classical music reviews, news & interviews
Rachel Halliburton |

The cellist and the pianist famously have a more competitive relationship in Brahms’ Cello Sonata in E minor than in many compositions for solo instrument and piano. Brahms composed it for the Viennese singing teacher and cellist Dr Joseph Gänsbacher – when, on first playthrough, Gänsbacher complained he couldn’t hear himself because of the piano part, Brahms bellowed back, “You’re lucky.”

David Nice |

Any conductor undertaking a journey through Mahler's symphonies - and Vladimir Jurowski's with the London Philharmonic Orchestra has been among the deepest - needs to give us the composer's last thoughts, not just the first movement (which, along with the short "Purgatorio" at the centre of the symphony, was all that Mahler fully scored). Or so I thought every time I heard Deryck Cooke's restrained but not anaemic performing version.

Robert Beale
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Robert Beale
It was a pleasure to see conductor Duncan Ward back in Manchester. His Hallé debut was by no means his first time in the city – he trained at the…
David Nice
Every visit by Vladimir Jurowski, the London Philharmonic Orchestra's former Principal Conductor and now Conductor Emeritus, is unmissable, and this…

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David Nice
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