LSO
LSO, Rattle, BBC Proms review - dazzling Stravinsky showcaseMonday, 23 August 2021
Simon Rattle and the LSO marked the 50th anniversary of Stravinsky’s death with a concert of three “symphonies”. In fact, the programme had little to say about Stravinsky’s relationship with symphonic form: his early E flat Symphony was omitted, and... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Soviet symphonies, popular classics and percussionSaturday, 14 August 2021
Louise Farrenc; Symphonies 1&3 Insula Orchestra/Laurence Equilbey (Erato)Louise Farrenc’s music is good as you’d expect from a precocious talent who’d studied piano with Hummel and composition with Reicha. Born in 1804, Farrenc’s... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Three great conductors remembered, Mahler with accordion and a song cycle with no singerSaturday, 05 June 2021
André Previn: The Warner Edition – Complete HMV & Teldec Recordings (Warner Classics)Flicking through this box set will provoke a Proustian rush if you’re of a certain age. These recordings were mostly made for EMI, though Warner Classics... Read more... |
Wigmore Hall at Portman Square / Wang, LSO, Tilson Thomas, LSO St Luke's review - al fresco chamber, full orchestra indoorsTuesday, 01 June 2021
Sometimes the big musical institutions follow off-piste trailblazers. John Gilhooly of the Wigmore Hall has been a hero in lockdown year, keeping musicians paid up and performing to audiences live or via livestream (or both); but it was clarinettist... Read more... |
LSO, Rattle, Barbican review - songs and dances in a room with an audienceWednesday, 19 May 2021
It began with a sense of wonder, not just from the Barbican's socially distanced audience but also from the stage, at “that sound you make with your hands”, as Simon Rattle put it in what he said was a novelty speech before a performance. What... Read more... |
Das Lied von der Erde, Kožená, Staples, LSO, Rattle, Barbican online review - more joy than sorrowTuesday, 11 May 2021
The drunkard in spring; the lonely man in autumn; the long goodbye. Mahler’s last song-cycle often seems to embody solitude; a resigned, earthly counterpart to the transcendent rapture of his previous work, the Eighth Symphony, as a superstitious... Read more... |
Two LSO concerts on Marquee TV review - vibrant triptychesFriday, 05 March 2021
In amongst the heavy-hearted duty of supporting orchestras by watching their concert streamings – not something I’d do by choice – there are two real joys here. One is the discovery of Austrian composer Franz Schreker’s Chamber Symphony of 1916. The... Read more... |
Zimerman, LSO, Rattle, LSO St Luke's review - rainbow colours, continuity and imperial soaringFriday, 18 December 2020
Adaptability backed up by funding has been the course of the most successful musical organisations since mid-March – but it’s been especially tough from November onwards. One abrupt lockdown meant that anything scheduled to be performed before a... Read more... |
Not-quite-solitude on the 34th floor: violinist Maxine Kwok on the short film 'Rising'Thursday, 03 December 2020
2020: a year that at some point felt like the end of live performance for the world of the performing arts, certainly for the foreseeable future. Artists spent months without any form of collaboration, leading to a serious lack of motivation due to... Read more... |
Bluebeard's Castle, LSO, Rattle, LSO St Luke's online review - slow-burning magnificenceWednesday, 04 November 2020
Poulenc’s La voix humaine comes close, but Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle has to be the perfect lockdown opera, this heady tale of two mismatched souls stuck in a confined space (admittedly an enormous one) alarmingly pertinent. Simon Rattle’s London... Read more... |
London Symphony Orchestra, Hasan, LSO St Luke's review - dances great and smallTuesday, 20 October 2020
Big orchestras to serve the late romantic masterpieces and contemporary blockbusters still aren’t the order of the Covid-era day, even in streamed events, at least not in the UK. The London Symphony Orchestra is so far unique in bigging up the... Read more... |
Eavesdropping on Rattle, the LSO and Bartók’s BluebeardWednesday, 16 September 2020
One source of advance information told us to expect a reduced version of Bartók’s one-act Bluebeard’s Castle, among the 20th century’s most original and profound operatic masterpieces. Joining 19 other lucky invitees and some of the LSO brass... Read more... |
