Classical Reviews
Proms at...Cadogan Hall: Hardenberger, Gruber, ASMFTuesday, 09 August 2016
Superior light music with a sting, done at the highest level: what could be better for a summer lunchtime in the light and airy Cadogan Hall? Our curator was that most collegial of top soloists, trumpeter Håkan Hardenberger. He'd invited colleagues of many nations, all of them first rate, but it was almost a given that chansonnier-composer HK Gruber would steal the show. Read more... |
Prom 29: NYO, Gardner/Prom 30: Kolesnikov, NYOS, VolkovMonday, 08 August 2016
If the BBC were to plan a Proms season exclusively devoted to youth orchestras and ensembles, many of us would be delighted. Standards are now at professional level right across the board. Read more... |
theartsdesk at the Verbier Festival 2016Sunday, 07 August 2016
Idyllic setting, star-rated musicians, the sense of an occasion. Verbier so wholly fulfils the clichés of an international music festival that to the cynical it can seem complacent or arrogant in doing so. To the uninitiated – and this was my first visit to the Monaco of the Mountains – there is more than a sprinkling of magic about the sheer implausibility of the place. Read more... |
Prom 27: Kuusisto, BBCSSO, DausgaardSaturday, 06 August 2016
Concert halls, as Gregg Wallace might observe if he ever went to one, don’t come much bigger than the Royal Albert Hall, nor violin concertos than the Tchaikovsky. Faced with this awesome combination, the temptation for a soloist is to play up to the occasion. Volume gets louder, vibrato faster, emotions are amped. But not for Pekka Kuusisto. Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Butterworth, Liszt, NielsenSaturday, 06 August 2016
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Prom 21: Leleux, Aurora Orchestra, CollonMonday, 01 August 2016
The Aurora Orchestra’s gimmick at Prom 21 was the same as in the last two seasons: playing a major classical symphony from memory. This was touted as an “astonishing feat” by the concert’s on-stage presenter Tom Service but, although unusual, is it really that extraordinary? When I go to the opera I am not moved to congratulate the singers on performing without music. Read more... |
Prom 20: Roméo et Juliette, Monteverdi Choir, NYCoS, ORR, GardinerSunday, 31 July 2016
Like Prokofiev in his full-length ballet a century later, Berlioz seems to have been inspired by Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to bring forth his most compendious score. John Eliot Gardiner, who knows and loves every bar of light and shade in this great Berlioz kaleidoscope, offered even more of it than usual at last night's Prom. Read more... |
Prom 18: Mahler's Third Symphony, LSO, HaitinkSaturday, 30 July 2016
Few 87-year-olds would have the stamina to conduct over 100 minutes of Mahler. Bernard Haitink, though, has always kept a steady, unruffled hand on the interpretative tiller, and if his way with the longest of all the symphonies, the Third, hasn't changed that much since his first recording made half a century ago with his Concertgebouw Orchestra, there's still reassurance in the sheer beauty of the music-making. Read more... |
Prom 15: Chen, BBCSO, BBCSC, DavisWednesday, 27 July 2016
Programming a concert is a tricky business. Programming an entire Proms season almost unthinkably difficult. But even allowing for the odd evening of leftovers, those artists, anniversaries and concertos that just can’t be fitted in anywhere else, last night’s Prom 15 was a muddle. Read more... |
The Kingdom, Three Choirs Festival, GloucesterTuesday, 26 July 2016
The last time but one that the Three Choirs Festival was in Gloucester the main offering was Elgar’s oratorio The Kingdom, and there’s a kind of inevitability about the same work turning up again, same place, same occasion, six years later. After all, the Three Choirs has not survived for almost 300 years by a fidgety policy of constant renewal. Read more... |
Butterworth: Orchestral Works BBC National Orchestra of Wales/Kriss Russman, with James Rutherford (baritone) (BIS)Pages
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