Brahms
Prom Chamber Music 8: Benedetti Elschenbroich Grynyuk TrioTuesday, 08 September 2015
She is habitually called “the violin star” but this was Nicola Benedetti in the role of dedicated chamber music player, thoroughly prepared and hard at work. Any expectations that she might play in a flamboyant or limelight-seeking way proved... Read more... |
Prom 62: Barton, OAE, AlsopWednesday, 02 September 2015
A concert of Brahms chamber music I could understand, especially given a balance between early and late. An evening of orchestral Brahms, with or without voices, needs much more special pleading. It didn’t get nearly enough last night. An expanded... Read more... |
Prom 46: Znaider, Danish NSO, LuisiFriday, 21 August 2015
Praise be to Carl Nielsen. Praise always, of course, to one of the greatest symphonists, and happy 150th birthday (again), but gratitude on this occasion is due to a programme mostly lining up Nielsen works rare and familiar, for getting me to the... Read more... |
Zimerman, LSO, Rattle, BarbicanFriday, 03 July 2015
Over the past decade Krystian Zimerman and Sir Simon Rattle have created and evolved a performing idea of Brahms’s D minor piano concerto which is still remarkable for its considered weight and grimly imposing grandeur, Michelangelo’s Mosè in... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Brahms, Schubert, Sibelius, WagnerSaturday, 09 May 2015
Brahms: Complete Waltzes for Four Hands Fiametta Tarli & Ivo Varbanov (ICSM Records)49 waltzes in 56 minutes? Er, yes please, if they’re this good. These ones are by Brahms, a composer who wrote most of his greatest music in triple time. Waltzes... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Arnold, Brahms, Bruch, HartmannSaturday, 25 April 2015
Malcolm Arnold: Symphonies 1-9 London Symphony Orchestra/Richard Hickox, BBC Philharmonic/Rumon Gamba (Chandos)Malcolm Arnold's lasting reputation as a chameleonic comedian endures, though his more overtly serious cycle of nine symphonies... Read more... |
Vogt, LPO, Nézet-Séguin, Royal Festival HallThursday, 20 November 2014
Music lovers invariably divide into two factions over the Brahms piano concertos: those who thrill to the elemental D minor and those who prefer to bask in the more reflective charms of the sumptuous B flat Second Concerto. I’m a D minor man myself... Read more... |
Leonskaja, SCO, Kamu, Usher Hall, EdinburghFriday, 14 November 2014
Most pianists never truly master one of Brahms’s two piano concertos, those colossal symphonies for soloist and orchestra, let alone both. To present the two in one concert, then, seems foolhardy – and apparently was when András Schiff went for the... Read more... |
Uchida, LSO, Haitink, Barbican HallFriday, 31 October 2014
You know what to expect from a standard programme of masterpieces like this, led by two great performers in careful control of their repertoire, and those expectations are never going to be disappointed. You’re not going to hear the kind of new-... Read more... |
Ashton Mixed Bill, Royal BalletSunday, 19 October 2014
This morning, those who follow ballet on both sides of the Atlantic might be feeling a bit like the male soloists at the beginning of Ashton’s Scènes de Ballet: turning their heads sharply, almost pantomimically, from side to side. Over there, in... Read more... |
Prom 69: Cleveland Orchestra, Welser-MöstTuesday, 09 September 2014
Is there something about the start of a new cultural season, or indeed the Proms, that make classical music’s conductors rush to jump ship? Consider this. Last Friday, two days before his pair of Prom concerts with his American outfit, the Cleveland... Read more... |
Prom 53: Brahms Symphonies, Budapest Festival Orchestra, FischerWednesday, 27 August 2014
About 10 minutes into the Brahms Third Symphony I wanted to check a name in the Budapest Festival Orchestra’s programme. I dared to turn a page. Bad idea. Such preternatural stillness had settled over the sold-out Royal Albert Hall that the gesture... Read more... |
