sun 28/09/2025

Classical Reviews

2001: A Space Odyssey with live score, Philharmonia, de Ridder, Royal Festival Hall

David Nice

Imagine a special two-hour-plus resurrection of that wannabe extravaganza Stars in Their Eyes.

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Classical CDs Weekly: Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Sackbuts

graham Rickson

This week, we’ve a Russian flavour – historic, idiomatic performances of Tchaikovsky symphonies, and exciting readings of Shostakovich piano concertos. And there’s a sackbut recital…

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Murray Perahia, Barbican Hall

Ismene Brown

Last night Murray Perahia played Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann and Chopin, and we heard, quite simply, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann and Chopin. Nothing more need be said, if one follows the Cordelia principle to love, and be silent.

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Soloists of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Uchida, QEH

Igor Toronyi-Lalic

There is always a moment after you've mauled a musician in review when guilt bubbles to the surface. Your inner nursery school teacher (the little voice that thinks potato prints deserve Nobel Prizes) starts tugging at your conscience. This spell of wussiness is invariably broken by the arrival of someone who shows you just what can be done when care and intelligence are applied to a performance.

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Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Neeme Järvi, Usher Hall, Edinburgh

David Nice Neeme Järvi: A master of the slow burn

White-knuckle crescendos loom large in that greater-than-ever conductor Neeme  Järvi's spruce Indian summer. Short-term bursts were the chief payoff in tackling Dvořák's deceptively simple-seeming Serenade for Strings with a huge department on all too little rehearsal time, but they also helped to pave the way for the two big events in Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony: not just the infamous "invasion" sequence based on Ravel's Boléro, but above all the final slow burn. It was...

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Kavakos, London Symphony Orchestra, Gergiev, Barbican Hall

David Nice Valery Gergiev: Tchaikovsky in black and white

Heavy-goods vehicles stacked with lamentations have been thundering through the Barbican Hall. Saturday's lugubrious Rachmaninov found a mid-20th-century counterpart last night in the tough elegies of Shostakovich's First Violin Concerto - apt for a dedication to those affected by the Japanese earthquake. And the tottering juggernaut of not...

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Paul Lewis, Wigmore Hall

Igor Toronyi-Lalic

Paul Lewis doesn't smile much. He came to the keyboard last night with his face tuned to his usual blank-to-grim setting for the first recital in his Schubert cycle at the Wigmore Hall: a serious man with serious business. If only I could take his piano playing as seriously as he clearly thinks we should.

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BBC Symphony Orchestra, Bychkov, Barbican Hall

David Nice

What is it about Rachmaninov's ghost-train masterpiece The Bells and death? The BBC Symphony Orchestra last played it under the great Russian conductor Yevgeny Svetlanov, who used it as a valedictory gesture knowing he had only weeks to live. Yesterday Semyon Bychkov measured out the funeral knell of its harrowing finale with surely some thoughts of his brother and fellow conductor Yakov Kreizberg, who died on 15 March at the age of 51.

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Ax, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Jurowski, Royal Festival Hall

Edward Seckerson Vladimir Jurowski: A demonic twinkle in the eye

Send in the clowns. Or at least that was Vladimir Jurowski’s musical thinking in bringing together the mighty foursome of Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Haydn and Shostakovich and seeing just how far their capricious natures might take us. The allusions and parodies came thick and fast and just when you thought there was no more irony to tap, in came the most outrageous instance of misdirection in the history of 20th-century music: Shostakovich’s Sixth Symphony. And that is no joke.

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Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Pappano, The Anvil, Basingstoke

Ismene Brown

Yesterday was the 150th anniversary of Italian unification under Victor Emmanuel II - the exiled king whose supporters chanted "Viva Verdi!" (Verdi = Victor Emmanuel, Re D'Italia). Naturally, Italy's premier orchestra, the Orchestra dell'Accademia di Santa Cecilia, under their conductor Antonio Pappano, chose to celebrate this in Basingstoke.

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