piano
Louis Lortie, Wigmore HallMonday, 05 December 2011
It was Chopin time when I last heard Louis Lortie, and a typical London clash of scheduling allowed me to catch his effervescent Op 10 Études before pedalling like crazy north of the river for the second half of Elisabeth Leonskaja’s even bigger all... Read more... |
Trpčeski, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Tognetti, Queen Elizabeth HallWednesday, 30 November 2011
A music broadcaster commented after last night’s concert by the Australian Chamber Orchestra that all the hype, all the talk about the surf-obsessed, free-spirited leader Richard Tognetti, had left her half expecting them to surf onto the stage of... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Bach, Beethoven, Simon KeenlysideSaturday, 26 November 2011
Bach: Complete Keyboard Works Ivo Janssen (Void Classics)This 20-disc box set has been entertaining me for several months. Dutch pianist Ivo Janssen set up his own record label to distribute his 1997 Goldberg Variations, recorded on the hoof... Read more... |
London Jazz Festival Round-UpTuesday, 22 November 2011
The 10-day London Jazz Festival, now in its 19th year, is a diverse and international festival that embraces the unapologetically commercial Jazz Voice, the outer reaches of (free) free improv and even Abram Wilson’s Jazz for Toddlers. Despite a... Read more... |
Andsnes, BBCSO, Bělohlávek, Barbican HallThursday, 13 October 2011
Pundits have always yoked architecture and Bruckner together, touting void and mass at the expense of the dynamic experience music ought to be. Abbado and his Lucerne Festival Orchestra favoured sinuous instability in the Fifth Symphony earlier this... Read more... |
Uchida, Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Abbado, Royal Festival HallMonday, 10 October 2011
We're living through a golden age of Bruckner conducting. A revolutionary age. Young sparks like Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Ilan Volkov are doing extraordinary things with the Austrian's music, experimenting with speeds and phrasing,... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Comedian Tim MinchinSaturday, 08 October 2011
Tim Minchin (b 1975) has had a year in the stratosphere that would arouse envy even in the biggest arena comedians. He has taken an orchestra on the road to play bespoke arrangements of his scabrous attacks on religion, hypocrisy and uncritical... Read more... |
CD: McCormack and Yarde - Places and Other SpacesMonday, 26 September 2011
This Edition Records debut from pianist Andrew McCormack and saxophonist Jason Yarde is a powerful marriage of brilliant musicianship and composition of the first rank. While this is only their second release in the duo format, a follow-up to the... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Bach, Varèse, GiuliniSaturday, 24 September 2011
Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, Books 1 and 2 Roger Woodward - piano (Celestial Harmonies)Possibly the most expansive Well-Tempered Clavier around – this one just tips over onto five discs, but there’s never any suggestion of sluggishness. Roger... Read more... |
Q&A Special: Pianist Barry DouglasTuesday, 13 September 2011
The Russians have always been particularly picky about the playing of the piano. Chief among the piano gods on the 20th century’s pantheon are Richter, Gilels, Horowitz - and even now names such as Ashkenazy, Kissin, Sokolov still elbow out many of... Read more... |
CD: Pavel Novák - 24 Preludes and FuguesSunday, 11 September 2011
Pavel Novák is a composer I know something about because he has been much played by the Schubert Ensemble, who were for a time resident at Cardiff University, where I teach. But broadly speaking his music is virtually unknown in the UK. When William... Read more... |
BBC Proms: Grimaud, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, HoneckMonday, 05 September 2011
In a week that sees Proms visits from two major American orchestras, it fell to Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra to raise the curtain for their blue-blooded “Big Five” colleagues the Philadelphia Orchestra. With Tchaikovsky... Read more... |
