Chopin list | reviews, news & interviews
Chopin list
Chopin list
Tuesday, 09 February 2010
While bicentenary homages to Poland's greatest composer have already been flooding in, the big tide that leads up to the birthday on 1 March starts this evening. Artur Pizarro, fresh from personable interpretations of concertos by Ravel and Richard Strauss, launches his Chopin cycle at St John's Smith Square. You are advised to pick and mix with the Kings Place festival, kicking off tomorrow with chamber works and continuing on Friday with the first of Martino Tirimo's recitals on Friday.
To make your options clearer, the Polish Cultural Institute has produced the snazzy little book Chopin 2010, which can be obtained free here on the PCI's website. Unfortunately the well-worn journalistic phrase "kill for a ticket" may already be true of Krystian Zimerman's Southbank recital on 22 February. Which is why the guide should be indispensible in directing you to such lower-key enticements as Piers Lane's candlelit journey through all the Nocturnes at St Paul's Covent Garden the previous evening. Make no mistake: you need to hear all Chopin's works this year, and they can certainly take any number of different interpreters.
Add comment
more
Blue Lights Series 2, BBC One review - still our best cop show despite a slacker structure
The engaging Belfast cops are less tightly focused this time around
DVD/Blu-Ray: Priscilla
The disc extras smartly contextualise Sofia Coppola's eighth feature
Jonn Elledge: A History of the World in 47 Borders review - a view from the boundaries
Enjoyable journey through the byways of how lines on maps have shaped the modern world
Sabine Devieilhe, Mathieu Pordoy, Wigmore Hall review - enchantment in Mozart and Strauss
Leading French soprano shines beyond diva excess
Stephen review - a breathtakingly good first feature by a multi-media artist
Melanie Manchot's debut is strikingly intelligent and compelling
Špaček, BBC Philharmonic, Bihlmaier, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - three flavours of Vienna
Close attention, careful balancing, flowing phrasing and clear contrast
Banging Denmark, Finborough Theatre review - lively but confusing comedy of modern manners
Superb cast deliver Van Badham's anti-incel barbs and feminist wit with gusto
Album: Fred Hersch - Silent, Listening
A 'nocturnal' album - or is it just plain dark?
Music Reissues Weekly: Linda Smith - I So Liked Spring, Nothing Else Matters
The reappearance of two obscure - and great - albums by the American musical auteur
London Tide, National Theatre review - haunting moody river blues
New play-with-songs version of Dickens’s 'Our Mutual Friend' is a panoramic Victori-noir
Watts, BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Bignamini, Barbican review - blazing French masterpieces
Poulenc’s Gloria and Berlioz’s 'Symphonie fantastique' on fire
The Songs of Joni Mitchell, Roundhouse review - fans (old and new) toast to an icon of our age
A stellar line up of artists reimagine some of Mitchell’s most magnificent works
Comments
...