Mahler
theartsdesk in Verbier: Festival scales new heightsSunday, 04 August 2013
The moment when Alfred Brendel shuffled on stage during the Verbier Festival’s 20th Anniversary Concert not to play, but to turn pages for long-time colleague Emmanuel Ax, expressed everything that is so special, so extraordinary about this festival... Read more... |
Petrushka/ Song of a Wayfarer/ Raymonda, English National Ballet, London ColiseumFriday, 26 July 2013
A magical folktale, a male duet, a classical jewel-box - programmes like this should be a rich part of the warp and weft of a ballet company, a night of rich interest and variety, stimulating dancers with challenges to their grace and storytelling... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly, Grainger, Mahler, PiazzollaSaturday, 11 May 2013
Grainger: Works for Large Chorus and Orchestra Melbourne Symphony Orchestra/Sir Andrew Davis (Chandos)Here's a welcome postscript to Chandos’s mammoth Grainger Edition – one of the best, wackiest box sets out there. This new anthology of... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Mahler, Mozart, Vaughan WilliamsSaturday, 16 March 2013
Mahler: Symphony no 9 Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra/Gustavo Dudamel (DG)This new, live, Mahler 9 sounds impressive – microphones are closely placed and you really feel in the thick of things. Dudamel’s intakes of breath are clearly... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Mahler, Joby Talbot, American MavericksSaturday, 26 January 2013
Mahler: Symphonies 1-9 London Symphony Orchestra/Valery Gergiev (LSO Live)Buying a set of Mahler symphonies used to mean blowing one’s annual record budget in one swoop. You can now buy cycles by the likes of Bernstein and Tennstedt for less than £... Read more... |
Bell, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Jurowski, Royal Festival HallThursday, 13 December 2012
Why so much of Vladimir Jurowski and the LPO on theartsdesk, you may ask, when other concerts pass unremarked? The answer is simple: quite apart from the immaculate preparation and the most elegant conducting style in the business, Jurowski... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Conductor Markus Stenz on MahlerSunday, 09 December 2012
Never mind the huge interpretative challenges; Mahler’s Eighth, dubbed the "Symphony of a Thousand" owing to the gargantuan forces the composer marshalled as conductor of its 1910 Munich premiere, needs an even greater mastery of logistics. Markus... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Lutosławski, Mahler, SalonenSaturday, 08 December 2012
Lutosławski: Orchestral Works III Paul Watkins (cello), BBC Symphony Orchestra/Edward Gardner (Chandos)If your passing acquaintance with Lutosławski’s output goes no further than the masterly early Concerto for Orchestra, the 1950 Mała Suite... Read more... |
Piemontesi, Karnéus, Reiss, Guildhall Symphony Chorus, BBCSO, Bělohlávek, Barbican HallSunday, 02 December 2012
Now the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s second Conductor Laureate, Jiří Bělohlávek was always going to deserve a hero’s welcome for taking his players to the finishing line of their six-year cycle through Mahler’s symphonies. As more superficially... Read more... |
Kavakos, London Symphony Orchestra, Bychkov, Barbican HallMonday, 26 November 2012
Leonidas Kavakos was originally meant to be premiering a concerto by Argentinian composer Oswaldo Golijov, which had also been scheduled for Berlin in 2011 and subsequently for Los Angeles in May this year. The composer missed both those deadlines... Read more... |
Coote, BBCSO, Saraste, Barbican HallThursday, 04 October 2012
Somehow the manic cry of “Scooby-Doo man!” from the back of the stalls didn’t seem too incongruous. We were in the thick of Shostakovich’s craziest symphony, the Fourth, composed in the mid 1930s when such maverick Russian talent was about to be... Read more... |
BBC Proms: Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, ChaillyMonday, 03 September 2012
If you’re going to bash a tam-tam for six, the Albert Hall is the perfect place to do it. The reverberation lasts for ages; and everyone in the audience can see you bashing. That must explain in part why Messiaen’s hieratic, gong-crazy Et expecto... Read more... |
