Classical music
LPO, Jurowski, RFH / LSO, BBC Singers, Rattle, Barbican review - spiderwebs, sublimity and a powerful speechTuesday, 25 April 2023
Complex, ambiguous late romantic works in concert programmes need something more direct to keep them company. Mozart and Richard Strauss make excellent bedfellows (and Strauss was an extraordinary Mozart interpreter): no wonder Vladimir Jurowski’s... Read more... |
Ohlsson, BBC Philharmonic, Storgårds, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - a Rachmaninov specialMonday, 24 April 2023
Maybe he thought it was a relaxing way to celebrate his recent 75th birthday – maybe he just fancied a trip to Manchester to play with the BBC Philharmonic – either way there was something very special to hear in Garrick Ohlsson’s Rachmaninov Third... Read more... |
Kim, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Bancroft, St.David's Hall, Cardiff review - finding a style in the EightiesFriday, 21 April 2023
We hear a lot about political and economic crises in the 1970s and 1980s, winters of discontent and all the rest of it, the predictable if not predicted remote outcome of what Jacques Maritain called the “immense intellectual disarray inherited from... Read more... |
Elsa Dreisig, Jonathan Ware, Wigmore Hall review - a glorious voice unleashedFriday, 21 April 2023
French-Danish soprano Elsa Dreisig’s operatic schedule is so busy and so successful, it is perhaps not surprising that she – and Texas-born pianist Jonathan Ware – treat the song recital platform as a place of freedom, where, rather than... Read more... |
National Youth Orchestra, Gourlay, RFH review - non-stop jamboree at the highest levelMonday, 17 April 2023
What a manifesto against those in power who seem determined to knock the UK off its hard-won classical music pedestal: hundreds of young choristers and instrumentalists of two fabulous orchestras in a week-long celebration of innovative programming... Read more... |
Yang, BBCSO, Oramo, Barbican review - roots and refinementMonday, 17 April 2023
In today’s Britain, too many concert reviews have to begin with the vandalistic threats of damage or extinction that hang over their performers. Last week, it emerged that the BBC’s bosses may be open to negotiate an alternative future for its... Read more... |
Shibe, NYOS, Larsen-Maguire, Usher Hall, Edinburgh - young Scottish musicians storm the heightsSaturday, 15 April 2023
One can only admire the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland for its steadfast indifference to the laws of box office gravity. A little known contemporary guitar concerto allied to a relatively unpopular Mahler symphony would be a hard sell even in... Read more... |
Bercken, Britten Sinfonia, Milton Court review - beleaguered ensemble shows its valueSaturday, 15 April 2023
In the kerfuffle over the proposed decimation of English National Opera, the BBC Singers and the BBC orchestras, the removal of all Arts Council England’s funding for the Britten Sinfonia has slipped a bit under the radar, but is no less egregious.... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Infernal dances, hammered dulcimer and musical taxidermySaturday, 15 April 2023
Nadia & Lili Boulanger: Les Heures Claires - The Complete Songs Lucile Richardot (mezzo), Stéphane Degout (baritone), Raquel Camarinha (soprano), Anne de Fornel (piano), Sarah Nemtanu (violin), Emmanuelle Bertrand (cello) (Harmonia Mundi)... Read more... |
Belcea Quartet, Chamayou, Wigmore Hall review - romantic winged beast soars over neobaroque chameleonFriday, 14 April 2023
In search of relatively rare fabulous beasts like César Franck’s Piano Quintet – given a fantastical performance last night – you often have to take in the ubiquitous Shostakovich specimen, the modest work of a master using simple means to his own... Read more... |
Gagarin Quartets, Modulus String Quartet, Brunel Museum review - a multimedia journey into spaceFriday, 14 April 2023
London concert life is infinitely varied, especially if you dig below the surface. So after spending Tuesday evening in the lofty Royal Albert Hall, on Wednesday I was 16 metres below ground, in the tunnel shaft of the Brunel Museum in Rotherhithe... Read more... |
National Youth Choir, Royal Albert Hall review – a spectacular jubileeWednesday, 12 April 2023
The recently re-branded National Youth Choir was founded in 1983 as a single choir of about 100 voices, and in those 40 years has grown to be a family of four, ranging from the nine-year-olds at the bottom of the boys’ and girls’ choirs to the 25-... Read more... |
