Classical music
graham.rickson
Donnacha Dennehy: The Hunger Alarm Will Sound/Alan Pierson, with Katherine Manley and Iarla Ó Lionáird (Nonesuch)The Great Irish Famine of 1845-1852 resulted in the deaths of one million Irish citizens to starvation and prompted a further million to emigrate. In 1851, American social reformer Asenath Nicholson travelled across the Atlantic to document exactly what was happening, traversing the length of Ireland on foot. Nicholson’s text forms a substantial chunk of the libretto of Donnacha Dennehy’s The Hunger, extracts from her report interspersed with lyrics taken from the song Na Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
For better or worse, because of Visconti’s classic film the Adagietto of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony now inevitably means Venice in its gloomiest moods. So there turned out to be a grim timeliness in a performance on an evening that coincided with the most devastating “acqua alta” to flood the city in half a century. Yet, in keeping with everything he does with the London Philharmonia Orchestra, Vladimir Jurowski’s reading at the Royal Festival Hall made us think afresh about an iconic work and dispel its more hackneyed, reach-me-down associations.Not for Jurowski the languid late-Romantic swoon Read more ...
Peter Quantrill
Switch off for a phrase or two and it’s easy to miss the point in a Haydn symphony that makes each one of them odd and unique. In No. 74, played last night with understated class by the English Chamber Orchestra, that point occurs in the first movement, at the end of the second theme. All has gone just as you’d expect. A three-chord call to attention – only one more than the so-revolutionary Eroica – and straight to the business of the day, a worker ant of a melody, busying around with inscrutably purposeful energy. The second theme swoops in – then stops, like a sparrow at the end of a Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
The Prague Symphony Orchestra are in town, their Cadogan Hall concert the London leg of a UK tour. It’s ambitious, including Mahler’s epic Third Symphony in five different cities, each with a local chorus. The orchestra itself, Prague’s second band, is a spirited and distinctively Central European ensemble. And they have an interesting conductor, the young Finn Pietari Inkinen, who, since taking charge of the Prague Symphony in 2015 has also added Saarbrucken and Tokyo orchestras to his portfolio, and was recently named as the conductor for Bayreuth’s new Ring cycle next year.Cadogan Hall isn Read more ...
Sally Beamish
I was 13. It was a Saturday, and Mum was working. On this occasion she asked if I’d like to come along and bring a book. I was wearing a dress I’d made myself – psychedelic orange and pink, with red edging. It was 1969. I don’t remember what the book was, but I know I didn’t look at it once that day.The Kingsway Hall was set up for a group of 15 or so musicians, with a harpsichord at the centre. Mum was in the second violins. I was welcomed by her friends, who asked how the music lessons were going. The elegant, charming and charismatic man called Neville made me especially welcome, with lots Read more ...
David Nice
So much was fresh and exciting about Michael Tilson Thomas's years as the London Symphony Orchestra's Principal Conductor (1988-1995; I don't go as far back as his debut, the 50th anniversary of which is celebrated this season). Carved in the memory are his concert performance of Rimsky-Korsakov's Mlada in "The Flight of the Firebird" festival, his high-octane piano playing as well as conducting in "The Gershwin Years", the transformative Prokofiev Fifth and Strauss Ein Heldenleben (both fortunately also recorded). He seems a more sober figure now, less swooping of gestures, eyes a little too Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
The London Philharmonic’s Isle of Noises, a year-long festival dedicated to music of the British Isles, drew towards its close with this programme of Butterworth, Elgar and Walton. Marin Alsop was a good choice to lead, especially for Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast. Although well-known for her performances of British music, she’s not one to wallow in pastoral whimsy. Instead, she brings drive a focus, clearly defining all the rhythms and orchestral lines. And although that rarely makes for comfortable or cozy English Romanticism, it allows the LPO to demonstrate the impressive orchestral skills Read more ...
Judith Webster
Music resonates with everyone. It plays a powerful and evocative role in people’s lives; it punctuates our memories and changes our mood. We can all remember our first album and the songs our parents and grandparents listened to. One of the first ways that we teach very young children is through singing and nursery rhymes. From that point onwards music continues to soundtrack our lives.A recent survey by the IFPI shows that 54% of young people around the world describe themselves as music fanatics. Not only that – the increasing use of streaming sites means music is more accessible than it’s Read more ...
Robert Beale
Everyone’s doing Weinberg now, or so it seems. The Polish-born composer who became a close friend of Shostakovich was born 100 years ago, and there’s plenty of his music to go round. Raphael Wallfisch gave the UK premiere of his Cello Concertino (Opus 43B), with the Northern Chamber Orchestra in Manchester last night. The “B” is not insignificant – it’s a reworked and shortened version of his Cello Concerto of 1948, scored for string orchestra accompaniment only, and wasn’t published until two years ago.At 16 minutes in length but still with four movements, the piece is certainly an Read more ...
graham.rickson
Weinberg: 24 Preludes Gidon Kremer (violin) (Accentus)Weinberg wrote this set of 24 instrumental numbers in 1969 for Rostropovich. Exactly why Rostropovich never performed them isn't clear, and they weren't heard in public until 1996. Gidon Kremer's transcriptions for solo violin were completed in 2015, his hope being that “these personal statements of one of the most wonderful composers of the 20th century will inspire listeners to fall in love with this music.” I'd point newcomers to Weinberg in the direction of his 3rd Symphony, or DG’s recent CBSO disc with Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla Read more ...
Jessica Duchen
The Chineke! Orchestra, founded by double-bassist Chi-chi Nwanoku as the first majority BME orchestra in the UK, is heading off this week on a substantial European tour, which began last night at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Since the organisation has a strong track record in promoting rare music by composers of colour, this looked at first like a relatively conservative programme, topped and tailed with Weber’s Oberon Overture and Brahms’s Second Symphony. But the gem of the evening was the Violin Concerto by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor - and if you have heard it and puzzled over why it, too, is Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
Mozart’s piano concertos often overflow with good humour, but you seldom expect to hear a hearty chuckle from the audience in the middle of a performance of one. Yet something close to a guffaw burst out around King’s Place when soloist Tom Poster, deep into the last-movement cadenza of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 19 in F major, suddenly quoted Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. Poster had played the Gershwin before the interval of this typically smart, eclectic and thought-provoking programme from the Aurora Orchestra under Nicholas Collon.Its cheeky echo in the midst of Mozart’s drolly ingenious Read more ...