fri 22/08/2025

Classical Reviews

A Night Under the Stars: Latin Spirit, Royal Festival Hall

Kimon Daltas

London homelessness charity The Passage was set up in 1980 and has been growing steadily so that it now provides a day centre, short-term hostel and long-term housing in an effort to help street sleepers get their lives back on track. Its annual "A Night Under the Stars" gala concert is the central event on its fundraising calendar, and assembles an extremely high standard of musician.

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City of London Sinfonia, Layton, Southwark Cathedral

Sebastian Scotney

Stratford-upon-Avon calling. The City of London Sinfonia has embarked on a series of three Bard-based October concerts in London to commemorate the 450th anniversary year of Shakespeare's death. The first of the three stopping-off points last night was Southwark Cathedral, in some ways a logical starting-place, since the building proudly asserts its credentials as the parish church nearest to the Globe Theatre.

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Classical CDs Weekly: Nielsen, Kristjan Järvi, Benjamin Grosvenor

graham Rickson

 

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Piau, Les Paladins, Correas, Wigmore Hall

alexandra Coghlan

2014 is the 250th anniversary of the death of Jean-Philippe Rameau, France’s baroque giant and maverick. To say that the UK celebrations have been muted is to put in generously, reconfirming a national trend that has long sidelined this repertoire in favour of more familiar Italian and German contemporaries. So it was especially good to see the Wigmore Hall full for an anniversary concert from instrumental ensemble Les Paladins and soprano Sandrine Piau.

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Daniil Trifonov, Royal Festival Hall

Jessica Duchen

Daniil Trifonov, 23, has shot to prominence as one of the hottest pianistic properties of the moment. With multiple competition wins behind him, including the Tchaikovsky in his native Russia, plus a recording contract with DG and a frenetic globe-trotting schedule, he is now a very busy young man.

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Classical CDs Weekly: Aho, Bartók, Zelenka

graham Rickson

 

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Grande Messe des Morts, Philharmonia, Salonen, RFH

Sebastian Scotney

Hector Berlioz knew from early on in life which aspects of death he would want to avoid. He had seen quite enough of the medical textbooks that his father had tried to foist upon him. He had even got as far as smelling the dissecting table as a medical student in Paris, desperately counting the days before he could make his escape into music.

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Bavouzet, LPO, Jurowski, Royal Festival Hall

David Nice

Comparisons, even on paper, between two season openers from London orchestras could hardly have been more instructive.

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BBC Singers, BBCSO, Litton, Barbican Hall

Edward Seckerson

The problem with programming Charles Ives’s Fourth Symphony - and only the very bold and resourceful and/or the BBC are ever likely to do so - is that it eclipses everything, and I mean everything, in its proximity.

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Benedetti, Manchester Camerata, Takács-Nagy, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

philip Radcliffe

Having been put to the fiddle at the age of five, Nicola Benedetti appreciates the value of making music at an early age. She is fiercely committed to music education and developing new talent. So it was a joy to see her playing enthusiastically with 30 primary school children as a pre-concert curtain raiser to the start of Manchester Camerata’s new season.

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