tue 08/10/2024

BBC Symphony Orchestra, Marc Minkowski, Barbican | reviews, news & interviews

BBC Symphony Orchestra, Marc Minkowski, Barbican

BBC Symphony Orchestra, Marc Minkowski, Barbican

Smashing performance of Pergolesi's Stabat Mater in his anniversary year

Pergolesi: 'We know that a member of the audience struck Pergolesi's head with an orange at the premiere of the opera L’Olimpiade.'
It always repays to push a world-class orchestra beyond their comfort zone. The BBC Symphony's sound emerged from the refashioning hands of period specialist Marc Minkowski like a naked body from a cold shower: convulsively invigorated and invigorating all those that knocked into it. It was a joy to hear: the best, most intriguing period-playing I've heard for quite a while. For sure the orchestra were more comfortable in Stravinsky's Pulcinella, which went off like a spinning jenny, but the sounds Minkowski managed to elicit from the players in Pergolesi's Stabat Mater chilled the blood. More on all that later.
It always repays to push a world-class orchestra beyond their comfort zone. The BBC Symphony's sound emerged from the refashioning hands of period specialist Marc Minkowski like a naked body from a cold shower: convulsively invigorated and invigorating all those that knocked into it. It was a joy to hear: the best, most intriguing period-playing I've heard for quite a while. For sure the orchestra were more comfortable in Stravinsky's Pulcinella, which went off like a spinning jenny, but the sounds Minkowski managed to elicit from the players in Pergolesi's Stabat Mater chilled the blood. More on all that later.

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Re the last paragraph, Yan Beuron was indisposed and replaced by Julien Behr.

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