Classical Reviews
Alexander Nevsky, BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Brabbins, Barbican HallSunday, 10 February 2013
Is Prokofiev’s 1938 score for Alexander Nevsky the greatest film music ever written? Not quite, if only for the fact that Sergei Eisenstein’s second sound-picture glorifying historical role models for the ever more tsar-like Stalin, Ivan the Terrible, is darker and more richly textured, and the music’s greater breadth reflects that. Read more... |
Joyce DiDonato, Il Complesso Barocco, Barbican HallThursday, 07 February 2013
It may look like a sure-fire hit to let Kansas mezzo Joyce DiDonato rip through the drama-queen repertoire of the Baroque. But last night’s exploration of the dustiest, most overgrown byways of 17th and 18th century Italian opera needed every drop of DiDonato’s star musical talents – not to mention those of her backing band Il Complesso Barocco – to convince us of the worth of these rarities. The audience bought it. I remain on the fence. Read more... |
Total Immersion: Sounds from Japan, BarbicanMonday, 04 February 2013
“Improvisation? That?” whispered a Japanese lady to her friend at the end of the afternoon concert. She was making a good point. Half the performers in this programmed jam were glued to their scores. It was the low point of a mixed day at the Barbican Centre that began with a very enticing premise of offering to immerse us in the “Sounds from Japan”. We barely dipped our toe. The problem wasn’t simply the variability of the music; it was also the laziness of the curatorial thinking. Read more... |
Hardenberger, BBCPO, Storgårds, Bridgewater Hall, ManchesterSaturday, 02 February 2013
I’ve seen some double acts in my time, such as the Oistrakhs and the Torteliers, but none quite like that of Storgårds and Hardenberger. Best friends, they took it in turns to conduct the BBC Philharmonic and to take over the soloist's spot. First one mounted the rostrum, while the other gave us a UK premiere as soloist. Then they switched roles, producing a second UK premiere. Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: John Cage, Schubert, StravinskySaturday, 02 February 2013
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Rachlin, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Runnicles, Glasgow City HallsFriday, 01 February 2013
Viennese night in Glasgow’s Candleriggs was hardly going to be a simple matter of waltzes and polkas. True, its curtain-raiser was a Blue Danube with red blood in its veins rather than the anodyne river water of this year’s New Year concert from Austria’s capital; one would expect no less from Donald Runnicles after the refined but anaemic Franz Welser-Möst. Read more... |
Spassov, LSO, Järvi, Barbican HallFriday, 01 February 2013
The tabloids are getting shriller every day in their warnings about the army of Bulgarians and Romanians about to descend on British shores, so it’s probably lucky that none of their journalists was present last night at the Barbican to witness an Eastern European musical coup of deadly efficiency. Read more... |
Zimerman, Philharmonia, Salonen, Royal Festival HallThursday, 31 January 2013
The centenary bandwagon always passes some composers by: how many organisations in Britain will be celebrating George Lloyd or Tikhon Khrennikov? Other figures almost get steamrollered flat with attention; Britten, I’d say, is this year’s likely candidate. But who could throw any stones at the birthday cake and bunting created by the Philharmonia Orchestra for that mercurial Polish wizard Witold Lutoslawski? Read more... |
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Rattle, Royal Festival HallWednesday, 30 January 2013
Period instruments demand absolute honesty from their players. Their sound is their personality - candid, quirky, eccentrically beautiful - but their soul is revealed in the spirit of the playing, where beauty is not skin deep and the expressiveness of phrasing in the strings is created in the bow arm and from a truthfulness of intonation that does not hide behind vibrato. Read more... |
St Matthew Passion, Academy of Ancient Music, Choir of King's College Cambridge, Kings PlaceWednesday, 30 January 2013
Kings Place’s Bach Unwrapped season invites audiences to come at the composer from new and unexpected angles. Bach gets arranged, adapted and re-orchestrated, and his legacy is showcased in works from three centuries. Occasionally however he also gets played straight – and it doesn’t get much straighter or more authentic than the Academy of Ancient Music and the Choir of King’s College Cambridge performing the St Matthew Passion. Read more... |
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