Haydn
Classical CDs Weekly: Bach, Poulenc, Simon HöfeleSaturday, 28 March 2020
Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier George Lepauw (piano) (Orchid Classics)How a pianist tackles the opening C major Prelude of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier can often set the tone for what follows. You’d expect Glenn Gould’s quirky traversal to... Read more... |
Classical music/Opera direct to home: 1 - Budapest's Quarantine SoiréesWednesday, 18 March 2020
The great Chilean pianist Claudio Arrau noted of 1920s Berlin that "itimes of trouble, people seek a better life in culture". But what if that culture can no longer be accessed live? Earlier this week theartsdesk brought you reports of two... Read more... |
ECO, Zacharias, Fairfield Halls Croydon review - green-fingered HaydnWednesday, 13 November 2019
Switch off for a phrase or two and it’s easy to miss the point in a Haydn symphony that makes each one of them odd and unique. In No. 74, played last night with understated class by the English Chamber Orchestra, that point occurs in the first... Read more... |
'These were the quartets that made us fall in love with the genre': Dudok Quartet Amsterdam on HaydnSaturday, 02 November 2019
As a string quartet, it’s not easy to distinguish yourselves from others. There are so many string quartets playing the great repertoire, and the level of quartets has never been as high as it is now. Everybody is trying to be unique.We are all part... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Haydn, Mahler, Matthew WhitesideSaturday, 02 November 2019
Haydn: Opus 20 String Quartets, Nos 2, 3 & 5 Dudok Quartet Amsterdam (Resonus)When discussing Haydn’s music it's difficult to avoid using words like ‘elegant’, ‘witty’ and ‘brio’, but I'll do my best. The writer E.T.A Hoffman should... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Haydn, Korngold, Philippe ManourySaturday, 14 September 2019
Haydn, arr. Stegmann: Symphonies 44, 75 and 92 Ivan Ilić (Chandos)The easiest way for amateur music lovers to get to know orchestral pieces used to be through piano transcriptions and chamber arrangements. Liszt’s versions of Beethoven... Read more... |
Prom 14: The Creation, BBC Proms Youth Choir, BBC Philharmonic, Wellber - Haydn on the edgeTuesday, 30 July 2019
Hello sun, hello great whales, hello choral counterpoint. If there is a more life-enhancing work than Joseph Haydn’s oratorio The Creation, I’ve yet to hear one. Its sheer joie-de-vivre was a felicitous arrival at the Proms, where it really... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Brahms, Haydn, SibeliusSaturday, 06 April 2019
Brahms: The Cello Sonatas The Fischer Duo: Norman Fischer (cello), Jeanne Kierman (piano), with Abigail Fischer (mezzo-soprano) (Centaur Records)Comparing Brahms’s pair of cello sonatas is like looking at the two piano concertos. There’s the... Read more... |
Bevan, Padmore, Foster-Williams, LPO, Jurowski, RFH review - rural blissMonday, 04 March 2019
Just as our brief, premature spring collapsed into the bluster of Storm Freya, the Enlightenment certainties of Haydn’s more dependable cycle of nature blew into the Royal Festival Hall. Perhaps because its lovely but (for the most part) serene... Read more... |
Endellion Quartet, Wigmore Hall review - four decades of excellenceTuesday, 22 January 2019
The Endellion Quartet first rehearsed on 20 January 1979, deep in the throes of Britain’s so-called “Winter of Discontent”. That longevity – with three of the original players still on the team after four decades – makes the acclaimed ensemble... Read more... |
Mahan Esfahani / Richard Goode, Wigmore Hall review - clarity and contrast from two keyboard mastersTuesday, 18 December 2018
Two successive nights, two contrasted solo keyboard recitals at the Wigmore Hall: not great for the knees but marvellous for the soul. On Saturday the Tehran-born, US-raised harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani continued a mammoth project: he has been... Read more... |
LSO, Roth, Barbican - not enough pathos, but a remarkable step-inMonday, 12 November 2018
Missa in Angustiis. Mass in troubled times. There was a logic in programming Haydn’s D minor Mass on the Armistice Centenary day. The final words of the mass, dona nobis pacem, would be the right ones to end this day of reflection. And to juxtapose... Read more... |
