Mozart
Le nozze di Figaro, Glyndebourne review - fabulous singing and a classy productionTuesday, 24 May 2022
After two years of Covid-affected performances – even though there was a full season last year – Glyndebourne's annual festival is finally back in full glory. Following the big blaze of Saturday's The Wreckers, Sunday welcomed back Michael Grandage'... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Double reeds, double pianos and double string orchestrasSaturday, 14 May 2022
Mozart, Hummel and Vanhal – Bassoon Concertos Sophie Dervaux (bassoon/conductor), Mozarteumorchester Salzburg (Berlin Classics)The performance of the Hummel Grand Concerto for bassoon from 1805 here is just superb. French-born Sophie... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Toyshops, begging gods and a good year for Austrian musicFriday, 29 April 2022
Mahler: Symphony No. 4 Czech Philharmonic Orchestra/Semyon Bychkov,with Chen Reiss (soprano) (Pentatone)Semyon Bychkov’s Mahler 4 is the first volume of a projected cycle from an orchestra with a surprisingly small Mahler discography. Mahler... Read more... |
Cooper, Bournemouth SO, Wigglesworth, Lighthouse, Poole review – musical sunburstsMonday, 07 March 2022
With reference to smiles beginning to emerge from behind our masks, Mark Wigglesworth, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra’s new Principal Guest Conductor, wrote the most hopeful and optimistic note of welcome in the programme for this concert... Read more... |
Klieser, Driver, Bournemouth SO Soloists, Lighthouse, Poole review - a celebration of E flatFriday, 25 February 2022
Although the large auditorium of Lighthouse, Poole may not offer the most favourable scale and intimacy for a chamber recital, the high quality of communicative chemistry and performance readily reached out to engage and hold the audience spellbound... Read more... |
Don Giovanni, Welsh National Opera review - fine young cast let down by unhelpful conductingSaturday, 19 February 2022
If Don Giovanni is not the greatest opera ever written, it’s at least one of the very, very few that even in erratic performances have the capacity to seem it. There was so much wrong, in detail, with WNO’s revival of John Caird’s now eleven year-... Read more... |
Fischer, LPO, Søndergård, RFH review - poised Mozart, lean and hungry StraussThursday, 03 February 2022
Mozart’s early violin concertos are precociously well-tailored and full of fun ideas, but are they “teenage masterpieces”, as Julia Fischer asserts? That special honour goes to the likes of Mendelssohn’s Octet and the most famous of Schubert’s 1815... Read more... |
Le nozze di Figaro, Royal Opera review - New Year champagneMonday, 10 January 2022
One of the galvanizing wonders of the operatic world happened when David McVicar’s production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro was new, back in 2006: the sight and sound of Royal Opera music director Antonio Pappano in seamless dual role as... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Weak heartbeats, bell foundries and French frothSaturday, 27 November 2021
Brahms: Symphony No. 4, MacMillan: Larghetto for Orchestra Pittsburgh Symphony, Manfred Honeck (Reference Recordings)Brahms 4 originally opened with four bars of soft wind chords. Thomas Hengelbrock reinstated them in his 2017 Sony recording;... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Rediscovered orchestral jazz, natural trumpets and non-seasonal chamber musicSaturday, 16 October 2021
Leo Sowerby: Paul Whiteman Commissions & other early works Andy Baker Orchestra, Avalon String Quartet (Cedille)Chicago’s Leo Sowerby (1895-1968) is remembered chiefly as a prolific composer of sacred scores, a Pullitzer-Prize winning... Read more... |
The Magic Flute, Royal Opera review - all but a guarantee of a great night outSaturday, 18 September 2021
Rarely has the revolving door of opera twirled so efficiently. David McVicar’s venerable production of Rigoletto may have exited the Royal Opera on Monday (presumably with one final squeak of protest from that pesky revolve), replaced by a shiny new... Read more... |
Ólafsson, Philharmonia, Järvi, BBC Proms review - a ravishing Proms debutMonday, 16 August 2021
What does it mean to be Classical? It’s the question award-winning Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson has consistently asked in a career that has collided music from Bach to Debussy, presenting them as part of a single conversation and continuum.... Read more... |
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