BBCSO
Biss, BBCSO, Hrůša, Barbican review - electrifying Shostakovich at a crucial timeSaturday, 01 February 2025
At the end of an exhausting week in which Holocaust Memorial Day struck a more urgent note than ever as fascism started tearing through the USA, parts of this concert were bound to hit hard. That they did so to the power of 100 was thanks to the... Read more... |
BBC Singers, BBCSO, Jeannin, Barbican review - from stormy weather to blue skiesThursday, 03 October 2024
“Bold, ambitious, and good for the sector.” So said Charlotte Moore, the BBC chief content officer, who currently earns £468,000, in March last year as she defended plans to close the BBC Singers as part of a package of swingeing musical cuts masked... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Soft toys, starlings and tarantellasSaturday, 14 September 2024
Passage Secret – music by Bizet, Debussy, Fauré, Ravel, Aubert Ludmila Berlinskaya and Arthur Ancelle (piano duet) (Alpha Classics)There are many reasons to acquire this disc of French piano duets, one being the inclusion of the Feuille d’... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: conductor Dalia Stasevska on her new album of contemporary orchestral musicSaturday, 31 August 2024
Dalia Stasevska is a persuasive advocate for new music, as presented on her new album Dalia’s Mixtape. She combines a puppyish enthusiasm with a salesman’s eloquence – beneath which sits a steely self-confidence in her own artistic vision. The... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Beans, carrots and bassoonsSaturday, 31 August 2024
Antonio Pappano: Complete Symphonic, Concertante and Sacred Music Recordings Orchestra e Coro dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (Warner Classics)Exploring this compendious 27 CD box set has been a lot of fun. Rome’s Santa Cecilia... Read more... |
Prom 19, Rummukainen, Dandy, BBCSO, Oramo review - inward reflections and choral transcendenceSunday, 04 August 2024
How do you get five thousand plus people into the Albert Hall to hear two Sanskrit-based rarities by British-born composers? Simple: place the Elgar Cello Concerto in between them. Here was another daring Prom programme that totally worked, not... Read more... |
First Night of the Proms, BBCSO, Chan review - from the sublime to the mischievously meticulousSaturday, 20 July 2024
The first night of the BBC’s 2024 Proms season was illuminated by the blazing brilliance of Isata Kanneh-Mason’s performance of Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto and the world premiere of Ben Nobuto’s witty video-game-inspired Hallelujah Sim. Hong... Read more... |
Remembering conductor Andrew Davis (1944-2024)Saturday, 04 May 2024
As a human being of immense warmth, humour and erudition, Andrew Davis made it all too easy to forget what towering, incandescent performances he inspired. Now is a good time to recall those properly to mind, to listen to his huge discography, and... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Swans, hamlets and bossa novaSaturday, 27 April 2024
Chopin: Études op.10 & op.25 Yunchan Lim (Decca)Chopin Nicolas van Poucke (Night Dreamer)I’m reviewing these two Chopin discs by a pair of young men together, even though there are lots of differences between their playing, and the way the... Read more... |
Watts, BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Bignamini, Barbican review - blazing French masterpiecesSaturday, 20 April 2024
Anyone who’d booked to hear soprano Sally Matthews or to witness the rapid progress of conductor Daniele Rustioni – the initial draw for me – could not have been disappointed in their late-stage replacements. Elizabeth Watts is as much of a national... Read more... |
Malofeev, BBCSO, Lintu, Barbican review - finesse as well as fireworksSaturday, 17 February 2024
This was a muesli programme: nutty, crunchy, just sweet enough, its success lying in the balance of the various ingredients. At times, such was the explosiveness of the playing, it felt like popping candy had been added to the muesli, but in a good... Read more... |
Morison, Immler, BBCSO, Bychkov, Barbican review - a Kafka journey and a mighty landmarkSaturday, 25 November 2023
The German composer Detlev Glanert, taught by Hans Werner Henze and a past collaborator with Oliver Knussen, received a Proms commission as far back as 1996. He remains, it might be fair to say, a shadowy presence here despite his prominence back... Read more... |
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