Classical music
graham.rickson
Charpentier: Un Oratorio De Noël Les Arts Florissants/William Christie (Harmonia Mundi)Just four minutes should be enough to convince anyone of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s genius. Try the central movement, “La Nuit” from Un Oratorio De Noël, composed in the 1690s, an exquisite, veiled nocturne, a brilliant curtain raiser for the joyous “Reveil des Bergers” than concludes the work. I’ve no idea whether the distant tolling bell heard in William Christie’s pioneering 1982 recording is authentic, but it’s a magical effect. Charpentier’s Pastorale sur la Naissance de Notre Seigneur Jesus Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
The Sixteen are one of the jewels of the choral world. For over 40 years they have led the way in singing excellence and programming that brings together old and new. This Christmas concert combined some traditional favourites with Renaissance and contemporary carols, all bound together by Bob Chilcott’s Advent Antiphons sequence, offering “a message of hope in renewal, in life itself” – something we can all get on board with.It arrived at London’s Cadogan Hall – one of my favourite venues – the day after the radio broadcast of the same programme from Symphony Hall, Birmingham. It was sung Read more ...
David Nice
Time, place and performers gave this performance of Berlioz’s typically original “Sacred Trilogy” a special significance. Nothing in it is more striking, in choice of text and the music to illustrate it, than the scene where Hebrew refugees Mary, Joseph and their child arrive in Egyptian Sais and are rejected by two heartless households before a kind Ishmaelite receives them. St Martin-in-the-Fields supports people “away from homelessness”, while Saturday evening marked the start of a new partnership between John Eliot Gardiner, his Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras and the church. Its Read more ...
graham.rickson
Michael Praetorius: Es is ein Ros Dresdner Kammerchor/Hans-Christoph Rademann (Accentus)Oliver Geisler’s witty booklet note makes the case for Michael Praetorius (1571-1621) as “one of the best unknowns in the history of music.” Reading the composer’s biography makes one wonder how he found the time to compose at all, and the seasonal choral pieces collected here are notable for their emotional immediacy and technical flair. The title track, “Es ist ein Ros entsprungen”, the closest thing to a Praetorious greatest hit, is beautifully sung here by Hans-Christoph Rademann’s ten-piece Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
This winter's evening spent at Wigmore Hall, completely immersed in performances of songs by Tchaikovsky, was a delight.Mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Semenchuk and pianist Semyon Skigin know these songs profoundly well. They described the proposal thus: “From [Tchaikovsky’s] 104 songs we have chosen 24, focusing on the widest possible range, from joyful exultation to the depths of pain and melancholy.” The words of these great songs might speak of hesitancy and mistakes and regret, but the melodies just flow.Semenchuk is one of the great mezzos of our time. She has performed no fewer than 30 roles Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
The shadow of the cross falls over James MacMillan’s manger. You may come for his work’s consoling, even transporting, beauty and mystery. It’s there in abundance in his new Christmas Oratorio. Yet what may grip hardest are his passages of crashing dread and horror. For MacMillan, the incarnation in Bethlehem triggers a journey across human suffering that only redemption, through Christ’s crucifixion, can close. Against the unearthly ripple of the celeste, or the playful tenderness of the solo violin (both frequently recur), a terrifying doomquake of timpani stands ever-ready to erupt. Read more ...
Robert Beale
Manchester’s oldest chamber orchestra has been gathering a new audience at the Stoller Hall in Chetham’s School of Music since that auditorium opened, and Sunday afternoon’s programme provided an excellent example of where the Northern Chamber Orchestra’s virtues lie.With Chloë Hanslip, the orchestra’s artist in association, appearing as both soloist and director, it also happened to have been selected by the BBC for recording for a radio focus on Manchester music-making, to come in January. (When you listen to that you may just detect some querulous cries and bumps arising from the presence Read more ...
Richard Bratby
As the conductor of English National Opera’s 2018 production of Porgy and Bess, there can’t be many maestros in the UK who can currently match John Wilson’s knowledge of that extraordinary score. And there are surely none who can rival Wilson’s understanding of – and passion for – the work of the great interwar Broadway and Hollywood arrangers (he built an entire orchestra around them, after all). Which is one way of saying that if you’re looking for an interpreter of Robert Russell Bennett’s 1942 “Symphonic Picture” of Gershwin’s opera, Wilson pretty much covers all the bases. So Read more ...
Ian Julier
Even with a chill wind blowing from the Sussex Downs, this copper-bottomed Overture-Concerto-Symphony Sunday matinée was guaranteed to entice concert-goers to Eastbourne’s Sunshine Coast, which duly dazzled both outside and inside the hall.Beethoven’s blazing Egmont Overture, the heady romanticism of Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto and Brahms’ sunny Second Symphony, each with their celebratory finales, proved to be ample fare to warm the cockles of the audience's heart.This was also a great opportunity to catch the striking talents of conductor Catherine Larsen-Maguire in her debut with Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
On a night when any brooks running past the Wigmore Hall might have frozen almost solid, Imogen Cooper’s recital travelled on sparkling waters of the highest purity across almost a century of pianistic innovation.As well as the streams and fountains that both Liszt and Ravel descriptively channelled into their Jeux d’eaux, Dame Imogen (absurdly, she has only just acquired the handle) found a rippling liquidity even amid the monumental gravity of Schubert’s great A minor sonata. Piano generations touched hands, too, in Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales of 1911. They carried the Viennese Read more ...
Christopher Lambton
What happens in an orchestra when your designated conductor for three gigs at the end of the week phones in with Covid on Monday morning? By Monday afternoon, when he was writing his introduction to the programme notes for this concert, Alistair Mackie, chief executive of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, still didn’t know. He didn’t know who would conduct or even if the repertoire would change. By Wednesday we knew that the American conductor Jonathan Stockhammer (pictured below by Marco Borggreve) would be replacing the indisposed Finn Eva Ollikainen. With the first concert on Thursday Read more ...
David Nice
Dara McAnulty’s Diary of a Young Naturalist (14 at the time of writing) is a total vision, effortlessly poetic where the likes of Rober Macfarlane sometimes seem to strive for effect. Cheryl Frances-Hoad’s 26 songs, with a text drawn from the journal by the late Amanda Holden, offered only a partial panorama at its world premiere.That’s not the problem of the work or its first-rate performers. The fact is quite simply that these often exquisite fruits need a different soil in which to thrive.Southwark Cathedral, unfortunately, doesn’t allow for enough of the crucial text to be heard. That Read more ...