Classical Reviews
The Anvil, Royal, Purves, BBCPO, Gernon, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester - disturbing, baffling and movingMonday, 08 July 2019
Two hundred years ago next month, an assembly of around 60,000 people gathered on St Peter’s Fields in Manchester to protest about their lack of political representation. Speakers addressed the crowd, bands played and banners were carried. Read more... |
Chetham's Symphony Orchestra, Chetham's Chorus, Threlfall, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester - a thrilling triumphSaturday, 06 July 2019
As end-of-term concerts go, Mahler’s Eighth Symphony is a biggie. In fact it’s hard to imagine any place of secondary education where they would even contemplate it. Read more... |
London Mozart Players, Davan Wetton, St Giles Cripplegate - rousing Shakespearean revelSaturday, 29 June 2019
The festival Summer Music in City Churches is in only its second year, filling a gap left by the demise of the long-running City of London Festival. Read more... |
Ax, Keenlyside, Dover Quartet, Wigmore Hall review – celebratory SchumannWednesday, 26 June 2019
Emanuel Ax here celebrated his 70th birthday with an all-Schumann recital. In fact, it was an all-Schumann marathon, a three-hour concert at Wigmore Hall featuring solo works, Dichterliebe with Simon Keenlyside, and, with the Dover Quartet, the Piano Quartet and the Piano Quintet. Read more... |
Treatise Project, Goldsmiths review - potent symbols reveal rich music potentialSaturday, 22 June 2019
Treatise by Cornelius Cardew is the defining work of the graphic notation movement. Read more... |
LSO, Guildhall School, Rattle, Barbican review - irresistible momentumFriday, 21 June 2019
The Barbican Hall hardly boasts the numinous acoustic of Gloucester Cathedral for which Vaughan Williams composed his Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, but Sir Simon Rattle has long known how to build space into the architecture of what he conducts. Read more... |
Goodyear, Chineke! Orchestra, Marshall, Symphony Hall, Birmingham Review - engaging and upliftingMonday, 17 June 2019
Having played their first concert just four years ago, the Chineke! Orchestra gave a rousing, exuberant performance for an ensemble still in its infancy. It’s a young orchestra, not just in the sense of only being founded a few years ago, but one that comprises many young players too. Though its youthful passion and energy was very much to the fore, there were some points in Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite No 1 when a lack of experience let them down. Read more... |
Kozhukhin, RPO, Petrenko, RFH review - more cultured than electrifyingWednesday, 12 June 2019
With two German giants roaring - Brahms in leonine mode, Richard Strauss more with tongue in armour-plated cheek - it could have all been too much. Read more... |
Morison, Williams, RLPO, Davis, Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool review – a vision of near perfectionTuesday, 11 June 2019
It wasn’t really the orchestra’s night. Nor the soloists'. Nor, even, the conductor's. The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Choir totally stole the show, well surpassing the incredibly high standards which they already regularly attain and performing not as a large symphonic chorus but as a something akin to one of the highly specialist choirs with which this country is blessed. Read more... |
Philharmonia, Salonen, RFH review – bittersweet BerlinMonday, 10 June 2019
Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia kicked off their series of concerts devoted to the edgy culture of the Weimar Republic with a programme that featured three works (out of four) derived in some way from the musical stage. That included, as a rip-roaring finale, the conclusion to Shostakovich’s football-themed ballet from 1930, The Golden Age. Read more... |
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