Shostakovich
David Nice
Somehow the manic cry of “Scooby-Doo man!” from the back of the stalls didn’t seem too incongruous. We were in the thick of Shostakovich’s craziest symphony, the Fourth, composed in the mid 1930s when such maverick Russian talent was about to be stamped on and potentially quite a sledgehammer of a season opener for the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Instead dapper Jukka-Pekka Saraste - a more than satisfactory replacement for the great Neeme Järvi - ran through this nightmarish world like an open razor, every cutting gesture aimed with deadly accuracy, having allocated the spiritual healing to a Read more ...
graham.rickson
Hans Gál: Symphony No 4, Schumann: Symphony No 2 Orchestra of the Swan/Kenneth Woods (Avie)Hans Gál’s four symphonies are being slowly rehabilitated, thanks in part to Avie’s ongoing series. An Austrian Jew who eventually settled in Edinburgh and achieved fame as an academic, Gál’s early renown came through composition. His final symphony was completed in 1974 but - intensely personal, elegiac, nostalgic music, and completely out of step with the times - it could have been written 80 years previously. Gál saw himself as part of the Austro-German tradition, and his last symphony achieves Read more ...
Kimon Daltas
It is a rare treat for Londoners to have the CBSO with Andris Nelsons in town, and the Albert Hall was, if not fully sold out, then certainly well stocked. It would be fair to assume that the main draw was Shostakovich’s giant and much-debated Leningrad symphony after the interval; but first up was Glinka’s Ruslan and Lyudmila overture and the UK premiere of Emily Howard’s Calculus of the Nervous System. Both together they added up to a mere 20 minutes and we were out in the interval in the blink of an eye: such are the challenges of programming around a 75-minute symphony. In its short span Read more ...
Ismene Brown
Can this really be only an afternoon’s travelling away from traffic-choked London? I’m waist-deep in wild blue lupins on a verdant Swiss mountain looking for a concert hall.A cow’s bell nearby is slightly frustrating - beyond the lupins, I guess, is another steep field with the track I need; a paraglider high above me is out of earshot, though they’d be able to see the hall better than I can. I’m trying to get to a masterclass by that captivating operatic soprano of the past, Ileana Cotrubas, who is here as one of the Verbier Festival’s habitual stars-of-stars helping out rising talents. Read more ...
Ismene Brown
Rio Ferdinand did four years' ballet training as a child, England manager Graham Taylor sent the national squad to dance classes, while the Royal Ballet once ran an active football team. Ballet and football have long been secret lovers backstage. But they have only been rarely seen out together in public.The tidy formations and rehearsed moves that please in dance theatre aren't compatible with the unpredictable spontaneity of football, and while kings of grace such as Ronaldinho, Zinedine Zidane or Dennis Bergkamp bring tears to the eyes with their individual flair, it's the overall arc of a Read more ...
graham.rickson
Bruckner: Symphony No 9 (with Finale completed by Samale-Phillips-Cohrs-Mazzuca) Berliner Philharmoniker/Sir Simon Rattle(EMI)Anton Bruckner’s last symphony is near perfect in its three-movement form. The realisation that the Finale was left almost complete after Bruckner’s death in 1896 is something you’d rather not confront. The vast Adagio closes in a mood of such otherworldly serenity that it’s difficult to imagine anything following it. We’ll get to that last movement later; programme your CD player to play the first three tracks alone and you’ve a very decent conventional Bruckner Read more ...
geoff brown
Originally, this concert was to open with that mercurial wonder Martha Argerich playing an unspecified piano concerto. Then its first item became Martha Argerich not playing anything, for the good lady, almost as rare a visitor to Britain as the Man in the Moon, did what she’s famous for doing. She cancelled. Acting with award-winning panache, the Barbican then found a substitute artist who’s recently become even rarer, the violinist Maxim Vengerov. Known for his golden tone, charisma and fire, Vengerov last performed in Britain with his violin in 2007: the year of his serious shoulder Read more ...
graham.rickson
Havergal Brian: Symphony No 1 The Gothic BBC National Orchestra of Wales, BBC Concert Orchestra etc/Martyn Brabbins (Hyperion)The performers involved are too numerous to list above; Hyperion do include the names of every instrumentalist, soloist and choir member in the booklet, more than 800 of them. This is a recording of the 2011 Proms performance, recorded with spectacular definition by the BBC on 17 July last year. Where to begin? This is a hugely impressive record of a great performance, but I’m not convinced that this is great music. But you can’t help feeling thankful Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
A music broadcaster commented after last night’s concert by the Australian Chamber Orchestra that all the hype, all the talk about the surf-obsessed, free-spirited leader Richard Tognetti, had left her half expecting them to surf onto the stage of the Queen Elizabeth Hall. As they walked on however (decorously, and rather more smartly dressed than most English groups) we were reminded that there’s nothing gimmicky about this ensemble. They might stage surf-music retreats, play concerts in the Australian desert, but when it comes down to performance they are as ferociously serious as any of Read more ...
David Nice
Praise be, or slava if you prefer, to Valery Gergiev for honouring new Russian music alongside his hallmark interpretations - ever evolving or dangerously volatile according to taste – of Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Stravinsky. Last LSO season featured some of the less than inspired recent works Rodion Shchedrin has been dredging by the yard. Yet few would begrudge the palm of deep and original musical thought to this past week’s heroine, Sofia Gubaidulina. Gergiev riveted a quarter-full Albert Hall with her stunning St John Passion and Resurrection at the 2001 Proms, and last night he had a Read more ...
David Nice
Many of Italy's artistic institutions may have tottered or crumbled during the Berlusconi years, and the more capable new man in the Palazzo Chigi can only offer painful sticking plaster, yet one major orchestra has never sounded better. Of the two elder statesmen among conductors returning to Rome this month, Riccardo Muti may bring a cosmetic gravitas to the tentative renaissance of Rome's beleaguered Opera House; but Claudio Abbado revisited the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia last Sunday after a 30-year absence to confirm perhaps the country's only blazing musical success story, an Read more ...
graham.rickson
Bach: Five Keyboard Concertos Ramin Bahrami, Gewandhausorchester, Riccardo Chailly (Decca)We’re spoilt for choice in these concertos; Perahia, Schiff and Hewitt have given us excellent versions, and another new one by Alexandre Tharaud has just been released by Virgin Classics. I prefer Bach’s solo keyboard music played on piano, but I’m willing to concede that period instruments can suit the keyboard concertos better, given the delicious contrast in timbre between harpsichord and bowed strings. These readings, played by the Iranian-born pianist Ramin Bahrami, are good enough to make me never Read more ...