Beethoven
Emerson String Quartet, Queen Elizabeth HallFriday, 08 April 2011
Could you get a more American string quartet than the Emersons? They dress like Yanks. They play like Yanks. They're even shaped like Yanks. There's Steve Martin on viola, Steve Buscemi on cello, Laurel and Hardy on violins. The night started in... Read more... |
Murray Perahia, Barbican HallWednesday, 30 March 2011
Last night Murray Perahia played Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann and Chopin, and we heard, quite simply, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann and Chopin. Nothing more need be said, if one follows the Cordelia principle to love, and be silent.Still,... Read more... |
Fidelio, Royal Opera HouseTuesday, 29 March 2011
I have no problem at all with updating Beethoven's early-19th-century paean to love and liberty: there are any number of tyrants and prisoners of conscience to whom its universal message could apply. But in this revival staged by Daniel Dooner,... Read more... |
Soloists of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Uchida, QEHMonday, 28 March 2011
There is always a moment after you've mauled a musician in review when guilt bubbles to the surface. Your inner nursery school teacher (the little voice that thinks potato prints deserve Nobel Prizes) starts tugging at your conscience. This spell of... Read more... |
Biss, London Symphony Orchestra, Davis, BarbicanSunday, 13 March 2011
Sir Colin Davis's year has not been a happy one. There've been heart problems, cancellations and, during a performance of The Magic Flute at Covent Garden last month, a major fall. Last night at the Barbican Hall he faced a strenuous Beethoven... Read more... |
Interview: Violinist Daniel HopeWednesday, 02 March 2011
In the later 19th century, violinist and composer Joseph Joachim was hailed as the most brilliant fiddler of his day, but today his name lives on via the great works that he helped to bring into the classical repertoire. Brahms dedicated his... Read more... |
Zehetmair Quartet, Wigmore HallMonday, 14 February 2011
This is the second Sunday in a month that I've sat in the Wigmore Hall and been plunged into an evening of ferocious concentration from the very first bars. Mid-January saw violinist Leonidas Kavakos and his phenomenal pianist Enrico Pace carving... Read more... |
Los Angeles Philharmonic, Dudamel, Barbican Hall/ Beethoven Masterclass, LSO St Luke'sSaturday, 29 January 2011
Believe it or not, some critics can't get enough of London's superabundant concert scene. I could hardly be sour about not catching Gustavo Dudamel's first Barbican concert on Thursday night, spellbound as I was by his predecessor at the Los Angeles... Read more... |
Los Angeles Philharmonic, Dudamel, Barbican HallFriday, 28 January 2011
There had been murmurings that his star had dimmed. That Gustavo Dudamel's partnership with the Los Angeles Philharmonic (greeted with such fanfare in 2009) had yet to set the West Coast on fire. Had this Icarus flown too high? Would their debut... Read more... |
Opinion: If the classical concert scene ain't broke, don't fix itMonday, 24 January 2011
Most of us don't object to experiments in concert presentation - the occasional one-off showcase to lure the young and suspicious into the arcane world of attentive concert-going, the odd multimedia event as icing on the cake. It's only those... Read more... |
Hough, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Fischer, Royal Festival HallMonday, 17 January 2011
Who knew the changeover of the EU Presidency could be this much fun? Amid the formal bowing and scraping at the Royal Festival Hall bunfights last night that signalled that the Hungarians were now at the tiller of this sinking political ship were... Read more... |
Zimmermann, LPO, Saraste, Royal Festival HallWednesday, 15 December 2010
If you've just come back from a taxing, tiring orchestral tour, as has the London Philharmonic, the last thing you want to face is a programme of four tough works which demand, at the very least, bright-eyed vigilance but more often a tense, finger-... Read more... |
