Classical music
Elgar's Enigma - A Love Child Named Pearl?Wednesday, 26 January 2011
UPDATE 2015: Four years ago, in January 2011, I wrote this article about the music critic and biographer Michael Kennedy's search for the missing portion of Elgar's life. It identified a Mrs Dora Nelson as the composer's mistress and mother of a... Read more... |
Opinion: If the classical concert scene ain't broke, don't fix itMonday, 24 January 2011
Most of us don't object to experiments in concert presentation - the occasional one-off showcase to lure the young and suspicious into the arcane world of attentive concert-going, the odd multimedia event as icing on the cake. It's only those... Read more... |
LPO, Nézet-Séguin, Royal Festival HallSunday, 23 January 2011
A programme of French music under the baton of the LPO’s talented young principal guest conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin should be a treat. Nézet-Séguin’s affinity for French textures and gestures has already been amply proved, as has the orchestra’s... Read more... |
Army of Generals, Hazlewood, St George's BristolSaturday, 22 January 2011
An “Army of Generals” suggests a kind of supergroup, a fighting force made up of leaders rather than followers. If Charles Hazlewood’s band, which has just started a residency at Bristol’s St George's, is such a host, then he presumably is the... Read more... |
Classical CDs Round-Up 15Friday, 21 January 2011
This month’s carefully sifted new releases include some quirky Americana and a piano filled with ping-pong balls. A Baroque specialist plays some ripe orchestral transcriptions and a neglected cello concerto gets a new ending. Six Danish symphonies... Read more... |
Juan Diego Flórez, Royal Festival HallThursday, 20 January 2011
We’ve all seen singers go wrong. Forgetting words, missing entries, skipping verses – it happens often enough, and is generally cause for little more than some awkward laughter and a second attempt. Never, however, have I seen a wrong entry (as ill-... Read more... |
When crossover goes haywireThursday, 20 January 2011No one's saying that the mezzo of the moment, glamorous Latvian Elina Garanca, isn't a very class act indeed when it comes to high-quality opera, song and even zarzuela. But she didn't revert to the Age of Aquarius too successfully in this ill-... Read more... |
BBC Diverse Orchestras 2011: The Music of North Africa, The TabernacleThursday, 20 January 2011
Now I know why the BBC Symphony Orchestra slunk so easily into Piazzolla tango mode last Friday: they'd danced it under Latin American instruction four years ago. It's all part of their education department's annual Diverse Orchestras week, where... Read more... |
Khachatryan, London Symphony Orchestra, Gergiev, Barbican HallTuesday, 18 January 2011
Valery Gergiev’s survey of the Tchaikovsky symphonies began here on a chilly January night with youthfully idealistic Winter Daydreams thrown into the sharpest relief against a disillusioned and angry Shostakovich whose own journey into the bleak... Read more... |
Southbank Centre, 2011 SeasonMonday, 17 January 2011
Mahler, Mahler and anyone who even remotely knew Mahler. There is, of course, more to the South Bank's 2011 season listings than this but the great symphonic agoniser (and his many chums) forms the bedrock of the classical programming as we all go... Read more... |
Hough, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Fischer, Royal Festival HallMonday, 17 January 2011
Who knew the changeover of the EU Presidency could be this much fun? Amid the formal bowing and scraping at the Royal Festival Hall bunfights last night that signalled that the Hungarians were now at the tiller of this sinking political ship were... Read more... |
Leonidas Kavakos, Enrico Pace, Wigmore HallMonday, 17 January 2011
No doubt about it, Leonidas Kavakos is one of the world's top 10 live-wire violinists. But here in London he seems to have sold himself a bit short recently with a less than great concerto repertoire (Korngold, Szymanowski's Second). Korngold... Read more... |
