Ravel
Classical CDs Weekly: Cage, Madetoja, Mussorgsky, Ravel, ScarlattiSaturday, 10 May 2014Madetoja: Symphonies 1&3, Okon Fuoko Suite Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra/John Storgårds (Ondine)The first movement of Leevi Madetoja's Symphony no 1 approaches perfection. The opening gesture is arresting, and the lilting second subject... Read more... |
Cabell, BBC Concert Orchestra, Lockhart, QEHTuesday, 01 April 2014Where did all the terrific programming energy of last year’s The Rest is Noise festival go? One answer – surprising given the orchestra’s former Friday night lite status – is into a two-concert adventure by the BBCCO. World to Come, World Once Known... Read more... |
Cabell, RPO, Dutoit, Royal Festival HallThursday, 13 February 2014This was the first of three Royal Festival Hall concerts during the first half of 2014 from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and its principal conductor Charles Dutoit, all three programmes consisting entirely of French music. The other two will be... Read more... |
Boris Giltburg, Queen Elizabeth HallFriday, 15 November 2013Among the diaspora of younger-generation Russian or Russian-trained pianists, there are at least four whose intellect and poetry match their technique. Three whose craft was honed at the Moscow or St Petersburg Conservatories – Yevgeny Sudbin,... Read more... |
Marc-André Hamelin, Wigmore HallTuesday, 05 November 2013French-Canadian pianist Hamelin has the technique and the stamina to play anything, which is why the note-crazy, obsessive “Night Wind” Sonata of Nikolay Medtner buzzed around at the heart of his recital. But between the proud resonance of its many... Read more... |
Kadouch, Vincent, BBC Singers, BBCSO, Minkowski, BarbicanSunday, 27 October 2013Back at the Barbican for a new season after a Far Eastern tour, the BBC Symphony Orchestra returned to pull off a characteristic stunt, a generous four-work programme featuring at least one piece surely no-one in the audience woud have heard live... Read more... |
Prom 56: Thibaudet, Gustav Mahler Jungendorchester, JordanSunday, 25 August 2013The visits of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester are a regular Proms highlight, only preceded (for me) by the John Wilson Orchestra in the speed with which they go from announcement to diary. Last year’s concert under Gatti was a whirling celebration... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Feldman, French Piano Concertos, Andreas OttensamerSaturday, 13 July 2013Debussy, Poulenc, Ravel, Françaix: Piano Concertos Florian Uhlig (piano), Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern/Pablo González (Hänssler Classic)I salivated when I read the tracklisting on this immaculately produced disc. I... Read more... |
Elisabeth Leonskaja, Queen Elizabeth HallThursday, 06 June 2013On most of her London visits, Elisabeth Leonskaja has been an unassuming high priestess of the mysteries and depths in core sonatas by Beethoven, Chopin and Schubert. This time she applied her Russian-school style of orchestral pianism, tempered as... Read more... |
Mangan, Royal Academy Opera Students, BBCSO, Denève, Barbican HallSaturday, 27 April 2013Highly sexed cockerels and cats, a lovesick lion and a ballet of frogs might not seem like a recipe, or rather a menagerie, for profundity. Yet in two ravishing French man (or child)-meets-beast fables for the stage, Poulenc and Ravel are quite... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Frank Bridge, Benjamin Grosvenor, TchaikovskySaturday, 29 September 2012Frank Bridge: Orchestral Works BBC National Orchestra of Wales/Richard Hickox (Chandos)Frank Bridge’s reputation has endured through the advocacy of his most famous pupil, Benjamin Britten. Britten revived several of Bridge’s large scale works... Read more... |
Ravel Double Bill, Glyndebourne Festival OperaSunday, 05 August 2012Ravel composed only two operas, both one-acters, widely separated in time, superficially very different, but both in a way about the same thing: naughtiness. In L’Heure espagnole (1911), the clockmaker’s wife, Conceptión, entertains a succession of... Read more... |