Classical Reviews

Bernheim, Finley, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - top Italians in second gear

David Nice Tuesday, 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.

Comment

Total Immersion: Ligeti, Barbican review - exploring a 20th-century master mind

Miranda Heggie Tuesday, 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.

Bevan, Padmore, Foster-Williams, LPO, Jurowski, RFH review - rural bliss

Boyd Tonkin Monday, 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.

Johnson, Carducci Quartet, Warwick Arts Centre review - new work with well-loved quintets

Miranda Heggie Saturday, 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.

Joanna MacGregor, Kings Place review - soul and storm

Boyd Tonkin Friday, 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”.

Hardenberger, BBC Philharmonic, Storgårds, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - new work trumpets a sun journey

Robert Beale Monday, 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.

Kulman, Skelton, BBCSO, Oramo, Barbican review - romantic sign-offs

Peter Quantrill Saturday, 23 February 2019

Time was when the BBC Symphony Orchestra played austerely wholesome programmes of modern and romantic classics to third-full houses.

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Ádám Fischer, Barbican review - ferocious Mahler 9 without inscape

David Nice Thursday, 21 February 2019

Give me some air! Stop screaming at me! Those are not exclamations I'd have anticipated from the prospect of a Vienna Philharmonic Mahler Ninth Symphony, least of all under the purposeful control of Ádám Fischer.

Hussain, Symphony Orchestra of India, Dalal, Symphony Hall, Birmingham review - new sounds from a new band

Miranda Heggie Wednesday, 20 February 2019

For its first ever performance in this country, the Symphony Orchestra of India - formed in only 2006 - kicked off its UK tour in spectacular style at Symphony Hall, Birmingham yesterday evening. Based at the National Centre of Performing Arts in Mumbai, the SOI is India’s first and only professional symphony orchestra.

Tynan, Appl, Burnside, Wigmore Hall review - the music of domesticity explored in song

Bernard Hughes Wednesday, 20 February 2019

The first visual impression of Monday’s Wigmore Hall song recital was of the marked height difference between Irish soprano Ailish Tynan and the willowy baritone Benjamin Appl. But as they warmed to their task, their voices, which initially seemed an unlikely pairing, grew on me, whether in solo or duet numbers.

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