Classical Reviews
Damrau, BRSO, Jansons, Barbican review - broad and passionate StraussMonday, 28 January 2019
There is no doubting Diana Damrau’s star power. She is not a demonstrative performer, and her voice is small, but the sheer character of her tone, and the passion she invests, make every line special. Read more... |
Hough, Hallé, Elder, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - film music flowsFriday, 25 January 2019
No one worried about melting icecaps and homeless penguins when Vaughan Williams wrote his score for the film Scott of the Antarctic around 70 years ago. (They do now, as a new music theatre piece by Laura Bowler to be premiered by Manchester Camerata next week will show). It was the challenge of the frozen continent and a heroic effort to reach its heart that counted. Read more... |
Endellion Quartet, Wigmore Hall review - four decades of excellenceTuesday, 22 January 2019
The Endellion Quartet first rehearsed on 20 January 1979, deep in the throes of Britain’s so-called “Winter of Discontent”. That longevity – with three of the original players still on the team after four decades – makes the acclaimed ensemble roughly as old as Spandau Ballet, and senior to REM. Read more... |
Van Woerkum, BBCPO, Gernon, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - a symphony of cinemaMonday, 21 January 2019
In contrast to a classic film soundtrack played live with the film, the idea in "symphonic cinema" is that the music, and its interpretation, come first. So the conductor is literally setting the pace, and to some extent the atmosphere, while the film is controlled in real time by an "image soloist", and the visuals follow the music’s lead rather than the other way round. Read more... |
Bang on a Can All-Stars, Kings Place review - a kaleidoscope of vibrant sound and visionSaturday, 19 January 2019
Julia Wolfe, Caroline Shaw, Anna Þorvaldsdóttir: three names on quite a list I reeled off earlier this week when someone asked me why the compositions of Rebecca Saunders, in the news for winning the €250,000 Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, make me lose the will to live, and whom I’d choose instead. Read more... |
Ehnes, BBCSO, Ryan Wigglesworth, Barbican review - a concert of two very different halvesSaturday, 19 January 2019
The big news on this programme was Schoenberg’s Pelleas and Melisande. This early score, completed in 1903, is a sprawling Expressionist tone poem, making explicit all the passions in Maeterlinck’s play that Debussy only implies. Read more... |
Murrihy, Britten Sinfonia, Elder, Barbican review – a country feastFriday, 18 January 2019
As the January chill began to bite around the Barbican, Sir Mark Elder and the Britten Sinfonia summoned memories of spring and summer – but of sunny seasons overshadowed by the electric crackle of storms. On the face of it, they offered us a pleasing, even serene, pastoral spread to mitigate the chill outside. Read more... |
Winterreise, Gerhaher, Huber, Wigmore Hall review - wintry beautyThursday, 17 January 2019
As Wigmore Hall audiences really ought to know, silence can be golden. Especially at the close of Schubert’s Winterreise, as the uncanny drone-like fifths of the hurdy-gurdy in “Der Leiermann” fade away into – well, whatever state of mind the singer and pianist have together managed to communicate over the preceding 24 songs. So much remains ambiguous – and open to plausible re-interpretation – in this cycle that the traditional pause for reflection as it ends makes good sense. Read more... |
LSO, Rattle, Barbican review - Bartók dances, Bruckner singsTuesday, 15 January 2019
Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta and Bruckner’s Sixth Symphony: few other conductors could get away with programming two such monolithic works, but Simon Rattle has a lightness of touch that can leaven even... Read more... |
Fibonacci Sequence, Conway Hall review - characterful chamber music for windsTuesday, 15 January 2019
Most classical concert reviews focus on prominent orchestras and opera companies at major venues. But beyond the likes of the Barbican and the Royal Opera House, there are whole strata of musical life where smaller scale ensembles and amateur choirs provide a vital live music experience in less exalted venues. Read more... |
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