Classical Reviews
Gerstein, Philharmonia Orchestra, Gardner, Royal Festival HallMonday, 18 February 2013
You don’t have to live under a totalitarian regime to write music of profound anguish. I was driven to argue the point at a Shostakovich symposium when an audience quizzer took issue with my assertion that Britten could go just as deep as the Russian. Read more...
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Pires, LSO, Haitink, Barbican HallWednesday, 13 February 2013
It’s not that Bernard Haitink’s tempos are universally slow, it’s just that they often feel that way. When it works the music can be magisterial, immense, but when it doesn’t you find yourself chafing against such unyielding allegiance to restraint. Read more... |
The Sound and the Fury, BBC FourTuesday, 12 February 2013
As Julian Lloyd Webber combatively suggests of certain strands of 20th-century music: “Let’s make a noise no one likes. Read more... |
Die Meistersinger Act Three, Hallé, Elder, Bridgewater Hall, ManchesterMonday, 11 February 2013
The “Mastersingers of Manchester”, about 350 of them, were gathered together by Sir Mark Elder to celebrate the Wagner bicentenary with this performance of Act Three of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg in its entirety. He also pulled in about 200 orchestral musicians, exploiting the city’s resources just about to the limit. Read more... |
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... |
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