Classical Features

'You are my hero, dear Jiří': Karita Mattila and others remember Jiří Bělohlávek

theartsdesk Wednesday, 07 June 2017

The first of Jiří Bělohlávek’s final three appearances in London, conducting his Czech Philharmonic in a concert performance of Janáček’s Jenůfa, came as a shock. The trademark grey curly hair had vanished.

theartsdesk in Göttingen: Handel for all

David Nice Saturday, 03 June 2017

"Love is in the air," croons or rather bellows presenter Juri Tetzlaff, getting his audience of adults and children to bellow back the wordless refrain, arms swaying above their heads. Mezzo Sophie Rennert, dragged up as noble Lotario, and soprano Marie Lys as widowed princess Adelaide dance tenderly to the strains.

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theartsdesk on the Seine: a second new concert hall for Paris

David Nice Friday, 05 May 2017

It's funny how Parisians grumble about any major new venue which lies outside their chic central stamping ground.

theartsdesk in Tallinn: From Dusk to Black at Estonian Music Days

David Nice Saturday, 29 April 2017

Many other top Estonian musicians, performing among other works 30 premieres of music by their compatriots in just over a week, might have been equally deserving candidates for the lead image. But perhaps an even more appropriate image might have been a black rectangle.

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First Person: 15 years of Tenebrae, a lifetime of choral music

Nigel Short Tuesday, 11 April 2017

Having just celebrated a birthday the wrong side of 50 years of age I confess to regularly pinching myself when I dare to look back and see the higgledy-piggledy route my life has taken to bring me to the present day, as we celebrate 15 years of Tenebrae. Not just the odd lucky break here and there but seemingly a lifelong sequence of odd twists and turns, of chance meetings and associations, every one of which has resulted in me landing at the current co-ordinates of life.

theartsdesk in Oslo: Mozart beneath a Munch sun

David Nice Wednesday, 15 March 2017

Leif Ove Andsnes directing two great Mozart piano concertos from the keyboard may be the chief attraction when the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra comes to London's Cadogan Hall on Friday to celebrate its 40^th birthday. It was certainly the bait which lured me to Oslo last week. But in talking to the Renaissance man...

Farewell, Stanisław Skrowaczewski (1923-2017)

Gavin Dixon Friday, 24 February 2017

Bruckner conductors improve with age: Haitink, Blomstedt, Gielen – octogenarians all. But Stanisław Skrowaczewski went further, conducting his favourite composer almost to his death, this week at the age of 93. And more than any of his contemporaries, he seemed to embody the Brucknerian qualities of wisdom, experience and patience. A glorious Indian summer brought his work to a new generation, as,...

Listed: How I Do Love Thee

theartsdesk Tuesday, 14 February 2017

Love is in the air. Today, men and women and boys and girls will be pondering how to say it with roses and cards and candlelit dinners: those three words that contain multitudes. As the old strip cartoon never quite got round to saying, love is... the human condition, which is why a good quantity of the culture we review on this site has to do with it. To help you get into the mood for romancing, we have asked our...

Natalie Clein: 'The cello is part of my being'

Natalie Clein Friday, 06 January 2017

The cello is so deeply engrained in my fingers, my imagination, it’s part of my being – my life would feel amputated without it. You fall in love with the instrument, the music, and then you embark on the life-long task of trying to get closer to that beguiling musical ideal. That’s the drug, the contract you sign with the devil.

theartsdesk in Budapest: Prophecy in the world's best concert hall

David Nice Saturday, 10 December 2016

August 1914, September 2001, all of 2016: these are the dates Hungary's late, great writer Péter Esterházy served up for the non-linear narrative of his friend Péter Eötvös's Halleluja - Oratorium Balbulum.