Wigmore Hall
Toby Spence, Julian Milford, Wigmore HallSaturday, 12 October 2013
Toby Spence’s recovery from thyroid cancer is a cause for rejoicing, but surely it’s time we focused our attention back on his work rather than his medical condition? Apparently not. The pre-publicity for this Wigmore Hall recital made great play of... Read more... |
Anne Schwanewilms, Roger Vignoles, Wigmore HallTuesday, 10 September 2013
So we glide between seasons from one communicative diva giving her all in a vast space to another casting spells in intimate surroundings. While Joyce DiDonato, not perhaps one of the world’s great voices but certainly a great performer, was... Read more... |
Yevgeny Sudbin, Wigmore HallFriday, 19 July 2013
A second visit to hear this already great young Russian pianist in six months was meant for private pleasure only. Yet no-one in the Wigmore Hall audience last night, I’ll hazard a guess, will ever have heard Liszt playing like Sudbin’s in a first... Read more... |
Mahan Esfahani, Wigmore Hall/Joseph Reuben, Petersham HouseMonday, 06 May 2013
Old instruments have found young champions this week in two very different concerts and contexts. In the Wigmore Hall, Mahan Esfahani continued his persuasive rehabilitation of the harpsichord, showcasing not only the expressive range of the... Read more... |
Leif Ove Andsnes, Wigmore HallWednesday, 10 April 2013
If ever there was such a thing as a safe pair of pianistic hands then they would belong to Norway’s Leif Ove Andsnes. There’s a cool, patrician control to everything he does that speaks to thorough preparation, careful interpretative choices and... Read more... |
Karita Mattila, Ville Matvejeff, Wigmore HallFriday, 05 April 2013
At first it all felt too much. In addition to the garish red arum lilies either side of the platform, an overwhelming scent of eau de Cologne from a neighbour and the always hard-to-fight Wigmore Hall torpor were our diva's pink and purple attire,... Read more... |
Yuletide Scenes 1: The Reverend Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston LochWednesday, 19 December 2012
In our chilled Decembers, even when snowless, winter scenes are visually synonymous with Christmas, and Henry Raeburn’s small painting of The Reverend Robert Walker, from the 1790s, skating with abstracted solemnity and perfect balance on... Read more... |
The Brook Street Band, de Bernières, Kennedy, Wigmore HallSaturday, 08 December 2012
What if Handel, after his death, descended to an eminently civilised afterlife, where he spent his time making music and new friends with the likes of Beethoven and even Jimi Hendrix? That’s the premise of Louis de Bernières’ new play Mr Handel, a... Read more... |
Coote, Britten Sinfonia, Shave, Hetherington, Wigmore HallFriday, 23 November 2012
Benjamin Britten would have been 99 on the day of this concert. He died aged 62, nearly six months after the premiere of a masterpiece, the 15-minute "dramatic cantata" Phaedra, ruthlessly sifting key speeches from Robert Lowell’s translation of... Read more... |
Andreas Scholl, Wigmore HallMonday, 19 November 2012
It’s something of a fashion at the moment for countertenors to break out of the baroque, to have a bit of a fling with classical and even romantic repertoire. David Daniels has experimented with Berlioz, Philippe Jaroussky has flirted as only a... Read more... |
Interview: TigranTuesday, 06 November 2012
Tigran Hamasyan is a brilliant jazz pianist who is clearly on the rise – for one thing, like many a star before him, he has dropped his surname, and is now, according to his latest record The Fable, simply Tigran. When I meet him in London, he tells... Read more... |
Fretwork/Hilliard Ensemble, Wigmore HallWednesday, 03 October 2012
“For if their musicke please in earthly things/How would it sound if strung with heavenly strings?” Listening to viol consort Fretwork last night, the audience at the Wigmore Hall didn’t have to imagine the answer to Gibbons’ question. Listening to... Read more... |
