Classical Reviews
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... |
Perahia, Richter, LSO, Haitink, BarbicanMonday, 21 September 2015
Last night's perfectly-judged, superbly communicated performance of Mahler's Fourth Symphony served as a reminder that the passion, experience and astonishing musicality of 86-year-old conductor Bernard Haitink are things to be cherished and never taken for granted. The symphony, first performed in 1901, was the main work in this second of Haitink's three concerts with the LSO before they leave together for Japan. Read more... |
The Image of Melancholy, Eike, Sam Wanamaker PlayhouseMonday, 21 September 2015
“Sounds a bit depressing,” said several friends when I urged them to attend the theatrical incarnation of The Image of Melancholy, inspirational violinist Bjarte Eike’s award-winning CD with his stunning Norwegian-based group Barokksolistene. Creative melancholy, though, is not the same as stuck depression, and the sequence on the disc was well-balanced with songs and dances as well as superbly engineered sound. Read more... |
theartsdesk at the Lammermuir FestivalMonday, 21 September 2015
It’s hard to believe that East Lothian’s Lammermuir Festival has only been around for six years. In that short time, it’s become a cherished fixture in Scotland’s musical calendar. For regular concert-goers, it’s a calmer antidote to the August festival mayhem of Edinburgh, just half an hour away, and just a couple of weeks after the capital’s wall-to-wall chaos ends. Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Bernstein, Fučík, Wartime ConsolationsSaturday, 19 September 2015
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Hofmann, Royal Danish Orchestra, Boder, Symphony Hall, BirminghamThursday, 17 September 2015
There’s just something about an opera orchestra when it’s let out of the pit. The Royal Danish Orchestra is more than that, of course – it makes much of its six centuries of history, and since its past members included John Dowland, Heinrich Schütz and Carl Nielsen, why wouldn’t it? Read more... |
Shibe, Egmont Ensemble, Wigmore HallTuesday, 15 September 2015
It was a sad coincidence that this Monday Platform “showcasing talented young artists” took place only weeks after the death in a road accident of Roderick Lakin, Director of Arts for 31 years at the Royal Over-Seas League which was last night's backer. For no concert could have been more sensitively tuned to a personal farewell. Overt melancholy only surfaced in the slow-movement theme of Brahms’s Second Piano Trio. But wouldn’t you want Dowland, Bach and Schubert at your memorial concert... Read more... |
Bernstein: Symphony No. 3 'Kaddish' Baltimore Symphony Orchestra/Marin Alsop (Naxos)Pages
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