Classical music
David Nice
As the Parliament of the Autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland within the Russian Empire declared independence on 6 December 1917, Sibelius had his head down working on the third version of his Fifth Symphony, the one so hugely popular today. He tried to ignore the dark clouds of Russian revolutionary interference in an event he'd anticipated for so long, composing no music of public celebration. How different from 1899, when the unexcitingly titled but score-wise essential Music for the Press Celebrations saw Finland fully awake. Its UK premiere led the charge in a thrilling centenary concert Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
Sonata no 1 – Sonata no 2 – Sonata no 3 – that’s barely a recital programme, it’s just a list. Fortunately, violinist Christian Tetzlaff and pianist Lars Vogt (pictured below by Neda Navae) have good musical reasons for presenting the Brahms violin sonatas in chronological order. The three works are similar in style, but the mood changes subtly from one to the next, and this performance at Wigmore Hall felt like a journey, from the nebulous but lyrical world of the First Sonata through to the more dynamic and dramatic Third.Tetzlaff and Vogt have a long acquaintance with the Brahms sonatas. Read more ...
graham.rickson
Sollazzo Ensemble: Parle Qui Veut - Moralising songs of the Middle Ages (Linn)Here, Anne Stone’s fascinating sleeve essay does get a bit Dan Brown at times: there's mention of a mysterious song collection called the Squarcialupi Codex, and talk of a diminutive 14th century composer lacking many fingers and toes. The said songbook contains a lament sung by the personification of Music, “weeping… to see pleasant minds abandon sweet and perfect qualities for frottole”. In essence, the voice of a grumpy oldster complaining that today's youngsters spend their time listening to crap instead of the Read more ...
Darius Battiwalla, Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester review - improvisation extraordinaire
Robert Beale
Organ improvisation is a remarkable art, prized in French musical culture particularly, and there was something highly appropriate in the choice of The Phantom of the Opera – a screening of the 1925 silent film with live accompaniment on the RNCM concert hall organ by Darius Battiwalla – as part of the "French Connections" year-long festival at the Manchester conservatoire.The story is, after all, set in the Paris Opéra, and taken from the 19th century novel by Gaston Leroux. Those who know the Lloyd Webber version will be familiar with the outline of it, but the silent film follows its Read more ...
David Nice
Even given the peerless standards already set by Sakari Oramo and the BBC Symphony Orchestra in their Sibelius cycle, this instalment was always going to be the toughest, featuring the most elusive of the symphonies, the Sixth, and the sparest, the Fourth. As it turned out, all challenges were met with Oramo's characteristic mix of energy and sophistication, and the interloper, Swedish composer Anders Hillborg's Second Violin Concerto in its UK premiere, saw to it that Lisa Batiashvili carried the flame.Was it going to be generic contemporary? The skeetering strings at the beginning suggested Read more ...
David Nice
When you've found your living ideal for Schubert's sonatas - Elisabeth Leonskaja, surely - it can be a challenge to stay open-minded and welcome another take on the profundities. Mitsuko Uchida didn't make it easy for herself or us at the start by plunging into the technical challenges of the fierce C minor Sonata, first in the miraculous final trilogy; nor did she hint more than fleetingly at the sublime to come. But come it did, in a journey to the plains of heaven intensively walked in the hypnotic G major masterpiece, D894, with Uchida's unique personality defining the route.She doesn't Read more ...
David Nice
It was excellent, flesh-creepy fun back in 1978, when a young Simon Rattle conducted the Liverpool world premiere with the composer declaiming, but how well has Austrian maverick H(einz) K(arl) "Nali" Gruber's "pandemonium" for chansonnier and orchestra Frankenstein!! stood the test of time? One word: brilliantly. In the hands of the master, who not only conducted its bewitching chamber version but also kazooed, crooned, falsettoed and shouted his way through his absurdist fellow Vienneser H.C. Artmann's contemporary children's rhymes, its performance as a centrepiece of the Royal Stockholm Read more ...
Helen Wallace
Reading the line-up for Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival can be a bit of a //+DiGit<ijjjjjjjjjjjjj.ggiiigggggH1-RMXn4000// experience (and no, I haven’t invented those). There are flashing light warnings. Ear defenders are routinely handed out. The message is clear: prepare for a sonic assault course.So what delight to find oneself swept along the luminous stream of an expertly curated programme, whose narrative began with the minutiae of sound and grew into full-blown music theatre. This was Riot Ensemble, offering a string of premieres directed with authoritative poise by Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
Music competitions are big in Poland. Every five years the classical music world turns its attention to Warsaw for the International Chopin Piano Competition, with much commentary and speculation, and a succession celebrity laureated to maintain its global reputation. But all bases are covered here, and in the intervening years, Warsaw also hosts the Moniuszko Vocal Competition, the Wieniawski Violin Competition is held in Poznań, and in the Silesian capital of Katowice, the main event in the city’s cultural diary is the Fitelberg Competition, named after the Polish conductor Grzegorz Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
The Aurora Orchestra at Kings Place last night showcased both the best and worst things about attending live concerts, with the pros outweighing the cons. Early on, extraneous noise made me long for the pure listening experience of a good pair of headphones, but elsewhere the immediacy and physicality of the live experience was genuinely exciting.This latest edition of Aurora’s multi-season survey of Mozart piano concertos featured the Labèque sisters, Katia and Marielle, who have been taking duet and two-piano repertoire around the world for over 30 years, in the concerto for two pianos, K. Read more ...
graham.rickson
Chaconne - Sofya Gulyak (piano) (Champs Hill Records)Traditionally, a chaconne is an instrumental piece in triple time with a continually repeating bass line. Sofya Gulyak, winner of the 2009 Leeds Piano Competition, gives us seven. Best known is Busoni’s extraordinary Chaconne in D minor, a bold reinvention of a famous Bach number for solo violin. Gulyak is terrific, her performance combining craggy grandeur and warm intimacy. The final major chord has rarely sounded so well-earned. An early Chaconne in G major by Handel is a friendlier affair, Gulyak making the work shine. The rapid Read more ...
Anneke Scott
The Prince Regent’s Band was formed in 2013 and, like very many chamber ensembles, was created when a group of us found that we shared a number of interests in common. The musicians that make up the ensemble are all specialist historic brass players and can be regularly heard performing in principal chairs with a number of leading period instrument orchestras. We all shared an enthusiasm for and a curiosity in brass chamber music from the long 19th century.This period, roughly from the French Revolution in 1789 through to the end of the First World War in 1918, encompasses an incredibly Read more ...