mon 20/10/2025

Classical Reviews

Schumann Street, Spitalfields Festival review - illumination on a winter's night

Helen Wallace

An icy, wet wind snuck under the door of house number 8 in Fournier Street, where Uri Caine, bundled in coat and woolly hat, conjured Schumann’s darkly powerful "Im Rhein". Beside him, perched on a weaver’s stool, was improvising legend Phil Minton, rasping, whistling and groaning his way through "The wilderness of my life".

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Mark Padmore, Mitsuko Uchida, Wigmore Hall review - direct and uncompromising Schubert

Gavin Dixon

Expectations ran high for Mark Padmore and Mitsuko Uchida in Winterreise.

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Chineke! Ensemble, RNCM, Manchester review - musical advocacy

Robert Beale

The Chineke! Orchestra has won golden opinions for its ground-breaking work and musical achievement, and Manchester caught up to the extent of a visit from the eight-person Chineke! Ensemble to the Royal Northern College of Music.

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Salonen conducts Sibelius, RFH/Oramo conducts Salonen, Barbican review - Finnish psychedelia

David Nice

After Sakari Oramo's dazzling Sibelius rattlebag with the BBC Symphony Orchestra on the centenary day of Finnish independence, things weren't looking so good for Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia at half time last Thursday (★★★).

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Capuçon, BBCPO, Mena, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - awesome unity

Robert Beale

Shostakovich’s First Violin Concerto is a big work in every sense: four movements, plus a solo cadenza before the last one that makes it seem almost like five; a soloist’s role that even David Oistrakh (for whom it was first written) found taxing; symphonic construction and instrumentation which make the orchestral contribution at least as important as the solo one.

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Johnston, BBCSO, Oramo, Barbican review - sheer adrenalin in early Sibelius

David Nice

As the Parliament of the Autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland within the Russian Empire declared independence on 6 December 1917, Sibelius had his head down working on the third version of his Fifth Symphony, the one so hugely popular today.

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Christian Tetzlaff, Lars Vogt, Wigmore Hall review - lyrical Brahms from veteran duo

Gavin Dixon

Sonata no 1 – Sonata no 2 – Sonata no 3 – that’s barely a recital programme, it’s just a list. Fortunately, violinist Christian Tetzlaff and pianist Lars Vogt (pictured below by Neda Navae) have good musical reasons for presenting the Brahms violin sonatas in chronological order.

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Darius Battiwalla, Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester review - improvisation extraordinaire

Robert Beale

Organ improvisation is a remarkable art, prized in French musical culture particularly, and there was something highly appropriate in the choice of The Phantom of the Opera – a screening of the 1925 silent film with live accompaniment on the RNCM concert hall organ by Darius Battiwalla – as part of the "French Connections" year-long festival at the Manchester conservatoire.

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Batiashvili, BBCSO, Oramo, Barbican review - electricity in Sibelius and Hillborg

David Nice

Even given the peerless standards already set by Sakari Oramo and the BBC Symphony Orchestra in their Sibelius cycle, this instalment was always going to be the toughest, featuring the most elusive of the symphonies, the Sixth, and the sparest, the Fourth. As it turned out, all challenges were met with Oramo's...

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Mitsuko Uchida, RFH review - Schubert from rough to heavenly

David Nice

When you've found your living ideal for Schubert's sonatas - Elisabeth Leonskaja, surely - it can be a challenge to stay open-minded and welcome another take on the profundities.

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