tue 29/04/2025

Classical Reviews

Prom 29: Grosvenor, Goode, BBC Philharmonic, Noseda

Geoff Brown

“That,” she said, “is what it must be like when you enter heaven.” And I knew just what my wife meant. The organ was in full regalia, revelling in the marshmallow glory of the chorale theme in Saint-Saëns’ Third Symphony, with the orchestra trumpeting behind. The Royal Albert Hall itself proved pretty impressive, even when the gentleman in the row in front spent most of Franck’s Symphonic Variations eating a tub of ice cream.

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Classical CDs Weekly: Grundman, Messiaen, Aki Kuroda

graham Rickson

 

Jorge Grundman: A Mortuis Resurgere Susana Cordón (soprano), Brodsky Quartet (Chandos)

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Prom 28: D'Orazio, Clayton, BBCSO, Oramo

Edward Seckerson

All kinds of narratives were at play in this Prom from the BBC Symphony Orchestra and its Principal Conductor Sakari Oramo - and perhaps the truly adventurous programmer might have double-deployed Rory Kinnear, dispassionately chronicling Stravinsky’s Oedipus rex, and taken us beyond the Overture and into the melodramas of Beethoven’s Incidental Music to Egmont.

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Prom 27: Trusler, BBCNOW, Wigglesworth/Inspire Workshop, Royal Albert Hall

David Nice

A full day began and ended with Elgar the European, or rather the citizen of the world. After all, the Pomp and Circumstance March No.

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Prom 26: European Union Youth Orchestra, London Voices, Petrenko

alexandra Coghlan

The symphony – that structural pillar of classical music – found itself under siege last night at the Proms. Both Berio’s Sinfonia and Shostakovich’s Fourth Symphony assault and subvert, reshape and reimagine the genre, puncturing the Victorian smugness of the Royal Albert Hall with doubt.

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Prom 24: BBCSSO, Runnicles/Solemn Vigil of Commemoration, Westminster Abbey

David Nice

Despairing in the depths of the Second World War, Richard Strauss turned to Mozart’s string quintets as well as the complete works of Goethe for evidence that German culture still existed. Vaughan Williams might well have done the same for his native art during the so-called Great War in homaging the music of Thomas Tallis.

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theartsdesk Q&A: Pianist Saleem and Violinist Nabeel Abboud Ashkar

David Nice

Saleem (born 1976), having dropped the "Abboud" from his name, is one of the world’s most individual top pianists: his recent disc of Mendelssohn concertos with Riccardo Chailly and the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester is bound to make my “best of year” list. Nabeel, his brother and junior by two years, has served for some years as a violinist in the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, first-rate peacemaking brainchild of Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said.

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Prom 20: Crabb, BBCSO, Brabbins

Bernard Hughes

The first half of last night’s Prom was supposed to be linked by the theme of the First World War, but Anthony Marwood’s illness meant that Sally Beamish’s Violin Concerto, based on All Quiet on the Western Front, had to be replaced at late notice by her accordion concerto The Singing.

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Classical CDs Weekly: Dutilleux, Rimsky-Korsakov, Roger Woodward

graham Rickson

 

Dutilleux: Symphony no 1, Tout un monde lontain, The Shadows of Time Xavier Phillips (cello), Seattle Symphony/Ludovic Morlot (Seattle Symphony Media)

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Prom 19: BBC Singers, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Petrenko

David Nice

A monstrous celebration prefaced by thunderous organ chords is always going to be more the Albert Hall’s kind of thing than a comic opera viewed through the wrong end of the telescope. So Strauss’s Festival Prelude kicked off a first half of 150th birthday celebrations in more appropriate style than last week’s Der Rosenkavalier.

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