thu 17/07/2025

Classical Reviews

Christian Gerhaher, Gerold Huber, Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford review - an unforgettable recital

Sebastian Scotney

Christian Gerhaher, the most compelling and complete interpreter of German Lieder of our time, makes no secret of the fact that – unlike his devotion to, say, Schumann – his relationship with the songs of Brahms has never been comfortable.

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Kanneh-Mason, Sinfonia of London, Wilson, Barbican review - taking the roof off the Barbican

alexandra Coghlan

A programme of less-loved siblings – Shostakovich’s gnarly Second Cello Concerto and Rachmaninov’s “not-the-Second” Symphony No. 1 – gave John Wilson and his Sinfonia of London the chance to do what they do best: force an audience to take a second look.

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Music from Pole to Pole, Clark, City of London Sinfonia, Smith Square Hall review - talk of clouds, music to match

Rachel Halliburton

It’s not often that a classical music concert offers to take you beyond the stratosphere and back, but this intriguing evening from the City of London Sinfonia did precisely that with considerable élan. All too frequently there’s a considerable gap between a fantastic idea and its satisfying execution, yet this musical trip from the Antarctic to the Arctic via different cloud formations proved to be as stimulating as it was passionately engaging.

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Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective, Hatfield House review - musical dreams in marble halls

Boyd Tonkin

“Sero sed serio”: so runs the Salisbury family motto on the carved coat-of-arms in the lavishly panelled and painted Marble Hall of Hatfield House. “Late, but in earnest”. The first adjective certainly doesn’t apply to any member of the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective, five of whom performed in the Hall for one of the centrepiece events of the 13th Hatfield House Music Festival.

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Music Reissues Weekly: Arvo Pärt - Tabula Rasa

Kieron Tyler

In 2022, Spritualized’s Jason Pierce described his musical goal as "trying to find somewhere between Arvo Pärt and The Stooges.” Amongst the most arresting and explicitly Pärt-styled results of this quest to link the minimalist composer with Iggy Pop‘s pre-punk confrontationists was the affecting "Broken Heart," from his band’s 1997 third album Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space.

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Kanga, Manchester Collective, Singh, RNCM Manchester review - string ensemble playing at its most rewarding

Robert Beale

Of all the inventive and enterprising things Manchester Collective do, it’s most often been the playing of a string ensemble led from first desk by Rakhi Singh that’s been the most fundamentally rewarding.

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Hardenberger, BBC Philharmonic, Storgårds, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - splendour and a trumpeter's voluntary

Robert Beale

Two splendid pieces of orchestral virtuosity began and finished the second Saturday concert by the BBC Philharmonic under John Storgårds at the Bridgewater Hall. It was given the title of “Mischief and Magic”, an apt summary.

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BBC Singers, BBCSO, Jeannin, Barbican review - from stormy weather to blue skies

Boyd Tonkin

“Bold, ambitious, and good for the sector.” So said Charlotte Moore, the BBC chief content officer, who currently earns £468,000, in March last year as she defended plans to close the BBC Singers as part of a package of swingeing musical cuts masked – as usual – as a high-principled strategic rethink.

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Elisabeth Leonskaja, Wigmore Hall review - a universe of sound and emotion in Schubert’s last three sonatas

David Nice

Wonders never ceased in Elisabeth Leonskaja’s return to the Wigmore Hall. Not only did she play Schubert’s last three sonatas with all repeats and the full range of a unique power undiminished in a 78-year old alongside a never too overstated pathos, radiance and delicacy; just before receiving the Wigmore Hall Medal (presentation by John Gilhooly pictured below), she also gave us more revelations in the compressed world of Schoenberg’s Six Little Pieces, Op. 19.

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Andsnes, London Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra, Gardner, RFH review - total clarity in classic-romantic and prophetic Rachmaninov

David Nice

If there was ever a time for the inevitable "Rach Three” (piano concerto, not symphony) in the composer’s 150th anniversary year – and I confess I dodged other occasions – it might as well have come in the fresh and racy shape of Leif Ove Andsnes' interpretation and the equally alert, forward-moving playing of the London Philharmonic Orchestra under a kindred spirit, its principal conductor Edward Gardner.

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