LPO
LPO, Renes, RFH review - solid Bruckner lacking in nuanceMonday, 06 November 2017
This concert was to have been conducted by Stanisław Skrowaczewski, who died in February. Though futile, it’s hard not to speculate about what could have been, especially given his spectacular Bruckner performances with the London Philharmonic in... Read more... |
Goode, LPO, Jurowski, RFH review - tender Mozart, dynamic BrucknerMonday, 02 October 2017
Richard Goode is one of the world’s great pianists, but you wouldn’t guess it from his humble and unpretentious stage manner. He wears thick glasses and squints into the music, and when he plays he sings along under his breath. When he is not... Read more... |
Oedipe, LPO, Jurowski, RFH review - Enescu's masterpiece glorious and completeMonday, 25 September 2017
It’s official: Romanian master George Enescu’s four-act Greek epic lives and breathes as a work of transcendent genius. It took last year’s Royal Opera production to lead us further along the path established by the magnificent EMI studio recording... Read more... |
Mahler 8, LPO, Jurowski, RFHMonday, 10 April 2017
For the first performances of his Eighth Symphony in Munich, Mahler conducted 11 rehearsals. He arranged for the bells of the city’s trams to be silenced during the concerts. He left nothing to chance. On Saturday night, for once, one felt that all... Read more... |
Bryars and Reich, London Philharmonic Orchestra, RFHFriday, 17 March 2017
In 1970, documentary maker Alan Power interviewed homeless people in the Elephant and Castle area of London. Rejected footage found its way to composer Gavin Bryars, including a short clip of an old man singing a snatch of a religious song. This... Read more... |
Fidelio, LPO, Jurowski, RFHMonday, 23 January 2017
Juxtaposition is a powerful thing. Just one day after Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th president of the USA and mere hours after women across the world marched in unprecedented numbers to safeguard freedom and champion democracy, the Southbank... Read more... |
Wallfisch, LPO, Vänskä, RFHThursday, 27 October 2016
Osmo Vänskä isn't by any means the only Finn who conducts magnificent Sibelius. Sakari Oramo is the BBC Symphony Orchestra's property, but the London Philharmonic could have gone for a change and invited Vänskä's equally impressive and even more... Read more... |
Zehetmair, LPO, Jurowski, RFHTuesday, 18 October 2016
This is how new and modern music should be done. In the London Philharmonic, we had an orchestra well-prepared to meet technical challenges and resolved to making sense from them. Vladimir Jurowski is a conductor who places faith in composers and... Read more... |
Krylov, LPO, Søndergård, RFHMonday, 10 October 2016
With a trio of easy-on-the-ear 20th-century works, Thomas Søndergård marked his debut with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. A pleasingly full crowd took the opportunity to hear the work of a conductor rarely glimpsed in these parts outside the BBC... Read more... |
Benedetti, LPO, Jurowski, RFHSaturday, 24 September 2016
Vladimir Jurowski began his latest season as Principal Conductor of the London Philharmonic with a typically bold and adventurous programme. At its core were the two Szymanowski violin concertos performed by Nicola Benedetti, and these were framed... Read more... |
La Canterina, Classical Opera, Page, Wigmore HallTuesday, 20 September 2016
Papa Haydn might have been tickled to see his early intermezzo, La Canterina, pack out the Wigmore Hall on a Monday night. A night for connoisseurs, then, but Classical Opera has form when it comes to refreshing classical repertoire with the elixir... Read more... |
Béatrice et Bénédict, GlyndebourneThursday, 28 July 2016
Locations count for little in most of Shakespeare's comedies. Only a literal-minded director would, for instance, insist on Messina, Sicily as the setting for Much Ado About Nothing. In Béatrice et Bénédict, on the other hand, Berlioz injects his... Read more... |
