violin
David Nice
A lot hung upon the delivery last night of Henning Kraggerud, whom I last witnessed leading performances of Strauss’s Metamorphosen and some of his own music at the head of a mine in Svalbard: he was announced at the beginning of the concert as the Irish Chamber Orchestra’s new artistic partner, following the likes of another instrumentalist-composer, Jörg Widmann, and fellow violinist Thomas Zehetmair. So did he triumph? Beyond wildest expectations.You could even have called this performance of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons a concert staging. Introducing each concerto with a charming mixture of Read more ...
David Nice
When Vladimir Jurowski returns to what used to be “his” London Philharmonic Orchestra, you’d better jump. I would have done on Wednesday had I been able to get to his heady mix of Russian and Ukrainian rarities; luckily I could on Saturday night, because an outwardly standard programme of early 19th century works proved perfect, raising Schumann’s much-denigrated Violin Concerto to the level of Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture and Schubert’s “Great” C major Symphony.Vilde Frang (pictured below) was the ideal match for Jurowski and the LPO here. Her double-stopping entry, startlingly resonant, Read more ...
Rachel Halliburton
It was the sonically adventurous, shiveringly atmospheric cello piece by Latvian composer Preteris Vasks that proved to be the first showstopper of this enjoyably esoteric evening. Dutch cellist Hadewych van Gent began the pianissimo movement of Vasks’ Gramata Cellam by creating a build-up of whistling harmonic effects on the A string, followed by a yearning feather-light improvisation in the cello’s upper registers that suddenly plunged vertiginously bass-wards.The rich, velvety chordal sequence that ensued was accompanied by Gent’s wordless soprano, as clear and piercing as a shaft of light Read more ...
David Nice
Perhaps all great music counterpoints and comments on the times, but Antonio Pappano and the London Symphony Orchestra have been searingly congruent. Before he took up his post as Chief Conductor, there were the extinction whispers of Vaughan Williams’ Sixth Symphony the night before lockdown and the fury of VW’s Fourth on the eve of Boris Johnson’s election. Now the aggressive dynamism of Walton’s First raised us out of that sinking feeling as the USA worsens by the day.George Walker’s Sinfonia No. 5. “Visions” (the composer pictured below by Frank Schramm), could have been charged, too, Read more ...
Irène Duval
"I always enjoy seeing sunlight play on the rocks, the water, the trees and plains. What variety of effects, what brilliance and what softness... I wish my music could show as much diversity." Gabriel Fauré, who wrote those words and is indisputably one of the greatest of French composers, died 100 years ago, on 4 November 1924. His avowed aim was to elevate his listeners “as far as possible above what is.”In recent times of hardship, playing his music felt like a true gift, bringing solace to my heart. It is so moving and yet so comforting. No matter how profound, even dark, the emotions it Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
The summer festival circuit in Central Europe can be a bit of a merry-go-round. Notices in festival towns promise world-class orchestras and soloists, but they are usually the same performers, making festival appearances as part of broader touring schedules.But a festival needs to be distinctive, it needs to be unique. Any hint of routine is fatal to its spirit of occasion. The setting usually helps, and the festivals in Lucerne and Gstaad both take place amid breathtaking scenery and in towns of real charm and character. Add to that a homegrown ensemble – typically a festival orchestra – and Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
“Cherish the moments. They go ever so quickly.” Sheila Hancock, beloved actor, writer – and award-winning singer, notably of Stephen Sondheim in Sweeney Todd – gave us that carpe diem nudge in the course of an afternoon discussion of her favourite music. Beside her, a bunch of playing partners (the Carducci Quartet, pianist Christopher Glynn, soprano Caroline Blair) performed extracts from her choices. Such events can often err on the side of cosy blandness. But here amid the early-Georgian splendour of Duncombe Park outside Helmsley in North Yorkshire, Dame Sheila – utterly undimmed at Read more ...
David Nice
No soloist gets to perform Shostakovich’s colossal First Violin Concerto without mastery of its fearsome technical demands. But not all violinists have the imagination to colour and inflect the Hamlet-like monologue of its withdrawn first movement, or the madness of a 20th century Lear in its poleaxing cadenza, a movement in itself. From her first, deeply eloquent phrases, Karen Gomyo told us that she was one of the few who could.It’s vital not to have one violin sound, however impressive, for the kaleidoscope of sadness, rage, despair and manic exultation Shostakovich gifted to the great Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
At first glance, this looked like an odd coupling: Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto from 1931, all spiky neo-classicism and short-winded expressionist sparkle, as a tributary opening before the mighty rolling stream of Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony.Yet in the accomplished hands of Paavo Järvi and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, with Leila Josefowicz as the soloist, these strange bedfellows turned out to make perfectly perfectly good sense. Stravinsky’s analytic relish in breaking the grammar of the classical concerto down into glittering, even competing, blocks of sound prepared us for the Read more ...
Ed Vulliamy
The LSO’s apéritif hour “Half-Six Fixes” have an informality that usually works and sometimes doesn’t. But the first of this two-night run of Dmitri Shostakovich’s monstrous and terrifying Fourth Symphony was unforgettable. Panels on the auditorium walls greeted the audience with a portrait of the composer and his famous note: “The authorities tried everything they knew to get me to repent… But I refused. Instead of repenting, I wrote my Fourth Symphony”.When Simon Rattle took to the podium he explained, for anyone who did not already know, the story behind them: pocket Shostakovich in 20 Read more ...
Robert Beale
Chief conductor John Storgårds’ first programme of 2024 in the Bridgewater Hall was notable for the visit of Christian Tetzlaff as violin soloist, but perhaps a little puzzling in the choice of Thomas Adès’ Violin Concerto as the vehicle for his talents.The concerto, sub-titled “Concentric Paths”, is a fascinating piece of orchestral composition but not the most obvious opportunity for a star soloist to engage his audience. And Bridgewater Hall attenders can hear Adès conducted by Adès in the Hallé’s series, too, now that he’s in post as artist-in-residence with them for two seasons.Maybe we Read more ...
Rachel Halliburton
In an evening filled with "firsts" one of the many striking aspects was the effect the Anonimi Orchestra debut had on people walking past on the Marylebone Road. As we sat in the warehouse space of the Bomb Factory – with its exposed brick walls and large display windows – from time-to-time passers-by could be seen transfixed, gazing in at the vivacious ensemble bringing light to the January gloom.The Anonimi Orchestra is the brainchild of Margarita Balanas, the cellist and conductor (main picture, and page bottom), one of three talented Latvian siblings who between them have Read more ...