LSO
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... |
BBC Proms live online: Uchida, LSO, Rattle review – eclectic concert makes good TVMonday, 31 August 2020
Sunday night’s Prom by the London Symphony Orchestra was Simon Rattle’s 75th and surely his strangest. But, in his best style, it was eclectically programmed, balancing novelty with tradition, responded imaginatively to the restrictions in place,... Read more... |
Classical Music/Opera direct to home 10 - for free, or not for free?Friday, 08 May 2020
Time to face the elephant in the room. Five of the six set-ups listed below are free to access; one is not. While big organisations like the Met – despite not paying its artists or staff since lockdown – and the London Symphony Orchestra can use... Read more... |
Radio 3 In Concert, BBC Sounds - a wonderful week of musicTuesday, 28 April 2020
The absence of live concerts is not just affecting the "in the flesh" audiences, but also having a knock-on effect for the Radio 3 audience, used to hearing a live or as-live concert every night of the week. The BBC have instead gone to the archive... Read more... |
Classical Music/Opera direct to home 4 - Rattle in the etherSunday, 29 March 2020
He may no longer be the Berlin Philharmoniker's Chief Conductor, but by a combination of serendipity and foresight on the orchestra's part, Simon Rattle's last concert in Berlin for the foreseeable future was filmed without an audience and led the... Read more... |
Frang, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - hearing the silenceMonday, 16 March 2020
Three deep-veined masterpieces by two of the 20th century's greatest composers who just happened to be British, all fading at the end to nothing: beyond interpretations of such stunning focus as those offered by violinist Vilde Frang, conductor... Read more... |
Beethoven Discovery Day, Batiashvili, LSO, Rattle, Barbican review – reassessing a rarityMonday, 20 January 2020
#Beethoven250 is in full swing at the Barbican. Like most venues, they are keen to show a different side to the composer in his jubilee year. And the oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives ticks all sorts of anniversary boxes. The work is utterly... Read more... |
Ibragimova, LSO, Stutzmann, Barbican review – grace and gravityFriday, 10 January 2020
Alina Ibragimova’s solo journey (in 2015) through the peaks and abysses of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas gave me vivid Proms memories to treasure for a lifetime. The Russian-born violinist’s Bach abounds in both majesty and tenderness, as well as a... Read more... |
Cargill, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - high anxiety and visionary gleamsFriday, 13 December 2019
What a jolting coincidence that one of the 20th century's angriest symphonic beasts should have a rare unleashing on a night of high national anxiety. Whether Vaughan Williams spewed forth his Fourth Symphony in response to darkening European clouds... Read more... |
