Classical Reviews
Classical CDs Weekly: Gál, Prokofiev, Raffi BesalyanSaturday, 13 June 2015
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Juntunen, Philharmonia, Ashkenazy, RFHFriday, 12 June 2015
Vladimir Ashkenazy should be made an honorary Finn: not just for his constant championship of Sibelius’s orchestral works throughout his conducting life so far, but above all for the way he understands them. Read more... |
Phantasm, Elizabeth Kenny, Wigmore HallWednesday, 10 June 2015
There’s an intimacy, an interiority, to music for viol consort that even the string quartet can’t match. The physical placement of the three members of Phantasm who opened this concert of music by Gibbons, Purcell, Locke and Lawes was telling. Occupying three sides of a square, facing one another directly, theirs was a private musical conversation the audience was permitted to overhear. Read more... |
Schubert Sonatas 4, Barenboim, RFHWednesday, 03 June 2015
One man and his piano can occasionally fulfil a role more satisfying than the finest orchestra in full sail. The last of Daniel Barenboim's four-recital traversal of Schubert's piano sonatas proved just such an occasion. Read more... |
Jansen, LSO, Harding, BarbicanWednesday, 03 June 2015
How to respond to Mahler? That was the challenge set by the London Symphony Orchestra to Edward Rushton when they commissioned him to write an opener for this programme. Rushton’s response was to take a story from a biography of Alma and spin it into an orchestral fantasy. The story goes that Alma, listening to Gustav compose the Fifth Symphony, complained about the excessive orchestration, which he then dutifully toned down. Read more... |
Schubert Sonatas 3, Barenboim, RFHMonday, 01 June 2015
“You don’t love Schubert’s music?” Such, according to the greatest of living Schubert interpreters Elisabeth Leonskaja, was the response of her mentor Sviatoslav Richter to students who omitted the exposition repeats in the piano sonatas. Daniel Barenboim doesn’t observe them either, on the evidence of yesterday afternoon's concert, but four recitals and much in them ought to prove th Read more... |
The Dream of Gerontius, RSNO, Oundjian, Usher Hall, EdinburghSunday, 31 May 2015
To close its 2014-15 season the Royal Scottish National Orchestra chose the choral masterpiece that Elgar preferred not to call an oratorio, The Dream of Gerontius. Performances in Scotland are rare, whether this is because of Presbyterian unease with Catholic sentiment, or the unfashionable nature of big-bottomed Anglican choral textures, it is difficult to say. North of the border we are more likely to turn to Brahms’ German Requiem for spiritual consolation. Read more... |
Schubert Sonatas 2, Barenboim, RFHSaturday, 30 May 2015
Personality is essential for Schubert’s piano sonatas. Listen to two recordings of the same one and you could easily think they are different works, such is the performer's input. Daniel Barenboim would therefore seem ideal. He’s a huge personality – he even has his own name emblazoned in large gold letters on the lid of his piano: a personality verging on a cult. Read more... |
Schubert Sonatas 1, Barenboim, RFHThursday, 28 May 2015
It’s not often that you arrive for a piano recital to see members of the audience on the stage, clustering around the instrument and taking photos of it. Those curious about the newly unveiled, straight-strung Barenboim-Maene concert grand (the name above the keyboard is simply BARENBOIM) were periodically ushered away from it; it was closed and reopened several times before it was time for the maestro himself to take control. Read more... |
Ehnes, Armstrong, Wigmore HallWednesday, 27 May 2015
Violinists either fathom the elusive heart and soul of Elgar’s music or miss the mark completely. Canadian James Ehnes, one of the most cultured soloists on the scene today, is the only one I’ve heard since Nigel Kennedy to make the Violin Concerto work in concert, in an equally rare total partnership with Elgarian supreme Andrew Davis and the Philharmonia. Read more... |
Hans Gál: Symphonies 1-4 Orchestra of the Swan/Kenneth Woods (Avie)Pages
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