tue 24/12/2024

Classical Reviews

Semenchuk, Skigin, Wigmore Hall review - compelling Tchaikovsky songs

Sebastian Scotney

This winter's evening spent at Wigmore Hall, completely immersed in performances of songs by Tchaikovsky, was a delight.

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MacMillan Christmas Oratorio, LPO, Elder, RFH review – a new star for the season

Boyd Tonkin

The shadow of the cross falls over James MacMillan’s manger. You may come for his work’s consoling, even transporting, beauty and mystery. It’s there in abundance in his new Christmas Oratorio. Yet what may grip hardest are his passages of crashing dread and horror. For MacMillan, the incarnation in Bethlehem triggers a journey across human suffering that only redemption, through Christ’s crucifixion, can close.

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Hanslip, Northern Chamber Orchestra, Stoller Hall, Manchester review - lyricism and challenge

Robert Beale

Manchester’s oldest chamber orchestra has been gathering a new audience at the Stoller Hall in Chetham’s School of Music since that auditorium opened, and Sunday afternoon’s programme provided an excellent example of where the Northern Chamber Orchestra’s virtues lie.

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Feng, CBSO, Wilson, Symphony Hall Birmingham review - effortless expression

Richard Bratby

As the conductor of English National Opera’s 2018 production of Porgy and Bess, there can’t be many maestros in the UK who can currently match John Wilson’s knowledge of that extraordinary score. And there are surely none who can rival Wilson’s understanding of – and passion for – the work of the great interwar Broadway and Hollywood arrangers (he built an entire orchestra around them, after all).

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Tchetuev, LPO, Larsen-Maguire, Congress Theatre, Eastbourne review - sunshine by the sea

Ian Julier

Even with a chill wind blowing from the Sussex Downs, this copper-bottomed Overture-Concerto-Symphony Sunday matinée was guaranteed to entice concert-goers to Eastbourne’s Sunshine Coast, which duly dazzled both outside and inside the hall.

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Imogen Cooper, Wigmore Hall review - calm waters run deep

Boyd Tonkin

On a night when any brooks running past the Wigmore Hall might have frozen almost solid, Imogen Cooper’s recital travelled on sparkling waters of the highest purity across almost a century of pianistic innovation.

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Kim, RSNO, Stockhammer, Usher Hall, Edinburgh review - bold programming survives a replacement

Christopher Lambton

What happens in an orchestra when your designated conductor for three gigs at the end of the week phones in with Covid on Monday morning? By Monday afternoon, when he was writing his introduction to the programme notes for this concert, Alistair Mackie, chief executive of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, still didn’t know. He didn’t know who would conduct or even if the repertoire would change.

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Scenes from the Wild, Morgan, CLS, Paterson, Southwark Cathedral review - a cornucopia of the seasons

David Nice

Dara McAnulty’s Diary of a Young Naturalist (14 at the time of writing) is a total vision, effortlessly poetic where the likes of Rober Macfarlane sometimes seem to strive for effect. Cheryl Frances-Hoad’s 26 songs, with a text drawn from the journal by the late Amanda Holden, offered only a partial panorama at its world premiere.

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Giltburg, Hallé, Elder, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - back to glorious normal?

Robert Beale

Sir Mark Elder and the Hallé were making something of a statement in this concert.

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Kolesnikov, Sinfonia of London, Wilson, Snape Maltings review – volcanic Britten and Vaughan Williams

David Nice

They’re singing songs of praise in Aldeburgh today – namely Britten’s magical unaccompanied choral setting of Auden’s Hymn to St Cecilia on the composer’s birthday and the annual celebration of music’s martyred patron. And what a right to celebration Britten Pears Arts will have earned after a weekend of concerts from bold John Wilson’s latest super-orchestra, an army of technicolor generals.

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