Classical music
St John Passion, Polyphony, OAE, Layton, St John's Smith Square review - defiant performance reveals Bach masterpiece anewSaturday, 08 April 2023
The turbulence and agitation of betrayal could be felt from the word go in this galvanising performance of the St John Passion, which administered a jolting urgency to Bach’s radical portrayal of the Easter story. The work will be 300 years old next... Read more... |
Tenebrae, Short, St John’s Smith Square review - Bach and MacMillan soulfully joined, until the endFriday, 07 April 2023
Tenebrae in tenebris: put more plainly, a top choir that’s anything but shadowy, except when it needs to be, doing its bit for the darkness of Maundy Thursday. The thoughtful plaiting of Bach motets with three Tenebrae Responsories and other works... Read more... |
Facade Ensemble, Collins Rice, St Margaret Pattens Church review - meditation and reflectionWednesday, 05 April 2023
The Facade Ensemble is an interesting chamber group of young players dedicated to exploring 20th repertoire, in this case John Cage, Arvo Pärt and Gavin Bryars, who celebrates his 80th birthday this year. The programme, put together by founder and... Read more... |
Messiah, Irish Baroque Orchestra, Whelan, Wigmore Hall review - wonderful, easy, light and dark in perfect poiseTuesday, 04 April 2023
This Palm Sunday served up an epiphany. Previous encounters with Handel's Messiah, in whatever version, and whether listening or performing, turned out to have been through a glass darkly. And here we were face to face with undiluted genius, served... Read more... |
Chiejina, BBC Philharmonic, Collon, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - something scenic, and something elseMonday, 03 April 2023
An evening of “scenic orchestral works”, according to the programme booklet, was on offer from the BBC Philharmonic on Saturday. Scenic was certainly true of the Seven Early Songs of Alban Berg and Richard Strauss’s Alpine Symphony. But Tom Coult’s... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Fireworks, floods and unpleasant glimpsesFriday, 31 March 2023
Debussy: Piano Works Volume 2 Dennis Lee (piano) (ICSM Records)I’m a huge fan of Colin Matthews’ idiomatic orchestral transcriptions of Debussy’s Préludes, so much so that it’s been a good few years since I’ve listened to the piano originals.... Read more... |
Williams, Dunedin Consort, Truscott, Wigmore Hall review - star soprano, total teamworkFriday, 31 March 2023
When your special guest is a young soprano with all the world before her, the total artist already, your programme might seem to run itself. Yet the Dunedin Consort’s sequence seen and heard in Glasgow, Edinburgh and (last night) London followed a... Read more... |
Things to Come, LSO, Strobel, Barbican review - blissful visions of the futureMonday, 27 March 2023
Last night at the Barbican was my first experience of a film with live orchestra, which has become a big thing in the last few years. The film in question was Alexander Korda’s extraordinary HG Wells adaptation Things to Come, from 1936, imagining a... Read more... |
Bavouzet, Manchester Camerata, Takács-Nagy, Stoller Hall, Manchester review - spirit of the 1780sMonday, 27 March 2023
It was very much the formula as before, as Jean-Efflam Bavouzet and Gábor Takács-Nagy moved their edition of the Mozart piano concertos a step closer to completion with Nos. 11, 12 and 13.That formula has served them well in the past: it’s not “... Read more... |
Fröst, Philharmonia, Lazarova, Kuusisto, Southbank Centre review - congenial new works complemented by live-wire classicsFriday, 24 March 2023
Anna Clyne’s engaging First Person here led me to two of her works in a Philharmonia rainbow. She curated a woodwind-based gem of a 6pm programme of works by four women composers, herself included, and her Clarinet Concerto could only gain from two... Read more... |
First Person: Donatella Flick on why the conducting competition in her name is needed more than everThursday, 23 March 2023
What are the qualities that make a great conductor? It’s something that has been debated for years, brought into focus recently not least because of Cate Blanchett’s award-winning performance as fictional maestra Lydia Tár. Despite what you may... Read more... |
The Chevalier, St Martin-in-the-Fields review - virtuoso journey into a shamefully neglected pastWednesday, 22 March 2023
Shimmeringly urbane, shifting effortlessly from intricate agility to muscular intensity, the music of the 18th century composer Joseph Bologne is remarkable not least in the fact that it has remained an obscure part of the repertoire for so long.... Read more... |
