Bach: Goldberg Variations BWV 988 Asya Fateyeva (soprano/alto saxophones), Eckart Runge (cello) Andreas Borregaard (accordion) (Berlin Classics) Image Bach’s “Keyboard exercise consisting of an aria with several variations for a two-manual harpsichord” from 1741 maintains its fascination, keeps on filling gaps and finding welcoming new places. Dmitry Sitkovetsky's string trio version (‘in memoriam Glenn Gould’) has become a staple of the repertoire. Wendy Carlos was the first of many musicians who might have been tempted to confess: “Forgive Read more ...

Yesterday I travelled through a sweltering London in shorts and sandals to go and hear Schubert’s Winterreise, about a bleak journey through a frozen landscape. It was quite the disjuncture, and a strange piece of seasonal programming. But I was glad to hear veteran baritone Thomas Hampson in fine voice in the Schubert, accompanied by Latvian accordionist Ksenija Sidorova, even if the second half of Kurt Weill and Astor Piazzolla was less fulfilling.Singers eschewing the traditional pianist for the more unusual (in the classical concert hall) sounds of the accordion is all the rage at the Read more ...

Kahchun Wong ended his second season as the Hallé’s principal conductor with a blockbuster – and one from what may be seen as his personal zone of expertise: Mahler’s Sixth Symphony.Blockbuster in the sense that it’s a huge undertaking logistically, with a very large orchestra required, and that it’s a very big work. Blockbuster also almost literally – the finale requires an enormous Thor-like hammer to be wielded, at least twice, to create a thud akin to that of an axe at the base of a tree.Should it be three thumps, or just two? Mahler changed his mind about that, and editors and Read more ...

So polished and passionate are the 11 world-class players of Ensemble 360, pioneering music in the round in Sheffield and elsewhere for the past 21 years, that you'd be grateful enough to hear them in wall-to-wall standard fare. But the Sheffield Chamber Music Festival has been about so much more, featuring special curator-performers - pianist Kathryn Stott and cellist Steven Isserlis in previous festivals I was fortunate to attend, this year soprano Claire Booth - and working with top-class folk from other disciplines. This year's triple bill of Samuel Beckett, Morton Feldman and the two Read more ...

In 1595 a new Doge was invested in St Mark’s in Venice, an occasion celebrated with the full musical panoply at the state’s command. Which was a lot, the Venetians not doings things by halves. In 1990 the Gabrieli Consort and McCreesh made their name – and a fine album – by speculatively recreating the music of this occasion, in all its church-ceremony-meets-political-showcase splendour. And last night they revisited this programme at Temple Church in London and gave a sold-out audience a glorious glimpse of what that might have sounded.The Gabrieli Consort made a second Venetian Coronation Read more ...

The Philharmonic’s chief conductor John Storgårds was enjoying the taste of his pure, northern native air in Saturday’s concert: Sibelius at the heart of it, with the Violin Concerto played by a brilliant fellow-Finn, plus Rautavaara and Nielsen.Simone Lamsma gave an outstanding account of what is surely one of the most attractive violin concertos for any listeners: her performance was characterized by panache, lyricism and fearless virtuosity – in fact everything the concerto encapsulates and requires.The concert’s beginning was intriguing. It’s not often, in that randomised period before Read more ...

Vivacious Carolin Widmann clearly adores her fellow players in the Irish Chamber Orchestra, where her brother Jörg served as Principal Guest Conductor and Artistic Partner until 2021. His successor, Henning Kraggerud, has already set his idiosyncratic mark on the ICO, most recently at a bracing all-Mozart programme. Haydn brothers Joseph and Michael don't sell nearly as well in Dublin, it seems, but this concert deserved equal success at every turn, with violinist Carolin begging comparisons but bringing her own lovely style to a similarly well-calibrated programme.When Michael lost a silver Read more ...

The last time I heard the excellent Carice Singers was last year as they marked the 90th birthday of Arvo Pärt. But Pärt’s meditative and inward musical language could not be further from the jagged and confrontational world of Steve Martland, the focus of last Thursday’s Kings Place recital. The seamless switch from one to the other shows the versatility of the choir, made of up some of the finest young choral singers in London, led by the presiding intelligence of conductor George Parris.Martland, who died at just 58 in 2013, was best known for the post-minimalist instrumental pieces he Read more ...

With Cardiff’s St David’s Hall continuing under wraps while it gets a new roof, the BBC NOW is still having to be tyre-levered into the much smaller Hoddinott Hall for its public concerts. It refuses to be restricted by this minor inconvenience. Strauss’s Tod und Verklärung, in Thursday’s concert conducted by Alexandre Bloch (pictured above), was done with the usual army of strings and duly pinned us all metaphorically to the back wall with the sheer blast of sound in one of its composer’s noisiest tone poems.They even named the concert after the piece: "Death and Transfiguration", even Read more ...

The relationship between words and music is a long one — but not an exclusive one. Indeed, the idea of a chamber music festival with words and storytelling at its heart has ruffled a few feathers. After all, there is a wealth of repertoire for instrumentalists alone - isn’t this what Sheffield Chamber Music Festival is here to celebrate?For singers, however, discounting the odd “vocalise”, words and storytelling are at the heart of things. The drama of opera is an obvious place to find narrative, but inside every German Lied, English song or Mayan lament there is a character—whether Read more ...

Concertos where the soloist is a member of the orchestra are something of a Scottish Chamber Orchestra speciality. They’re always among their best-sold concerts each season, and there are obvious gains of warmth and communication when the band are playing to support one of their own. This week, the honour fell to Philip Higham, the SCO’s principal cello, and he played Robert Schumann’s Cello Concerto with so much involvement and quasi-operatic intensity that it was easy to forget how low down the priority list Schumann’s concertos were until very recently.Higham clearly believes in the work Read more ...

 Louis Couperin: The Complete Works Jean Rondeau (harpsichord, organ and artistic direction) (Erato) Image Louis Couperin (1626-1661) was the first musically and historically significant member of the Couperin family, long overshadowed by his nephew François. Harpsichordist Jean Rondeau, this handsome box set’s driving force, contributes a useful pocket biography in which he compares Louis to Mozart. Aside from the fact that both composers died aged 35, Rondeau considers Louis to have been “a genius who brought a new style to light”. Read more ...