mon 23/12/2024

Classical Reviews

Fröst, Philharmonia, Lazarova, Kuusisto, Southbank Centre review - congenial new works complemented by live-wire classics

David Nice

Anna Clyne’s engaging First Person here led me to two of her works in a Philharmonia rainbow. She curated a woodwind-based gem of a 6pm programme of works by four women composers, herself included, and her Clarinet Concerto could only gain from two other live wires, soloist Martin Fröst and conductor Pekka Kuusisto, the first time I've encountered the violinist in that role. Ultimately it was his way with two masterpieces by Tchaikovsky and Bernstein that stole the show.

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The Chevalier, St Martin-in-the-Fields review - virtuoso journey into a shamefully neglected past

Rachel Halliburton

Shimmeringly urbane, shifting effortlessly from intricate agility to muscular intensity, the music of the 18th century composer Joseph Bologne is remarkable not least in the fact that it has remained an obscure part of the repertoire for so long. This hybrid theatre concert, created by Bill Barclay, former director of music at Shakespeare’s Globe, is part of a growing swell of initiatives to recognise the dynamism of a composer who has been overlooked because he was black.

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Osborne, RSNO, Chan, Usher Hall, Edinburgh - cinematic sweep and surging drama

Simon Thompson

Two women featured prominently in this programme; the one a composer and the other a conductor.

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Amidon, Clayton, SCO, Kuusisto, Queen's Hall, Edinburgh review - profuse and outstanding musicianship

Miranda Heggie

On paper, the formula shouldn’t be that special. Really good music played by really good people is hardly a groundbreaking concept; but in actuality it’s seldom found with such honesty and diversity as in Pekka Kuusisto’s recent residency with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. 

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Mahler’s Third Symphony, Philharmonia, Paavo Järvi, RFH review - phosphorescent glow, depths only glimpsed

David Nice

This longest, wackiest and most riskily diverse of Third Symphonies became Esa-Pekka Salonen’s personal property during his years as the Philharmonia's Principal Conductor. His successor, Santtu-Matias Rouvali, has (in)famously said he’s not interested in Mahler. Two of the orchestra’s most distinguished visitors, Jakub Hrůša and Paavo Järvi, certainly are, so after Hrůša’s blazing Second, hopes were high for Järvi’s Third.

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Bernstein's Mass, RNCM, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - a happening, a demo, an achievement

Robert Beale

Leonard Bernstein’s Mass has something of the nature of what might have been called a “happening” at the time he wrote it. It was 1971, and it was created for and premiered at the opening of the Kennedy Center in Washington.

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Nonclassical: The Greenhouse Effect, Barbican Conservatory review - enjoyable freestyle happening

Bernard Hughes

It would seem unfitting to report on Nonclassical’s event – happening? – in the Barbican Conservatory on Sunday with anything resembling a conventional review. So instead I shall treat this free-form “experience” to a non-sequential response, in the form of 19 observations: things I saw, heard or noticed.

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St Mary’s Music School, RSNO, New, Usher Hall, Edinburgh review - a cornucopia of delights

Christopher Lambton

This evening brought to mind those marathon 19th century concerts when Beethoven would unleash a handful of new symphonies and a couple of piano concertos on an unsuspecting public.

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Gerstein, Bintner, Waarts, Wigmore Hall review - fascinating connections, uneven music

Sebastian Scotney

Stefan Zweig once wrote that the difference between Busoni and every other pianist he had ever heard was the way the influential Tuscan-born Germanophile performer, composer and intellectual would always appear to be listening so intently to his own playing, “his uplifted face full of blissful rapture, which turns to stone in sweet awe at the Medusa-like beauty of the music.”

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Pritchin, Emelyanychev, SCO Soloists, Queen's Hall, Edinburgh review - chamber music at its most thrilling

Miranda Heggie

After full orchestral performances of Brahms’s Violin Concerto and First Symphony, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra shone a more intimate light on the composer’s oeuvre with a recital of chamber works in Edinburgh’s Queen’s Hall on Sunday.

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