mon 16/09/2024

Classical Music reviews, news & interviews

Wang, Lapwood, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - grace and power from two keyboard heroines

Boyd Tonkin

It takes stiff competition to outshine Yuja Wang, who last night at the Barbican complemented her spangled silver sheath with a disconcerting pair of shades. But the super-heroine pianist, who played Rachmaninov’s first piano concerto, turned out to contribute the (comparatively) restrained and low-key element of a London Symphony Orchestra programme that culminated in a wall-shaking performance of Saint-Saëns’ Organ Symphony, with Anna Lapwood at the manuals.

Beethoven Sonata Cycle 1, Boris Giltburg, Wigmore Hall review - running the gamut

David Nice

A happy, lucid and bright pianist, a forbidding Everest among piano sonatas: would Boris Giltburg follow a bewitching, ceaselessly engaging first half by rising to the challenge of Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” - a title he suggests, in his series of first-rate online essays about the sonatas, might be replaced more appropriately with “Titanic”?

Classical CDs: Soft toys, starlings and...

Graham Rickson

 Passage Secret – music by Bizet, Debussy, Fauré, Ravel, Aubert Ludmila Berlinskaya and Arthur Ancelle (piano duet) (Alpha Classics)There are...

Prom 71, Seong-Jin Cho review - refined Romantic...

Boyd Tonkin

Out of emergencies may come revelations. Sir András Schiff has broken his leg, and we wish him a super-speedy recovery. At the Proms, his promised...

Frang, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - a concerto...

Alexandra Coghlan

Hauntings, memories, echoes: Antonio Pappano has started his official tenure as chief conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra by looking back in...

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LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - singular adventures for a new era

David Nice

A quick-change MacMillan premiere finds correspondences in singular Sibelius

First Person: Alexandra Dariescu on highlighting women at the Leeds International Piano Competition

Alexandra Dariescu

A distinguished pianist fights for more balanced international programming

Proms 63-65, Choral Day review - from Harris to Handel/Mozart via Alabama, with love

David Nice

British and American beauties crowned by a cornucopial 'Messiah'

Prom 62, Mahler's Sixth Symphony, Bavarian RSO, Rattle review - sound over momentum

David Nice

Near-perfect playing, but something missing in the overall drama

Prom 61, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Rattle review - Bruckner without tears

Boyd Tonkin

A lithe, smooth journey around a craggy masterpiece

Prom 58, Orchestre de Paris, Mäkelä review - risky reinvention pays off in part

David Nice

Berlioz fares better than Stravinsky in a master conductor’s fresh takes

Prom 55, Ólafsson, Berlin Philharmonic, Petrenko review - stealth and sweep from the greatest

David Nice

Smetana’s national epic has abundant operatic drama and orchestral beauties

Prom 54, Ma, Ax, Kavakos review - exquisite display of humility and communication

Rachel Halliburton

Three musicians at the top of their game tease out the subtleties of the repertoire

theartsdesk Q&A: conductor Dalia Stasevska on her new album of contemporary orchestral music

Bernard Hughes

Finnish-Ukrainian conductor looks to bring the music of today to new audiences

Classical CDs: Beans, carrots and bassoons

Graham Rickson

Danish pianism, a great conductor's Italian recordings and a bold contemporary compilation

Prom 50, Fujita, Czech Philharmonic, Hrůša review - revelations where least expected

David Nice

Fresh-faced, unpredictable Dvořák, majestic if not entirely visceral Janáček

Prom 49, Kobekina, Czech Philharmonic, Hrůša review - what an orchestra

Sebastian Scotney

Glorious playing save for a disappointing cellist

Verdi's Requiem / Capriccio, Edinburgh International Festival 2024 review - words, music, judgement

Simon Thompson

Philharmonia Orchestra closes the festival with grandeur and intimacy

theartsdesk in Switzerland: Lucerne and Gstaad offer curious audiences fresh perspectives on much-loved works

