Sibelius
White smoke at the CBSO: Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla for Music DirectorThursday, 04 February 2016
The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra's appointment of the Lithuanian conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla as its new Music Director won’t have surprised many concertgoers in Birmingham – or indeed regular readers of theartsdesk. The post has been... Read more... |
Rana, CBSO, Gražinytė-Tyla, Symphony Hall BirminghamMonday, 11 January 2016
As pianist Beatrice Rana ran up the final bars of Schumann’s Piano Concerto, the conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla turned to her soloist and simply beamed. As well she might. Rana is an artist whose advance publicity belies the seriousness and... Read more... |
Best of 2015: Classical ConcertsSaturday, 26 December 2015
The musical future looks bright indeed, at least from my perspective. There are more classical concerts than ever going on across the UK on most days of the year, so who can know with any authority what might have been missed? Yet each of... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Montanari, Sibelius, Stephen KovacevichSaturday, 31 October 2015
Montanari: Violin Concertos Johannes Pramsohler (violin and director), Ensemble Diderot (Audax Records)Versatile baroque violinist Johannes Pramsohler’s latest act of musical exhumation introduces us to one Antonio Maria Montanari, a violinist... Read more... |
theartsdesk at the Music@Malling FestivalThursday, 01 October 2015
One of the summer’s greatest pleasures has been to confirm an often untested truism: that you may hear some of the finest and rarest music-making in out-of-the-way places. Just take a local who’s made the grade – in this instance, violinist and... Read more... |
Trpčeski, CBSO, Măcelaru, Symphony Hall BirminghamFriday, 25 September 2015
Cards on the table: the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is looking for a new music director. Having filled its new season with emerging talents – Andrew Gourlay, Daniele Rustioni, Ryan Wigglesworth and Ben Gernon, to name just four – it’s an... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Lahti: Sibelius 150, Sibelius HallSunday, 13 September 2015
When Lahti’s Sibelius Hall finally shone and coruscated into life in 2000, the 100,000 citizens of this modest Finnish town, not to mention acousticians from all over the world, could hardly believe their eyes and ears. Here, at last, was not only a... Read more... |
Prom 58: Kullervo, BBCSO, OramoSunday, 30 August 2015
Last night's Proms performance of Sibelius's Kullervo symphony was radiant, unforgettable, but there has also been a pure coincidence this past week which is simply too good to pass over unremarked: Thursday also saw the first-time publication... Read more... |
Prom 47 : BBCSO, Oramo/ Prom 48: AAM, HillSaturday, 22 August 2015
It’s been glorious to hear so much Bach at this year’s Proms – most of it after dark, and still more of it for the most intimate of forces. On paper, the Academy of Ancient Music and BBC Singers’ Late Night concert of Bach choral works didn’t quite... Read more... |
Prom 43: BBCSO, VänskäTuesday, 18 August 2015
Nearly 10 years ago to the day, an almost unknown 24-year-old Venezuelan conductor came a cropper when valiantly stepping in at short notice to conduct Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony at the Proms. (His name was Gustavo Dudamel. Whatever happened to him... Read more... |
Prom 42: Rachlin, BBCSSO, VolkovMonday, 17 August 2015
A second night of Sibelius symphonies at the Proms, packed to the rafters just like its predecessor. Exit Thomas Dausgaard, the tuba needed for the first two symphonies but not for the Third or – surprising given its pervasive darkness – the Fourth... Read more... |
Prom 40: BBCSSO, DausgaardSunday, 16 August 2015
From Sakari Oramo’s riveting Nielsen symphonies at the Barbican to Thomas Dausgaard kicking off the Proms’ Sibelius cycle, the two Nordic immortals are well served in their 150th birthday year. The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, whose reins... Read more... |
