thu 28/03/2024

Haydn

'Their DNA is forever ingrained in the keys' - Roman Rabinovich on playing composers' own pianos

I was recently in the UK for some solo recitals and to make my debut with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. One of the highlights of the trip was playing a similar programme in two very different settings: first on some magnificent period...

Read more...

Triple Bill, Royal Ballet review - Arthur Pita's 'Wind' is a howling success

Of all the stories Arthur Pita could have chosen to wrangle for his new narrative ballet, he chose one about wind, perhaps the trickiest element of all to represent on a live stage. Tricky because of course you can’t see wind, you can only see its...

Read more...

Hugo Ticciati, Manchester Camerata, Manchester Cathedral review - spirituality, no spooks

Manchester Camerata chose All Hallows’ Eve for a concert of (in some part) "holy" minimalism. Arvo Pärt’s Silouan’s Song began it, and his Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten ended it. They headlined it "Spiritualism and Minimalism", but I think...

Read more...

Roman Rabinovich, Hatchlands review - poetry from Chopin's very own Pleyel piano

What pianist wouldn't long to lay fingers on keyboards impregnated, as Roman Rabinovich put it in his introduction yesterday afternoon, with the DNAs of Haydn and Chopin? To take three of the 31 instruments in the astonishing Cobbe Collection at...

Read more...

Prom 20 review: Hough, BBCPO, Wigglesworth - towards the light fantastic

Romantic concerto, contemporary work, classical symphony: it's a common format at the Proms, but not usually in that order. Both David Sawer's 1997 firework The Greatest Happiness Principle and Haydn's ever-radical Symphony No. 99, sharing a light-...

Read more...

Kozhukhin, LSO, Rattle, Barbican

Gorgeous sound, shame about the movement – or lack of it. That seems to be the problem with too many of Simon Rattle's interpretations of late romantic music. It gave us a sclerotic Wagner Tristan und Isolde Prelude last night, Karajanesque and not...

Read more...

Classical CDs Weekly: Brahms, Haydn, GrauSchumacher Piano Duo

Brahms: Piano Concertos Sunwook Kim (piano), Hallé/Sir Mark Elder (Hallé)Compare the openings of Brahms’s two piano concertos and you'd be mistaken for thinking they were by different composers. The earlier work begins with the fiercest of...

Read more...

theartsdesk in Göttingen: Handel for all

"Love is in the air," croons or rather bellows presenter Juri Tetzlaff, getting his audience of adults and children to bellow back the wordless refrain, arms swaying above their heads. Mezzo Sophie Rennert, dragged up as noble Lotario, and soprano...

Read more...

Chineke! Orchestra, Brighton Festival / Saleem Ashkar, Wigmore Hall

Anyone who missed the opening Southbank concerts of the Chinike! Orchestra, figurehead of a foundation which aims to give much-needed help to young Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) classical musicians, could and now can (on YouTube) catch snippets of...

Read more...

Sughayer, Manchester Camerata Soloists, Manchester Cathedral

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...

Classical CDs Weekly: Haydn, Vaughan Williams, Johannes Pramsohler

Haydn: Sonatas and Variations Leon McCawley (piano) (Somm)Haydn's keyboard music needs this sort of persuasive advocacy. Four sonatas and a set of variations is a lot to pack in to a single disc, but the composer’s inability to waffle on is his...

Read more...

theartsdesk in Oslo: Mozart beneath a Munch sun

Leif Ove Andsnes directing two great Mozart piano concertos from the keyboard may be the chief attraction when the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra comes to London's Cadogan Hall on Friday to celebrate its 40th birthday. It was certainly the bait which...

Read more...
Subscribe to Haydn