fri 18/04/2025

Classical Reviews

Last Night of the Proms, Barton, BBCSO, Oramo review – woke not broke

Gavin Dixon

The BBC put social and ethnic diversity at the heart of this Last Night programme. The concert opened with a new work, by Daniel Kidane, called Woke, and the first half was dominated by the music of black and female composers.

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Prom 72/3: Aurora Orchestra, Collon review – Berlioz not quite lost in showbiz

Boyd Tonkin

For a few seconds last night, the Royal Albert Hall turned into London’s biggest – and cheesiest – disco.

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Prom 71: Dunedin Consort, Butt review – Bach to the drawing-board please

Sebastian Scotney

Blame it on the box set. The four Bach Orchestral Suites fit neatly together as a recording project. They used to fill out the four sides of a double LP back in the early stages of the baroque revival. Completists and collectors could rejoice then, and with many more versions to choose from, they still can now.

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Prom 69: Stikhina, Czech Philharmonic, Bychkov – dark textures and powerful passions

Gavin Dixon

Semyon Bychkov was a surprising choice to take over the Czech Philharmonic last year, a conductor with few obvious connections to Czech music. But on the strength of this visit to the Proms, they make a good team.

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Prom 68: Goerke, Gould, RPO, Albrecht review - the art of transition

Peter Quantrill

Known as "Heldenmommy" to her fans on Twitter, Christine Goerke is a Wagner soprano of and for our time. You won’t find her recordings on the major-label behemoths but her reputation is built on two decades of producing the goods night after night at opera houses across the US, notably the Metropolitan in New York.

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Prom 66: In the Name of the Earth review - John Luther Adams's ambitious choral spectacular

Bernard Hughes

This is the kind of thing that the Proms does well – indeed, where else would it get an outing?

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Prom 63: Wang, Staatskapelle Dresden, Chung review – private passions

Boyd Tonkin

Weirdly enough, it was “Tea for Two” that definitively proved her class for me.

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Prom 60: Ax, Vienna Philharmonic, Haitink review - moving mountains at 90

David Nice

His movements are minimal (perhaps they always were). A more intense flick of the baton, a sudden wider sweep of the expressive left hand, can help quicken a tempo, draw extra firepower from the players, but Bernard Haitink's conducting is still the most unforced and, well, musicianly, in the world.

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Prom 55: Jephtha, SCO & Chorus, Egarr review - shock of the new in sacrificial oratorio

David Nice

Human sacrifice has a disconcerting and wonderful effect upon great composers, above all when it involves the supremely queasy issue of a father vowing to offer up his child: think of Britten with Abraham and Isaac, Mozart with Idomeneo and Idamante, Gluck with Agamemnon and Iphigenia, and here Handel with Jephtha and Iphis in his last oratorio.

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Prom 53: Connolly, Gregory, Tappan, BBCSO & Chorus, Davis review - citizens of the world unite

David Nice

Let's be clear: this was a Prom of world-class works by English composers, not a conservative concert of English music.

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