Bach
Classical CDs Weekly: Bach, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, Diana AmbacheSaturday, 12 March 2016
Bach: The French Suites Peter Hill (piano) (Delphian)Start trying to explain exactly why this latest instalment in Peter Hill’s Bach series is so good and it might seem as if you’re dismissing the very things which make it great. This is pianism... Read more... |
Mozart's Piano 1, Butt, Aurora Orchestra, Kings PlaceSunday, 17 January 2016
One down, 26 to go. “Mozart's Piano” is a series of concerts by the Aurora Orchestra at Kings Place, based around a complete cycle of Mozart's piano concertos. It started last night, and will reach its conclusion in 2020.It was Peter Millican of the... Read more... |
Hadland / Moser Brothers, Wigmore HallMonday, 04 January 2016
Prokofiev milestones stood proudly at the ends of the New Year’s first three major UK concert programmes. The Second Piano Sonata raged as the zenith of the composer’s generous enfant terrible period in Christian Ihle Hadland’s journey through two... Read more... |
Christmas Oratorio, AAM, Egarr, BarbicanWednesday, 23 December 2015
Relatively recent tweaks to the abundant London concert scene have resulted in top-end events right up to Christmas. We have in part to thank the seasonal festival at St John’s Smith Square, postponing the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment’s... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Örebro: Brandenburgs plusMonday, 21 December 2015
In 1981 a 20-year-old Swedish trumpeter on national service turned up in the town – city, by Swedish reckoning – of Örebro as soloist in Bach’s Second Brandenburg Concerto. The ensemble, then a mix of amateurs and professionals, some of them... Read more... |
Brad Mehldau, Wigmore HallSaturday, 19 December 2015
Contemporary jazz is a world full of magpies – artists who flit between genres and build glittering nests of disparate musical influences. Rock up to a so-called jazz night today and the repertoire can come from anywhere, you’re as likely to hear... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Christmas CDs, Part 2Saturday, 19 December 2015
Bach: Magnificat Dunedin Consort/John Butt (Linn)This disc's academic credentials are impeccable, but my reasons for loving it are purely musical; John Butt's Bach programme allows us to party as if it was, er, 1723. This is a reconstruction... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Dvořak, Janáček, Schoenberg, Igor LevitSaturday, 21 November 2015
Janáček: Sinfonietta, Dvořak: Symphony No.9 Anima Eterna Brugge/Jos van Immerseel (Alpha Classics)Jos van Immerseel's last period-instrument excursion took in Orff's Carmina Burana, so this latest release is a chronological back step. Though... Read more... |
RLPO, Koopman, Philharmonic Hall LiverpoolSunday, 08 November 2015
It was rather like a trip home to see long-lost relatives. Ton Koopman took to the stage at the Liverpool Philharmonic with a broad smile. That smile both greeted the audience and, from what the audience could see, told the orchestra that they were... Read more... |
theartsdesk at the Brecon Baroque FestivalSunday, 25 October 2015
The city of Brecon (county town of former Brecknockshire, now lost in the spurious and far-flung county of Powys) is a long way from Leipzig and on the face of it has little in common with the home of Bach and the native city of Wagner. But once a... Read more... |
theartsdesk at the Music@Malling FestivalThursday, 01 October 2015
One of the summer’s greatest pleasures has been to confirm an often untested truism: that you may hear some of the finest and rarest music-making in out-of-the-way places. Just take a local who’s made the grade – in this instance, violinist and... Read more... |
Sir David Willcocks (1919-2015)Saturday, 19 September 2015
Even if you never saw him conduct, you may well have sung one of Sir David Willcocks's carol arrangements. I remember the unnatural excitement in our church choir when the orange-jacketed Carols for Choirs 2 arrived on the scene, enhancing our... Read more... |
