violin
geoff brown
It’s over 30 years since André Previn left his post as principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. But once you’re part of the LSO’s treasured ‘family of artists’, the orchestra never lets go, year upon year inviting you back for Christmas, New Year, weddings, bar mitzvahs, any occasion going. The same with the violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter – briefly in the last decade Previn’s fifth wife, though they share the same platform with just as much ease now that they’re divorced.Sunday’s unusually diverting concert formed part of the LSO’s "Artist Portrait" of Mutter: a portrait hardly Read more ...
graham.rickson
Bartók: Violin Concerto No 2, Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto Valeriy Sokolov Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich/David Zinman (Virgin)Bartók’s 1938 Violin Concerto No 2 seems to have garnered more respect than affection; it’s been overtaken in the 20th-century concerto popularity stakes by works by Shostakovich, Walton and Prokofiev. Which is such a shame, as it’s a glorious piece – one of those mature works where Bartók’s unique blend of folk music and Modernism find a perfect balance.Structurally it’s satisfying, its large-scale opening movement effectively reprised in dance form in the finale, 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 ...
geoff brown
Noticed that nip in the air recently? The reason now is obvious: conductor Osmo Vänskä, the brisk wind from Minnesota, has blown into town, challenging London’s orchestral musicians to give beyond their best and uncover new layers in repertory works they previously assumed they knew backwards. Last year, the London Philharmonic sweated blood with the Minnesota Orchestra’s rigorous conductor over Sibelius’s symphonies; last night, in a one-off, orchestra and conductor faced up to Bruckner and his Fourth Symphony, the Romantic. The result wasn’t universally liked. An aggrieved gent, Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
It’s almost dark. Frescoes depicting the cycle of life are barely visible. They could be shadows. Waves of sound pulse through the mausoleum of Norwegian artist Emanuel Vigeland. Fiddle player Nils Økland is feeding the 15-second delay with peals that reverberate around the space, folding back into themselves. It’s a spooky, unforgettable introduction to FolkeLarm, Oslo’s annual festival of Nordic folk music.FolkeLarm is a jolt. Not only because of it being a deep-dish serving of Nordic folk music, but also because previous visits to Oslo have found the city under half a metre of snow. Read more ...
hilary.whitney
Niccolò Paganini was the most controversial classical musician who ever lived. Although widely acknowledged to be one of the most brilliant performers of his lifetime, he provoked wildly contradictory opinions amongst his contemporaries and was constantly denounced as a charlatan in league with the devil – a spell in gaol for a paternity suit gave rise to the myth that he had acquired his dazzling technique from a pact with the devil during his incarceration. The ultimate showman, Paganini encouraged such rumours although this, combined with his vast wealth - in one season he earned five Read more ...
David Nice
I’ve noted before the lingering John Wilson effect on the BBC Symphony Orchestra, whereby that pioneer of Hollywood-style authenticity always leaves the strings especially who play for him in good, vibrato-drenched shape for late-Romantic music. With good reason did Bridge’s relatively early (1906-07) Isabella, based on Keats’s celebrated tale of the fair Italian and the pot of basil in which she buries her murdered lover’s head, sound like a Korngold film score of the 1930s; after all, both Korngold and Bridge took their cue from Strauss’s symphonic poems.I’m sure David Robertson played his Read more ...
David Nice
Some violinists just play; others have a voice. Ukrainian-Israeli violinist Vadim Gluzman follows the distinguished line of great Petersburg violinist Leopold Auer - whose 1690 Stradivarius he currently plays - David Oistrakh and Isaac Stern, his one-time mentor. His 2008 performance of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, dedicated to Auer, with the great Neeme Järvi on responsive form, forged an electrifying concert partnership and augurs well for his next appearance with the London Philharmonic, this time conducted by Vassily Sinaisky, in the Korngold Concerto. The wide-ranging curiosity so Read more ...
igor.toronyilalic
Landscape painting may be dominated by the Dutch. But in music it is the Austrians who know best how to evoke the majesty of the great outdoors. In the first of last night's two Proms, one of the most awesome of Anton Bruckner's snow-capped symphonies, number five in B flat major, accompanied a new high climb through the Tyrol from fellow Austrian Thomas Larcher for two great musical off-pisters: violinist Viktoria Mullova and cellist Matthew Barley.What was most peculiar about this concert was how the 19th-century Bruckner and contemporary Larcher seemed to have switched shoes. It was Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
This year’s Choral Sundays at the Proms are a wonderfully mixed bag. Mighty choral touchstones are represented by Mendelssohn’s Elijah, both the Verdi and Mozart Requiems and Beethoven Missa solemnis, but there’s also an enticing strand of curiosities. Looming largest among these has of course been Brian’s Gothic Symphony, but emerging now from its sprawling shadow are less obscure but no less interesting works – Britten’s Spring Symphony, and last night Mahler’s folkloric Opus 1 cantata Das klagende lied.While a work of the composer’s youth (he was just 20 at completion), Das klagende lied Read more ...
David Nice
They came in their thousands again last night, most – I’m guessing – for “the Elgar”. Lacking faith that Tasmin Little could fill the enormous soul of that most elusive of violin concertos – a prejudice, alas, fulfilled - I put my money on the polytonal jungle Percy Grainger grows from pastoral seeds at the heart of his wacky In a Nutshell Suite. Yet unforgettably though Sir Andrew Davis swept it along, even Grainger was overshadowed by the lone, late-night transcendentalism of folk singer June Tabor.That 10.15pm Prom was, as my companion described it, “born-again brilliant”, not least given Read more ...