Classical Reviews
Prom 63 review: Gerstein, BBCSO, Bychkov - total mastery of orchestral soundFriday, 01 September 2017
No-one, least of all the players, will forget Semyon Bychkov’s 2009 Proms appearance with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in a poleaxing interpretation of Shostakovich’s Eleventh Symphony. Read more...
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Prom 61 review: Fleming, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Oramo - heliotropic ecstasiesThursday, 31 August 2017
No sunshine without shadows was one possible theme rippling through this diva sandwich of a Prom. Read more... |
Proms at...Cadogan Hall review: Pavel Kolesnikov - Chopin takes flightTuesday, 29 August 2017
If individual greatness is to be found in the way an artist begins and ends a phrase, or finds magical transitions both within and between pieces, then Pavel Kolesnikov is already up there with the top pianists. Listeners tuning in midway through the peaks of his lunchtime Prom – the great Chopin Fantaisie or the Fourth... Read more... |
Edinburgh Fringe 2017 review: Concerto for Comedian and Orchestra - gentle, old-fashioned humourTuesday, 29 August 2017
It’s a tricky thing to get right, musical comedy. For every Victoria Wood, Tim Minchin or Bill Bailey, there are others – plenty of them at the Edinburgh Fringe, in fact – who find it more of a challenge to meld together the two forms so that they complement each other rather than compete. Read more... |
Proms at... & Prom 56 reviews: Multi-Story Orchestra / BBCSO, Hrůša - the best of all possible worldsMonday, 28 August 2017
There we had it, in one extraordinary Proms day: the brave new world of contemporary classical music for all in a repurposed Peckham car park followed by the consolidation of the old order in all-Czech programming of remarkable originality and daring in the evening. You can't ask much more of an art-form thato many are claming... Read more... |
Prom 54 review: Kavakos, Filarmonica della Scala, Chailly - cool Milanesi mute Roman exuberanceSaturday, 26 August 2017
Last night was one of those rare occasions when I'd rather have heard Respighi's gaudy-brilliant Roman Festivals than Brahms's Violin Concerto. Read more... |
Edinburgh Festival 2017 review: Iestyn Davies, AAM - exquisite and enlighteningFriday, 25 August 2017
“An affectionate look at different nationalities through their horses.” That was the memorably bizarre description by harpsichordist/conductor Richard Egarr of Telemann’s Les nations suite, with which he opened his second Queen’s Hall concert directing the Academy of Ancient Music at the Edinburgh International Festival. Read more... |
theartsdesk in Estonia and Latvia - Pärnu Music Festival's great orchestra goes southThursday, 24 August 2017
For the first time ever Paavo Järvi has been showing other nations why the Estonian Festival Orchestra is among the world's best – travelling to other Nordic countries after their annual gathering in Estonia’s summer capital of Pärnu, with the big bastions of Vienna and Berlin to come early next year. I caught their first ever trip abroad, a fleeting visit to Jūrmala just outside the Latvian capital Riga, two hours south of Pärnu passing... Read more... |
Prom 51 review: Perianes, BBCSO, Oramo - brightly coloured musical postcardsWednesday, 23 August 2017
Six weeks in and we’ve got to that sweet spot in the Proms season where thematic threads start to knit together, sequences begin to fill out, cycles to finish – when you hear not just the concert in front of you but the echoes of those already past. Read more... |
Prom 50 review: Josefowicz, Clayton, CBSO, Gražinytė-Tyla - personality in every barTuesday, 22 August 2017
Everything you may have read about Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla's wonder-working with her City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is true. Confined to a Turkish hospital bed when their first Prom together took place last August, I wondered from the radio broadcast if the extremes in Tchaikovsky weren't too much. Read more... |
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