wed 02/04/2025

Classical Reviews

Karajan's Magic and Myth, BBC Four

Adam Sweeting

There have been legendary conductors, and then there was Herbert von Karajan. He was a colossus of post-World War Two classical music, equipped with fearsome technical mastery allied to a vaguely supernatural gift for extracting exquisite sounds from orchestras. But that wasn't all. An expert skier with a passion for high-performance cars and flying his own jet, he was as charismatic as a movie star or sporting idol.

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Classical CDs Weekly: Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky, Christina Sandsengen

graham Rickson

 

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Levit, LPO, Jurowski, Royal Festival Hall

David Nice

If Brahms’s First Symphony has long been dubbed “Beethoven’s Tenth”, then the 23-year-old Rachmaninov’s First merits the label of “Tchaikovsky’s Seventh” (a genuine candidate for that title, incidentally, turns out to be a poor reconstruction from Tchaikovsky’s sketches by one Bogatryryev).

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Chung, Kenner, Royal Festival Hall

David Nice

In one way, it makes sense to give your London comeback concert in the venue where you made your European debut 44 years ago. Yet the Royal Festival Hall is a mighty big place for a violin-and-piano recital.

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Queyras, Melnikov, Wigmore Hall

Sebastian Scotney

Even the most reluctant of completists should find the prospect of the Beethoven works for cello and piano undaunting. In their totality, these pieces consist of just five sonatas and three sets of variations, which fit neatly on to just two CDs, or occupy two recital programmes. The works are also very important in the early development of the solo cello repertoire.

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OAE, Tognetti, Queen Elizabeth Hall

David Nice

As I sat, engaged and occasionally charmed but not always as impressed as I’d been told I would be, through violinist-animateur Richard Tognetti’s lightish seven-course taster menu of string music with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, it was worth bearing two things in mind.

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Tsujii, RLPO, Petrenko, Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool

Glyn Môn Hughes

The knots on the purse-strings have certainly been untied at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and it was good to hear another world première in less than a week. This time it was the turn of Michael Torke, the composer of Ecstatic Orange and Yellow Pages and a prolific composer of much else besides. But why this piece?

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Vogt, LPO, Nézet-Séguin, Royal Festival Hall

Edward Seckerson

Music lovers invariably divide into two factions over the Brahms piano concertos: those who thrill to the elemental D minor and those who prefer to bask in the more reflective charms of the sumptuous B flat Second Concerto. I’m a D minor man myself, secretly convinced that the four-movement Second would prove a far more startling piece if it began with the second movement.

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BBC Singers, BBCSO, Pons, Barbican

David Nice

Had the BBC Symphony Orchestra been at full stretch, rather than in the neoclassical and otherwise selective formations of last night’s concert, it might have outnumbered the live audience. Perhaps I exaggerate, but not much; this was never going to be a box-office hit. A big-name soloist might have made a difference.

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Samuelsen Duo, RLPO, Petrenko, Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool

Glyn Môn Hughes

Major change is afoot at the Liverpool Philharmonic. The new season has just opened as Philharmonic Hall has been undergoing a major refurbishment and earlier concerts during the autumn were held in the gargantuan acoustics of both cathedrals, where hearing the work being performed is difficult and where comfort for the listener comes at a premium.

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