LSO
London Symphony Orchestra, Tilson Thomas, Barbican HallFriday, 01 June 2012
Right, notebooks out everyone. Michael Tilson Thomas began this Berg/Mahler double-header with a lengthy analysis of what we were about to hear in the former’s Chamber Concerto. Whether it was informative or not (and it was), it was a bit of a... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Bach, Debussy, Rachmaninov, StravinskySaturday, 05 May 2012
Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier Book 2 Peter Hill (piano) (Delphian)Book 2 of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier doesn’t often appear without Book 1. It’s sometimes unfairly perceived as drier, more academic than its predecessor. Bach’s didactic aim... Read more... |
Tetzlaff, London Symphony Orchestra, Eötvös, Barbican HallMonday, 30 April 2012
“I don’t want to be a Cyclops,” Pierre Boulez said in 2010, faced with the prospect of conducting a Chicago concert with only one working eye. Eye troubles, alas, have continued to bedevil the octogenarian giant of contemporary music, which is why... Read more... |
Q&A Special: Arts Patron Donatella FlickTuesday, 17 April 2012
Donatella Flick, one of Britain's most important arts patrons, is furious. "Madness!" she cries in her lush Italian voice. "This is a country that was fantastic, and now there's a demolition going on, bit by bit!" We're sitting in Sir Winston... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Arts Patron Jonathan MouldsWednesday, 14 March 2012
Critical, urgent, hard - those are the three words used about the challenge to get the rich to pay more for the arts by the new man at the tiller. He should know. Jonathan Moulds, European President at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, is one of the... Read more... |
Mutter, London Symphony Orchestra, Previn, Barbican HallMonday, 20 February 2012
It’s over 30 years since André Previn left his post as principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. But once you’re part of the LSO’s treasured ‘family of artists’, the orchestra never lets go, year upon year inviting you back for Christmas... Read more... |
Spence, London Symphony Orchestra, Adès, Barbican HallMonday, 16 January 2012
Last Tuesday night saw the London Symphony Orchestra celebrating 20th century English music under the baton of Antonio Pappano, launching proceedings with a stylish (and more than a little sexy) rendition of the dance suite from Thomas Adès’ Powder... Read more... |
London Symphony Orchestra, Gardiner, Barbican HallFriday, 16 December 2011
Just a few weeks ago, John Eliot Gardiner and his Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique delivered what was unquestionably one of the year’s finest concerts – performing Beethoven’s Fourth and Seventh Symphonies with more wit, swagger and verve... Read more... |
Mutter, London Symphony Orchestra, Gergiev, Barbican HallMonday, 28 November 2011
Praise be, or slava if you prefer, to Valery Gergiev for honouring new Russian music alongside his hallmark interpretations - ever evolving or dangerously volatile according to taste – of Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Stravinsky. Last LSO season... Read more... |
Davies, London Symphony Orchestra, Zhang, Barbican HallThursday, 10 November 2011
Highly finished literary tales of doomed nixies, like Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid, seem to have prompted reams of bad art but plenty of mellifluous music. Not even all of that is on the same level. Viennese late-Romantic Zemlinsky's... Read more... |
Jeanne d'Arc au Bûcher, London Symphony Orchestra, Alsop, Barbican HallSaturday, 05 November 2011
Honegger's gaudy 1935 meditation on the life of Joan of Arc - which we witnessed in concert last night at the Barbican - is an untidy flea market of meretricious musical ideas. The work's only value lies in it being able to make one understand why... Read more... |
The music man who kept them dogies rollin'Tuesday, 25 October 2011
On Thursday the London Symphony Orchestra plays a night of epic movie music by the man who gave America’s cowboy heroes their most stirring tunes. Dimitri Tiomkin was one of Hollywood’s film-score giants, John Wayne’s choice as composer for The... Read more... |
