Beethoven
Classical CDs: Dramatic symphonies, medieval bagpipes and a solo bassoonSaturday, 10 April 2021
Beethoven: Symphony No. 7, Piano Concerto No. 4, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra/Lahav Shani (piano and conductor) (Warner Classics)Poor Beethoven’s 250th anniversary year saw most of the projected live events cancelled, but good new... Read more... |
Levit, Berlin Philharmoniker, Paavo Järvi, Digital Concert Hall review - optimal light and darkTuesday, 09 March 2021
It seems right that (arguably) the greatest orchestra in the world has (unarguably) the best livestreaming and archive service. Thanks to a vital musicians’ Covid testing set-up, the Berlin Philharmoniker is even more supreme online now that it can... Read more... |
Zimerman, LSO, Rattle, LSO St Luke's review - rainbow colours, continuity and imperial soaringFriday, 18 December 2020
Adaptability backed up by funding has been the course of the most successful musical organisations since mid-March – but it’s been especially tough from November onwards. One abrupt lockdown meant that anything scheduled to be performed before a... Read more... |
First Person: conductor Johannes Vogel on Beethoven’s Ninth as re-orchestrated by MahlerThursday, 17 December 2020
Think of the finale at a big fireworks show: the anticipation; the build up. There is nothing bigger than the Ninth Symphony. It is the climax of this year’s Beethoven celebrations. A year ago, no-one would have expected 2020 to be turned upside... Read more... |
Gabriele Carcano, Fidelio Orchestra Cafe - fresh, funny and focused BeethovenMonday, 14 December 2020
Perhaps it’s just the conventional mind which celebrates the pathos, tragedy and triumph in Beethoven’s music at the expense of his humour. And that’s the one aspect of the composer which has been a constant revelation – to me, at any rate – in his... Read more... |
Fidelio, Opera North online review - less is really moreMonday, 14 December 2020
Adaptability is the name of the game for big companies in the music business now. And Opera North’s streamed presentation of Beethoven's Fidelio from inside Leeds Town Hall is a prime example of just how adaptable things need to be.The orchestra is... Read more... |
Paul Lewis, Wigmore Hall review – Classical consolationsThursday, 10 December 2020
The key of C minor threw a dark shadow over music long before it became the tonality for Beethoven to express the struggle of one against many in the Fifth Symphony and the Third Piano Concerto. Mozart was a feted teenager and Beethoven a babe in... Read more... |
Isata Kanneh-Mason, BBCSSO, Gourlay online review - give thanks for lockdown concertsMonday, 30 November 2020
As our friends across the pond celebrated Thanksgiving on Thursday, a mix of music from America kicked off the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra’s concert, opening with Massachusetts-born composer Carl Ruggles’s Angels for muted brass. Ruggles... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Kirill Petrenko, Avi Avital, RavelSaturday, 28 November 2020
Berliner Philharmoniker/Kirill Petrenko: Music by Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Franz Schmidt, Rudi Stephan (Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings)Kirill Petrenko’s supposed indifference to making recordings is overstated: there’s a whole load of stuff... Read more... |
‘Our whole industry is supported by vulnerable freelance creators': Chen Reiss on the artist in a time of CoronavirusMonday, 23 November 2020
I am not the first to say this, and I won’t be the last, but what a strange year 2020 has become! I am learning afresh what it is to be both a singer and a parent and, although we have all been kept closed in our little home “bubbles,” we are... Read more... |
Kanneh-Mason, CBSO, Gražinytė-Tyla online review - muted celebrationsThursday, 19 November 2020
“This year was supposed to be so very different” said Stephen Maddock, Chief Executive of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra when he spoke to theartsdesk earlier this year. Talk about an understatement. The CBSO has hardly been alone in... Read more... |
BSO, Karabits, The Lighthouse, Poole online review – stealing fire from the godsThursday, 12 November 2020
There have been quite enough Beethoven tribute-acts and remixes during the 2020 anniversary year. We, and he, deserve better than composers riding pillion on that reckless, purring beast of a 700hp compositional engine. True to form, Magnus Lindberg... Read more... |
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