chamber music
Anthony Marwood and Friends, Peasmarsh Festival - elegies in a country churchWednesday, 27 June 2018
A magnificent riven oak with gnarly branches stands in the secluded graveyard of SS Peter and Paul's Church Peasmarsh, near Rye. Transport it in your mind to Flexham Park in a very different part of Sussex, imagine it struck by lightning and it... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Martin, Martinů, Vivaldi, 4 Girls 4 HarpsSaturday, 16 June 2018
The Secret Mass: Choral works by Frank Martin and Bohuslav Martinů Danish National Vocal Ensemble/Marcus Creed (OUR Recordings)We're lucky to be able to hear Frank Martin’s Mass for two four-part choirs at all; this most fastidious and self-... Read more... |
Violinist Eldbjørg Hemsing: 'in the moments when magic happens, you think, that's why we do this'Saturday, 28 April 2018
In a classical recording industry seemingly obsessed with marketing beautiful young female violinists, but very often presenting them in repertoire to which most of them seem to have little individual to add, how do you make your mark? Norwegian... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Hans Abrahamsen, Lully, Strauss, Duo JatekokSaturday, 21 April 2018
Hans Abrahamsen String Quartets No. 1-4 Arditti String Quartet (Winter & Winter)The opening section of Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen’s 2012 String Quartet No. 4 is subtitled “light and airy”, and, aptly, the four strings produce extraordinary... Read more... |
Jansen/Maisky/Argerich Trio, Barbican review - three classical titans give chamber music masterclassWednesday, 07 February 2018
They were billed as a Trio, but when the classical super-group of Janine Jansen, Mischa Maisky and Martha Argerich came together at the Barbican last night it was in a sequence of different combinations, each with their own musical identity. The... Read more... |
Hagen Quartet, Jörg Widmann, Wigmore Hall review – proportion and eleganceWednesday, 31 January 2018
Jörg Widmann writes fast. He is also one of the few young German composers who can write distinctive and idiomatic music without feeling the weight of his country’s musical heritage on his shoulders at every turn. Surprisingly, then, his Clarinet... Read more... |
Octets, Wigmore Hall review - Heath Quartet and star friends effervesceSaturday, 16 December 2017
To compose a masterpiece in your teens is rare enough; to choose the most elaborate form in chamber music, an octet for eight strings, ensures a peculiar kind of immortality. George Enescu, a still-underestimated genius described by protege Yehudi... Read more... |
Chineke! Ensemble, RNCM, Manchester review - musical advocacyTuesday, 12 December 2017
The Chineke! Orchestra has won golden opinions for its ground-breaking work and musical achievement, and Manchester caught up to the extent of a visit from the eight-person Chineke! Ensemble to the Royal Northern College of Music. As with the full... Read more... |
Schubert Ensemble, Kings Place review - spot-on introductions, dazzling performancesFriday, 10 November 2017
To demonstrate what makes chamber masterpieces tick and then to play them, brilliantly, is a sequence which ought to happen more often. Perhaps too many musicians think their eloquence is confined to their instruments. Not violinist Simon Blendis... Read more... |
Sughayer, Manchester Camerata Soloists, Manchester CathedralWednesday, 03 May 2017
Two works whose whole significance depends on (unspoken) sacred texts made a stimulating combination for a concert in Manchester Cathedral’s sacred space. Haydn’s The Seven Last Words of our Saviour on the Cross – usually heard in its string... Read more... |
Stoller Hall Opening, Chetham's School of Music, ManchesterMonday, 24 April 2017
The opening of a new concert hall offers two options for opinionizing: the venue itself – or the performances in it? Review the acoustics – or the music? It has to be a mixture of the two, in the end. Chetham’s School of Music, in Manchester, has... Read more... |
Best of 2016: ClassicalWednesday, 28 December 2016
Revelations in the classical year never stop coming. Even the week before Christmas yielded two performances as good as you're going to get: the sheer effervescence and light-flourishing of Lucy Crowe in ecstatic Bach and Mozart with La Nuova Musica... Read more... |
