thu 22/05/2025

Sibelius

London Symphony Orchestra, Adams, Barbican Hall

What would you imagine the composer John Adams might choose to conduct – apart, that is, from a little something he himself made earlier? Well, the first of two London Symphony Orchestra concerts this week brought no big surprises: Sibelius’ Sixth...

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LPO/ Vänskä, Royal Festival Hall

Osmo Vänskä: 'When Vänskä conducts Sibelius he doesn’t just traverse the musical landscape, he inhabits it'

Whoever said it was better to journey than to arrive might have been thinking of Sibelius. The arrivals can be pretty spectacular – as here in Osmo Vänskä's tremendous account of the Second Symphony – but the getting there – or not – is what this...

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LPO, Vänskä, Royal Festival Hall

As was hoped, Osmo Vänskä, the livewire music director of the Minnesota Orchestra, showed us exactly why he's the greatest living Sibelian last night in the first concert of the London Philharmonic's Sibelius cycle. Ducking and diving, crouching and...

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Christopher Nupen on Filming Music and Musicians

Nupen at work: 'Filmmaking is storytelling'

"What is it about Schubert’s music that has such power 180 years on?  It has nothing to do with who he slept with or what he had for breakfast – it’s the work," insists filmmaker Christopher Nupen, whose series of films about composers is currently...

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Classical Music CDs Round-Up 3

CD of the Month: 'All the frisson of live performances but none of the technical disadvantages'

Our pick of the latest Classical CDs ranges from Tchaikovsky's first and final symphonies to Greek-themed songs by Schubert, by way of late Stravinsky ballets, rare Roussel, a complete Sibelius cycle, cross-over music for recorder and a Superman...

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