thu 28/03/2024

Classical Reviews

Annette Dasch, Julius Drake, Middle Temple Hall

Sebastian Scotney

This was the first of the ten concerts in the Temple Music Society's autumn/winter season. The Society uses two venues right in the heart of London, Temple Church and, as last night, Middle Temple Hall, most famous as the site of the first performance of Twelfth Night in 1602.

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Uchida, London Symphony Orchestra, Ticciati, Barbican

David Nice

Rumour machines have been thrumming to the tune of  “Rattle as next LSO Principal Conductor”. Sir Simon would, it’s true, be as good for generating publicity as the current incumbent, the ever more alarming Valery Gergiev.

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Kings Place Festival

Matthew Wright

Hungarian composer Bela Bartók’s analytical rigour and folk-inspired voice have established his position as one of the most original voices of the twentieth century, but he still represented a bold choice for the opening event of the 2013 Kings Place Festival.

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Classical CDs Weekly: Britten, Vaughan Williams, Superbrass

graham Rickson

 

Britten: Peter Grimes Alan Oke, Giselle Allen, Britten-Pears Orchestra, Chorus of Opera North/Steuart Bedford (Signum)

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Sound of Cinema: The Music that Made the Movies, BBC Four

David Benedict

BBC Four’s new series Sound of Cinema: The Music that Made the Movies is shocking. The overwhelming majority of arts-based TV consists of programmes consigning specialist knowledge/presenters to the sidelines in favour of dumbed-down, easily digestible generalisations mouthed by all-purpose TV-friendly faces. But this three-part series is fronted by, gasp, a composer who uses insider knowledge to hook and hold the viewers.

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Anne Schwanewilms, Roger Vignoles, Wigmore Hall

David Nice

So we glide between seasons from one communicative diva giving her all in a vast space to another casting spells in intimate surroundings. While Joyce DiDonato, not perhaps one of the world’s great voices but certainly a great performer, was captivating the Proms multitudes on Saturday night, the Wigmore Hall’s concert year sidled in with Bryn Terfel and Simon Keenlyside, no low-key singers.

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The Last Night of the Proms, Kennedy, DiDonato, BBCSO, Alsop

Edward Seckerson

As it came to pass, Marin Alsop’s nationality was rather more of a factor than her gender on this historic Last Night of the Proms – but her deft put-down of remarks made only the week before (pace Petrenko) suggested that it might take a little more time (it’s only 2013, for heaven’s sake) for that glass ceiling truly to come crashing down and for her and others like her to be regarded as simply “conductors”.

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Prom 74: Sonnleitner, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Maazel

Geoff Brown

Tradition used to decree that the last Friday Prom would be devoted to worshipping Beethoven’s Choral Symphony. Not so today. Anything deemed serious and big occupies the slot, and if Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony isn’t serious and big, what do you want? A 40-tonne truck?

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Classical CDs Weekly: Debussy, Goldmark, Ravel, Martynas Levickis

graham Rickson

 

Goldmark: Rustic Wedding Symphony, Symphony No 2 Singapore Symphony Orchestra/Lan Shui (BIS)

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Prom 73: Imogen Cooper, Paul Lewis

David Nice

It’s not because I lament the annual end of a love-hate relationship with the Albert Hall that the last few days of Proms feel rather melancholy. A bittersweetness lies rather in the drawing-in of evenings, however hot it is, so late night Schubert for one and then two pianos seemed like an appropriately introspective way of saying farewell this year.

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