Classical Reviews

Mozart Unwrapped, Aurora Orchestra, Collon, Kings Place

David Nice Thursday, 06 January 2011

Winter Wassail, Gabrieli Consort & Players, Shakespeare's Globe

David Nice Saturday, 01 January 2011

The great Globe itself is not enough: McCreesh and company in a convivial setting

Vienna has its New Year's Day concert, conducted this year with some style but not quite enough sensuousness by Franz Welser-Möst. London could do worse for a more modest equivalent than let the Wooden O play host to a well-spiced small package of carols, seasonal songs and readings from Chaucer's times to Thomas Hardy's. But sing and play it lustily, ye Gabrieli ladies and gentlemen, or not at all. And it's sad to report that the proceedings got off to a start as soggy as the winter's...

King's Singers, Cadogan Hall

alexandra Coghlan Sunday, 19 December 2010

Kings of all they survey: The King's Singers still at the top of their game

An awful lot of bad singing goes on in the name of Christmas. If it’s not the endless piped renditions of Slade and Cliff Richard, then it’s anaemic carol singers in every railway station and foyer. Each street corner becomes a concert hall (albeit one with exceptionally poor acoustics) and every passer-by an unwitting (not to say unwilling) audience member. Music becomes a commercial mood-board, a festive ear-worm to prompt charitable giving and personal spending in equal measure. How...

Ogrintchouk, BBCSO, Bělohlávek, Barbican

Igor Toronyi-Lalic Friday, 17 December 2010

Squiggled storyline from Laurence Sterne's 'The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy'

Everywhere I looked I saw children, some burying their heads in their mothers' chests, some doodling on programme notes. One was dancing to Prokofiev's Sixth Symphony. Ambitious. Last night's BBC Symphony Orchestra concert had been given over to family listening. My first thought was why? Stravinsky's fun but dry Dumbarton Oaks is hardly suitable. And Prokofiev's Sixth is psychologically X-rated when done right. Sandwiched between these two works, however, was, superficially, a...

Thomas Zehetmair, Wigmore Hall

alexandra Coghlan Friday, 17 December 2010

Thomas Zehetmair: Rough intellectualism demands that listeners sit less than comfortably

Perhaps it was the effect of the elaborately mosaicked and marbled stage of the Wigmore Hall, but when a black-clad Thomas Zehetmair stepped out last night to occupy this space with just his violin and Bach for company, the image was incongruous. Even devotees of the hall will surely acknowledge the fussiness of its aesthetic appeal, the lingering visual excesses of a bygone age making it as unlikely a setting for Zehetmair’s deconstructed style as for the sharp architectural edges of Bach’s...

Comment

Zimmermann, LPO, Saraste, Royal Festival Hall

David Nice Wednesday, 15 December 2010

Jukka-Pekka Saraste: Electrifyingly assured in toughest Nielsen

If you've just come back from a taxing, tiring orchestral tour, as has the London Philharmonic, the last thing you want to face is a programme of four tough works which demand, at the very least, bright-eyed vigilance but more often a tense, finger-wrecking articulation. So the players must have been relieved to find firm hands on the wheel in the shape of the electrifyingly assured Finnish master Jukka-Pekka Saraste and that most intelligent, repertoire-curious of solo violinists, Frank...

Wolfgang Holzmair, Imogen Cooper, Wigmore Hall

alexandra Coghlan Tuesday, 14 December 2010

Wolfgang Holzmair: Ageing into his musical prime

The last time I saw Wolfgang Holzmair in concert (at last year’s Oxford Lieder Festival, delivering one of the finest live performances of Winterreise I have heard) the silence that followed the cycle lasted almost 30 seconds – an absolute age where a fidgety post-concert audience is concerned. Last night’s programme of Schumann saw Holzmair finish and pause, hands raised prayerfully, holding his listeners’ attention like so many butterflies within his cupped palms. The release that...

Comment

Brewer, BBCSO, Bělohlávek, Barbican Hall

David Nice Sunday, 12 December 2010

Exactly an hour and a half after Wagner's first orchestral brew of sex and religion had raised the curtain on the Royal Opera Tannhäuser, the pilgrims and floozies were at it again over the other side of town. If there was hardly the whiff of elemental theatrics ahead in Jiří Bělohlávek's surprisingly staid conducting of the overture, different treats were in store: the most opulent and musicianly of all living sopranos, Christine Brewer, in cheerful love songs by...

Samling Showcase, Wigmore Hall

alexandra Coghlan Friday, 10 December 2010

Sir Thomas Allen: Still master of a magical head-voice croon

In a world obsessed with the next big thing, I was surprised not to see a larger crowd at last night’s Samling Showcase. Since this masterclass programme for young professional singers started 14 years ago, alumni have included Jonathan Lemalu, Anna Grevelius, Christopher Maltman and Toby Spence – a roster that speaks for itself and for the finely honed ears at work within the organisation. Joined by patron and course director Sir Thomas Allen as well as pianist Malcolm Martineau, four of...

Comment

Cecilia Bartoli Sings Handel, Barbican Hall

Ismene Brown Wednesday, 08 December 2010

Cecilia Bartoli invites you to her party, she stands on stage beaming and welcoming you as her guest, about to serve up a banquet of song. This is what last night’s concert felt like in the glowing warmth of this remarkable Italian mezzo-soprano’s company, singing one of her favourite composers, Handel, ranging from the sunlit laughter that seems embedded in her voice to some of the most tragically moving singing I’ve heard.