piano
graham.rickson
Adventures In Sound (él records)Dipping in and out of this highly desirable box set recalls 1950s sci-fi visions of the future, looking forward to a time when we'd all be driving flying cars and living under a benevolent one-world government. Alas, this is 2019 and things aren't quite so rosy. There's some seriously strange music here, undoubtedly forward-looking but very much of its time. Begin with Pierre Shaeffer, a French radio engineer who began playing with turntables to manipulate and distort sounds as early as 1948. His Cinq études de bruit was a groundbreaking example of Read more ...
graham.rickson
Couperin: Les Nations Réunies & autres sonades La Simphonie du Marais/Hugo Reyne (Musiques à la Chabotterie)François Couperin was one of the baroque era’s greatest keyboard composers. Did he write any orchestral music? Er, no. Though listen to a few minutes of Hugo Reyne’s version of his trio sonata “La Pucelle” and you'll be wondering where this music has been all your life. La Simphonie du Marais’s director and flautist, Reyne gives us a discursive but entertaining booklet essay in the form of an imaginary interview with Couperin. Near the end he tells the composer that “we made a Read more ...
graham.rickson
Mia Brentano’s Hidden Sea – 20 Songs for 2 Pianos Benyamin Nuss & Max Nyberg (pianos) (Mons Records)Hiddensee is a car-free German island in the Baltic Sea. It's mentioned as one possible inspiration for the pieces on this beguiling disc; this music exists in its own prelapsarian world. There are allusions to Gershwin and, allegedly, Barbra Streisand, though the popular influences are treated in sophisticated ways. These pieces also sound incredibly difficult to play, Brentano suggesting that these songs without words need classically trained pianists to do them justice. “Early Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
Most classical concert reviews focus on prominent orchestras and opera companies at major venues. But beyond the likes of the Barbican and the Royal Opera House, there are whole strata of musical life where smaller scale ensembles and amateur choirs provide a vital live music experience in less exalted venues.The Conway Hall in London is one such venue, whose offering goes beyond music – it embraces art, lectures, community events and even monthly atheist "services" – but whose main hall has a pleasant acoustic for its regular Sunday concerts.Last Sunday’s was given by the Fibonacci Sequence Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
"The opportunities in standard concert formats are fewer than they were. You have to be versatile and look at different ways to bring this rich canvas of music to your audience," says pianist Lucy Parham. Over the past decade and a half, she has developed a speciality of devising and performing “Composer Portrait” concerts with actors, in which classical piano repertoire is performed alongside readings and stories which tell the life-story of a composer.The first of these portraits was Beloved Clara, the story of Brahms and the Schumanns, which was premiered in 2002. Since then, four more Read more ...
graham.rickson
Record shops may be thin on the ground, but CDs are still very much with us. No sensible soul would ever rate listening to a recording over experiencing music live. But if, like me, time, money and geography limit one’s opportunities to nip out to concerts, a well-produced CD can plug the gap very nicely. I’m still a fan of the physical product over the download: removing shrink wrap and flicking through sleeve notes are one of life's minor pleasures, and several releases in this list score highly in terms of aesthetics as well as music making. Here are my 10 favourite recordings from the Read more ...
Mahan Esfahani / Richard Goode, Wigmore Hall review - clarity and contrast from two keyboard masters
Sebastian Scotney
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 invited by the Wigmore Hall to present more or less the entirety of Bach’s works for harpsichord over five seasons. The series started with the Goldberg Variations, and in the current season, he is working his way through all of the Partitas, with further instalments to come in March and July. It is a series which really brings to life Beethoven’s idea Read more ...
Katie Colombus
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.Constructed playlists of relentless bangers have been replaced by a mellow experience of sound – tactile and intimate. The mere nature of placing needle on vinyl makes me sit nearby, take time to stop what I’m doing, and just listen. I'm tired of the relentless buzz and noise of being always on, the addiction to 'results' whether of Spotify most Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
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 technique. And Schubert is an excellent choice, arguably her strongest suit – perhaps a joint first with Mozart – though her many recordings and performances in the past are little preparation for her always unpredictable approach.Schubert’s piano sonatas make demands on the pianist, both in technique and interpretation, and every player Read more ...
Katie Colombus
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 with Paloma Faith, Sophie Ellis Bextor, James Bay and Lana Del Ray, among others. So it comes as a surprise to hear Ed’s eighth studio album, Beyond The End, is a very personal journey of heartfelt, melodic piano pieces accompanied by his wife Gita Langley’s violin and Amy Langley’s cello.He offers the album up as an antidote to the noise and demand Read more ...
Glyn Môn Hughes
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 the most potent marketing forces for the organisation for many a long year. It has nothing to do with the "beautiful game", though. Instead, Vasily Petrenko and Simon Trpčeski have become the organisation’s box office golden boys, with concert tickets selling almost instantly and recordings garnering cupboards-full of trophies.Indeed, as Trpčeski Read more ...
David Nice
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 Kolesnikov been competing and given a performance like the one he did last night, there'd have been a riot had he not won. This was all about space, intelligent rethinking, imagination, an apparent ease and surface calm in the most daunting passages: a very hard act to follow, and the resurrection of Ethel Smyth's D major Mass after the interval wasn't Read more ...