sun 05/05/2024

OAE

Classical CDs Weekly: Britten, Mahler, Arvo Pärt

 Britten: A Ceremony of Carols, Saint Nicolas Choir of Trinity College Cambridge, Holst Singers, City of London Sinfonia/Stephen Layton (Hyperion)2013 will be Britten’s centenary, so brace yourself for an onslaught of new and reissued...

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Montgomery, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Queen Elizabeth Hall

It’s a sadness to all lovers of the French horn that Mozart’s four horn concertos, the product of his longest friendship, make their appearance all too rarely in the concert hall. Though the building blocks of the repertoire, perhaps their apparent...

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Ibragimova, Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment, Gardner, Mansion House

For the general public, getting to see the Mansion House in the City of London is almost as easy a task as becoming a dentist who specialises in hen’s teeth. But that was not the only reason for coming along to last night’s Orchestra of the Age of...

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Aimard, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Rattle, Royal Festival Hall

The repertoire of the OAE is creeping away from the 18th century and into the 20th with such unashamed eagerness, it wouldn't be at all surprising to see them throwing up an urtext edition of "Hit Me Baby One More Time" in a few seasons. Last...

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Rattle rolls up for The Night Shift

Sir Simon Rattle has a reputation as one of classical music's most persuasive talkers. Only not with a baton in his hand. His skills as both a verbal and musical communicator will be simultaneously on view for the first time next month when he makes...

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Roméo et Juliette: Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Elder, Royal Festival Hall

It's one of the fundamental rules of concert-going that in any given season there will be one piece that trips you up. And that piece will always be by Berlioz. No matter what new alchemical concoctions Boulez, Lachenmann, Ferneyhough or Rihm will...

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Symphony, BBC Four

Having blazed a trail through choral music, Simon Russell Beale now focuses his attentions on the symphony in this new four-part series. At last able to put aside the mind-games and chicanery of his role as Home Secretary William Towers in Spooks (...

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Die Entführung aus dem Serail, OAE, Queen Elizabeth Hall

Susan Gritton: A powerful force as Mozart's most virtuosic of heroines

A problem child in any number of ways, Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail doesn’t always get the professional attention it deserves, certainly not from London companies. The opera’s last outing at the Royal Opera House dates back almost a decade...

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Sir Charles Mackerras Memorial Concert, Royal Festival Hall

Sir Charles Mackerras during rehearsals for his final Philharmonia concert last December

In the last year of his life he was, as a colleague noted when we learned of Charles Mackerras’s death, the wise old gamekeeper in the spring forest of Janáček's Cunning Little Vixen. No wonder Mackerras, we were told last night by his conductor...

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Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Rattle, Royal Albert Hall

In 1860 Wagner sent a full score of his recently published Tristan und Isolde to Berlioz, inscribing it: “To the great and dear composer of Roméo et Juliette, from the grateful composer of Tristan und Isolde.” The bonds between these two works go...

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OAE, Ivan Fischer, QEH

If Beethoven’s Third Symphony Eroica was the seismic upheaval, not just for Beethoven but for the entire symphonic movement, then the Second Symphony was most certainly the pre-shock. And we can be precise about the moment that Beethoven blows the...

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The Night Shift, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, QEH

Go on, admit it. You’ve done it too. Someone is talking in your vicinity and you’ve turned round to give them evils. It’s a manoeuvre I’ve been perfecting for years. The classic rebuke is in the speedy twist of the neck, a withering glance in the...

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