Shostakovich
Jansen, Golan, Wigmore HallTuesday, 13 January 2015
This recital had looked so good on paper. The charismatic Dutch violinist Janine Jansen, with Itamar Golan at the piano, would bring all the brooding darkness of late '60s Shostakovich to life, and would then charm and finally dazzle in Ravel. In... Read more... |
Best of 2014: Classical ConcertsTuesday, 30 December 2014
Offshoots of the Venezuelan El Sistema’s worldwide dissemination as well as other youth and music projects continued to bloom and grow in 2014. The morning after what was the orchestral concert of the year for many who caught it, Alexandra Coghlan (... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Bach, Prokofiev, ShostakovichSaturday, 25 October 2014
Bach: Partitas 1-6 Igor Levit (piano) (Sony)Martin Geck's sleeve essay accompanying this pair of discs is a good read, hinting at the subtleties and complexities lying just below the surface of what may, superficially, look like six simple... Read more... |
Mullova, Hallé, Elder, Bridgewater Hall, ManchesterFriday, 10 October 2014
Sir Mark Elder has a penchant for taking on large-scale works in Manchester, from operatic concert performances of Wagner and Verdi to Hollywood musicals. Following that line, he kicked off the new Hallé season with Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé ballet... Read more... |
Bavouzet, LPO, Jurowski, Royal Festival HallThursday, 25 September 2014
Comparisons, even on paper, between two season openers from London orchestras could hardly have been more instructive. I didn’t attend Valery Gergiev’s London Symphony Orchestra concert last week, for reasons several times outlined on theartsdesk.... Read more... |
I, CULTURE Orchestra, Karabits, Usher Hall, EdinburghMonday, 18 August 2014
It is easy to be blinded by the sensational history of Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony, the “Leningrad”. We cannot forget the famous performance by a starving makeshift orchestra in August 1942, at the height of the siege of Leningrad, or the... Read more... |
Firebird/ Marguerite and Armand/ Concerto DSCH, Mariinsky Ballet, Royal Opera HouseTuesday, 12 August 2014
This was the most eagerly anticipated programme of the Mariinsky visit - something old, something borrowed and something new. The old, that colourful fairytale of Stravinsky’s lush, melodious youth, The Firebird; the new, a recent acquisition by the... Read more... |
Prom 26: European Union Youth Orchestra, London Voices, PetrenkoWednesday, 06 August 2014
The symphony – that structural pillar of classical music – found itself under siege last night at the Proms. Both Berio’s Sinfonia and Shostakovich’s Fourth Symphony assault and subvert, reshape and reimagine the genre, puncturing the Victorian... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Birtwistle, Shostakovich, ZOFOFriday, 27 June 2014
Harrison Birtwistle: Chamber Music (ECM)Begin with Bogenstrich – Meditations on a poem of Rilke and be surprised. At baritone Roderick Williams's effortless delivery of Rilke's "Liebeslied" and at the subtlety, the delicacy of Birtwistle's... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Khachaturian, Shostakovich, Walton, Roman MintsSaturday, 07 June 2014
Khachaturian: Violin Concerto, Shostakovich: String Quartets 7 and 8 James Ehnes (violin), Melbourne Symphony Orchestra/Mark Wigglesworth, Ehnes Quartet (Onyx)Moving from Khachaturian's breezy circus music to two of Shostakovich's darker... Read more... |
Shostakovich Cycle, Jerusalem Quartet, Wigmore HallThursday, 01 May 2014
Under what circumstances can Shostakovich’s Eighth String Quartet, the most (over)played of the 15, sound both as harrowing as it possibly can be and absolutely fresh? Well, the context helps: hearing it at the breaking heart of the fourth concert... Read more... |
Josefowicz, BBCSO, Oramo, BarbicanThursday, 27 March 2014
Depth, height, breadth, a sense of the new and strange in three brilliantly-programmed works spanning just over a century: all these and a clarity in impassioned execution told us why the BBC Symphony Orchestra was inspired in choosing Finn Sakari... Read more... |
