Classical Reviews
Josefowicz, LSO, Adams, BarbicanFriday, 09 December 2016
Praise be to the spell cast by top players on great composers. Without the phenomenon that is Leila Josefowicz, John Adams would never have created his often prolix, fitfully hair-raising Scheherazade.2, more "dramatic symphony" for violin and orchestra than a concerto like his earlier work for the same combination (though that, too, is far from straightforward). Read more... |
Igor Levit, Wigmore HallWednesday, 07 December 2016
Igor Levit began his recording career with Beethoven’s last three piano sonatas, and his deeply felt, impressively mature readings made his name. Now he is performing a full cycle at the Wigmore Hall, and his take on the earlier sonatas turns out to be very much in the same spirit. There is little sense of Classical reserve in Levit’s early Beethoven; instead everything is performed in an intensely expressive style. It’s impulsive and unpredictable, with huge contrasts of dynamic and tempo... Read more... |
El Niño, LSO, Adams, BarbicanMonday, 05 December 2016
Second and third times lucky: after the migraine-inducing multimedia overload of Peter Sellars's premiere production of El Niño, first seen in London in 2003 and subsequently excoriated in eloquent prose by the composer himself, John Adams's layered masterpiece has had two further performances here proving that the drama is all in the music. Vladimir Jurowski's 2013 Festival Hall... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Prokofiev, Daniel Röhn, AyreheartSaturday, 03 December 2016
Pr |
Uchida, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, RFHWednesday, 30 November 2016
Leonard Bernstein once said that his favourite piece of Stravinsky was whatever one he happened to be listening to. I have a similar feeling about Mozart piano concertos: I love them all in their turn, and last night I heard Mitsuko Uchida bring two of the greatest of them to life, as pianist and director, alongside the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Read more... |
Douglas, LSO, Søndergård, BarbicanWednesday, 30 November 2016
Thomas Søndergård stood in for this concert at a day’s notice – Valery Gergiev is apparently recovering from a knee operation and unable to travel. He left behind a curious programme, centred around Prokofiev’s quirky but dour Sixth Symphony. It’s a difficult work to schedule, but Gergiev added two sweeteners, Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet and First Piano Concerto. Read more... |
Total Immersion: Richard Rodney Bennett, BarbicanMonday, 28 November 2016
Send in the paradoxes. Richard Rodney Bennett (1936-2012) had been so obsessed as a young man by music of the avant-garde, he would hitch-hike to Darmstadt to be in the same room as his (then) idols Berio, Maderna, and Boulez. He and Cornelius Cardew premiered important works by Boulez in the UK. And yet this was the same man who would later write, sing and play a cabaret song, “Early to Bed”, based on an endearing habit of Blossom Dearie. Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Elgar, Mahler, Georges PrêtreSaturday, 26 November 2016
Elgar Remastered (Somm)
|
Large, Hudson Shad, BBCSO, Gaffigan, BarbicanThursday, 24 November 2016
Has there ever been a more pertinent time to revive the poetic mythologies of Brecht and Weill? The writer said that the good-life-for-dollars city of Mahagonny was not exclusively an American state of mind and should be set in any country where it's performed. But the inverted morality tale of The Seven Deadly Sins explicitly references seven American cities. Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Beethoven, Schubert, TostiSaturday, 19 November 2016
|
okofiev: Romeo and Juliet (Complete) Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra / Vasily Petrenko (Lawo Classics)
Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Op. 90, Op. 101 and Op. 106 Steven Osborne (Hyperion)Pages
inside classical music
latest in today
Help to give theartsdesk a future!
It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
Maria review - Pablo Larraín's haunting portrait of an...
As Bono once commented about Luciano Pavarotti, “the opera follows him off stage”. Legendary...
Titanique, Criterion Theatre review - musical parody sinks d...
This Celine Dion jukebox musical has been a big hit in New York, but...
Album: Franz Ferdinand - The Human Fear
Travel back in time to the mid 2000s and you would be hard pressed to escape "Take Me Out" by Franz Ferdinand on the air waves. On the radio,...
Babygirl review - would-be steamy drama that only flirts wit...
Babygirl starts with the sound of sex, piped in over the credits. There's a lot of it on our screens at the moment, from ...
It's Raining Men review - frothy French comedy avoids d...
Iris (Laure Calamy) and her husband Stéphane (Vincent Elbaz) haven’t had sex for four years. Waiting at school for the parent-teacher conference (...
Album: Bridget Hayden and The Apparitions - Cold Blows The R...
The title Cold Blows The Rain encapsulates it. A mournful, unembellished female voice sings of loss. The musical backing is sparse....
A Real Pain review - Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin take...
Jesse Eisenberg's first film as writer/director...
Blu-ray: The Hop-Pickers
Czech theatre theorist Ivo Osolsobě’s tick-list for what constitutes an "authentic" musical is quoted in this release’s booklet. Namely that the...