mon 07/07/2025

Classical Reviews

BBC Proms: Tetzlaff, BBCSO, Robertson

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...

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BBC Proms: Mutter, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Honeck

Igor Toronyi-Lalic

Earlier this year, conductor Manfred Honeck revealed to me his love of old vinyl: the crackle, the fizz, the lost musical traditions. His performances are marinated in this obsession. The idiosyncrasies of his interpretations hark back to a time when the rules were fewer and the colours brighter. Last night was no different. His Mahler Five steered clear of the sleep-inducing modern fixations with orchestral homogeneity and tastefulness and instead jumped right off the deep end.

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BBC Proms: Grimaud, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Honeck

alexandra Coghlan

In a week that sees Proms visits from two major American orchestras, it fell to Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra to raise the curtain for their blue-blooded “Big Five” colleagues the Philadelphia Orchestra. With Tchaikovsky featuring large in both programmes comparisons are only natural, and it will be interesting to see what response Thursday night offers to an energetic but at times rather unsubtle evening of music from Pennsylvania’s “other” orchestra.

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BBC Proms: Missa Solemnis, London Symphony Orchestra, Davis

alexandra Coghlan

While revered and respected, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis has never inspired audiences with the same affection as Bach’s B minor Mass, Haydn’s Nelson Mass, or even Mozart’s Coronation or C minor settings. Perhaps it’s the austerity, the monumentality of the work Beethoven knew to be his greatest that rejects the easy assimilation into secular concert life, perhaps it’s more simply the lack of big tunes to wash down all that liturgy. Furtwängler famously drew back from the work’s sacred...

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BBC Proms: Clein, Britten Sinfonia, BBC Singers, Hill

alexandra Coghlan Sofia Gubaidulina: a composer whose 'mistaken path' is as colourful as it is complex

Dominated by a focus on contemporary music, this year’s Proms’ Saturday Matinees have also developed something of a heavenward glance as the series has progressed. Last weekend it was the Christian mysticism of Hildegard of Bingen at the fore, with Britten’s Sacred and Profane providing a slippery foothold in the earthly. Yesterday we cast off worldly shackles entirely, gazing beyond the limits of our own humanity in the musical visions of Tippett, Tavener and Sofia Gubaidulina.

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BBC Proms: Lazić, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Fischer/ Audience Choice Prom

Igor Toronyi-Lalic

"Don't expect polish," announced Ivan Fischer apologetically. "Things vill go rrrong. We may start pieces again." The tuba had been turned into a tombola. The percussionists were playing their buttocks. Someone else was blowing a Hungarian didgeridoo. A certain amount of madness was expected from the second Prom, an experimental Audience Choice concert. But the Mahler One of the first Prom? Who knew that that would be equally if not even more outrageous.

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Damrau, De Maistre, Queen's Hall/ Aimard, Bamberg SO, Nott, Usher Hall, Edinburgh

David Nice

What do visiting German performers add to the Edinburgh International Festival's Auld (Scotland-France) Alliance thread? Simple: when they communicate as superbly as soprano Diana Damrau and Jonathan Nott's Bambergers, the music-making works at the highest level.

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Classical CDs Weekly: Brahms, Desyatnikov, Glière, Tchaikovsky

graham Rickson Russian composer Leonid Desyatnikov: 'I have in mind only beauty and harmony of proportions'

We head east this week - new pieces by a contemporary Russian composer, and a bargain box set showcasing the flamboyant orchestral music of a neglected Russian. And a famous viola player leads a young Moscow orchestra in electrifying accounts of Brahms and Tchaikovsky.

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BBC Proms: Shaham, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Mehta

Igor Toronyi-Lalic

Police. Placards. Protests. And bag checks. It meant only one thing. Jews were performing at the Proms. Here we were in the Royal Albert Hall in London in 2011 witnessing a stage of musicians being barracked and abused for having the gall to be Jewish. Last year, four more Jewish musicians, the Jerusalem Quartet, had the cheek to perform and broadcast a recital at the Wigmore Hall. They were again heckled and hounded off air.

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BBC Proms: Ma, BBCSO, Robertson

alexandra Coghlan Yo-Yo Ma: the consummate performer, bringing virtuosity to absolute simplicity

Over the past six weeks of the Proms the BBC’s hard-working Symphony Orchestra has performed everything from Britten to Brahms, Verdi to Volans. Their Mahler with Ed Gardner was an operatic epic, their...

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