Beethoven
Classical CDs Weekly: Beethoven, Bloch, StravinskySaturday, 29 March 2014
Beethoven: Piano Concertos 2 and 4 Mahler Chamber Orchestra/Leif Ove Andsnes (piano and director) (Sony)You know that this will be good after just a few seconds; Beethoven's comically strait-laced opening gesture promptly answered by a smartly... Read more... |
St Lawrence String Quartet, San Francisco Symphony, Tilson Thomas, RFHSunday, 16 March 2014
A voyage around Beethoven by Ives and John Adams, and then beyond him by Berlioz, added up to a vintage San Francisco Symphony programme from its music director Michael Tilson Thomas. Forty years on from his first concert with SFS, he’s still... Read more... |
Davislim, Hallé, Elder, Bridgewater Hall, ManchesterSunday, 02 March 2014
It’s the thought that counts. That’s what we say about presents. But when the gift is a song by Richard Strauss it is that and more. He made a habit of gifting songs, particularly to his wife Pauline. Several of the Six Orchestral Songs on... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Beethoven, Poulenc, Les Vents FrançaisSaturday, 22 February 2014
Beethoven: The Symphonies (And Reflections by Kancheli, Mochizuki, Šerkšnytė, Shchedrin, Staud, Widmann) Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra/Mariss Jansons (BR Klassik)When you've a full size modern orchestra performing Beethoven symphonies,... Read more... |
Pires, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Ticciati, Usher Hall, EdinburghFriday, 07 February 2014
This is more an excuse for celebration than a review. Six years after the Scottish Chamber Orchestra was founded in 1974 – the birth year we were marking last night – I rolled up in a foggy Edinburgh one February day and chose it as my alma mater on... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Beethoven, Mahler, Piaf, PoulencSaturday, 30 November 2013
Beethoven: Diabelli Variations, Sonata no 32, Bagatelles András Schiff (piano and fortepiano) (ECM)Invest in a copy of Jeremy Denk's zingy new Goldberg Variations and you'll hopefully be prompted to purchase this rather special András Schiff... Read more... |
The Seckerson Tapes: Fidelio in BergenSunday, 06 October 2013
In the listening room of Grieg Hall, Bergen, a concert hall sometimes masquerading as a theatre and vice versa, I talk to Mary Miller, director of Bergen National Opera, and Andrew Litton, music director of the venerable Bergen Philharmonic... Read more... |
Pires, Orchestra Mozart, Haitink, Royal Festival HallWednesday, 02 October 2013
Calixto Bieito’s fantasia on Fidelio may be lording it on the other side of the Thames but Orchestra Mozart, on its first-ever visit to London, was happy to place its trust in what Beethoven actually wrote. As if to prove that wild-child... Read more... |
Fidelio, English National OperaThursday, 26 September 2013
The first words we hear don’t belong to Fidelio at all. The first music does, but not at all where you expect to find it. If you’ve read your programme (and who does before the show begins?) you’ll find a poem entitled “Labyrinth” by Jorge Luis... Read more... |
Prom 69: Hadland, Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, PetrenkoWednesday, 04 September 2013
May I be permitted a rude, opinionated intermezzo between reflections on Vasily Petrenko’s two Oslo Philharmonic Proms, and before Marin Alsop steps up to great expectations for the Last Night? Here’s another Russian in trouble, not for keeping mum... Read more... |
Fidelio, Opéra de Lyon, Festival Theatre, EdinburghTuesday, 13 August 2013
When first seen at Serge Dorny’s Opéra de Lyon in March-April this year, American Gary Hill’s unusual vision of Beethoven’s Fidelio could be recognised immediately as concept opera: drama where a director’s “idea” largely takes over the story. Hill... Read more... |
Prom 33: Uchida, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, JansonsSaturday, 10 August 2013
Precious few musicians can instill such a sense of intimacy into their playing as to have us believing that the Royal Albert Hall is the Wigmore Hall and that their performance is for an audience of one and not six thousand. Mitsuko Uchida is... Read more... |
