Classical music
edward.seckerson
Rossini provided the lively curtain-raisers to both halves of this Chamber Orchestra of Europe concert, streamed live to Aberdeen where Shell, the sponsors, have something of a vested interest in keeping their employees entertained. The liquid gold on this occasion was of the legato variety and not one but two Fischers ensured that it flowed freely and purposefully. Ivan Fischer is quite simply one of the most perceptive and persuasive conductors on the planet; Julia Fischer (no relation) is the epitome of German cool and precision. She plays the violin rather well, too. But first, The Read more ...
stephen.walsh
To launch a music festival with the Arditti Quartet, as Bath has just almost done (a pair of dance events preceded them), is a bold enough gesture, if no bolder than for the Arditti to open up their Assembly Rooms concert with Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge – a finisher if ever there was one. But for this particular group, late Beethoven might well seem like a kind of starting point. Beethoven was the first to write unplayable music for string quartet; and the Arditti have always specialised in the unplayable. Beethoven thrived on making life hard for his players; he apparently believed that Read more ...
edward.seckerson
We might have expected that the rising young bel canto tenor Lawrence Brownlee would include “Ah! Mes amis… Pour mon âme” from Donizetti’s La fille du régiment (that’s the number with the nine top Cs) in his Rosenblatt recital at St John’s, Smith Square – but what we might not have anticipated, after so taxing a programme as this, was that he would sing it again. That’s 18 top Cs (and the rest), which isn’t just cheeky, it’s a message: start looking over your shoulder, Juan Diego Florez - Brownlee’s breathing down your neck.The extraordinary thing about the young African-American’s voice is Read more ...
edward.seckerson
Canadian-born pianist Janina Fialkowska has an extraordinary story to tell: she's battled cancer in the muscle of her left shoulder, endured ground-breaking muscle-replacement surgery, and even, in another bizarre twist of fate, had her work "stolen" in the notorious Joyce Hatto recording scandal. But she's still here, her resolve and musical sensibility intensified by her experiences. In this exclusive audio podcast she talks to me about her beloved Chopin - a kinship which began when she first heard Arthur Rubinstein play and which extends to the very size and shape of her hands (she has Read more ...
graham.rickson
This month the selection varies from sackbutts to serialism, by way of condensed Wagner, Elgar conducted by the much-missed Vernon Handley and music from both Shostakovich and a disciple of his. Among contemporary music there is Osvaldo Golijov’s lively setting of the Passion story and the young German composer Thomas Larcher and the great Henri Dutilleux. There are also more delights from Swiss master Frank Martin. Violin pyrotechnics are supplied by Ysaÿe. But we begin with vintage Gershwin, and that famous looping clarinet.FEELGOOD CD of the MONTH
Gershwin by Grofé: Symphonic JazzHarmonie Read more ...
igor.toronyilalic
It's amazing to think that Marcel Proust first heard Wagner's four-and-a-half-hour opera Die Meistersinger down his telephone. That same day, in 1911, he also ingested three hours of Debussy's Pélleas et Mélisande. We learn all this from Edward Seckerson's brilliant new Radio Three documentary about the remarkable world of the Théâtrophone, a device that used telephone transmitters to relay operas - and later news and sermons - live from wherever (the Opéra Comique to begin with) to hotels and houses around Paris. By 1893, this prototype radio had 1,300 subscribers; takers included the King Read more ...
David Nice
It already has the finest balance in its team of house conductors, and fortunately - though few are more sought after worldwide - Vladimir Jurowski and Yannick Nézet-Séguin have pledged to extend their contracts with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.Since taking up his post as the LPO's Principal Conductor at the beginning of the 2007-8 season, Russian-born Jurowski has led the most inspiring programming on the London scene for decades, stretching his players and the orchestra's box office potential in unusual repertoire including a festival focus on the works of Alfred Schnittke last Read more ...
igor.toronyilalic
"Is it music or just a bit weird?" Robert Hollingworth, director of Baroque vocal specialists I Fagiolini, was posing the question of Gesualdo, the infamous oddball composer of the late 16th century - a sort of musical Caravaggio - whose capricious way with just about every aspect of composition (and social norms: he was a murderer) made him a poster boy for the 20th century. It's a question, however, that could quite easily apply to any great pioneer. The best music is always on the cusp of making no sense at all. And therefore it could also apply to much of the Lufthansa Baroque Festival Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
One of the hottest tickets at this year's Brighton festival is Godfrey Reggio's 1983 film Koyaanisqatsi accompanied by live soundtrack performance from the Philip Glass Ensemble. Sold out for weeks beforehand, there are touts outside but most of the middle-aged Bohemian audience seem to have bought their tickets well in advance. The reason it's such a draw is that Koyaanisqatsi is a cult whose enthusiasts are multifarious.To the classical modernist it's a masterpiece of post-serialist synthesizer composition, meticulously synchronized to startling imagery. To the ecologically minded it's a Read more ...
Ismene Brown
Who cares about the Classical Brits? Should we be carrying you the news? Should the seriously serious conductor Antonio Pappano and his Accademia di Santa Cecilia be trumpeting their double win yesterday for his Verdi Requiem (Critics' Choice - the top "serious" award) and his Madama Butterfly, for which the soprano Angela Gheorghiu won Female Artist of the Year?These are moot points and tricky questions, since the Classical Brits were established in 2000 by the record labels' trade association the British Phonographic Industry to boost CD sales rather than live performance, and its Read more ...
David Nice
"There is not one idea," wrote that intemperate critic Eduard Hanslick about Richard Strauss's Till Eulenspiegel, "that does not get its neck broken by the speed with which the next lands on its head." Rather a compliment, I've always thought, and certainly so as applied to James MacMillan's new Violin Concerto. As soloist Vadim Repin and conductor Valery Gergiev whirled us tumultuously through its hyperactive songs and dances, there was so much I wanted to savour, to hear again. That won't be a problem. So long as there are violinists of Repin's calibre able to play it, the work is here to Read more ...