Classical music
Daniel Ross
On the one hand, having a massed brass and percussion section (I counted 16 timpani) in front of three massed choirs lent this evening an air of fantastic anticipation. Boom and crash and honk: that’s what we wanted. On the other hand, it was immediately a measure against which anything less than deafening volume would be harshly judged. All reminders of the potential clout were constantly there, embodied by bored-looking trombonists counting their hundred bars’ rest. The key here is to make those quiet moments magical – and that didn’t quite happen this evening.Berlioz’s Requiem has such Read more ...
geoff brown
A motley crowd at Cadogan Hall on Saturday afternoon: new music aficionados and interested parties; general music lovers; some passing trade; tourists; one dad with a young boy of six or seven. Heaven knows what the latter made of the dissonances, dislocations and heated laments summoned forth by the intrepid performers in this invigorating concert, dominated by the creations of some of the more challenging composers among contemporary Brits.It could be that the lad had a whale of a time, for a child’s sensibility might well respond to the exuberant anarchy of Michael Finnissy’s Piano Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
The first panel in a would-be triptych, Elgar’s The Apostles is also something of a prototype – the musical experiment whose risks would culminate so strikingly in The Kingdom. Tackling the crucifixion from “the poor man’s point of view”, its occluded, obscured vision of events has atmosphere in abundance but a distinct lack of dramatic focus. There’s an awful lot of telling, climaxing in such an astonishing bit of showing that you almost forget the previous two hours’ tedium. Almost.Last night’s Proms performance re-enacts almost exactly Mark Elder and the Halle’s performance (and recording Read more ...
graham.rickson
Messiaen: Turangalîla-Symphonie Steven Osborne (piano), Cynthia Millar (ondes martenot), Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra/Juanjo Mena (Hyperion)Olivier Messiaen’s epic, ten-movement Turangalîla-Symphonie has always prokoved Marmite-like reactions in audiences. It was created in the dark post-war years, eventually entering the orchestral repertoire in the 1970s. It has long provided regular work opportunities for a small band of ondes Martenot players, a 1920s vintage electronic instrument whose erotic swooning gives this piece so much character. Nervous newcomers will hopefully be shocked Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
Each year I wonder, as the hit-makers and Radio 1 darlings flock to the Ivor Novello Awards, how many spare a thought for that greatest of melodists, who lends his name to their accolades? Precious few, I suspect. While the musicals of Noël Coward have survived for their wit, the great American classics of Carousel and Oklahoma! for their big numbers and relatable, homespun stories, the eternally anachronistic, fatally glamorous world of Ivor Novello has disappeared without trace. Signs of life have begun to stir recently in London, but with this evening of celebration the Proms have put Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
Why so many empty seats at last night’s Prom? Bringing together several choruses, a percussion-augmented orchestra, dancers, actors, rock-band and children’s choir, Leonard Bernstein’s Mass is surely a Proms dream – a genuinely eclectic work with something for just about everybody. But even as some 11 different Welsh ensembles sung, jived, clapped and shouted for our entertainment yesterday, there was no getting away from the issues with Bernstein’s ageing, mongrel score.Part oratorio, part music-theatre, part liturgical rite, Mass is an awkward work to assimilate, let alone stage. Unlike the Read more ...
graham.rickson
Elgar: Enigma Variations, Cockaigne Overture, Pomp and Circumstance Marches 1-5 Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Barry Wordsworth (RPO)Never underestimate the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Less generously funded than the other major London orchestras, most of their concerts are now given in the lovely Cadogan Hall near Sloane Square and not the Festival Hall. They soared under the directorship of Daniele Gatti, and are currently led by Charles Dutoit. And while their string sound is occasionally less refulgent than that of the LSO or Philharmonia, their brass and winds are consistently Read more ...
charlotte.gardner
What better work for Harry Bicket and The English Concert to perform at the Proms than Bach's joyous Mass in B Minor. Joyous firstly because of the music itself, with its vast stylistic and emotional range. Joyous secondly because, despite the intense scholarship to which Bach and his music have been subjected over the years, its genesis remains unusually shrouded in mystery for such a major work.While it seems likely that Bach viewed the work as a summation and climax of his life's music, that's about as much as we can guess. There's no evidence to suggest that he performed it as a whole Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
Another day at the Proms, another English choral masterpiece. Last night it came courtesy of the newly formed BBC Proms Youth Choir – a moveable feast of an ensemble that will bring together different youth choirs from across the UK over the next three years. I can’t imagine a more apt work to inaugurate the project than Tippett’s bravely painful meditation on human cruelty and capacity for endurance, A Child of Our Time. Framed intelligently within a collage of 20th-century American styles it offered a hopeful vision of the future, both musically and philosophically.Trained by Simon Halsey, Read more ...
Ismene Brown
The autumn 2012 season at the Barbican Centre offers an international history of photography, Juliette Binoche in Strindberg, a train packed with African music, a festival of ecstatic, devotional and psychedelic music, and a film made by London schoolgirls about Bosnia, as well as classical music from the LSO and two new associate ensembles.
Last chance to see summer exhibitions, Bauhaus: Art as Life (until 12 August) and Designing 007 - Fifty years of Bond Style (until 5 September). Rodgers & Hammerstein's musical Carousel comes to the Barbican in August 2012, for just 37 Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
Our athletes over at the Olympic Village might not yet have brought home a gold, but in an all-English programme at the Proms last night the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and combined BBC Symphony Chorus and BBC National Chorus of Wales under Tadaaki Otaka surely did just that. As the brash, glittering tumult of Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast – “Praise ye the god of gold” – rioted around a packed Royal Albert Hall, the audience were still, marvelling at the skill and artistry of Britain (and Wales's) best.Mustering some of the most electrically-charged pianissimo tone we’ve heard this season Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
It’s not quite 76 trombones, but back in 1570 24 violins were the height of sophistication and innovation at the French court. While in England we still persisted with our viols and gambas, in France the new vogue for the violin had travelled from Italy and the King ordered a full string orchestra’s-worth for his entertainment. The result has since been restored by the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, and on Saturday afternoon the full forces (played jointly by the musicians of the CMBV and Royal College of Music) showcased their unique historical sound.Fascinatingly these are not Read more ...