Classical Reviews
Weltethos: CBSO, Gardner, Royal Festival HallMonday, 08 October 2012
The quest for the spiritual in the musical has been the dominant preoccupation of Jonathan Harvey’s since his earliest works. Rudolf Steiner’s philosophy has been an acknowledged influence on the composer, who has made a career of exploring what Steiner described as “the special character of the individual note”, which “expands into a melody and harmony leading straight into the world of the spirit”. Read more... |
War and Peace: Russian National Orchestra, LPO, Jurowski, Royal Festival HallSaturday, 06 October 2012
Can two half-orchestras playing together ever be better than one well-established organism? The second and third concerts in yet another special project masterminded by Vladimir Jurowski, drawing together British and Russian perspectives on war and peace, proved that they could. It may have been disappointing to find the Russian National Orchestra on Thursday evening launching so cold-bloodedly into the feral start of Vaughan Williams’s Sixth Symphony. Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: MacMillan, Mendelssohn, Stephen HoughSaturday, 06 October 2012
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Coote, BBCSO, Saraste, Barbican HallThursday, 04 October 2012
Somehow the manic cry of “Scooby-Doo man!” from the back of the stalls didn’t seem too incongruous. We were in the thick of Shostakovich’s craziest symphony, the Fourth, composed in the mid 1930s when such maverick Russian talent was about to be stamped on and potentially quite a sledgehammer of a season opener for the BBC Symphony Orchestra. 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 the vitality and variety of tone colour this group so reliably produce, it’s hard to remember that this is ear(th)ly music – hardly the wan and consumptive sound so many people still stubbornly associate with viols. Read more... |
Hahn, BBC Philharmonic, Mena, Bridgewater Hall, ManchesterMonday, 01 October 2012
Wagner was not averse to highlights being plucked from the mighty Ring, even though it is an all-encompassing drive-through drama. Perhaps it’s as well, since the bicentenary celebrations of his birth are getting up steam and concert planners are at pains to pull out a few plums. After all, we can’t wallow in the whole of the cycle all of the time. Read more... |
Northern Sinfonia, Zehetmair, The Sage GatesheadSunday, 30 September 2012
Sting, Debbie Harry, the Pet Shop Boys, Brahms, Mozart, Schumann. This is the kind of thing an average year throws up for the Gateshead-based Northern Sinfonia. Their visits to London are mostly to provide a backing track for the top pop acts. Which is not only perverse but verging on the criminal. Read more... |
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Jurowski, Royal Festival HallSunday, 30 September 2012
What, another review of an LPO/Jurowski concert in less than a week? Reasoning the need, it only has to be said that other orchestras may kick off their seasons by mixing the unfamiliar with core repertoire, but none would dare launch with not one but two programmes featuring this only-connect kind of singularity (and more to come in the “War and Peace” series next week). Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Frank Bridge, Benjamin Grosvenor, TchaikovskySaturday, 29 September 2012
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London Philharmonic Orchestra, Jurowski, Royal Festival HallThursday, 27 September 2012
Dissatisfied housewives who eventually stand by their men joined jewelled hands in a divine evening of operatic decadence. Suppressed Bianca all but steps over the body of her strangled lover to get at the muscles of her killer husband in Zemlinsky’s A Florentine Tragedy, taking its cue from the deep purple imagery of Oscar Wilde’s story. Read more... |
James MacMillan: Veni, Veni Emmanuel, A Deep but Dazzling Darkness, Ì (A meditation on Iona) Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic/James MacMillan (Challenge Classics)
Frank Bridge: Orchestral Works BBC National Orchestra of Wales/Richard Hickox (Chandos)Pages
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