period instruments
Boyd Tonkin
Victims of their own success in the postwar era of well-recorded sound, the Brandenburg Concertos first arrived in the ears of listeners from my generation via glossy, plush and polished recordings by heavyweight orchestras of a sort that would have baffled Bach. Four decades ago, period-conscious bands began to strip the gloopy varnish off and let the strange, bold paintwork beneath shine. Yet the look, and sound, of these six pieces “for several instruments”, rather obsequiously dedicated by the job-seeking Bach to the Margrave of Brandenburg in 1721, can still startle audiences. Last Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
An evening of Mozart favourites in a landmark church on a sunny evening: that might suggest a perfect recipe for gently soporific tourist entertainment. Thankfully, not in the hands of Kristian Bezuidenhout and the English Concert. At St Martin-in-the-Fields, the South African-born Australian virtuoso of the period keyboard joined the Baroque orchestral powerhouse with which he collaborates as principal guest. Together, they stripped the varnish, and shook the dust, from two treasures whose sheer familiarity can render them in some way inaudible. The Jupiter Symphony, prefaced by the piano Read more ...
David Nice
Haydn and Mozart symphonies from John Eliot Gardiner and his English Baroque Soloists are bound, at the very least, to be high, lucid and bright. Last night the X-factor was there too, and trebled in a surely unsurpassable account of Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante for violin, viola and orchestra by two of the world’s most communicative soloists, Isabelle Faust and Antoine Tamestit.There was amazement even as early as the opening orchestral ensemble here, Faust and Tamestit joining their fellow violinists and viola-players and acting as two more conductors to bring a crescendo to a climax even Read more ...
Robert Beale
Within its own aspirations, Orpheus is a complete triumph. “Monteverdi reimagined”, as Opera North subtitled it from the start, is an attempt to unite (and contrast, and compare, and cross-fertilise) early baroque opera with South Asian classical music.That’s a big ambition, as the two might seem to have little in common. But Anna Himali Howard’s simple production concept of a marriage celebration, where Orpheus is a white British guy and Eurydice an Asian girl, set in the back garden of a semi-detached house – probably in Leeds – is a symbol of the whole enterprise.The design (Leslie Travers Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
Thanks to the pandemic, the planned tidal surge of Fidelio productions never quite happened during Beethoven’s anniversary year of 2020. Instead, the birthday’s boy’s sole opera – beset by glitches and re-thinks ever since its creation – has rolled on intermittent waves into houses and halls around the world. Mounted by the Insula Orchestra with the accentus choir (based in the western Paris suburbs of the Hauts-de-Seine), the version conducted by Insula’s founder Laurence Equilbey arrived at the Barbican last night as something of a straggler.It had, all the same, much to offer and please Read more ...
Clare Norburn
Love in the Lockdown started out as my “Lockdown 1.0 project” - although, of course, we didn’t call it Lockdown 1.0 back then. We didn’t know other lockdowns would follow and that nearly one year on, here we would be, locked down again with theatres and concert halls still closed. It seems inconceivable now, but a year ago, I had never heard of Zoom. Right now, I live on Zoom: my online play with music is being rehearsed, directed and filmed over Zoom - and by actors and musicians on their phones and recording devices. The nine short episodes are directed by Nicholas Renton Read more ...
Liam Byrne
When you dedicate your life to studying and performing on a musical instrument that essentially went extinct at the end of the 18th century, nostalgia plays a certain unavoidable role in your daily routine. I don't mean fetishistic historicism - I'm very happy with plumbing and penicillin, thank you - but my job as a viola da gamba player is to try and absorb information about my ancient instrument and its historical repertoire in a sort of empathetic way. I try to understand how it works on both technical and emotional levels, so that I can perform beautiful and obscure old music for modern Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
Standing next to the warm brown beast of a piano built by Blüthner in Leipzig in 1867, Sir András Schiff advised his audience last night to clear their minds and ears of preconceptions. He told us that his rendering of Brahms’s first piano concerto – tonight, he will return to play the second – “should be like a first performance”. In reality, he added, that premiere (in 1859) turned out to be “a colossal failure”. In contrast, his own version – antique instrument and all – scored a triumph that pulled much of the Royal Festival Hall crowd to their feet.However, this “historically informed” Read more ...
graham.rickson
Bach: Cello Suites 1, 2 & 3 Amit Peled (CTM Classics)Pablo Casals famously recorded Bach’s six Cello Suites in 1936, his accounts largely responsible for changing public perceptions of these works. Previously regarded as little more than technical studies for students, Casals’ decision to include the suites in concert programmes transformed their status. If you know and love the Casals set, you'll want to hear this disc, if only for the fact that Amit Peled plays the 1733 Gofriller cello once owned by Casals and used back in 1936. As heard here, it does make a delicious, earthy Read more ...
graham.rickson
Christmas on Sugarloaf Mountain Apollo’s Fire/Jeannette Sorrell (Avie)Subtitled "an Irish-Appalachian celebration", this disc follows the Scottish and Irish immigrants who pitched up in rural Virginia in the 19th century, fleeing unemployment, exploitation and famine. In Jeannette Sorrell’s words, “Appalachian music is the voice of the down-trodden,” and that Christmas is an ideal time to sing in celebration of “history's greatest advocate for the poor.” If you buy just one Christmas CD this year, my advice would be to get this one, an electrifying sequence of folk songs, traditional Read more ...
graham.rickson
Josquin: Missa Gaudeamus, Missa L’ami Baudichon The Tallis Scholars/Peter Phillips (Gimell)That music composed in the 14th and 15th centuries can be enjoyed and performed today is mind-boggling. As is looking at one of Josquin des Préz’s manuscripts, close enough to conventional modern notation for even a hick like me to get an inkling of what the music might sound like. This latest Tallis Scholars release features two contrasting Masses, the mature Missa Gaudemas’s intensity set against the earlier, breezier Missa L’ami Baudichon. Peter Phillips has his three tenors sing the plainchant Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
John Eliot Gardiner was 75 in April, and to celebrate, the Barbican Centre staged a weekend devoted to his favourite composer. Gardiner himself provided the backbone of the event, three concerts of cantatas with his Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists, while most of the other events were chamber music recitals. That felt like a random combination, and no justification was given for the mix. Even the name was provisional: it was originally marketed as a "Bach Marathon", but became the "Bach Weekend" to prevent it sounding like an endurance test. Fortunately, the individual events Read more ...