Tchaikovsky
Connolly, BBC Philharmonic, Storgårds, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - beginning with a fanfareMonday, 02 October 2023![]() The opening concert of a new season often tends to be a statement of intent, and this was John Storgårds’ opener of the first full season since he was appointed chief conductor of the BBC Philharmonic. He’s hardly a newcomer to them, though, since... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Penitence, pipe smoking and soot spritesSaturday, 05 August 2023![]() Otto Klemperer: The Warner Classics Remastered Edition (Warner Classics)The young Otto Klemperer’s conducting career was encouraged by no less than Gustav Mahler, Klemperer’s meteoric rise leading him to become director of Berlin’s Kroll Opera... Read more... |
Goosby, RSNO, Bringuier, Usher Hall, Edinburgh review - lyrical colour and dynamic brillianceThursday, 27 April 2023![]() When a publication as venerable as Gramophone features an artist on its front cover, it’s a surefire sign that they’ve hit the big time. This month that honour fell to young American violinist Randall Goosby and, coincidentally, he was the soloist... Read more... |
Osborne, RSNO, Chan, Usher Hall, Edinburgh - cinematic sweep and surging dramaTuesday, 21 March 2023![]() Two women featured prominently in this programme; the one a composer and the other a conductor.To the composer first. Long before she hit New York big time, Anna Clyne was at Edinburgh University, so there’s a strong link with Scotland that the... Read more... |
Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty, Sadler's Wells review - a gothic romance with loads of goth and not much loveSaturday, 17 December 2022![]() Matthew Bourne is not the first choreographer to tinker with the story of The Sleeping Beauty and he won't be the last, such is the lure of Tchaikovsky's score and the potency of the plot.Good and evil, beauty and decrepitude, the suspended... Read more... |
Gillam, Brodsky Quartet, Manchester Camerata, Buxton International Festival 2022 review - a freshness in classic ElgarWednesday, 20 July 2022![]() It’s an ill heatwave that brings nobody any good, and Buxton International Festival’s decision to move its highlight concert, by Manchester Camerata with Jess Gillam and the Brodsky Quartet as their guests, from the Buxton Octagon to St John’s... Read more... |
First person: Ukrainian violinist Valeriy Sokolov on performing while his homeland is destroyedFriday, 24 June 2022![]() A fortnight ago I performed Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto with the Aurora Orchestra, joining them and their Principal Conductor Nicholas Collon in Cologne. Tonight we shall present the same programme at the Royal Festival Hall. These are my first... Read more... |
Eugene Onegin, Opera Holland Park Young Artists review - intimacy and reflectionTuesday, 14 June 2022![]() Sitting in a huge marquee on a June evening, with the sun peeking through every gap in the canopy, it is quite a stretch to imagine yourself in the remote countryside of rural Russia. But this new production of Eugene Onegin manages that, and with a... Read more... |
Russians and friends play on for UkraineWednesday, 16 March 2022National sensitivities are running understandably high right now in the thick of an ever-escalating aggression. What a shame that the Southbank Centre has excluded Russian artists from performing alongside British and Ukrainian performers to bring a... Read more... |
Liebeck, Bournemouth SO, Hasan, Lighthouse, Poole review - evergreen gifts of melodyMonday, 17 January 2022![]() Having conducted two Discovery programmes with the LSO after being a finalist in the 2016 Donatella Flick competition, London-born Kerem Hasan went on to win the Nestlé and Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award in 2017. Operatic entrées arrived... Read more... |
Matthew Bourne's Nutcracker!, Sadler's Wells Theatre review - new candy, but the nuts are offFriday, 17 December 2021![]() The legendary quip of a sophisticated ballet critic that we are all one Nutcracker nearer death never rang so true as now. One goes to the theatre with one’s heart in one’s mouth, behind the partypooping mask.Matthew Bourne’s dance panto Nutcracker... Read more... |
Bournemouth SO, Litton, Lighthouse, Poole review - a Coup de Ballet sans dancersSaturday, 06 November 2021![]() Welcome back Andrew Litton, Conductor Laureate of the Bournemouth Symphony, for the latest of many happy annual returns since his tenure as Principal Conductor between 1988 and 1994.Lighthouse was thronged with devoted supporters for both the... Read more... |
