Classical music
David Nice
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 Proms performance, stunning mezzo Karen Cargill came on stage, immediately in character, and with no reference to the score on the stand in front of her, showed everyone else how to do it.At that point temperatures finally rose. They were to do so again, fitfully, in the rest of the work, where God-challenging, undead Waldemar leads his vassals in Read more ...
David Nice
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 unfamiliar 20th century/contemporary work per concert. The Berliners deserved the cornucopia of very special guests, but to justify my visit, I went for the local – Berlin Phiharmonic, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester and Berlin choirs on a par with very distinguished counterparts from the UK and Georgia.It was disappointing that my third train on the Read more ...
graham.rickson
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 Professor for more than two decades until his retirement in 2014. Turn the clock back 30 years, and Levin’s presentational style was much more disputative back then than it is these days: in a memorable contribution to Derek Bailey’s 1992 Channel 4 series on improvisation “On the Edge” he railed against Mozart performances that were “ Read more ...
Tim Cumming
South-African cellist Abel Selaocoe is about to begin his third major concert in London in under a year. As the support artist for kora player Ballake Sissoko and cellist Vincent Segal at the Roundhouse in January, he received a lengthy ovation for his 30 minute set, having demonstrated an uncanny ability to play the audience as dexterously as he plays his cello.A few months later, he appeared with the Manchester Collective at the Southbank Centre, performing some of the pieces that make up his debut album on Warner Classics, Where is Home, alongside works by Stravinsky, Vivaldi and Read more ...
Bjarte Eike
History first. The 17th century London of Oliver Cromwell and its puritanical quest to curb all creativity – banning music, closing down theatres, restricting alcohol and all the rest – provided an incredible backdrop for Barokksolistene’s project The Alehouse Sessions. How music survived with its tunes and tales, in song and dance, has for me been a true revelation.The out-of-work court musicians mingling with the locals at London’s many public drinking houses created a huge amount of wonderful music. Defying prohibition and censorship, human creativity survived with creative people just Read more ...
David Nice
Epic-lyric magician Brahms wears a very adaptable garment for certain masterpieces: black on the outside with fur trimming, reversible to show its exquisitely wrought, variegated silk patterns on the inside.For the celebrated G minor Piano Quartet and the First Piano Concerto – which Elisabeth Leonskaja has featured so impressively in concert with its successor – the darkness predominates, but the colours flash too. In the Second Concerto and Quartet, the bright reverse takes the lead. There can surely be no team more adaptable to all the miracles than Leonskaja and members of the Read more ...
Simon Thompson
The Dunedin Consort are most readily associated with the music of the Baroque, but this concert showed that they’re every bit as good at playing the music of the next generation. At times, in fact, I was taken aback by the magisterial scale of the orchestral sound as they played Mozart’s great C Minor Mass.There was wiry intensity to the period-instrument strings of the opening of the Kyrie, but this was always a sound of commanding strength, one where hair shirts were left in the cupboard and a sense of scale was allowed to have its impact. Director John Butt used the new edition (Breitkopf Read more ...
theartsdesk
Flying manes and flashing eyes are part of the inspirational package. We may laugh at some of these dramatic images, but it's usually a sign of the conductor's commitment to his or her orchestra and audience. There's no doubt that the Royal Albert Hall from July to September is a place where magic can happen, even if it's as unpredictable as the acoustics of the capricious venue itself.Chris Christodoulou has just completed his 42nd season at the Proms. Though the portraits are the thing, he has many tales to tell. Those will appear anon; in the meantime his collegial and genial presence is Read more ...
Simon Thompson
Once the shock of Queen Elizabeth’s death has faded, attention will surely turn to the many organisations and institutions of which she was patron. This concert not only marked the Royal Scottish National Orchestra’s debut at the Lammermuir Festival, but it was also the first the orchestra had played since the departure of Her Majesty.Dressed in sombre black ties, the players preceded the main programme with the national anthem and a minute’s silence, out of which emerged the chalky darkness of Sibelius’ Fourth Symphony. The circumstances were oddly appropriate for the way this symphony Read more ...
David Nice
So John Eliot Gardiner’s fire- and-air way with Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis turned out to be the last night of the Proms. Just as I was about to cycle to the Royal Albert Hall for the first of the Philadelphia Orchestra’s two Proms the following evening, a notice came through: following the news of the Queen’s death at 6pm, the evening’s event had been cancelled.In fact, for those who went – I now wish I had – there was “God Save the King” and “Nimrod” from Elgar’s “Enigma” Variations, and then a respectful departure. It must have been a good way of coming-together – as a Last Night Read more ...
graham.rickson
Brahms Lieder Anna Lucia Richter (mezzo-soprano), Ammiel Bushakevitz (piano) (Pentatone)Ein süßes Deingedenken: A Tender Memory of Thee – Lieder by Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn Kateryna Kasper (soprano), Dmitry Ablogin (piano) (TYXArt)These two recitals of German Lieder, both of them gloriously and intelligently sung, offer really interesting contrasts. Anna Lucia Richter is the better-known singer of the two and more frequently recorded. Her new album consists mostly of better-known Brahms songs. She has fabulously clear diction, and her booklet essay demonstrates quite how deeply she Read more ...
David Nice
Back in 1990, John Eliot Gardiner with his Monteverdi Choir, English Baroque Soloists and world-class singers set the South Bank alight with revelatory concert performances of Mozart’s Idomeneo and La clemenza di Tito. Now he's done it again for an even quirkier masterpiece, burning away any Albert Hall mists with the best possible voices and an “Orchestre” which can be called “Révolutionnaire” but decidedly not “Romantique” when it comes to the Missa Solemnis.For some of us with blind spots in Beethoven, it’s a hard work to love, except in the serene flow of the solo-violin-led Benedictus. Read more ...