Shostakovich
theartsdesk Q&A: Conductor Neeme JärviSunday, 19 June 2011
Honour your senior master conductors: there aren't so many of them left now. Abbado and Haitink spring most readily to mind, but orchestral musicians may also nominate Neeme Järvi, who celebrated his 74th birthday last week. A passionate patriot and... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Górecki, Haydn, Shostakovich, Second Viennese SchoolFriday, 29 April 2011
It’s string-quartet Saturday – a young German group tackle Soviet classics and a rejuvenated Russian quartet smile with Haydn. There’s music from a contemporary Polish master and exquisitely uncomfortable fin-de-siècle music from Vienna.... Read more... |
Alexander Melnikov, Wigmore HallTuesday, 26 April 2011
How important is it to hear “the composer’s intentions” at a concert? Maybe only the interpreter’s intentions are possible. The young Russian pianist Alexander Melnikov challenges the golden rule of faithfulness to source with the resources of today... Read more... |
Japanese musicians give earthquake benefit concertSunday, 10 April 2011
The Sapporo Symphony Orchestra had already scheduled a London appearance as part of its 50th-anniversary tour when the Japanese earthquake and tsunami struck. Now all proceeds from the Royal Festival Hall concert on 23 May will go directly to the... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Handel, Russians, Labèques, SackbutsFriday, 08 April 2011
There is a change to our coverage of classical CD releases. Since theartsdesk began in September 2009, we have been reviewing on a monthly basis. As of today we're switching to weekly and our round-up of the new classical albums will now appear... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, SackbutsSaturday, 02 April 2011This week, we’ve a Russian flavour – historic, idiomatic performances of Tchaikovsky symphonies, and exciting readings of Shostakovich piano concertos. And there’s a sackbut recital…Shostakovich, Piano Concertos, Piano Quintet, Martin Helmchen (... Read more... |
Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Neeme Järvi, Usher Hall, EdinburghSaturday, 26 March 2011
White-knuckle crescendos loom large in that greater-than-ever conductor Neeme Järvi's spruce Indian summer. Short-term bursts were the chief payoff in tackling Dvořák's deceptively simple-seeming Serenade for Strings with a huge department on all... Read more... |
Kavakos, London Symphony Orchestra, Gergiev, Barbican HallWednesday, 23 March 2011
Heavy-goods vehicles stacked with lamentations have been thundering through the Barbican Hall. Saturday's lugubrious Rachmaninov found a mid-20th-century counterpart last night in the tough elegies of Shostakovich's First Violin Concerto - apt for a... Read more... |
Ax, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Jurowski, Royal Festival HallSaturday, 19 March 2011
Send in the clowns. Or at least that was Vladimir Jurowski’s musical thinking in bringing together the mighty foursome of Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Haydn and Shostakovich and seeing just how far their capricious natures might take us. The allusions and... Read more... |
Zehetmair Quartet, Wigmore HallMonday, 14 February 2011
This is the second Sunday in a month that I've sat in the Wigmore Hall and been plunged into an evening of ferocious concentration from the very first bars. Mid-January saw violinist Leonidas Kavakos and his phenomenal pianist Enrico Pace carving... Read more... |
Khachatryan, London Symphony Orchestra, Gergiev, Barbican HallTuesday, 18 January 2011
Valery Gergiev’s survey of the Tchaikovsky symphonies began here on a chilly January night with youthfully idealistic Winter Daydreams thrown into the sharpest relief against a disillusioned and angry Shostakovich whose own journey into the bleak... Read more... |
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Vasily Petrenko, Royal Festival HallThursday, 25 November 2010
That in itself was enough to tell us that Petrenko isn’t just a supremely elegant conductor, an easy stylist able to make Stravinsky’s fiddly early Scherzo fantastique sound natural and to paper over the cracks of a tottering soloist, Oleg Marshev,... Read more... |
