Classical Reviews
Weinberg Focus Day, Wigmore Hall review – innocence and loss, violence and calmMonday, 28 October 2019
Mieczysław Weinberg – where to begin? The composer died in obscurity in 1996, but his music has enjoyed a huge surge in popularity over the last ten years, culminating in this year’s global celebrations for the centenary of his birth. His music is lyrical and deeply expressive, but audiences can be forgiven for not knowing quite what to make of him. He was immensely prolific, and his works are diverse, yet a distinctive voice runs throughout them. Read more... |
The Apostles, LPO, Brabbins, RFH review - Elgar's melancholy New Testament snapshotsMonday, 28 October 2019
The Apostles is a depressing work, mostly in a good way. Elgar's one good aspirational theme of mystic chordal progressions is easily outnumbered by a phantasmal parade of dying falls, hauntingly shaped and orchestrated. Read more... |
Angela Hewitt, Wigmore Hall review - a match made in heavenSaturday, 26 October 2019
This recital finds Angela Hewitt nearing the end of her “Bach Odyssey”, a project to perform all of Bach’s keyboard works, in five cities around the world, between 2016 and 2020. That’s an impressive feat, especially as she performs from memory. Here she presented the English Suites Nos. 4-6, plus an early Sonata, BWV 963. Read more... |
Podger, Brecon Baroque, Hollingworth, Brecon Cathedral review - Bohemian footnotes yield the extraordinarySaturday, 26 October 2019
One of the more harmless pastimes of us retired academics is rummaging around among the so-called minor contemporaries of great and famous composers. It often turns out that quite a few of them aren’t minor at all, or at least not minor enough to have to have retired academics dig them out. Read more... |
Kozhukhin, BBC Philharmonic, Carneiro, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - melancholy heart of MahlerFriday, 25 October 2019
Mahler’s Fifth Symphony is a repertoire piece nowadays, probably as familiar to as many listeners as to orchestral players, which means you look for something distinctive in any performance to identify its essential quality against all the others. |
Gerstein, LPO, Adès, RFH review - engaging new piano concertoThursday, 24 October 2019
Every ten years or so Thomas Adès writes a piano concerto and the latest had its UK premiere last night at the Royal Festival Hall, played by Kirill Gerstein and conducted by Adès himself. Read more... |
Andsnes, Oslo Philharmonic, Petrenko, Barbican review – polish and passionWednesday, 23 October 2019
The Oslo Philharmonic finished its centenary tour of Europe at the Barbican last night with ample proof that it consistently delivers one of the continent’s most well-rounded, and richly satisfying, orchestral sounds. The Norwegians’ modern history may date to 1919, but their stellar reputation only emerged in the 1980s. Then Mariss Jansons, just like Simon Rattle over in Birmingham, shaped a supposedly “provincial” outfit into a regiment of world-beaters. Read more... |
Imogen Cooper 70th Birthday Concert, Wigmore Hall review - outwardly austere, lit from withinWednesday, 23 October 2019
There are now two septuagenarians playing Schubert at a level no other living pianist can touch. Read more... |
London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Ono, Barbican review - feet on the ground, eyes to the skiesMonday, 21 October 2019
We have John Eliot Gardiner to thank for an unconventional diptych of Czech masterpieces in the London Symphony Orchestra's current season. He had to withdraw from last night's concert - he conducts Dvořák's Cello Concerto and Suk's "Asrael" Symphony on Thursday - but his replacement, Kazushi Ono, was no second-best. Read more... |
Miklós Perényi, Dénes Várjon, Wigmore Hall review – Beethoven in wonderfully safe handsMonday, 21 October 2019
"Revelatory": it’s one of those words which is now completely devalued through having been carelessly dropped into a thousand press releases. Read more... |
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