Classical music
David Nice
Out of a silent and empty City of London, unusually still even for a Sunday afternoon, it felt surreal to come upon a centre of light and activity. Raffaello Morales, Renaissance man, conductor of the Fidelio Orchestra and owner/impresario of its eponymous café which has played host to great performances over the past month, had mustered 23 of the finest London-based players to tackle the ultimate in works for string orchestra. Richard Strauss penned his Metamorphosen in grief at the bombings of the great German and Austrian opera houses. It ends with a direct quotation of the music which Read more ...
Kelton Koch
Joining the Vienna Philharmonic as a student and young professional was an absolute thrill. I had begun to play with the orchestra as an academist in October 2019 and as a full-time member in the Opera in January 2020. I was experiencing many “firsts”: concerts in the Musikverein [Vienna’s magnificent number one concert hall], first tour in Asia, first Vienna Philharmonic Ball and Vienna State Opera Ball. I was anticipating many other “firsts”: Wagner’s Ring Cycle and a European tour with Zubin Mehta, all abruptly interrupted by the sudden spread of COVID-19 into Austria.Of course, it goes Read more ...
graham.rickson
Bruckner: Symphony No. 8 Australian World Orchestra/Sir Simon Rattle (ABC Classics)I love Bruckner’s mature symphonies, but they still baffle me. Mostly in terms of how certain performances work, or don’t work, and the near-impossibility of understanding and explaining exactly why. Then there’s the question of tempo, and how incredibly expansive performances can feel shorter than quick ones. A BBC Music Magazine poll in 2016 asked conductors to nominate their favourite symphonies, and Sir Simon Rattle included Bruckner 8 in his top three. He’s recorded two impressive accounts of the " Read more ...
David Nice
A front-rank pianist only takes on Musorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition in full confidence of being able to handle the massive bells and blazing chants of its grand finale, “The Great Gate of Kiev”. To risk it in a far from large café space adds to the element of danger and excited anticipation. Louis Schwizgebel, sonorous master of the house Bechstein – already an instrument designed not to overwhelm – carried it off with high radiance. It will be a long time before we can experience again the full orchestral blaze of Ravel’s peerless orchestration, so this was – despite even the pianist’s Read more ...
David Nice
There is genius not only in the rainbow hues of Pavel Kolesnikov’s playing but also in the way his chosen programmes resonate. He’s given us interconnected wonders from across the centuries, but chose to focus on the greatest of composers for the piano in only his third such recital. His first all-Chopin concert was given in sentimental homage to his birthplace, Novosibirsk; the second was a BBC Lunchtime Prom of Mazurkas; and this third, under circumstances even more exceptional than the Prom, brought light to his first UK audience after lockdown – a privileged 25 of us each evening.In Read more ...
David Nice
“At the Pärnu Music Festival 2020” were words I never expected to type. A fortnight ago Estonia finally upped its non-quarantinable country rate from 15 to 16 infections in every 100,000 people (the UK was then on 15.9; our unfathomable Foreign Office has not, to my knowledge, returned the compliment, despite Estonian rates being next to 0 for weeks). That meant two key players of the Estonian Festival Orchestra, clarinettist Matthew Hunt and horn-player Alec Frank-Gemmill, as well as myself could travel. If a first visit in 2015 was cause for wonderment at how the restless Soviet state of 26 Read more ...
graham.rickson
Sir John Barbirolli – The Complete Warner Recordings (Warner Classics)This month marks the 50th anniversary of Sir John Barbirolli’s death, one of several British conductors who dominated the UK’s post-war record industry. Barbirolli made most of his recordings for EMI and Pye, so this release’s title is a little misleading, Warner Classics not coming into existence until 1991. That’s my sole niggle, as this is a marvellous box set. Superficially pricey, yes, but it contains an eye-popping 109 CDs. That’s enough to keep anyone happily exploring for months. Years, even. Barbirolli’s Read more ...
Miranda Heggie
After the success of BBC Radio 3’s live lunchtime broadcasts from the Wigmore Hall, live music is now kicking off again north of the border, with four concerts broadcast from City Halls, Glasgow, presented by Kate Molleson. Sadly, due to "unforeseen circumstances" the recitals were not filmed and streamed as originally planned – something which does take away from the overall audience experience – but it’s still thrilling to know that City Halls is once again ringing with music.Starting the series was a recital from the young Glasgow-born bass-baritone Michael Mofidian and pianist Julia Lynch Read more ...
Christopher Glynn
An invitation: come to the Ryedale Festival. It's never been easier. All you need is a screen and an internet connection. Because our festival, along with others up and down the land, is waiting in the wings, ready (just) to step out for the first time onto a digital platform.Live music in beautiful Ryedale locations has been a rite of summer in North Yorkshire for decades. Thanks to an inspiring array of venues (from Castle Howard (pictured below) to an ancient moorland chapel) and a dedicated band of supporters and followers, the festival has grown to the point where it sells around 10,000 Read more ...
graham.rickson
Ives: Universe, Incomplete (Accentus DVD)Charles Ives’s Universe Symphony, conceived for 4,000 musicians positioned on different mountain tops, never saw the light of day. Sketches for the work span his creative life, some made as late as 1948, and several composers have created speculative performing editions. Ives did leave a note, explaining that “in case I don’t get to finishing this, somebody might like to work out the idea.” You suspect that he had no intention of completing it. This DVD set contains Christoph Marthaler’s Universe, Incomplete, performed during the 2018 Read more ...
David Nice
It seems a shame that large-scale organisations can’t be more flexible when government guidelines shift. True, the arts couldn’t jump at two days’ notice when outdoor events were licensed by our ever-vacillating government. The BBC Proms could have adjusted, but it seems the programme is now carved in stone – mostly archive material until the end of August.No need, either, for the drive-in set up English National Opera is promising at Alexandra Palace in September. I can’t say that the idea of Puccini’s La bohème, the most perfectly proportioned opera in the repertoire, being filleted to 90 Read more ...
Jessica Duchen
Presenting online concerts has been a Matterhorn-steep learning curve for the music sector. Now, after a few months in which imaginations have been tested to the limit, it’s becoming clear what works and what doesn’t. All the more power, then, to the Philharmonia’s many elbows: in yesterday’s webcast, the first of three for their Summer Sessions series, they showed exactly what is possible once one dives into the chilly water. In a programme slightly under one hour long, conducted by John Wilson (who has grown a lockdown beard), Sheku Kanneh-Mason, justifiably British music’s man-of-the- Read more ...