Schubert
Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Fischer, Royal Festival HallSaturday, 29 May 2010Rossini provided the lively curtain-raisers to both halves of this Chamber Orchestra of Europe concert, streamed live to Aberdeen where Shell, the sponsors, have something of a vested interest in keeping their employees entertained. The liquid gold... Read more... |
Christopher Nupen on Filming Music and MusiciansMonday, 18 January 2010"What is it about Schubert’s music that has such power 180 years on? It has nothing to do with who he slept with or what he had for breakfast – it’s the work," insists filmmaker Christopher Nupen, whose series of films about composers is currently... Read more... |
Razumovsky Ensemble, Wigmore HallWednesday, 13 January 2010Just to contemplate the shifting talent pool of this chamber co-operative can be giddying. Last night 10 great ensemble players, from top violin soloist Alexander Sitkovetsky to three London orchestral principals who must have jumped at the chance... Read more... |
Classical Music CDs Round-Up 3Friday, 11 December 2009Our pick of the latest Classical CDs ranges from Tchaikovsky's first and final symphonies to Greek-themed songs by Schubert, by way of late Stravinsky ballets, rare Roussel, a complete Sibelius cycle, cross-over music for recorder and a Superman... Read more... |
Imogen Cooper, QEHWednesday, 09 December 2009Even Schubert’s very earliest compositions terrify. His first songs, written when he was only 13, are unforgettably vivid, gory, messy, mangled, full of darkness and horror, like dead little birds. He never shakes off this Gothic sensibility; it’s... Read more... |
Wolfgang Holzmair, Andreas Haefliger, Wigmore HallSunday, 29 November 2009There’s something beyond detailed and attentive musicianship that’s needed in Schubert’s last, most desolate song-cycle, Winterreise (“Winter’s journey”). It’s a dramatic arc that unites these 24 songs into a journey, the number of breaths in time... Read more... |
LSO/Tilson Thomas, Goerne, Barbican HallSunday, 08 November 2009Michael Tilson Thomas’s association with the London Symphony Orchestra runs deep - he was its principal conductor for eight years, and for his latest return to his old band last night the American programmed works that, while they had a Viennese... Read more... |
Tread Softly/ Carnival of the Animals/ Comedy of Change, Rambert Dance, Sadler's WellsTuesday, 03 November 2009At its best (ie when it’s not trying to be gimmicky and snare so-called “new audiences”), Rambert is unique in Britain in providing music and dance as theatre. No other company matches it in commitment to this, not even the Royal Ballet, which long... Read more... |
Matthias Goerne, Alexander Schmalcz, Wigmore HallSunday, 20 September 2009When you go to a Schubert recital, you’re plunged into a whirlpool of emotional ambivalence, heat and chill running together, music and lyrics not always playing the same tune. When Schubert seizes on a poem, it’s not because he’s interested in... Read more... |
Prom 73: Vienna Philharmonic, Welser-MöstThursday, 10 September 2009The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra like to do things their way. They still show little compunction about discriminating on sexual and ethnic grounds and for over 70 years have maintained the idiosyncratic position of having no fixed principal... Read more... |
- ‹‹
- 13 of 13