Southbank Centre
Matthew Wright
John McLaughlin made history at the Royal Festival Hall 25 years ago when he recorded a superb album featuring Indian percussionist Trilok Gurtu. Last night’s performance with his fusion quartet 4th Dimension was not epochal in quite that way. The repertoire and style was largely familiar, much of it released on the band’s album earlier this year, the pieces in many cases reworked from earlier McLaughlin material. But it was remarkable for the excellence and of the ensemble playing. The sensitivity and sheer quality of interaction within the band embodied the interest in loving spirituality Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
It has always been obligatory when talking about Steve Martland to describe him as an iconoclast. Before his sudden death in May 2013 at the age of 58, he forged a reputation for himself as a self-styled outsider to the musical establishment, speaking scathingly about the Proms, and eschewing established orchestras and ensembles in favour of writing for his eponymous band. Members of that band joined Colin Currie and the Aurora Orchestra to pay spirited homage to Martland, and place him in his musical context.There were two Martland pieces to enjoy, one in each half. Starry Night, for Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Even the cold breeze along the Thames played its part in conjuring the chilly, epic Finnish landscapes of Jean Sibelius last night, though Finnish maestro Osmo Vänskä and the perfectly weighted phrasing of the London Philharmonic Orchestra can take primary credit. It’s unusual to have a single-composer programme these days, but Vänskä justified his repertoire with a performance of taut, lyrical and evocative power, which connected and illuminated different areas, historical and generic, of Sibelius’ career.From Smetana to Shostakovich, a school of broadly Romantic composers created musical Read more ...
Jessica Duchen
Arcadi Volodos is a relatively rare visitor to London these days. Although the Russian pianist, 42, rose early to fame, his development has perhaps taken him in a direction that startles those who were initially seduced by the astounding virtuoso transcriptions – many of them his own – in which he initially established his reputation.Anyone hoping for a taste of those at his Royal Festival Hall recital last night had to wait until his third encore. This programme had a very different focus, one that could scarcely have been more intimate and pure-hearted: an early Schubert sonata, Brahms’s Read more ...
Kimon Daltas
This concert was part of a tour of Canada’s National Arts Centre orchestra to five cities in the UK themed around the anniversary of the start of World War One. The Ottawa-based orchestra joined forces with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Choir for this London centrepiece to the tour, under the baton of violinist-turned-conductor Pinchas Zukerman. Splicing two orchestras together with necessarily minimal rehearsal time may not make perfect musical sense but, as artistic director of the NCA orchestra and principal guest conductor of the RPO, Zukerman is uniquely Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
Pianist Mitsuko Uchida's concentration, calm and grace under pressure are an inspiration. Towards the end of the first piece on her programme, played to a packed Royal Festival Hall last night, the quiet but insistent high-pitched screech of a fire alarm kept going off. Low voices on walkie-talkies at the entrances to the hall were also audible. Whatever the confusion they were sharing with each other, they were failing to lift it. While the noises persisted, Uchida continued the delicate hand-crossing dialogues of Schubert's F Minor Impromptu from the D935 set. She would quizzically hover a Read more ...
David Nice
What Anne-Sophie Mutter is to the violin, Alison Balsom to the trumpet and Sabine Meyer to the clarinet, so is Sioned Williams to the harp. Though Meyer had the glass-ceiling distinction of being the first woman in the Berlin Philharmonic, Williams’s service to the BBC Symphony Orchestra has been longer (nearly 25 years so far as principal harp). And while all four artists have had major new works composed for them, the harpist’s commission of six pieces to celebrate her 60th birthday would seem to be a record. And who else would have part-remortgaged her home to pay for the enrichment, an Read more ...
Kimon Daltas
London homelessness charity The Passage was set up in 1980 and has been growing steadily so that it now provides a day centre, short-term hostel and long-term housing in an effort to help street sleepers get their lives back on track. Its annual "A Night Under the Stars" gala concert is the central event on its fundraising calendar, and assembles an extremely high standard of musician. The evening was compered by Jo Brand and Petroc Trelawny, both safe pairs of hands in their distinct ways.The Orion Orchestra, a cross-conservatoire group of students and recent graduates, was set up ten years Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
The first time I interviewed Richard Tognetti he told me a story. Prior to touring the Australian Chamber Orchestra to Japan, the group’s leader and artistic director was discussing publicity with a local PR. Faced with disappointing ticket sales he asked for advice. The response? Remove two letters from the orchestra’s name and transform it into the Austrian Chamber Orchestra – problem solved. It was a tale told with a smile and a roll of the eyes, but one that still had a frisson of Old World/New World truth about it.I had cause to remember the anecdote last week, when I found myself in Read more ...
Jessica Duchen
Daniil Trifonov, 23, has shot to prominence as one of the hottest pianistic properties of the moment. With multiple competition wins behind him, including the Tchaikovsky in his native Russia, plus a recording contract with DG and a frenetic globe-trotting schedule, he is now a very busy young man. Last night’s London appearance was his recital debut at the Royal Festival Hall, a venue only accorded to the biggest names in the Southbank Centre’s International Piano Series, the new season of which he was opening.A sizable though not quite capacity crowd of pianophiles largely took this young Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
Hector Berlioz knew from early on in life which aspects of death he would want to avoid. He had seen quite enough of the medical textbooks that his father had tried to foist upon him. He had even got as far as smelling the dissecting table as a medical student in Paris, desperately counting the days before he could make his escape into music. The composition commission he received just a few years later in 1837 from the Minister of the Interior was exactly what he wanted and needed him to free himself from those memories, to write a requiem full of grandeur, glory and the sound and the sheen Read more ...
David Nice
Comparisons, even on paper, between two season openers from London orchestras could hardly have been more instructive. I didn’t attend Valery Gergiev’s London Symphony Orchestra concert last week, for reasons several times outlined on theartsdesk. But quite apart from the fact that Gergiev and his court pianist Denis Matsuev are active supporters of Putin's “Might is Right” campaign in the Ukraine – a situation which tens of thousands of Muscovites are beginning to challenge – Matsuev is also the worst of barnstormers. Last night, on the other hand, we had mercurial pianist Jean-Efflam Read more ...