violin
The Seckerson Tapes: Violinist Linus RothSunday, 16 February 2014
The Polish composer Miecyzlaw Weinberg - his Holocaust opera The Passenger caused quite a stir in David Pountney’s premiere staging - has a new champion. The talented young German violinist Linus Roth has taken his music and his legacy to heart in a... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Oslo: Barocking Handel in the Opera HouseSunday, 09 February 2014
Oslo is a winter wonderland, and adults seem to be outnumbered by children, flocking from all over Norway to Disney on Ice. It’s the deep snow and the silence in pockets of the city rather than the kids which make me wonder if anyone has set Handel’... Read more... |
The Seckerson Tapes: Reclaiming a Mozart concertoSunday, 09 February 2014
In Leopold Mozart’s old house (now a museum) in the Bavarian city of Augsburg a piano tuner is hard at work tuning one of the working exhibits - a venerable clavichord. Enter Reinhard Goebel and Mirijam Contzen whose new Oehms Classics recording of... Read more... |
Vadim Gluzman, Angela Yoffe, Wigmore HallSunday, 29 December 2013
There were two strong reasons, I reckoned, for struggling to the Wigmore Hall during the interstitial last week of the year. One was an ascetic wish to be harrowed by a mind and soul of winter, both within and without, in Prokofiev’s towering D... Read more... |
Vengerov, Golan, Barbican HallThursday, 21 February 2013
Maxim Vengerov’s four-year absence from the London stage is recent enough that any performance by him has the added value of having been clawed back from a jealous god. That a violinist of such explosive talent could have been permanently silenced... Read more... |
Rachlin, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Runnicles, Glasgow City HallsFriday, 01 February 2013
Viennese night in Glasgow’s Candleriggs was hardly going to be a simple matter of waltzes and polkas. True, its curtain-raiser was a Blue Danube with red blood in its veins rather than the anodyne river water of this year’s New Year concert from... Read more... |
Kavakos, London Symphony Orchestra, Bychkov, Barbican HallMonday, 26 November 2012
Leonidas Kavakos was originally meant to be premiering a concerto by Argentinian composer Oswaldo Golijov, which had also been scheduled for Berlin in 2011 and subsequently for Los Angeles in May this year. The composer missed both those deadlines... Read more... |
Tetzlaff, LPO, Vänskä, Royal Festival HallThursday, 01 November 2012
Some symphonies are natural curtain-raisers: Sibelius’ Third is one. Music began with rhythm and in this piece the cellos are the distant drummers who bring us back to basics with their curt opening measures. Osmo Vänskä clipped the... Read more... |
The South Bank Show: Nicola Benedetti, Sky Arts 1/ The Good Guys, Sky 1Monday, 02 July 2012
There are worse assignments than making a film about Nicola Benedetti, and the glamorous 25-year-old violinist had clearly entranced Lord Bragg. Mind you, you'd struggle to find much to dislike about her. She's funny and articulate and has a billion... Read more... |
Amanda Shires, Woodend Bowling and Tennis Club, GlasgowThursday, 19 April 2012
In a members-only bowling club, down a side street in a residential part of Glasgow I'd never visited before last night, Texan fiddle-player and songwriter Amanda Shires stood wearing the most magnificent pair of cowboy boots I had ever seen.They... Read more... |
Maxim Vengerov, Itamar Golan, Wigmore HallFriday, 06 April 2012
Musicians can go one of two ways after a period of prolonged professional absence. The hiatus can either set them free (Horowitz) or screw them up (Pogorelich). In the case of Maxim Vengerov, we already knew that the latter hadn't happened. A... Read more... |
Fischer, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Dutoit, Royal Festival HallSaturday, 31 March 2012
If Dr Frankenstein wanted to manufacture the perfect violinist, he’d require a long list of ingredients. Perfect, unfussy technique, of course; but also seriousness of purpose, a sense of humour, a clear head, a passionate heart, a generous tone,... Read more... |
