s majestic 1730s combination of... Read more... |
Siglo de Oro, Spinacino Consort, Allies, Wigmore Hall review - a fun 17th century musical ChristmasSaturday, 23 December 2023
The Wigmore Hall, the high church of Beethoven and Brahms, hosted something less elevated last night: a programme called “Hey for Christmas” presented by vocal ensemble Siglo de Oro and period instrument band Spinacino. The conceit was of recreating... Read more... |
Jansen, Ridout, Blendulf, Kozhukhin, Wigmore Hall review - Brahms in excelsisSaturday, 23 December 2023
Reviewing, they say, never gets easier. How can one possibly describe chamber music playing as good, as stupendously memorable, as last night’s all-Brahms programme from Dutch violinist Janine Jansen, English violist Timothy Ridout, Swedish cellist... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Basset clarinets, barcarolles and boy treblesSaturday, 23 December 2023
Thomas Adès: Alchymia Mark Simpson, Quatuor Diotima (Orchid Classics)Thomas Adès continues to hit new heights of inventiveness in this new mini-album, a digital release of a mere 24 minutes. But there is no danger of feeling short-changed:... Read more... |
SANSARA, The Waiting Sky: A Christmas Meditation, Kings Place review - a thrillingly mysterious and profound Christmas alternativeThursday, 21 December 2023
What a beautiful, alternative evening of Christmas music this was, ranging in tone from bleakness to transcendence – a thrilling escape from the season’s cloying commercialism to a sense of something both mysterious and profound. Powerful new... Read more... |
London Handel Players, Butterfield, Wigmore Hall review - Bach with bite for ChristmasTuesday, 19 December 2023
We think of the Wigmore Hall as a venue for intimate revelations, but in the right hands it can feel like a stadium. Last night’s all-Bach programme of festive music from the London Handel Players managed to embrace both moods.On a bill that began... Read more... |
Mariam Batsashvili, Wigmore Hall review - spectacular pianism, with a sense of funWednesday, 13 December 2023
For a small nation, with a population not quite comparable to Scotland’s, Georgia has for long packed a mighty musical punch. Any visitor will know the soul-wrenching power of its choral polyphony, but a post-Soviet generation of classical soloists... Read more... |
I Fagiolini, Hollingworth, St Martin-in-the-Fields review - it's not the Messiah...Sunday, 10 December 2023
“Nobody likes a Messiah…”, deadpanned Robert Hollingworth, with the timing of a practised stand-up. After a pause, “…more than I do.” At St Martin-in-the-Fields on Friday evening, however, the seasonal blockbuster did not, just for once, feature on... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Christmas 2023Saturday, 09 December 2023
Winter Breviary St Martin’s Voices/Andrew Earis (Resonus)The music at the St Martin-in-the-Fields in London has been reinvigorated in the last couple of years by new Director of Music, Andrew Earis, and St Martin’s Voices, the resident chamber... Read more... |
Natalie Dessay, Philippe Cassard, Milton Court review - flashes of magicThursday, 07 December 2023
It could have been a winner: a charismatic star soprano of great emotional and interpretative intelligence, a top pianist given a little space to shine on his own, a programme that looked good on paper, of distinguished German/Austro-German women... Read more... |
Paul Lewis, Wigmore Hall review - Schubert sonatas revisitedWednesday, 06 December 2023
A decade has passed since Paul Lewis concluded an endeavour of a kind never previously undertaken: to perform, over two and a half years and across four continents, every work Schubert wrote for piano between 1822, the year he was diagnosed with... Read more... |
Voces8 Foundation Choir and Orchestra, Smith, Voces8 Centre review - joyous Christmas music by BachTuesday, 05 December 2023
There’s a game called Whamageddon, where people see how deep into December they can go without hearing “Last Christmas”. I’m like that, but with the Bach Christmas Oratorio, and this year I made it four days. And who would want to wait any longer?... Read more... |
