Classical music
David Nice
Does any city in the world, apart from Edinburgh or Venice, offer a better point of arrival by train than Cologne? There, above the steel and glass of the Hauptbahnhof, tower the twin spires of one of northern Europe’s noblest cathedrals. Walk across the square behind, past two excellent museums - another, the Wallraf-Richartz, is just down the street - and there’s the Philharmonie, one of the world’s best concert halls: its auditorium beneath Rhine level, the skateboarders on its roof silenced for the duration of each concert.I’m glad the 500-or-so-year-old Gürzenich-Orchestra of Cologne and Read more ...
philip radcliffe
After producing an overwhelming performance of Mahler’s colossal Second Symphony, rewarded by a 10-minute standing ovation from a packed house, the new chief conductor of the BBC Philharmonic could not be accused of easing himself into the job. One might have thought that Juanjo Mena (pronounced Huanho Mayna, being Basque) might have started off with a splash of Spanish colour, with Rodrigo and De Falla, which must be in his blood. But no, although that will come in his next concert.Clearly, he has chosen to put down a strong marker straightaway – the Resurrection. Mind you, he isn’t new to Read more ...
graham.rickson
Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, Books 1 and 2 Roger Woodward - piano (Celestial Harmonies)Possibly the most expansive Well-Tempered Clavier around – this one just tips over onto five discs, but there’s never any suggestion of sluggishness. Roger Woodward has been mentioned in these pages before – Australian born, he came to prominence in the 1970s as an interpreter of the thorniest modern repertoire. But he’s never neglected the core piano repertoire, releasing revelatory recordings of Chopin, Debussy and Beethoven during the past decade alongside excursions into more offbeat territory. He Read more ...
David Nice
Some great singers know how to modulate their beautiful instruments for long vocal life; others push technique and expression to the limits in countless concerts of a lifetime before burnout. Baritone Christian Gerhaher, it seems, belongs to the beautiful and the secure. I'm glad to have heard his Winterreise, a far from lonely journey given the partnership of pianist Gerold Huber, but it always felt like a songbook entrusted to a calm exponent of truth and wisdom rather than the first-person narration of Schubert's heartbroken winter wanderer.It all depends what you want from the richest of Read more ...
hilary.whitney
Niccolò Paganini was the most controversial classical musician who ever lived. Although widely acknowledged to be one of the most brilliant performers of his lifetime, he provoked wildly contradictory opinions amongst his contemporaries and was constantly denounced as a charlatan in league with the devil – a spell in gaol for a paternity suit gave rise to the myth that he had acquired his dazzling technique from a pact with the devil during his incarceration. The ultimate showman, Paganini encouraged such rumours although this, combined with his vast wealth - in one season he earned five Read more ...
David Nice
How odd that Musorgsky, a composer sanctified beyond his very individual deserts for making social statements in his art, should be feted by an orchestra, or rather an orchestral management, which says music and politics don't mix. They clearly have in recent events which led to the suspension of four London Philharmonic players, but you wouldn't have known it either from an audience riveted into silence - in-house protests fortunately failed to materialise - or from no hint of a leaflet outside the hall (not so good; don't those players have any colleagues willing to advertise their plight Read more ...
igor.toronyilalic
The queues weren't quite Proms-sized but they were long enough for the little old Wigmore Hall to seem more than a little overwhelmed. Expectations were immense. The past year has seen baritone Christian Gerhaher cast a singular spell over London audience, through his introduction of a touch of intense Lieder-style intimacy to the orchestral and operatic stages. No wonder then that there was such a palpable buzz as we awaited his appearance in his natural Lieder habitat for a performance of Die schöne Müllerin at the Wigmore Hall.The usual arc of this poignantly personal tale of unrequited Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
It’s not like we’re short of operas. Thousands of works spanning over 400 years make up the western operatic repertoire. Of these maybe 100 get a regular airing in contemporary opera houses, with only about 20 making it into the popular consciousness. For the rest, a trip outside the archives is rare indeed, with many scores still vainly awaiting their “modern premiere”. So why then, with so many works to choose from, do directors persist in returning to Bach – who famously never composed an opera – for inspiration? It’s a question that Jonathan Miller’s St Matthew Passion only partially Read more ...
graham.rickson
Brahms composed trios throughout his life - these well-loved pieces contrast with the much rarer works of Hans Gal and the oboist Heinz Holliger, here exposed in his parallel career as a composer.Brahms Piano Trios, Horn Trio, Clarinet Trio Soloists of Villa Musica (Covellio Classics)Brahms’s B Major Piano Trio was originally composed in 1859 but was drastically revised and republished in 1889. Writing to his publisher about the later version, the one generally played today, Brahms felt that “although the old version is bad, I do not maintain that the new one is good!” It’s a fascinating Read more ...
David Nice
Newly knighted with the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit for his services to the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, American conductor and pianist Andrew Litton is a musician who believes in the nurturing of long-term orchestral relationships: eight years as music director in Bergen, with the contract recently extended to 2015, and an equal length of time before that in Dallas have reaped their rewards. In May he spoke to theartsdesk while visiting Berlin with "the other" BPO, and in August conducted a three-part Prom with the Royal Philharmonic featuring works written for Boston Symphony Orchestra Read more ...
Ismene Brown
The Russians have always been particularly picky about the playing of the piano. Chief among the piano gods on the 20th century’s pantheon are Richter, Gilels, Horowitz - and even now names such as Ashkenazy, Kissin, Sokolov still elbow out many of the European and American names in the public consciousness. There remains a powerful mystique about Russian piano-playing. So when a young Irishman won the monumental Moscow Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in 1986 (in Soviet days), it was not expected. He was the first non-Russian to win outright since Van Cliburn in 1958.But Russians told Barry Read more ...
stephen.walsh
Pavel Novák is a composer I know something about because he has been much played by the Schubert Ensemble, who were for a time resident at Cardiff University, where I teach. But broadly speaking his music is virtually unknown in the UK. When William Howard played these 24 Preludes and Fugues in St Giles' Cripplegate four years ago, hardly anyone came to hear them – perhaps not surprisingly. Obscure Czech piano music in a chilly City church in December is hardly the most enticing prospect. But now that Howard has made a brilliant, compelling recording of this 75-minute cycle, its composer’s Read more ...