sat 02/12/2023

Debussy

Classical CDs: Fireworks, floods and unpleasant glimpses

 Debussy: Piano Works Volume 2 Dennis Lee (piano) (ICSM Records)I’m a huge fan of Colin Matthews’ idiomatic orchestral transcriptions of Debussy’s Préludes, so much so that it’s been a good few years since I’ve listened to the piano originals....

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Classical CDs: Deserted churches, funeral marches and a Cornish lifeboat

 Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis, Elgar: Introduction and Allegro etc Sinfonia of London/John Wilson (Chandos)John Wilson has done it again! He is, at breakneck speed, building an extraordinary catalogue of...

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Hough, Hallé, Elder, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester online review - brassy, bouncy optimism

Sir Mark Elder is back with the Hallé for the latest (and penultimate) filmed concert in their “Winter Season” of 2020 and 2021, including the world premiere of Huw Watkins' Second Symphony. He introduces it from the Bridgewater Hall foyer, and...

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Oslo Philharmonic, Mäkelä online review - focus, flair and midwinter heartbreak

Artists’ management Harrison Parrott has started a concert streaming platform called Virtual Circle on emusiclive.com, launched two days ago and only available as a live event - no catch-ups. Watching its debut concert - the Oslo Philharmonic with...

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Classical CDs Weekly: Debussy, Respighi, The Red Book of Ossory

 Debussy: Images, Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune Hallé/Sir Mark Elder (Hallé)That Debussy used the Geordie folksong The Keel Row in the first of his three Images for Orchestra is well known, and careful listening makes one realise that he...

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Louis Schwizgebel, Fidelio Orchestra Café review – gilt-edged postcards from around the world

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...

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Javier Perianes, QEH review - not a Spanish fire-eater but a world-class poet

Expect no cliches about toreador pianism. Red-earth flamboyance is not Javier Perianes' style, and the seven dances he offered in his programme - eight including an encore - by fellow Spaniard Manuel de Falla were not the most consistently engaging...

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Classical CDs Weekly: Debussy, Feldman, Langgaard

 Et la lune descend – piano music by Claude Debussy Olga Stezhko (Palermo Classica)Olga Stezhko writes in her extended sleeve note of wanting “to look beyond the multifaceted beauty of Debussy’s piano pieces and bring out the edge and ambiguity...

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CBSO, Leleux, Birmingham Town Hall review - oboe extraordinaire

There’s always a special atmosphere when the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra returns to Birmingham Town Hall, and it’s not just because of the building’s Greek Revival beauty: the gilded sunburst on the ceiling, or the towering, intricately...

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Two-Piano Marathon, Kings Place review - dazzling duos, deep waters

You get a lot of notes for your money in a two-piano recital - especially when seven pianists share the honours for two and a half hours' worth of playing time. Well, they did call it a marathon, crowning the London Piano Festival so shiningly...

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Katya Apekisheva, Charles Owen, Kings Place review - one plus one equals a hundred

We could probably spend all day pondering what makes a great musical partnership. Is it long experience, special sensitivity, a shared sense of humour? We’d get nowhere, though because there is, genuinely, something about it that can't be explained...

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Prom 69, Skride, Boston SO, Nelsons / Proms at...Cadogan Hall 8, Berlin Philharmonic Soloists review - sophisticated limits

Crazy days are here again – many of us are lucky not to have been born when the last collectve insanity blitzed the world – and nothing in Shostakovich seems too outlandish for reality. On the other hand, there's a growing movement to liberate his...

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