piano
Mahan Esfahani / Richard Goode, Wigmore Hall review - clarity and contrast from two keyboard mastersTuesday, 18 December 2018
Two successive nights, two contrasted solo keyboard recitals at the Wigmore Hall: not great for the knees but marvellous for the soul. On Saturday the Tehran-born, US-raised harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani continued a mammoth project: he has been... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2018: Erland Cooper - Solan GooseThursday, 13 December 2018
I’ve noticed a stark shift in transition of the kind of music I want to spend my time listening to over 2018. I’ve slowed down. I’ve started listening to Radio 6. I’m a little bit in love with Mary Anne Hobbs. And I bought a record player.... Read more... |
Mitsuko Uchida, Royal Festival Hall review - conviction and graceSaturday, 08 December 2018
Mitsuko Uchida continues her world tour of Schubert sonatas with two concerts for the home crowd, this the second of her appearances at the Festival Hall. The tour coincides with Uchida’s 70th birthday, but the years have done little to diminish her... Read more... |
CD: Ed Harcourt - Beyond the EndWednesday, 21 November 2018
Was anyone prepared for the fact that Ed Harcourt's new album would be fully instrumental? He's known as a songwriter – hailed for his Mercury Prize-nominated debut album, Here Be Monsters in 2001, then swapping solo work for song-writing, working... Read more... |
Trpčeski, RLPO, Petrenko, Liverpool Philharmonic Hall review - one composer, many viewsMonday, 19 November 2018
It probably goes without saying that there will be "dream teams" in a football-mad city like Liverpool. What might be a little unusual is that this particular one has long been associated with the Liverpool Philharmonic and has turned into one of... Read more... |
Kolesnikov, BBCSO, Brabbins, Barbican review - rethought masterpiece, stolid rarityFriday, 16 November 2018
Forget the latest International Tchaikovsky Competition winner (I almost have; only a dim memory of Dmitry Masleev's playing the notes in the obligatory First Piano Concerto, and nothing else, remains from an Istanbul performance). Had Pavel... Read more... |
Federico Colli, Wigmore Hall review – poised on the edge of the possibleFriday, 02 November 2018
The Italian pianist Federico Colli, 30, best known so far as winner of the 2012 Leeds International Piano Competition, last night arrived for his Wigmore Hall debut sporting an emerald-green cravat, but the sonic colours he magicked out of the piano... Read more... |
Two-Piano Marathon, Kings Place review - dazzling duos, deep watersMonday, 08 October 2018
You get a lot of notes for your money in a two-piano recital - especially when seven pianists share the honours for two and a half hours' worth of playing time. Well, they did call it a marathon, crowning the London Piano Festival so shiningly... Read more... |
Anderson & Roe, RLPO, Tali, Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool review - measured fireSaturday, 06 October 2018
There must be something of a beauty parade going on in Liverpool now that Vasily Petrenko has called time on his tenure at Philharmonic Hall. After all, someone will need to step into his shoes from 2021 after he departs for the Royal... Read more... |
Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier - Book 2, Hewitt, Wigmore Hall review – high drama in 24 short actsFriday, 05 October 2018
Bach specialists like to explain that the second book of preludes and fugues in The Well-Tempered Clavier, composed around 1740 and thus almost two decades after the first, draws on more of the fancy and daring “modern” music of its time than its... Read more... |
Katya Apekisheva, Charles Owen, Kings Place review - one plus one equals a hundredThursday, 04 October 2018
We could probably spend all day pondering what makes a great musical partnership. Is it long experience, special sensitivity, a shared sense of humour? We’d get nowhere, though because there is, genuinely, something about it that can't be explained... Read more... |
Uchida, Connolly, Skelton, LPO, Jurowski, RFH review – songs of farewellMonday, 01 October 2018
Not all composers require the finger of mortality pointing at them to develop what becomes a late style. Charges of detachment and even indifference have been levelled at the B flat major Piano Concerto K595 which Mozart completed early in the year... Read more... |
