Classical music
David Nice
Could there be more tender, tactful or soul-nourishing signs of a new musical normal than these two 45-minute gems? We're nowhere near emulating the kind of live distance concerts members of the Bergen, Oslo and Czech Philharmonics have been offering for some weeks now, but it's vital to hope that we can at some point in the not too distant future.Especially when the programming has been as thoughtfully done as it has been here, with gravely beautiful openers, the riveting presence of the most compelling of young lyric-dramatic sopranos and the assured, low-key art-concealing-art of Read more ...
graham.rickson
Rachmaninoff in Lucerne – Rhapsody, Op. 43, Symphony No. 3 Behzod Abduraimov (piano), Luzerner Sinfonieorchester/James Gaffigan (Sony)I’m the only person I know who rates Walton’s Symphony No. 2 as highly as his first, and I’m probably also out on a limb in enjoying Rachmaninov’s concise 3rd Symphony as much as its heftier predecessor. (Best not to get me started on the joys of his Piano Concerto No. 4.) Rachmaninov’s language continued to evolve in the 1930s: the big tunes are still there in abundance, married with a rhythmic punch and harmonic piquancy. Completed in 1936, the 3rd Read more ...
David Nice
Time to face the elephant in the room. Five of the six set-ups listed below are free to access; one is not. While big organisations like the Met – despite not paying its artists or staff since lockdown – and the London Symphony Orchestra can use their generous archive releases to plead for funds, the fact remains that classical musicians are penniless right now, and find themselves staring at blank calendars which will in some cases extend way into 2021. Diminishing pleasures in from-home films don’t pay; middle-range groups and institutions already face at the very least a much-reduced 2021- Read more ...
Gerard McBurney
November 1979… and a small group of Soviet composers (dubbed the "Khrennikov Seven") unexpectedly found themselves the targets of a boorish public assault by that once infamous General Secretary of the Union of Soviet Composers, in a speech at the organisation’s Sixth Congress in Moscow, describing them as “pretentious… pointless… sensation seeking… noisy filth… a so-called ‘avant-garde’…” Dima and his wife, Lena Firsova, were among that seven, along with Denisov, Gubaidulina and others. Their offence? That their pieces had been performed in a “modern music” festival in Cologne (in “the West Read more ...
Miranda Heggie
As Covid-19 puts a halt to live events around the world, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra has delivered its annual festival of new music, Tectonics, online, with a selection of recordings from past performances. Since everything from the past seven festivals has been recorded, curators Ilan Volkov and Alasdair Campbell had a vast musical smorgasboard to select from, although that was narrowed slightly by what files were readily available during lockdown. The programme works like an actual live event, with a running order of videos made available throughout both days of the festival. Read more ...
David Nice
It seems like a different world when the Berlin Philharmonic and Simon Rattle gave a full concert to an empty hall as the world began to go into lockdown. Now, on continental Europe at least, orchestral musician plus the occasional star conductor and soloist(s) are cautiously reuniting in smaller numbers, though still as yet without a live audience. We look on from the UK, behind as we are in possibilities of release from quarantine, but even here there are a few hopeful signs of players being able to do more than join each other virtually from their own homes. Oslo Philharmonic's Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
The absence of live concerts is not just affecting the "in the flesh" audiences, but also having a knock-on effect for the Radio 3 audience, used to hearing a live or as-live concert every night of the week. The BBC have instead gone to the archive of recentish concerts to keep the In Concert strand alive, and last week’s schedule (20-24 April) presented an array of appetising concerts showing the best kind of enterprising programming. Familiar music alongside the unfamiliar, a range of orchestras in a range of venues, and for me a delightful voyage of discovery and re-discovery.I don’t have Read more ...
graham.rickson
Mike Block: Step into the Void (Bright Shiny Things)The packaging and art design are deceptive; two-thirds of this release is actually a classy set of Bach’s Cello Suites (“... attempting to comprehend all of the Cello Suites as a single entity is truly like stepping into the void.”) . Cellist Mike Block has form in this repertoire. He’s the creator of the Block Strap, “the first product designed so that you can stand/move/dance while playing the cello,” using his invention to help make video recordings of individual Bach movements in the bathrooms of famous concert halls. Block Read more ...
Stephen Maddock
This year was supposed to be so very different. For the best part of the last decade we have been planning a series of major events to take place in 2020 to mark the centenary of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Having often commented on how remarkable it was that this institution should have been started by civic leaders in the wake of the First World War and the Spanish flu pandemic, the last thing I expected was that the worst pandemic since then would wipe out most of our centenary activities.In fact, it could have been even worse for us. The first of our five planned overseas Read more ...
graham.rickson
Carl Davis: Intolerance Luxembourg Radio Symphony Orchestra/Carl Davis (Carl Davis Collection)You’ve probably heard a Carl Davis film score without realising it, this versatile composer’s prolific career taking in Thames Television’s iconic series The World at War and scores of newly written soundtracks for silent films. Abel Gance’s five-hour epic Napoleon is one example, and recent work includes a superb score for Buster Keaton’s Steamboat Bill, Jr. This is a reissue of Davis’s music for DW Griffith’s Intolerance, recorded in 1986 for a Channel 4 transmission. Intolerance’s four Read more ...
David Nice
One person playing one instrument from home to the edification and delight of thousands: it's been a constant in these confining days, and well meant even if the sound isn't always up to it, a necessary substitute for live communication on both sides. But this is something else: an education, a detailed sharing of love and consolation which makes me wonder why other musicians haven't taken up the challenge (maybe some have, but I haven't heard about it). The fact is that few can match Jeremy Denk's ease of playing as he talks, his infinite knowledge of the richest sets of piano music in the Read more ...
Rob Adediran
Our brains are hardwired to respond to crisis by fleeing or fighting. Crisis creates fear and fear demands action so we protect ourselves by running from danger or battling against it. You can see these instinctive responses in the language of the moment where the coronavirus is described as an invisible enemy that must be defeated, and in our actions as we move away from one another to maintain a crucial social distance to protect ourselves and others.In the arts, too, organisations are shoring up their defences to reduce risk and attempting to outrun disaster. These are understandable and Read more ...