Stravinsky
Ruisi, Hallé, Elder, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - returning to Ravel’s gloriesFriday, 06 October 2023
Continuing the retrospective aspect of his final season as music director of the Hallé, Sir Mark Elder returned last night to Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, the work with which he opened the orchestra’s 2014-15 Manchester series to such memorable effect.... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Microphones, Massachusetts and mountainsSaturday, 19 August 2023
Antal Doráti: The Mercury Masters – The Mono Recordings (Decca Eloquence)The great Hungarian conductor Antal Doráti (1906-1988) enjoyed a long and prolific recording career, stretching from the mid-1940s to the early 1980s. This beautifully... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Peasant weddings, chilly vistas and bass drumsSaturday, 22 July 2023
Louise Farrenc: Symphonies 1-3 Insula Orchestra/Laurence Equilbey (Erato)Louise Farrenc (1804-1875) is not perhaps the best-known name among pre-20th century women composers garnering increased attention recent years – but she might be the... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Beer, brio and tubular bellsSaturday, 13 May 2023
Shostakovich: Symphonies 8, 9 and 10 Berliner Philharmoniker/Kirill Petrenko (Berlin Phil Media)Potential purchasers worrying that the Berlin sound might be a little too well-upholstered for Shostakovich needn’t worry; one striking aspect of... Read more... |
National Youth Orchestra, Gourlay, RFH review - non-stop jamboree at the highest levelMonday, 17 April 2023
What a manifesto against those in power who seem determined to knock the UK off its hard-won classical music pedestal: hundreds of young choristers and instrumentalists of two fabulous orchestras in a week-long celebration of innovative programming... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Infernal dances, hammered dulcimer and musical taxidermySaturday, 15 April 2023
Nadia & Lili Boulanger: Les Heures Claires - The Complete Songs Lucile Richardot (mezzo), Stéphane Degout (baritone), Raquel Camarinha (soprano), Anne de Fornel (piano), Sarah Nemtanu (violin), Emmanuelle Bertrand (cello) (Harmonia Mundi)... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Fireworks, floods and unpleasant glimpsesFriday, 31 March 2023
Debussy: Piano Works Volume 2 Dennis Lee (piano) (ICSM Records)I’m a huge fan of Colin Matthews’ idiomatic orchestral transcriptions of Debussy’s Préludes, so much so that it’s been a good few years since I’ve listened to the piano originals.... Read more... |
Hewitt, BBC Philharmonic, Davis, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - the classical styleMonday, 13 February 2023
Two intriguing themes and two great guest artists were offered by the BBC Philharmonic to their Saturday night audience in the Bridgewater Hall: the themes were what “classicism” really is, and the variety of music inspired by (or written for) dance... Read more... |
BBC National Chorus of Wales, BBC NOW, Jeannin, BBC Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff review - competent music-making, interesting choicesWednesday, 30 November 2022
There are conductors, and then again there are choral conductors. I sang under David Willcocks in Tallis’s 40-part "Spem in alium" and remember vividly that long-armed semaphoring that he later applied so notably with the Bach Choir.Sofi Jeannin,... Read more... |
The Rake's Progress, Royal Academy of Music review - Hogarth's Rake enters the digital ageWednesday, 23 November 2022
Paris, Vienna, Rome – all have their operatic homages. But London (and I mean real London, not the slightly-grey Italy of Donizetti’s Tudor Queens) only rarely makes it into the opera house. Curiously, on the rare occasions it does, it’s the seedy... Read more... |
Pioro, Julien-Laferrière, BBC Philharmonic, Schwarz, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - joy on a Saturday nightMonday, 14 November 2022
This was at first sight a somewhat ordinary looking programme for the BBC Philharmonic: Beethoven, Brahms … even Stravinsky doesn’t frighten a Saturday night audience in Manchester these days. They come for a good night out and quite a lot... Read more... |
English National Ballet: Ek, Forsythe, Quagebeur review - two masters, two marvelsSaturday, 12 November 2022
Of all the classic musical scores that could appeal to a choreographer, three are catnip: Ravel’s Bolero, Bizet’s Carmen, and Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Each has been set dozens of times and the veteran Swedish dancemaker Mats Ek has notched up... Read more... |
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