Gavin Dixon

Two summer festivals find ever new ways to make each concert a memorable event

Prom 44, Shani, Rotterdam Philharmonic review - impressive multi-tasking by conductor-pianist

Bernard Hughes

Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto turned into a giant piece of chamber music

Fire in my mouth, Philharmonia, NYCOS, Alsop, Edinburgh International Festival 2024 review - total work of art for our times

Miranda Heggie

A powerful portrayal of hope-filled journeys and bright futures extinguished

Prom 42, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Aurora Orchestra, Collon review - a dramatic coup

Sebastian Scotney

The intrepid players' 'most challenging' from-memory concert

Prom 40, St John Passion, Bach Collegium Japan, Suzuki review - finesse and feeling

Boyd Tonkin

Polish, pace and, finally, passion from the Bach master

Prom 37, War Requiem, Clayton, Liverman, Romaniw, LSO, Pappano review - terror and tenderness

Boyd Tonkin

Full human drama in Britten's admonitory masterpiece

Altstaedt, EUYO, Noseda, Edinburgh International Festival 2024 review - inclusive and brilliant

Simon Thompson

If these young musicians are the future, then the future looks bright

Prom 36, McGill, BBCSSO, New review - summery Shakespearean mummery

Bernard Hughes

Intimate Mozart concerto followed by theatrical, colourful Mendelssohn

Classical CDs: Dinosaurs, harmonicas and final frontiers

Graham Rickson

Two works with narrators, a pair of tenor recitals and a young conductor tackles Russian symphonies

Bostridge, Osborne, Edinburgh International Festival 2024 review - the heights and the abyss

Simon Thompson

Schubert's 'Schwanengesang' might be absurd, but its meaning here runs deep

Prom 32, Gillam, BBCNOW, Venditti review - belated debuts and a dancing delight

Bernard Hughes

Karl Jenkins brings fun, Beethoven brings fireworks

Footnote: a brief history of classical music in Britain

London has more world-famous symphony orchestras than any other city in the world, the Philharmonia, Royal Philharmonic, London Philharmonic and London Symphony Orchestra vying with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Royal Opera House Orchestra, crack "period", chamber and contemporary orchestras. The bursting schedules of concerts at the Wigmore Hall, the Barbican Centre and South Bank Centre, and the strength of music in Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Cardiff, among other cities, show a depth and internationalism reflecting the development of the British classical tradition as European, but with specific slants of its own.

brittenWhile Renaissance monarchs Henry VIII and Elizabeth I took a lively interest in musical entertainment, this did not prevent outstanding English composers such as Thomas Tallis and William Byrd developing the use of massed choral voices to stirring effect. Arguably the vocal tradition became British music's glory, boosted by the arrival of Handel as a London resident in 1710. For the next 35 years he generated booms in opera, choral and instrumental playing, and London attracted a wealth of major European composers, Mozart, Chopin and Mahler among them.

The Victorian era saw a proliferation of classical music organisations, beginning with the Philharmonic Society, 1813, and the Royal Academy of Music, 1822, both keenly promoting Beethoven's music. The Royal Albert Hall and the Queen's Hall were key new concert halls, and Manchester, Liverpool and Edinburgh established major orchestras. Edward Elgar was chief of a raft of English late-Victorian composers; a boom-time which saw the Proms launched in 1895 by Sir Henry Wood, and a rapid increase in conservatoires and orchestras. The "pastoral" English classical style arose, typified by Vaughan Williams, and the new BBC took over the Proms in 1931, founding its own broadcasting orchestra and classical radio station (now Radio 3).

England at last produced a world giant in Benjamin Britten (pictured above), whose protean range spearheaded the postwar establishment of national arts institutions, resulting notably in English National Opera, the Royal Opera and the Aldeburgh Festival. The Arts Desk writers provide a uniquely rich coverage of classical concerts, with overnight reviews and indepth interviews with major performers and composers, from Britain and abroad. Writers include Igor Toronyi-Lalic, David Nice, Edward Seckerson, Alexandra Coghlan, Graham Rickson, Stephen Walsh and Ismene Brown

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