sun 03/11/2024

Wigmore Hall

'His ideal worlds embraced me with their light and love': violinist Irène Duval on the music of Fauré

"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...

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Aci, Galatea e Polifemo, La Nuova Musica, Bates, Wigmore Hall review - thrilling Handel at full throttle

Last time I saw the lovelorn Cyclops from Handel’s richly turbulent cantata, Aci, Galatea e Polifemo, he was in a warehouse at Trinity Buoy Wharf earlier this year, posturing moodily as an Italian film director. The London Handel Festival’s...

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Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective, Wigmore Hall review - warm and colourful Bartók and Brahms

Last Monday my colleague Boyd Tonkin was delighted by the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective’s playing at Hatfield House – and on Thursday it was my turn to be impressed by their colourful Wigmore Hall recital, which featured the marvellous...

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Christian Gerhaher, Gerold Huber, Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford review - an unforgettable recital

Christian Gerhaher, the most compelling and complete interpreter of German Lieder of our time, makes no secret of the fact that – unlike his devotion to, say, Schumann – his relationship with the songs of Brahms has never been comfortable.In a...

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Elisabeth Leonskaja, Wigmore Hall review - a universe of sound and emotion in Schubert’s last three sonatas

Wonders never ceased in Elisabeth Leonskaja’s return to the Wigmore Hall. Not only did she play Schubert’s last three sonatas with all repeats and the full range of a unique power undiminished in a 78-year old alongside a never too overstated pathos...

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Angela Hewitt, Wigmore Hall review - Scarlatti miniatures outshine Brahms behemoth

If Angela Hewitt’s recital last night at the Wigmore Hall was a meal, it would have been two light, fresh – but nourishing – courses, followed by a big suetty pudding, splendidly cooked but sitting slightly heavy on the stomach. The delightful...

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Pavel Kolesnikov, Wigmore Hall review - unpredictable magic

All five finalists in the Leeds International Piano Competition, at which Pavel Kolesnikov was one of the jurors, should have been given tickets, transport and accommodation to hear his Wigmore recital the evening after the prizegiving. Not that...

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Beethoven Sonata Cycle 1, Boris Giltburg, Wigmore Hall review - running the gamut

A happy, lucid and bright pianist, a forbidding Everest among piano sonatas: would Boris Giltburg follow a bewitching, ceaselessly engaging first half by rising to the challenge of Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” - a title he suggests, in his series of...

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Murrihy, Martineau, Wigmore Hall review - poise, transformation and rainbow colours

Peerless among the constellation of Irish singers making waves around the world, mezzo Paula Murrihy first dazzled London as Ascanio in Terry Gilliam’s English National Opera production of Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini. Since then she’s become a major...

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Sphinx Organization, Wigmore Hall review - black performers and composers take centre stage

Kudos to the Wigmore Hall for continuing to make efforts to diversify its roster of performers and repertoire. Last year I reviewed the Kaleidoscope Collective, and noted how the different profile of their players attracted a younger and less...

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Kolesnikov, Wigmore Hall review - celestial navigation through a cabinet of wonders

Like his baggy white suit, pitched somewhere between Liberace and Colonel Sanders, Pavel Kolesnikov’s playing was spotless at the Wigmore Hall last night. It comprised two very different halves, the first a miscellany of apparently unrelated pieces...

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Dunedin Consort, Mulroy, Wigmore Hall review - songs of love old and new

The sixteen voices of the Dunedin Consort raided the large store of music inspired by the Song of Songs and the sonnets of Petrarch in a sensual programme at the Wigmore Hall last night. Combining the very old and the very new it offered a range of...

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