Classical Reviews
Shakespeare 400 Gala, LPO, Jurowski, RFHSunday, 24 April 2016![]()
Every year is Shakespeare year in theatre, opera house and concert hall. An anniversary's best, though, for those select few galas where the mind's made flexible by constant comparison between different Shakespearean worlds. Read more... |
Bruckner 6, OAE, Rattle, RFHSaturday, 23 April 2016
It’s always fun to watch the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. As members of a self-governing orchestra, and often soloists in their own right, the players like to do things their way. Come the ripe second theme of the Bruckner Adagio and the cellos were giving it lashings of vibrato; muesli-wearing adherents to pure tone be damned. Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Krenek, Schumann, OsmosisSaturday, 23 April 2016![]()
|
Vavic, SCO, Bloch, Queen's Hall, EdinburghSunday, 17 April 2016![]()
It’s not the first time that young French conductor Alexandre Bloch has been in front of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra – he took them on a well-received short Scottish tour last summer. But it was his first main-season gig with the band, and he certainly had something to say. "A bit of French and Russian atmosphere," was how he modestly described his concert in the concert progamme’s intro: it was certainly that, but plenty more besides. Read more... |
Brahms: A German Requiem, ENO Chorus, Wigglesworth, St George's Hanover SquareSaturday, 16 April 2016![]()
There aren’t many opera choruses I’d want to hear singing Brahms’ Requiem, and still fewer I’d rush to hear. But the Olivier Award-winning ENO chorus is a different beast altogether – as responsive and flexible of tone as it is skilled with an all-out musical punch – and more than capable of finding the interiority as well as the intensity in this choral classic. Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Bartók, Birkin, Berlin Piano QuartetSaturday, 16 April 2016![]()
|
Bruckner 8, LSO, Rattle, BarbicanFriday, 15 April 2016![]()
Last and most imposing of Bruckner’s completed symphonies, the Eighth invites and frequently receives architectural comparisons. Read more... |
Bach Cantatas and Magnificat, Bach Collegium Japan, Suzuki, Saffron HallTuesday, 12 April 2016![]()
“The rests, the silences in Bach are never for nothing,” I once heard the Dutch cellist and baroque specialist Anner Bylsma telling a student in a masterclass. “You jump up from them, you reach higher.” Hearing the Bach Collegium Japan on Sunday night kept bringing those phrases to mind, because the listener in the acoustic of Saffron Hall really does get to hear this music, so delicately played, emerging again and again from silence. Read more... |
Bach Motets, Bach Collegium Japan, Suzuki, St Giles CripplegateSunday, 10 April 2016![]()
This second concert in the Barbican residency of Masaaki Suzuki and the Bach Collegium Japan transported us across the water from the concert hall to St Giles Cripplegate, and from the greatest of masses to organ masterpieces and, among motets, a work of which Mozart allegedly said, "at last, something to learn from". All that cascading counterpoint in Singet dem Herrn in a bright church acoustic ideally suited to this music told us why. Read more... |
Osborne, RSNO, Denève, Usher Hall, EdinburghSunday, 10 April 2016![]()
“Bon soir, good evening! Nice to see you! To see you...” Four years after bidding an emotional farewell to the Usher Hall, the Gallic charmer is back, maybe slightly stouter, with a tinge of grey in a new beard, the great mop of curly red hair as unruly as ever. And that accent! As the anecdotes flow, stout middle-aged Edinburgers swoon as they imagine themselves drinking pastis on the Boulevard St Germain in the spring sunshine. Read more... |
Pages
inside classical music
latest in today

It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...

Is the theatre of the absurd dead? In today’s world, when cruel and crazy events happen almost daily, the idea that you can satirize daily life by...

Many know that the actor Richard Burton began life as a miner’s son called Richard Jenkins. Not so many are aware of the reason he...

Mike Scott is The Waterboys. Launched by wide-eyed 1980s folk-...

Horror comes in many forms. In writer-director Jed Hart’s...

A year ago Guy Ritchie brought us the Netflix series The Gentlemen, and now here he is on Paramount+ with his latest romp through the...

The best way to experience Ed Atkins’ exhibition at...

An Irish adaptation of Garcia Di Gregorio’s acclaimed 2008 film Mid-August Lunch, director Darren Thornton’s Four Mothers is the...

I saw the Miki Berenyi Trio play a warmly received sold out set at the Lexington last autumn, at which many of the songs now coming out on ...