Classical Reviews
Zimerman, LSO, Rattle, LSO St Luke's review - rainbow colours, continuity and imperial soaringFriday, 18 December 2020
Adaptability backed up by funding has been the course of the most successful musical organisations since mid-March – but it’s been especially tough from November onwards. Read more... |
Iestyn Davies, Arcangelo, Wigmore Hall review - heavenly Handel as the lights dim againWednesday, 16 December 2020
Just before the doors closed again on live audiences at the Wigmore Hall, Iestyn Davies and members of the Arcangelo ensemble celebrated the private side of a very public composer. The peerless counter-tenor, whose powerfully polished command of phrase and line makes this music feel as natural and necessary as breathing, sang Handel’s nine German-language arias to pious texts by Bartold Heinrich Brockes (who also wrote the words to the “Brockes Passion”). Read more... |
Voces8 LIVE from London online review - a cracking choral ChristmasTuesday, 15 December 2020
Voces8 are the Rolls-Royce of British a cappella ensembles and their LIVE From London - Christmas online festival is the Rolls-Royce of online festivals. Read more... |
Gabriele Carcano, Fidelio Orchestra Cafe - fresh, funny and focused BeethovenMonday, 14 December 2020
Perhaps it’s just the conventional mind which celebrates the pathos, tragedy and triumph in Beethoven’s music at the expense of his humour. And that’s the one aspect of the composer which has been a constant revelation – to me, at any rate – in his anniversary year. Too often the laughs have been solitary, listening to CDs or watching online. Read more... |
Fidelio, Opera North online review - less is really moreMonday, 14 December 2020
Adaptability is the name of the game for big companies in the music business now. And Opera North’s streamed presentation of Beethoven's Fidelio from inside Leeds Town Hall is a prime example of just how adaptable things need to be. Read more... |
Osborne, Aurora Orchestra, Kings Place review – live music that lives and breathesSunday, 13 December 2020
Like a hokey-cokey, we’re back to live music in London – but for how long? I overheard another audience member explaining it was her third time at Kings Place this week, as people cram in as many concerts as possible before a feared return to cultural lockdown. Read more... |
Kanneh-Mason Trio/Cassadó Ensemble, Kings Place review - the fewer the players, the greater the musicSaturday, 12 December 2020
For the performers and the venue there can be nothing but praise. To be back in Kings Place’s Hall One after so long was to realise afresh that no other London venue gives such air to soaring strings – and these ones truly did soar and gleam. For the programme, not quite so much. Read more... |
Williams, Hallé, Elder online review - big results from small forcesSaturday, 12 December 2020
The second of the Hallé’s Winter Season concerts-on-film is scarcely less ground-breaking than the first. But this time we are in the orchestra’s second home, the former church now extended to be Hallé St Peter’s in the regenerated part of Manchester's city centre. Read more... |
Higham, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Emelyanychev online review - I should rococoFriday, 11 December 2020
Although this streamed concert from the Scottish Chamber Orchestra featured the music of Schubert and Tchaikovsky, the ghost at the feast was Mozart, the acknowledged inspiration behind the two main pieces. Read more... |
Paul Lewis, Wigmore Hall review – Classical consolationsThursday, 10 December 2020
The key of C minor threw a dark shadow over music long before it became the tonality for Beethoven to express the struggle of one against many in the Fifth Symphony and the Third Piano Concerto. Read more... |
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