Brahms
WNO Orchestra, Koenigs, St David's Hall, CardiffSaturday, 29 October 2011
“Blessed are the dead”, sings Brahms in the final movement of his German Requiem. And as far as the rest of this concert was concerned it was perhaps just as well. In Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder, the children are all dead; and in Schoenberg’s... Read more... |
Who Do You Think You Are? - Tracey Emin, BBC OneThursday, 13 October 2011
Tracey Emin once made a tent for which she gained some notoriety. On it, she’d appliquéd the names of everyone she had ever slept with – including, as a child, her beloved Granny Hodgkins. Sadly, the tent, called Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Brahms, Gál, Holliger, SchumannSaturday, 17 September 2011
Brahms composed trios throughout his life - these well-loved pieces contrast with the much rarer works of Hans Gal and the oboist Heinz Holliger, here exposed in his parallel career as a composer.Brahms Piano Trios, Horn Trio, Clarinet Trio Soloists... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Brahms, Desyatnikov, Glière, TchaikovskyFriday, 02 September 2011
We head east this week - new pieces by a contemporary Russian composer, and a bargain box set showcasing the flamboyant orchestral music of a neglected Russian. And a famous viola player leads a young Moscow orchestra in electrifying accounts of... Read more... |
BBC Proms: Douglas, BBC Symphony Orchestra, DausgaardMonday, 22 August 2011
Having been away in remote mountain places, I hadn't heard that the BBCSO's chief conductor Jiří Bělohlávek was taking a month off to recover from a virus. So it was a bracing last-minute shock to find the man stepping up to the podium to conduct... Read more... |
BBC Proms: Ax, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, HaitinkSaturday, 20 August 2011
"O, reason not the need!” cries Shakespeare’s King Lear, insisting on certain unquestioned rights. The phrase came to me listening to Bernard Haitink conducting Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto and Fourth Symphony last night. The 82-year-old Haitink... Read more... |
BBC Proms: Ax, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Haitink/ Hewitt, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, ManzeSaturday, 20 August 2011
Brahms, Brahms, Brahms, Brahms, Brahms, and one work dedicated to Brahms by Schumann. That's right: it was Brahms night at the Proms. No scary new works. No discombobulating new interpretative glosses - dear old Bernard was our guide. Nothing to... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Brahms, Stephen Hough, Joby Talbot, SchoenbergSaturday, 13 August 2011
This week we've a glittering, shimmering ballet score with an aquatic theme, and a brilliant British pianist shows off his compositional skills. Plus, in a week where we all need cheering up, 20th-century music's scariest genius shows that he... Read more... |
BBC Proms: Lazić, Lloyd Webber, BBC Philharmonic, SinaiskyFriday, 12 August 2011
Several Prommers fainted, possibly out of boredom, in a longer than ever first movement of the Brahms Violin Concerto. The boredom, palpable around me, came not from pianist Dejan Lazić transcribing the fiddle part for his own pleasure - a... Read more... |
BBC Proms: Tetzlaff, BBCSO, GardnerMonday, 08 August 2011
This year’s Choral Sundays at the Proms are a wonderfully mixed bag. Mighty choral touchstones are represented by Mendelssohn’s Elijah, both the Verdi and Mozart Requiems and Beethoven Missa solemnis, but there’s also an enticing strand of... Read more... |
BBC Proms: Martinpelto, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Runnicles/ Tallis ScholarsFriday, 05 August 2011
Leonard Tanner, my old choirmaster, used to say that Brahms was a composer with his feet in three different camps: the Baroque period, the Classical period, and the Romantic. Possibly he had a fourth leg too, poking into the music of the future.... Read more... |
BBC Proms: Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Chung/ Erben, Belcea QuartetTuesday, 19 July 2011
The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost materialised yesterday. And I'm not talking about the transcendental appearance of the Holy Trinity of News International. I'm talking Proms. Last night's two saw a geriatric performance of the Brahms double, a... Read more... |
