Classical Reviews
Total Immersion: Henryk Górecki, BarbicanSunday, 04 October 2015
This was Henryk Górecki beyond the Third Symphony. His otherwise ubiquitous masterpiece was notable by its absence from yesterday's programme. That was surely a conscious decision, and a wise one, allowing his many other important works to come out from its shadow. Górecki turned out to be an ideal subject for the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s “Total Immersion” treatment. Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Adams, Bliss, Matthew WhitesideSaturday, 03 October 2015
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Nelson Goerner, Wigmore HallTuesday, 29 September 2015
Nelson Goerner has settled rather gloriously into being a musicians’ musician. An artist of this calibre should be selling out the Wigmore Hall – but it wasn’t his fault that yesterday was Monday, and the pianophiles who turned out to hear him were rewarded with a rich and satisfying programme. Read more... |
Ehnes, BBCSSO, Runnicles, Usher Hall, EdinburghMonday, 28 September 2015
Performances of Mahler’s Tenth Symphony are rare, at least in Scotland. The programme note for this series of concerts by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra records that the orchestra’s only previous performance was in 1978. Those I spoke to in the audience in the Usher Hall could not recall a performance by Scotland’s other symphony orchestra, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (or SNO as it was previously), since way before that. Read more... |
Cargill, BBCSO, Oramo, BarbicanFriday, 25 September 2015
In 2007, Jiří Bělohlávek set the distinctive seal on his leadership of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and their ongoing Mahler cycle with a riveting performance of the Third Symphony. The legacy he established of a deep, well-moulded string sound which the orchestra didn’t really have before has left its mark on his successor Sakari Oramo’s even more impassioned attempt at the most epic of all Mahler’s symphonies. Read more... |
Trpčeski, CBSO, Măcelaru, Symphony Hall BirminghamFriday, 25 September 2015
Cards on the table: the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is looking for a new music director. Having filled its new season with emerging talents – Andrew Gourlay, Daniele Rustioni, Ryan Wigglesworth and Ben Gernon, to name just four – it’s an open secret that any concert directed by a youngish, more-or-less unattached conductor in Birmingham for the foreseeable future is effectively an audition for the job. And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Read more... |
LPO, Jurowski, Royal Festival HallThursday, 24 September 2015
Nothing will ever test the depth, breadth and sheer virtuosity of a large orchestra more than Mahler’s symphonies. Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Conductor Mark WigglesworthWednesday, 23 September 2015
Mark Wigglesworth and I go back quite a long way in terms of meetings – namely to 1996, when I interviewed him for Gramophone about the launch of his Shostakovich symphonies cycle on BIS. He completed it a decade later, though that release hung fire until last year. Read more... |
Accentus, Insula, Equilbey, BarbicanTuesday, 22 September 2015
The frail bridge between Baroque and Classical aesthetics was the theme for this debut UK appearance by Insula, the period-orchestra extension to Laurence Equilbey’s superb vocal ensemble accentus. Read more... |
Baroque Alehouse, Eike, Sam Wanamaker PlayhouseTuesday, 22 September 2015
Sunday evening may have been all about melancholy at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, but last night Bjarte Eike and his uproariously talented Barokksolistene traded wails for ales and one of their legendary alehouse sessions at the Globe’s Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. There was music, certainly, but also dancing, storytelling, drinking (yes, really) and more joy than it’s possible to imagine from this tight-knit bunch of musical mavericks. Read more... |
Adams: Absolute Jest, Grand Pianola Music San Francisco Symphony/Michael Tilson Thomas, with Orli Shaham and Marc-André Hamelin (pianos), Synergy Vocals (SFS Media)Pages
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