Southbank Centre
Bell, LPO, Jurowski, Royal Festival HallThursday, 23 February 2012![]() Despite the best attempts of Stephen Johnson’s programme notes to create synthesis from last night’s London Philharmonic Orchestra concert, there was something rather smash and grab about the programming. It was as though Jurowski, suddenly inspired... Read more... |
Roméo et Juliette: Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Elder, Royal Festival HallSunday, 19 February 2012![]() It's one of the fundamental rules of concert-going that in any given season there will be one piece that trips you up. And that piece will always be by Berlioz. No matter what new alchemical concoctions Boulez, Lachenmann, Ferneyhough or Rihm will... Read more... |
Richard Goode, Royal Festival Hall (2012)Monday, 13 February 2012![]() You couldn't imagine a less likely acrobat than avuncular American Richard Goode. But when it comes to the piano, there's no mistaking it. A nippy little tumbler he undoubtedly is. Today we saw his fingers bounce about the keyboard like a troupe of... Read more... |
Barry Adamson, Queen Elizabeth HallFriday, 10 February 2012Immediately before Barry Adamson started his performance, the audience at the Queen Elizabeth Hall was treated to a few fragrant verses about arts cinemas and the homeless from Yorkshire poet Geoffrey Allerton. The keen-eyed soon twigged that... Read more... |
Hough, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Alsop, Royal Festival HallThursday, 09 February 2012![]() Poor old Stephen Hough. The Liszt double. Again! Was he not at all Liszted out after last year's epic bicentenary? Were we not Liszted out by last year's epic bicentenary? Hough has been living, breathing and eating these two pieces for the past... Read more... |
Fleisher, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Jurowski, Royal Festival HallThursday, 26 January 2012![]() The London Philharmonic’s current festival – Prokofiev: Man of the People? – is all about the question mark. While the festival’s concerts, lectures and even its classical club-night each make their own statement, the overarching spirit here is one... Read more... |
Spaghetti Western Orchestra, Queen Elizabeth HallFriday, 06 January 2012![]() It is a ridiculous idea but also a strangely appealing one. Five Australians recreate the music of composer Ennio Morricone's 80-piece troupe on a variety of traditional instruments as well as an instrument made out of string and a tin can, plus... Read more... |
2011: Parlato, Porter and the Power of the Human VoiceSunday, 01 January 2012![]() 2011 can only be described as a banner year for vocal jazz. Gretchen Parlato is blessed with one of the most mellifluous timbres in jazz, but it's her highly developed rhythmic concept that really marks her out. Like some of the great Brazilian... Read more... |
Slava's Snowshow, Royal Festival HallThursday, 29 December 2011![]() Slava’s Snowshow is a Christmas package you don’t want to have unwrapped for you by someone else's description - it’s a fantastical, childlike, theatrical experience that for many is among the most profoundly delighting of their theatre-going... Read more... |
Khatia Buniatishvili, Wigmore Hall/ Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Queen Elizabeth HallThursday, 08 December 2011![]() Before his slightly over-extended majesty drops behind a cloud at the end of this bicentenary year, and following Louis Lortie’s light-and-shade monodrama on Sunday, Franz Liszt has moved back to left-of-centre in two ambitious midweek concerts. In... 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... |
Henry Threadgill, Queen Elizabeth HallSunday, 20 November 2011![]() It’s nine days into the 10-day London Jazz Festival, and highlights so far include the double bill of saxophonists Steve Williamson and Steve Coleman, and the UK’s own Empirical supporting veterans Archie Shepp and Joachim Kuhn (the former a... Read more... |
