Prokofiev
Classical CDs Weekly: Prokofiev, Daniel Röhn, AyreheartSaturday, 03 December 2016
Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet (Complete) Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra / Vasily Petrenko (Lawo Classics)The three suites which Prokofiev extracted from his ballet Romeo and Juliet are skilfully put together, but they’re a poor substitute for the... Read more... |
Douglas, LSO, Søndergård, BarbicanWednesday, 30 November 2016
Thomas Søndergård stood in for this concert at a day’s notice – Valery Gergiev is apparently recovering from a knee operation and unable to travel. He left behind a curious programme, centred around Prokofiev’s quirky but dour Sixth Symphony. It’s a... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Pianist Idil Biret at 75Monday, 21 November 2016
Has any living pianist had a richer or more charmed life than Idil Biret? As a child prodigy she studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger and Alfred Cortot, and both there and in Germany with Wilhelm Kempff. At the age of four she was reproducing Bach... Read more... |
Isserlis, Mustonen, Wigmore HallWednesday, 05 October 2016
For a BBC Radio 3 lunchtime's hour of music, cellist Steven Isserlis's latest collaboration with that most individual of pianists Olli Mustonen went astonishingly deep. The surprises were equal in its two halves - the first a through-conceived... Read more... |
Mariinsky Orchestra, Gergiev, Cadogan HallTuesday, 27 September 2016
This year, Valery Gergiev is marking the Prokofiev 125th anniversary with concerts and projects in no fewer than 17 countries. Yet much of last night’s concert, the first of a three-night stint in London, made this whole endeavour feel more like a... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Meister, Prokofiev, Uri Caine & Jenny LinSaturday, 13 August 2016
Johann Friedrich Meister: Il giardino del piacere Ensemble Diderot/Johannes Pramsohler (dir. and baroque violin) (Audax Records)Misplaced distrust of fellow Europeans is nothing new; Reinhard Goebel’s enjoyable sleeve note points out that 17th-... Read more... |
theartsdesk at the Verbier Festival 2016Sunday, 07 August 2016
Idyllic setting, star-rated musicians, the sense of an occasion. Verbier so wholly fulfils the clichés of an international music festival that to the cynical it can seem complacent or arrogant in doing so. To the uninitiated – and this was my first... Read more... |
Cinderella, Ratmansky/Australian Ballet, London ColiseumThursday, 21 July 2016
Does Alexei Ratmansky, former Bolshoi director and current world-leading classical choreographer, really love Prokofiev's Cinderella, or did he choose to create a new one for Australian Ballet in 2013 principally because he wasn't happy with his... Read more... |
First Night of the Proms, BBCSO, Oramo, Gabetta, BorodinaSaturday, 16 July 2016
The first notes of the first night of the Proms weren’t the ones expected. Instead of either “God Save the Queen” or simply the start of the Tchaikovsky, the “Marseillaise” rang out into the Royal Albert Hall, the Tricouleur projected in coloured... Read more... |
Shakespeare 400 Gala, LPO, Jurowski, RFHSunday, 24 April 2016
Every year is Shakespeare year in theatre, opera house and concert hall. An anniversary's best, though, for those select few galas where the mind's made flexible by constant comparison between different Shakespearean worlds. I don't know how it was... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Berlin: Three BalletsSunday, 03 April 2016
In London, seeing the same ballet company do three different pieces in three different theatres over four nights would be some kind of festival. In Berlin, it's just business as usual – albeit quite a busy week! – for the hard-working Staatsballett... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Pianist Boris GiltburgSunday, 28 February 2016
London has been missing out on Boris Giltburg for too long. He's been playing Shostakovich concertos back to back with Petrenko in Liverpool, and the big Rachmaninov works up in Scotland (see theartsdesk's review today of the latest Royal Scottish... Read more... |
