piano
Mainetti, Perianes, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Pons, BarbicanSaturday, 15 January 2011
This was a programme born for marketing cliché: banish the winter blues by bathing in Latin American/Iberian warmth. And it turned out to be true, by virtue of an unexpected watershed. How did the BBC Symphony strings manage to be first among the... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Pianist Elisabeth LeonskajaSaturday, 04 December 2010
Born in 1945 to Russian parents in Tbilisi, Georgia, Elisabeth Leonskaja gave her first major recital at the age of 11 and went on to study at the Moscow Conservatory, emigrating from the Soviet Union to Vienna in 1978 and making a sensational... Read more... |
Julia Fischer, Martin Helmchen, Queen Elizabeth HallTuesday, 30 November 2010
An entire evening of Schumann for two would usually cue singer and piano. Not that the majority of Lieder specialists, blessed as naughty Anna Russell once saw it "with tremendous artistry but no voice", could hold the spell for that long. Julia... Read more... |
The Risør Festival at the Wigmore HallSunday, 28 November 2010
A hell of a lot of talent was on display last night at the Wigmore Hall, where pianist Leif Ove Andsnes's home festival of Risør was stationed for the weekend. The big draw was a performance of The Rite of Spring for two pianos. The work is violent... Read more... |
Angela Hewitt, Wigmore HallSunday, 21 November 2010
In 1932 English pianist Harriet Cohen commissioned the best of Britain’s composers – Vaughan Williams, Ireland, Walton, Howells – to produce transcriptions of Bach for piano. The result, A Bach Book for Harriet Cohen, is a true document of its time... Read more... |
Stephen Kovacevich 70th Birthday Concert, Wigmore HallMonday, 18 October 2010
Heartfelt birthday salutations to the great pianist first known as plain Stephen Bishop. For a recital in the early 1980s, when he first added the paternal Croatian "Kovacevich", introducing me to late Brahms piano music - Op 117, never more... Read more... |
Kissin, LPO, Neeme Järvi, Royal Festival HallWednesday, 06 October 2010
"Well, Kissin's the star of the show," opined the fatuous gentleman who rolled in late to my row after the first piece on the programme. Possibly not, I wanted to snap back, in the light of that very fine pianist's current erratic form. But in any... Read more... |
Mitsuko Uchida, Royal Festival HallWednesday, 06 October 2010
Mitsuko Uchida’s playing is a glorious collusion of intellect and fantasy. Her recitals are meticulously planned but seemingly unexpected with chosen pieces impacting upon each other in ways one might not have imagined. Three keyboard giants –... Read more... |
Stephen Petronio Company, Barbican TheatreWednesday, 06 October 2010
Nico Muhly at the piano, Stephen Petronio in a false beard, a storm-at-sea theme derived from The Tempest - how hip is that? I Drink the Air Before Me, a new work for the Stephen Petronio Company as the opening night of this year’s Dance Umbrella (... Read more... |
New Generation at Maida ValeThursday, 30 September 2010Eleven years is a long time when you're launching young talent on the world. Since 1999, BBC Radio 3's New Generation Artists have gone forth and multiplied. All the "graduates" have outstanding careers, and among them some of the names which will... Read more... |
Russian afternoon, Rudy, Ivashkin, Kings PlaceSaturday, 11 September 2010
Two years after its first festive spree of 100 events, Kings Place has become the most congenial of all London's concert-hall zones in which to hang loose. On Friday afternoon I could have trotted happily between Russian piano classics, youth jazz... Read more... |
The Lying Down Concert: Earthrise, Royal Opera HouseSunday, 05 September 2010
We should lie down to listen to music much more often. Gravity pulls away the thought and frown lines, smoothes the intellectual tracks and folds on the face, while you feel the blood in your head pumping lushly to dreamier parts of your brain.... Read more... |
