sun 13/07/2025

Classical Reviews

Currie, Hallé, Wong, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - sparkle and intrigue

Robert Beale

Kahchun Wong’s final concert of 2024 in the Hallé Manchester season was something of a surprise. At first sight, the sparkle in the programme seemed likely to come from James MacMillan’s Veni, Veni, Emmanuel – his percussion concerto, with the star name of Colin Currie as soloist – and from Malcolm Arnold’s Four Scottish Dances (especially the third of them) to precede it.

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Rajakesar, Selaocoe, The Hermes Experiment, Wigmore Hall review - a joyful, fascinating laboratory of noise

Rachel Halliburton

There were points when this concert felt like the musical equivalent of watching the atom split – as well as notes there were animal shrieks, sinister rattles, sibilant serpentine sussurations, and primal throaty rumbles.

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Kavakos, Philharmonia, Blomstedt, RFH review - a supreme valediction forbidding mourning

David Nice

From a privileged position in the Festival Hall stalls, I could see 97-year old Herbert Blomstedt’s near-immobile back as he sat on a piano stool with the score in front of him, but also his supremely expressive right arm and hand, every finger brought into play, the left hand occasionally visible to me as he raised it at moments of high emotion. The Philharmonia simply burned for him, every phrase and dynamic brought into focus to heighten an already assured vision.

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Perianes, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Payare, Barbican review - elegance and drama but not enough bite

Rachel Halliburton

When the Venezuelan Rafael Payare was appointed as conductor of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal (OSM) two years ago, his first action was to blast his way through a French Berlitz course.

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La Serenissima, Wigmore Hall review - an Italian menu to savour

Boyd Tonkin

For 30 years, La Serenissima have re-mapped the landscape of the Italian Baroque repertoire so that its towering figures, notably Vivaldi, no longer look like isolated peaks but integrated parts of a spectacular range. The ensemble founded by violinist Adrian Chandler delves deep into the archives to recover neglected music not just as a nerdish passion (though there’s nowt wrong with that) but the basis for practical performing editions that restore these lost sounds to life.

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Roman Rabinovich, Wigmore Hall review - full tone in four styles

David Nice

Is this the same Roman Rabinovich who drew harp-like delicacy from one of Chopin’s Pleyel pianos, and seeming authenticity from a 1790s grand which may have belonged to Haydn, both in the Cobbe Collection at Hatchlands, Surrey? He clearly cares about the possibilities of any instrument on which he plays, so the natural consequence is maximum sonority on a modern Steinway. Too cultured to deafen, as Beatrice Rana did in this small space, he still compels you to listen to every note.

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Wyn, Dwyer, McAteer, RSNO & Choirs, Diakun, Usher Hall, Edinburgh review - ebullient but bitty

Simon Thompson

Carmina Burana isn’t a masterpiece: it’s primarily a bit of fun; fun to listen to, fun to play, really fun to sing.

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Gerhardt, BBC Philharmonic, Chauhan, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - from grief to peace

Robert Beale

Anna Clyne’s This Moment had its UK premiere at Saturday’s BBC Philharmonic concert. She’s the orchestra’s composer in association, and this seven-minute piece was first played by the Philadelphia Orchestra last year.

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Bach Brandenburg Concertos, OAE, QEH review - forever young

Boyd Tonkin

Victims of their own success in the postwar era of well-recorded sound, the Brandenburg Concertos first arrived in the ears of listeners from my generation via glossy, plush and polished recordings by heavyweight orchestras of a sort that would have baffled Bach. Four decades ago, period-conscious bands began to strip the gloopy varnish off and let the strange, bold paintwork beneath shine. 

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Andrej Power, LSO, Mäkelä, Barbican review - singing, shrieking rites of darkness and light

David Nice

Out of innumerable Rite of Springs in half a century of concert-going, I’ll stick my neck out and say this was the most ferocious in execution, the richest in sound. Others may have wanted a faster, lighter Rite. But the two things that make every concert conducted by Klaus Mäkelä so extraordinary are that he inhabits the music to a visibly high level, and that he gets the fullest tone and urgent phrasing from every instrument.

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