Classical music
Philharmonia, Rouvali, RFH review - the really big orchestra is back for cosmic StraussFriday, 01 October 2021
Two suns, two moons, two Philharmonia leaders sharing a front desk, two aspirational giants among Richard Strauss's symphonic poems bringing the number of players, in the second half, to 134. Who’d have thought we’d be witnessing such phenomena when... Read more... |
The Creation, Academy of Ancient Music, Cummings, Barbican review - back to choral paradiseThursday, 30 September 2021
Whatever the upsets and uncertainties of this musical season, the return of choral works at full scale and full power has been an unalloyed joy. And sheer, exhilarated, heaven-storming joy branded the Academy of Ancient Music’s reading of Haydn’s... Read more... |
Gerhaher, Faust, Wigmore Hall review - husky shadings and dark huesWednesday, 29 September 2021
Christian Gerhaher and a string ensemble led by Isabelle Faust presented here a programme of works with a nocturnal theme. Gerhaher’s voice is an instrument of husky shadings and dark hues, so the night theme seemed wholly appropriate. The impetus... Read more... |
Carnac, BCMG, Kemp, Music@Malling Festival - lyrical Turnage frames abstruse fanciesTuesday, 28 September 2021
Is there any composer alive who writes more luminously bittersweet elegies than Mark-Anthony Turnage? Taking key lines from memorialising poets through the ages as inspiration, he knows that instrumental phrases must sing, sometimes to invisible... Read more... |
Iestyn Davies, Aurora Orchestra, Collon, Kings Place review - Elizabethans and extraterrestrialsMonday, 27 September 2021
Music in London has faced down plagues, puritans, philistines and planners over the four centuries spanned by the Aurora Orchestra’s season-opener at Kings Place on Saturday. This concert in the venue’s “London Unwrapped” strand filled its main hall... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Lieder, folk song and a neglected conductor receiving his dueSaturday, 25 September 2021
Anthony Collins: Complete Decca Recordings (Decca Eloquence)Born in 1893, Anthony Collins began his musical career as a 17-year-old violist in the Hastings Municipal Orchestra. Active service in World War 1 was followed by a spell at the Royal... Read more... |
Nicola Benedetti, Barbican Hall review – from Bach to the Highlands via New OrleansFriday, 24 September 2021
If a standard-sized recital hall can be a lonely place for a solo violinist, playing an auditorium of Barbican dimensions must feel like crossing a desert under pitiless spotlight sun. Happily, Nicola Benedetti’s prowess as a communicator means that... Read more... |
Kanneh-Mason, Terfel, RPO, Philharmonia Chorus, Petrenko, RAH review - an anniversary feastWednesday, 22 September 2021
75 years after Sir Thomas Beecham founded the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, it’s sobering to reflect that without this one person’s hubris and sheer cantankerousness, British musical life would be a whole lot worse off. Beecham, who fortuitously... Read more... |
Black British Musical Theatre 1900-1950, Wigmore Hall review – a disappointing missed opportunityWednesday, 22 September 2021
The Wigmore Hall is a bastion of white musicians playing the music of white composers to a largely white audience and it is to the credit of the management that, in seeking to diversify, it staged this lecture-recital on the history of black... Read more... |
Esther Yoo, Yekwon Sunwoo, Wigmore Hall review - Korean duo needs time to developTuesday, 21 September 2021
The duo partnership between violinist Esther Yoo and pianist Yekwon Sunwoo is still at a very early stage. The announcements which both musicians made to the audience from the Wigmore Hall platform were almost completely inaudible, but it did sound... Read more... |
LSO, Rattle, Barbican review - a glimpse into Bruckner’s workshopMonday, 20 September 2021
For most Bruckner fans, the multiple editions and revisions of his symphonies are a problem. But Simon Rattle sees it differently; for him every edition offers more music to explore. That was the thinking behind this programme, presenting the Fourth... Read more... |
Leeds International Piano Competition Finals, Leeds Town Hall review - a hi-tech, low carbon musical celebrationMonday, 20 September 2021
It’s easy to forget that what you see in a competition final isn’t always the full story, the jury members’ votes in this case based on what had gone on in the earlier rounds. The 20th Leeds International Piano Competition began its final stages in... Read more... |
