Classical Reviews

Classical CDs Weekly: Bach, Mozart, Poulenc

graham Rickson Saturday, 17 January 2015

Bach: St John Passion Berliner Philharmoniker, Members of the Rudfunkchors Berlin, Soloists/Sir Simon Rattle, with staging by Peter Sellars (Berliner Philharmoniker)

Hannigan, LSO, Rattle, Barbican Hall

Peter Quantrill Friday, 16 January 2015

For his second programme this week with the London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Simon Rattle conducted variations on a programme he’s been doing for years. So what’s the theme? Invention and hysteria, you might say. Berg’s Marie in Wozzeck and Stravinsky’s virgin in The Rite of Spring both meet gory if wordless ends.

Jansen, Golan, Wigmore Hall

Sebastian Scotney Tuesday, 13 January 2015

This recital had looked so good on paper. The charismatic Dutch violinist Janine Jansen, with Itamar Golan at the piano, would bring all the brooding darkness of late '60s Shostakovich to life, and would then charm and finally dazzle in Ravel. In the hall on the night, and in particular in the second half, she didn't quite live up to such expectations.

Comment

Winterreise, Bostridge, Adès, Barbican Hall

alexandra Coghlan Tuesday, 13 January 2015

Ian Bostridge’s relationship with Schubert’s song-cycle Winterreise goes back 30 years. Many of those years have been spent in the public eye (and ear), allowing us to watch the tenor grow and grow-up with this music. It’s been over a decade since his first recording of the cycle with Leif Ove Andsnes, and almost that long since David Alden’s filmed version; the Bostridge who tours the cycle with Thomas Adès this year is quite a different singer and performer.

Das Paradies und die Peri, LSO, Rattle, Barbican

Gavin Dixon Monday, 12 January 2015

Sir Simon Rattle wants you to hear Das Paradies und die Peri. He is convinced that Schumann’s oratorio is one of the great undiscovered masterpieces of the Romantic era. To that end, he has led performances with the Berlin Philharmonic and an all-star cast, and has now brought that cast to London to convert the Brits.

Comment

In C, London Sinfonietta, Kings Place

Geoff Brown Sunday, 11 January 2015

There’s nothing like Terry Riley’s In C to reawaken a past epoch. Of variable length, built from 53 melodic fragments, this minimalist construct of 1964 was almost designed to be performed and experienced lying on cushions in a marijuana haze – though a state somewhat ruptured by the home listener’s need to stir and turn over the vinyl LP in order to hear the other side.

Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela Concert 2, RFH

alexandra Coghlan Saturday, 10 January 2015

The Simón Bolívar orchestra is the musical answer to the question “Would you like to supersize that?” A youth orchestra in bulk, if no longer in name, the ensemble has made a signature of its heft, making repertoire work on its own terms rather than adjusting itself to fit. On Thursday night, full-fat Beethoven and Wagner that threatened to overspill in the generosity of their gestures, so how would the orchestra fare with Mahler’s mighty Fifth Symphony?

Classical CDs Weekly: Janáček, Orff, David Childs

graham Rickson Saturday, 10 January 2015

Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, Dudamel, RFH

David Nice Friday, 09 January 2015

Youth may have vanished from the title, and its first flush is gone from the cheeks of most of the young persons. Now they’re in their prime, a magnificent sight – and the sound, too, is that of a world-class orchestra with a voice. Which we heard at its most distinctive, deep and muscular, from the strings in the opening signals of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. So what went wrong with the music from Wagner’s Ring in their first 2015 Southbank concert’s second half?

Comment

Scriabin Anniversary Recital, Ohlsson, Wigmore Hall

David Nice Wednesday, 07 January 2015

Of Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin, who died 100 years ago aged 43, it was said at one time (by Rimsky-Korsakov) that he was “warped, a poser and opinionated”, at another (by Boris Pasternak) that he could seem “as tranquil and lucent as God resting from his labours on the seventh day”. Only Pasternak’s definition applies to the magnificence of Garrick Ohlsson, a lion couchant who can use his wings to fly into the sun when Scriabin so requires.