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 2022If 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... |
