fri 04/07/2025

Classical Reviews

St Matthew Passion, Irish Baroque Orchestra, Whelan, St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin review - the heights rescaled

David Nice

When you’ve already come as close as possible to perfection in the greatest masterpiece, why risk a repeat performance with a difference? Because Bach’s St Matthew Passion needs to be an annual fixture without routine, and because inspirational IBO director Peter Whelan can be guaranteed not only to recapture the magic but to try a few new things, and to choose new soloists with fine judgement.

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Kraggerud, Irish Chamber Orchestra, RIAM Dublin review - stomping, dancing, magical Vivaldi plus

David Nice

A lot hung upon the delivery last night of Henning Kraggerud, whom I last witnessed leading performances of Strauss’s Metamorphosen and some of his own music at the head of a mine in Svalbard: he was announced at the beginning of the concert as the Irish Chamber Orchestra’s new artistic partner, following the likes of another instrumentalist-composer, Jörg Widmann, and fellow violinist Thomas Zehetmair. So did he triumph? Beyond wildest expectations.

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Small, Hallé, Wong, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - return to Shostakovich’s ambiguous triumphalism

Robert Beale

Kahchun Wong returned to the symphony with which he made his first big impression conducting the Hallé – and made a big impression with it again.

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LSO, Noseda, Barbican review - Half Six shake-up

David Nice

Tired after a hard day at the office? You might think you need a Classic FM-style warm bath, but the blast of Prokofiev’s Second Symphony, one of the noisiest in the repertoire, is the real ticket to recharging the batteries. Gianandrea Noseda, on the latest stage of his bracing journey through the composer’s symphonies and embracing the London Symphony Orchestra’s hugely popular Half Six Fix series, served it up with panache both in word and deed.

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Frang, LPO, Jurowski, RFH review - every beauty revealed

David Nice

When Vladimir Jurowski returns to what used to be “his” London Philharmonic Orchestra, you’d better jump. I would have done on Wednesday had I been able to get to his heady mix of Russian and Ukrainian rarities; luckily I could on Saturday night, because an outwardly standard programme of early 19th century works proved perfect, raising Schumann’s much-denigrated Violin Concerto to the level of Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture and Schubert’s “Great” C major Symphony.

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Levit, Sternath, Wigmore Hall review - pushing the boundaries in Prokofiev and Shostakovich

David Nice

Igor Levit is a master of the unorthodox marathon, one he was happy to share last night with 24-year-old Austrian Lukas Sternath, his student in Hanover. Not only did Sternath get the obvious stunner of two Prokofiev sonatas in the first half; he also had all the best tunes and phrases as the right-hand man, so to speak, in Shostakovich’s piano arrangement of his towering Tenth Symphony. The best, as in absolutely no holds barred, came at the very end.

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Connolly, BBC Philharmonic, Paterson, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - a journey through French splendours

Robert Beale

The BBC Philharmonic took its Saturday night audience on a journey into French sonic luxuriance – in reverse order of historical formation, beginning with Duruflé, continuing with Chausson and ending with Saint-Saëns. It was conducted by Geoffrey Paterson and featured Dame Sarah Connolly as mezzo-soprano soloist, neither of them the artists originally announced, but 100 per cent good value as their substitutes. 

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Biss, National Symphony Orchestra, Kuokman, NCH Dublin review - full house goes wild for vivid epics

David Nice

On paper, it was a standard programme with no stars to explain how this came to be a sellout concert. But packed it was, an audience of all ages which sat with concentrated awe through the spellbinding slow movement of Brahms’s First Piano Concerto and went wild at the end of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. Both works were groundbreaking at the time, sounding absolutely fresh here with the passion and precision awesomely well balanced by conductor Lio Kuokman.

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Verdi Requiem, Philharmonia, Muti, RFH review - new sparks from an old flame

Boyd Tonkin

Forget, for a moment, the legend and the lustre. If you knew nothing about Riccardo Muti’s half-century of history with Verdi’s Messa da Requiem for the writer-patriot Alessandro Manzoni – he first gave it with the Philharmonia back in 1974 – and came fresh to this conductor with this work, would it shake the soul?

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Batsashvili, Hallé, Wong, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - a star in the piano universe

Robert Beale

Mariam Batsashvili, the young virtuosa pianist from Georgia, is a star. No doubt about that. Trained at the Liszt Academy in Weimar and winner of the International Franz Liszt Competition for Young Pianists in that city in 2015, she should know something about how to play Liszt’s music.

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