Classical music
Esfahani, RSNO, Søndergård, Usher Hall, Edinburgh review - music meets machineWednesday, 12 October 2022
This was one of those rare occasions when a somewhat diverse collection of pieces knits together into a rather satisfying programme. To start at the end, the Saint-Saëns “Organ” Symphony is a rumbustious crowd pleaser not least because of its... Read more... |
Total Immersion: Sibelius the Storyteller, Barbican review - a feast of sagas and psychic masterpiecesTuesday, 11 October 2022
If there’s a dud or a dullard among Sibelius’s 116 official opus numbers, I haven’t heard it. Yet catching even many of the outright masterpieces live in concert isn’t easy; the brevity that can show us a world in under 10 minutes makes some... Read more... |
Noisenight10, Roberts Balanas, Omeara Club review - virtuosic brilliance with a wave to the wild sideMonday, 10 October 2022
When Roberts Balanas was at the Royal Academy of Music he was asked to perform something “different” for an open day. The Latvian violinist already had a reputation for being as experimental as he was virtuosic. He began with a rendition of the... Read more... |
Boris Giltburg, Wigmore Hall review - power and grace in elegies and monumentsSaturday, 08 October 2022
A double-sided A4 sheet is better than a programme online only – the default for several London venues now – but the Wigmore Hall missed a vital trick in failing to tell us what Boris Giltburg intended in a transcendental sequence which should have... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Dragonflies, harmoniums and folded paperSaturday, 08 October 2022
Colourise London Choral Sinfonia/Michael Waldron, with Roderick Williams (baritone), Andrew Staples (tenor), Elena Urioste (violin) (Orchid)Colourise, the latest album from by the London Choral Sinfonia, proved revelatory: I came for the... Read more... |
Kolesnikov, Hallé, Elder, Manchester review - commanding Smetana, Rachmaninov and StraussFriday, 07 October 2022
As Sir Mark Elder begins his penultimate season as music director of the Hallé, it’s clear that his command of, and communication with, the orchestra are as complete and purpose-driven as ever. It’s the first Thursday series concert of the new... Read more... |
'Serving the community means representing the narratives of our time': Elena Dubinets on her responsibilities as the LPO's Artistic DirectorThursday, 29 September 2022
Just as I was moving from the US to the UK to begin working as the Artistic Director of the London Philharmonic Orchestra last summer, the orchestra was emerging from the COVID-19 period and our audiences began coming back. During the course of the... Read more... |
Purcell's Playhouse, Bevan, Barokksolistene, Eike, Purcell Room review - kaleidoscopic delightsTuesday, 27 September 2022
“What about the communication with the audience?” asked violinist and impresario Bjarte Eike in his First Person piece for theartsdesk. “How can a 'normal' concert be turned into a special event?” Explaining how is one thing – but doing it to dazzle... Read more... |
Igor Levit, Wigmore Hall review - titanic talent shows his lighter sideMonday, 26 September 2022
It probably tells you all you need to know about Igor Levit that when a mobile phone pinged just before his encore, he neither ignored it, nor seemed annoyed, but turned it into a seamless musical gag. After sending a ripple of laughter through the... Read more... |
Gurrelieder, LPO, Gardner, RFH review - everything in place, but still something’s missingSunday, 25 September 2022
Schoenberg’s “Song of the Wood Dove” takes up a mere 11 of the 100 minutes of his epic Gurrelieder, though it’s a crucial narrative of how King Waldemar of Gurre’s beloved Tove was murdered by his jealous queen. Last night, as in Simon Rattle’s 2017... Read more... |
theartsdesk at Musikfest Berlin - orchestral and choral rainbows around the clockSaturday, 24 September 2022
In its three weeks of world-class events, Muskfest Berlin has managed to be all things to all people – like a mini-Proms distilling the aspects of top international visitors alongside home-grown excellence, and of a focus on at least one relatively... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Civil service, bassoon laments and a historic keyboardSaturday, 24 September 2022
Mozart: The Piano Sonatas (Robert Levin, playing Mozart’s fortepiano) (ECM New Series)There is no doubt about the brilliant uniqueness of pianist, conductor, musicologist and one-time Nadia Boulanger pupil Robert Levin, an influential Harvard... Read more... |
