Classical Reviews
Oelze, Oakes, Gould, BBC Philharmonic, Gnann, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - trio of surprisesWednesday, 13 March 2019
Best laid plans and all that … this concert was originally to have been conducted by the late Oliver Knussen, and of course things had to change after his death. In the end the more recently advertised Ryan Wigglesworth was unable to conduct either, and Moritz Gnann stepped in: he first appeared with the BBC Philharmonic in 2017 and last visited in November. Read more... |
Fellner, LSO, Haitink, Barbican review - the master at 90Monday, 11 March 2019
So this is how Bruckner's Fourth Symphony should go. It's taken a master conductor just past his 90th birthday and an orchestra on top form to teach me. No doubt Claudio Abbado and Brucknermeister Gunter Wand could have done so, too, but I never heard them live in this, the "Romantic", and they are no longer with us. Read more... |
Berlioz Requiem, Spyres, Philharmonia Orchestra, Nelson, St Paul's Cathedral review - masses and voidsSaturday, 09 March 2019
Asked to choose five or ten minutes of favourite Berlioz on the 150th anniversary of his death (yesterday), surely few would select anything from his giant Requiem (Grande Messe des Morts). This is a work to shock and awe, not to be loved - music for a state funeral given a metaphysical dimension by the composer's hallmark extremes in original scoring. Read more... |
Bernheim, Finley, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - top Italians in second gearTuesday, 05 March 2019
Would Verdi and Puccini have composed more non-operatic music, had they thrived in a musical culture different to Italy's? Hard to say. What we do know is that they both became absolute masters of orchestration – Puccini rather quicker than Verdi, living as he did in an entirely post-Wagnerian era. Read more... |
Total Immersion: Ligeti, Barbican review - exploring a 20th-century master mindTuesday, 05 March 2019
A day devoted entirely to the life and work of György Ligeti celebrated this composer’s remarkable oeuvre through a sequence programme of film, talks and concerts of his music. Read more... |
Bevan, Padmore, Foster-Williams, LPO, Jurowski, RFH review - rural blissMonday, 04 March 2019
Just as our brief, premature spring collapsed into the bluster of Storm Freya, the Enlightenment certainties of Haydn’s more dependable cycle of nature blew into the Royal Festival Hall. Read more... |
Johnson, Carducci Quartet, Warwick Arts Centre review - new work with well-loved quintetsSaturday, 02 March 2019
There are those who say, somewhat cynically, that a way for new music to get an audience is to present it carefully packaged up with standard repertoire that will draw a larger crowd. Read more... |
Joanna MacGregor, Kings Place review - soul and stormFriday, 01 March 2019
How often do two contemporary women composers get to take a stage bow during a solo recital of no more than modest length? Last night at Kings Place, within an eclectic bill of fare dubbed “Soul of a Woman” as part of the venue’s Venus Unwrapped season, Joanna MacGregor performed a brace of piano pieces by members of the audience: the Jamaican composer Eleanor Alberga and, as her unscheduled encore, Freya Waley-Cohen’s “Southern Leaves”. Read more... |
Hardenberger, BBC Philharmonic, Storgårds, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - new work trumpets a sun journeyMonday, 25 February 2019
The BBC Philharmonic and its chief guest conductor John Storgårds introduced their Manchester audience to two new things – possibly three – in this concert. One was a world premiere, and you can’t get much newer than that. Read more... |
Kulman, Skelton, BBCSO, Oramo, Barbican review - romantic sign-offsSaturday, 23 February 2019
Time was when the BBC Symphony Orchestra played austerely wholesome programmes of modern and romantic classics to third-full houses. Read more... |
Pages
Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 10,000 pieces, we're asking for £3.95 per month or £30 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
To take an annual subscription now simply click here.
And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?
inside classical music
latest in today
Game of Thrones, Sky Atlantic, Series 8 Finale review – who...
WARNING - CONTAINS SPOILERS! And so it’s over. Eight years of thrilling, fantastical, often emotionally devastating, in some senses ground-...
Anish Kapoor, Lisson Gallery review - naïve vulgarity and ot...
There's children screaming in a nearby playground. Their voices rise and fall, swell and drop. Interspersed silences fill with the sound of...
Sting and Shaggy, Roundhouse review - wilfully uncool and ir...
Musical odd couples don't come much stranger than Sting and Shaggy. Last night, at the...
La Damnation de Faust, Glyndebourne review – bleak and compe...
Mid-career, moving ever further away from composing for concert platform and church towards the stage,...
Gentleman Jack, BBC One review - the revolutionary life of A...
In 2010, Maxine Peake starred in The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister, but this new...
Cannes 2019: Too Old to Die Young - nightmarish LA noir
This year, Cannes has been adamantly defending traditional...
Rokia Traoré: Dream Mandé: Bamanan Djourou, Brighton Festiva...
Much of Rokia Traoré’s set on Saturday night comprised folk songs about...
What We Do In the Shadows, BBC Two review - black comedy vam...
This is a toothsome treat for Sunday nights and one of those rare occasions when the...
Last Stop Coney Island review - the life and photography of...
This is a real passion project; British filmmaker...
Al Murray as the Pub Landlord, Embassy Theatre Skegness revi...
Al Murray's Pub Landlord character has been around since the mid-1990s. As such, it's a wonder that Murray has managed to reinvent the embittered...