Classical music
David Nice
Out of innumerable Rite of Springs in half a century of concert-going, I’ll stick my neck out and say this was the most ferocious in execution, the richest in sound. Others may have wanted a faster, lighter Rite. But the two things that make every concert conducted by Klaus Mäkelä so extraordinary are that he inhabits the music to a visibly high level, and that he gets the fullest tone and urgent phrasing from every instrument.This was a love-in between players and conductor, and an exciting first for the London Symphony Orchestra. I remember former tuba-player Patrick Harrild saying of Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
Until 2022, the lovely 18th century church of St Mary-le-Strand was a traffic island, ignored and unloved and rarely visited. Then came the pedestrianisation of the section of the Strand outside Somerset House, transforming the area from somewhere polluted and dangerous, to a walkable piazza, and transforming the church into what is now dubbed “The Jewel in the Strand”. In recent times its musical offering has been similarly revived, both liturgically (there is now a regular Choral Evensong) and as a concert venue, under the auspices of Warren Mailley-Smith, as both impresario and pianist. Read more ...
graham.rickson
Brahms: Piano Sonata No. 1, Schubert: Wanderer Fantasy Alexandre Kantorow (piano) (BIS)I’d previously encountered pianist Alexandre Kantorow via his exuberant set of Saint-Saëns piano concertos, sparky, lovable performances conducted by his father Jean-Jacques. This solo disc contains weightier repertoire but the Kantorow’s elucidatory abilities prevent things ever getting oppressive; if there’s a more accessible reading of Brahms’s Op. 1 Piano Sonata on disc, I’ve not heard it. Questions of technique don’t arise here, and unless you follow with a score it’s easy to forget how Read more ...
Robert Beale
Pavel Kolesnikov returned to the Hallé last night with a bobby-dazzler of a concerto. He’s a laid-back dude in appearance, with no tie, flapping jacket and cool appearance – quite a contrast with the full evening dress worn by the orchestra members – but the music says it all for him.Saint-Saëns’ Second Piano Concerto (three movements, getting faster each time) is a vehicle of naked, virtuoso pianism in a hotch-potch of styles ranging from the imitation Bach organ toccata at the start to a comic episode in the central movement that could be illustrative of one of the species that missed Read more ...
David Nice
As Steven Isserlis announced just before the final work, in more senses than one, of a five-day revelation, the 79 year old Fauré’s last letter told his wife that “at the moment I am well, very well, despite the little bout of fatigue which is caused by the end of the Quartet. I am happy with everything, and I should like everyone to be happy all around me, and everywhere”.The world is an unhappier place than ever this morning, yet somehow that incandescent performance of a uniquely beautiful string quartet made things not so hard. Today there’s calm resignation, though that probably won’t, Read more ...
Robert Beale
The BBC Philharmonic were right to bill Garrick Ohlsson, soloist in Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 1, as the main attraction in Saturday’s concert.The septuagenarian American is a force of nature and an exceptional artist: his playing of Rachmaninov in his last visit to Manchester remains in the memory as an exhibition of mastery. So it was again, in another concerto thick with notes.But those notes were played with entrancing grace and melodic power, as well as virtuosity, and delicacy of touch as well as insight. Clara Schumann (whose performances did much to establish it at first) said there Read more ...
David Nice
Earlier this year, Steven Isserlis curated a revelatory Sheffield Chamber Music Festival spotlighting Saint-Saëns, with plentiful Fauré towards the end. Now it’s the younger composer’s turn, marking his death 100 years ago on 4 November 1924, but his mentor has more than a look-in over five concerts featuring six bright stars, "Team Fauré".Friday’s launch made us love Fauré even more, but also opened many ears to the early genius of Saint-Saëns. The programme, delivered to an audience dotted with familiar faces among musicians, was not quite as planned. Personable and wry as ever, Isserlis Read more ...
Irène Duval
"I always enjoy seeing sunlight play on the rocks, the water, the trees and plains. What variety of effects, what brilliance and what softness... I wish my music could show as much diversity." Gabriel Fauré, who wrote those words and is indisputably one of the greatest of French composers, died 100 years ago, on 4 November 1924. His avowed aim was to elevate his listeners “as far as possible above what is.”In recent times of hardship, playing his music felt like a true gift, bringing solace to my heart. It is so moving and yet so comforting. No matter how profound, even dark, the emotions it Read more ...
Rachel Halliburton
Last time I saw the lovelorn Cyclops from Handel’s richly turbulent cantata, Aci, Galatea e Polifemo, he was in a warehouse at Trinity Buoy Wharf earlier this year, posturing moodily as an Italian film director. The London Handel Festival’s specially commissioned Aci by the River seemed to have found the ideal form in which to explore this tale of thwarted desire for modern audiences; a dark tale of #MeToo woe in an alienated urban setting.Yet the ebullient, passionate performance delivered by La Nuova Musica at the Wigmore Hall last night proved that when it comes down to it, there’s simply Read more ...
Robert Beale
Kahchun Wong’s third Bridgewater Hall concert with the Hallé in his inaugural season as principal conductor consisted of just one work: Bruckner’s Symphony no. 9 – but not in the incomplete three-movement version that until quite recently has been the norm in Manchester (and elsewhere).The story that only three of four planned movements were completed, with mere sketches for the last one being found at the composer’s death, was widely accepted, and when Cristian Mandeal performed and recorded it with the Hallé in 2007, and Ryan Wigglesworth played it with them in 2017, that was the version we Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
What’s it like to be in the middle of an orchestra, hugger-mugger with the violas, looking directly over the flautist’s shoulder? Last night’s immersive concert by Sinfonia Smith Square gave the us the chance to find out, the players spread around Smith Square Hall on podiums, with the audience encouraged to wander round as the performance unfolded. It was at once a revealing but also somewhat frustrating experience.The hour-long programme explored the plight of the UK’s temperate rainforest. You may not (I didn’t) realise the UK had any temperate rainforest, but it does – and centuries ago Read more ...
graham.rickson
Schubert: Sonata in G major D. 894, Moments Musicaux D. 780, Fantasy in F minor D. 940 Maurizio Pollini, Daniele Pollini (pianos) (Deutsche Grammophon)What a superb cover image for the last recording by Maurizio Pollini (1942-2024). Pollini ‘père’ is seated at the piano, backlit. His son Daniele (b.1978) stands behind him, looking over his shoulder. Cosimo Filippini’s photograph tells the story of this album so well. Pollini is in the role of the authoritative guide, as if teaching his son – and us listeners – lessons about this music. I can somehow imagine him repeating Paul Read more ...