Classical music
stephen.walsh
The French composer Henri Dutilleux would have been 100 last Friday if he had lived that long, which in fact he very nearly did; he was 97 when he died in 2013. Five years before that he had been awarded an honorary doctorate at Cardiff University, amid pomp and ceremony and performances of several of his works. So it made sense that Cardiff, including the university, should have been at the forefront of his centenary celebrations this past week, including a pair of concerts by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and a symposium on Dutilleux put on by the university’s enterprising School of Read more ...
David Nice
Risk-taking is what gives so many of Vladimir Jurowski's concerts with the London Philharmonic Orchestra their special savour. But did two risks for last night's programme pay off? I was as excited as many Russians and hardcore Russophiles at the rare visit of legendary 73-year-old cellist Natalia Gutman, and it could only be interesting to hear the little-heard, hour-long first version of Bruckner's Third Symphony. But interesting, with a few flashes of inspiration, was as far as it went in both cases.Gutman's recording of the two Shostakovich Cello Concertos is up there with the Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony, premiered in 1909, is from perhaps the last era in which pieces readily found favour with both critics and audiences alike. It launched Vaughan Williams’s reputation as a major national figure at the age of 38, and has become a favourite of choral societies ever since. But looking beyond its status as a choral warhorse, how does it hold up more than a century after it was written?At the time it was both following a fashion and striking out in a new direction. The first decade of the 20th century saw a number of major works on the theme of the sea, including Read more ...
David Nice
It was another Davis, the late Colin rather than the very alive Andrew, who used to be master of Berlioz's phenomenally inventive opera for orchestra with its novel explanatory prologue and epilogue. I like to think he'd have been looking down fascinated by last night's very different miracle of pace, clarity and ideal blend of instrumental and vocal song.Shakespeare might have approved of what he'd inspired, too, though like rather a lot due to happen in the 400th anniversary year, hardly any of his words are to be found here; this is Berlioz's "What I feel about Romeo and Juliet". Once past Read more ...
graham.rickson
Brahms: Violin Concerto, Bartók: Violin Concerto No 1 Janine Jansen (violin) Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, London Symphony Orchestra/Antonio Pappano (Decca)Coupling music by Brahms and Bartók makes enormous sense, given the former composer's penchant for Hungarian dance music. Janine Jansen's studio recording of Bartók's Violin Concerto No 1 makes a great case for a work that isn't often heard – presumably as its two movements last just 20 minutes, shorter than the first movement of Brahms's concerto. Antonia Pappano's responsive LSO are suitably refined accompanists in Read more ...
Christopher Lambton
Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven: it’s a while since I have heard the Scottish Chamber Orchestra play such an essentially classical programme on its home turf, the Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh. Recent reviews have focused on concerts in the much more capacious Usher Hall, where this intrepid orchestra has pushed at the boundaries of its natural repertoire with an ongoing Brahms cycle and even a Mahler symphony.The difference is striking. It’s not just the numbers - in the Usher Hall a chamber orchestra of about 40 can effortlessly swell to more than 60 - but it is more the contrast of texture and Read more ...
Jessica Duchen
Some chamber ensembles flourish through creative conflict, contrast and tension. Others streamline their approach, not so much relinquishing individuality as allowing the best of each to blend into more than the sum of their parts. The Trio Shaham Erez Wallfisch has grown, in its five-year existence, to be one of the latter.Partly the secret of its success could be that the three musicians – British cellist Raphael Wallfisch with two Israeli colleagues, pianist Arnon Erez and violinist Hagai Shaham – are not only old friends, but long-experienced chamber music players, each with a wealth of Read more ...
David Nice
Unlike Schubert, Mendelssohn and Shostakovich, Mozart composed nothing astoundingly individual before the age of 20. That leaves any odyssey through his oeuvre, year by year – this one will finish in 2041, by which time I’ll be nearly 80 if I live that long – with a problem effectively solved by Ian Page and his Classical Opera in placing works by contemporaries of various ages alongside young Amadeus’s efforts. For the music of the nevertheless precocious nine/ten-year-old of the year 1766, directness of communication was everything, not a problem given Page’s players and two bright Read more ...
David Kettle
It was a simple yet beautifully elegant way for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra to kick off its 2016 chamber concerts: a recital for flute, viola and harp, with Debussy’s beguiling Sonata as the centrepiece, and other contrasting music for the same trio orbiting around it.And it was a similarly sensible decision for the orchestra to spotlight two of its principal players – flautist Alison Mitchell (pictured below) and violist Jane Atkins (main picture) – who joined together in what felt like an entirely unforced, natural partnership, both equally supple in phrasing and tonal variety, alive to Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
The memories were flooding back last night. Daniel Barenboim's speech after the concert, lasting about a quarter of an hour, contained vivid recollections of his first appearance on that stage in 1956 as a 13-year-old (playing the Mozart A major Concerto with the RPO and Josef Krips). There was a welling-up of emotion as he summoned back memories of the RFH stage from his time living in London: “I remember Jacqueline...Barbirolli.” And a decade with the English Chamber Orchestra. “Don't tell anybody in the orchestra: I was learning my trade.”The speech ranged wider too. There was a story of Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
Before this concert I had never seen Gustavo Dudamel conduct, and after it I still haven’t. Because of the alignment of my seat and the piano lid, all I saw of the Venezuelan maestro was the occasional glimpse of baton or dark curly hair. So this review will not take account of any podium flamboyance there may or may not have been: my response is purely to the end result. And that end result was good, but short of great.This was the middle concert of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra’s residency at the Royal Festival Hall, which started on Thursday with an all-Stravinsky programme. The Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
One down, 26 to go. “Mozart's Piano” is a series of concerts by the Aurora Orchestra at Kings Place, based around a complete cycle of Mozart's piano concertos. It started last night, and will reach its conclusion in 2020.It was Peter Millican of the Kings Place Music Foundation who first presented the idea of a Mozart piano concerto cycle to the orchestra. And – as is Aurora's highly successful and original way – they were determined not to place the concertos in standard concert programmes, but to create a series which would develop themes, and contain bold juxtapositions. For example Read more ...