Classical Reviews
Beethoven: 1808 Reconstructed, Aimard, Philharmonia, Salonen, RFH review - a feast in fading lightTuesday, 17 March 2020
Like it or not, we live – as Beethoven did – in interesting times. In place of the revolutions, wars and occupations that convulsed the cities he knew, we now confront a silent, invisible foe that breeds an equal terror. Read more... |
Frang, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - hearing the silenceMonday, 16 March 2020
Three deep-veined masterpieces by two of the 20th century's greatest composers who just happened to be British, all fading at the end to nothing: beyond interpretations of such stunning focus as those offered by violinist Vilde Frang, conductor Antonio Pappano and the London Symphony Orchestra, these works could ask for nothing more than intense silence from the third point of what Britten called the magic triangle... Read more... |
Skelton, Rice, BBCSO, Gardner, Barbican review – romanticism’s last standSaturday, 14 March 2020
Only a modest audience turned up for this BBC Symphony Orchestra concert, though it was unclear if this was caused by the threat of airborne disease or the inclusion of Schoenberg on the programme. The result was a paradoxical intimacy, with the huge orchestra expressing complex but private emotions from a group of fin de siècle Viennese composers. Read more... |
Daniel Sepec, Tabea Zimmermann, Jean-Guihen Queyras, Wigmore Hall review - the viola is a starThursday, 12 March 2020
Six weeks ago, the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation announced that it the winner of its prestigious and extremely valuable main annual prize for 2020 "to a composer, performer, or scholar who has made outstanding contributions to the world of music" will be the viola player Tabea Zimmermann. Read more... |
Bach St John Passion, Bach Collegium Japan, Suzuki, Barbican review - intense pain and dancing consolationWednesday, 11 March 2020
Eyes watering, heart thumping, hands clenched: no, not The Thing, but a spontaneous reaction to the opening of Bach's St John Passion in the urgent hands of Masaaki Suzuki. How his Bach Collegium oboes seared with their semitonal clashes while bass lines throbbed with pain, before the chorus added a different, supernatural turn of the screw. Read more... |
Anderszewski, CBSO, Wellber, Symphony Hall Birmingham review - grandeur in restraintWednesday, 11 March 2020
No orchestra wants its conductor to cancel in the week of a concert. Read more... |
Beyond the Grace Note, Sky Arts review - march of the women conductorsMonday, 09 March 2020
Perhaps the most surprising thing is how good natured they all sound. There’s no anger. At least, not much – one can’t help wondering what they say off air. Read more... |
BBC Philharmonic, Wellber, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - making music magicMonday, 09 March 2020
Omer Meir Wellber, who once used to do magic with music for children, pulled a whole set of rabbits out of the hat in his reading of Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony on Saturday. Others may make the work's rhythms and melodies alluring through the sheer forward momentum of a steady beat. Not Wellber. Read more... |
Sean Shibe, Wigmore Hall review - mesmerising journey from light to darkSaturday, 07 March 2020
"All true spiritual art has always been RADICAL art": thus spake the oracular Georges Lentz, composer of the pitch-black odyssey for electric guitar that took everyone by surprise last night. Read more... |
SCO, Emelyanychev, Usher Hall, Edinburgh review - Beethoven at too insistent a lickFriday, 06 March 2020
Fast is fine in Beethoven, so long as you find breathing-spaces, expressive lines and crisp articulation within it. Read more... |
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