Classical Reviews

Classical CDs Weekly: Beethoven, Cindy Cox, Nielsen

graham Rickson Saturday, 07 May 2016

Beethoven: Symphonies 1-9 Berliner Philharmoniker/Sir Simon Rattle (Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings)

A Midsummer Night's Dream, Middle Temple Hall

David Nice Tuesday, 03 May 2016

You rarely see a full production of Shakespeare's dream play so magical it brings tears to the eyes. But then you don't often get 42 players and 14 voices joining the cast to adorn the text with Mendelssohn's bewitching incidental music, plus the Overture composed 16 years earlier – certainly the most perfect masterpiece ever written by a 17-year-old.

Comment

Zuev, LPO, Jurowski, RFH

David Nice Monday, 02 May 2016

It often sounds as though Richard Strauss makes the ascent of his Alpine Symphony in too many layers of clothes. Hopes were that Vladimir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic Orchestra would give us a characteristically sinewy, more lightly-clad mountaineer. What we got was something different: a perfect blending of rich textures, an objectivity that left humans more or less out of the natural landcapes, and an often swift expedition that gave space to climaxes.

Piau, Les Talens Lyriques, Rousset, Wigmore Hall

alexandra Coghlan Sunday, 01 May 2016

La Follia was, as every programme note inevitably reminds us, a pop song of its day. A strutting Spanish dance, it featured in the work of over 150 composers, so catchy was its signature chord progression. Still a classic of Baroque concert programmes, it’s a great way to take the temperature of any given performance. At its best, it can have even a sedate audience stamping and swaying, thrilled by those grinding syncopations and that heartbeat pulse.

Tharaud, CBSO, Volkov, Symphony Hall Birmingham

Richard Bratby Friday, 29 April 2016

Left, alone, Hans Abrahamsen’s new piano concerto for the left hand, swirls out of the darkness to a jagged motor rhythm. Piano and orchestra clash and interlock; you’re reminded of Prokofiev and Ravel. Then something happens. A piano plays, but the soloist is motionless. It’s been there all the time, of course – an orchestral piano, up on the percussion risers.

Glennie, Ticciati, O/Modernt Kammarorkester, Kings Place

David Nice Thursday, 28 April 2016

It is a truth not widely acknowledged in the UK as yet that Robin Ticciati's elder brother Hugo is no less fine a shaper of musical thought. He could, as his solo playing last night richly proved, have had a career as a virtuoso violinist playing with all the world's great orchestras.

Comment

Atkins, SCO, Knussen, Queen's Hall, Edinburgh

David Kettle Monday, 25 April 2016

Edinburgh audiences can, it has to be said, be frustratingly unadventurous. Which no doubt accounts for the relatively light turnout for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s quietly fizzing Queen’s Hall concert under conductor Oliver Knussen, three quarters of whose music was written after 1945. What any absentees missed, however, was a gloriously passionate evening of crisp, energetic music making.

Shakespeare 400 Gala, LPO, Jurowski, RFH

David Nice Sunday, 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.

Bruckner 6, OAE, Rattle, RFH

Peter Quantrill Saturday, 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.