Classical music
Natalie Dessay, Philippe Cassard, Milton Court review - flashes of magicThursday, 07 December 2023
It could have been a winner: a charismatic star soprano of great emotional and interpretative intelligence, a top pianist given a little space to shine on his own, a programme that looked good on paper, of distinguished German/Austro-German women... Read more... |
Paul Lewis, Wigmore Hall review - Schubert sonatas revisitedWednesday, 06 December 2023
A decade has passed since Paul Lewis concluded an endeavour of a kind never previously undertaken: to perform, over two and a half years and across four continents, every work Schubert wrote for piano between 1822, the year he was diagnosed with... Read more... |
Voces8 Foundation Choir and Orchestra, Smith, Voces8 Centre review - joyous Christmas music by BachTuesday, 05 December 2023
There’s a game called Whamageddon, where people see how deep into December they can go without hearing “Last Christmas”. I’m like that, but with the Bach Christmas Oratorio, and this year I made it four days. And who would want to wait any longer?... Read more... |
First Person: Natalia Franklin Pierce, Executive Director of Nonclassical, on 'creating a sense of belonging'Monday, 04 December 2023
Despite my double-barrelled surname (my parents weren't married when I was born – so I was given both their names), a career within contemporary classical music definitely wasn't on the cards for me as a child. My Dad was a self-made man from a... Read more... |
Grosvenor, Park, Ridout, Soltani, Wigmore Hall review - chamber music supergroup in perfect accordWednesday, 29 November 2023
Frank Bridge’s Phantasie Piano Quartet was astutely described by his student Benjamin Britten as “Brahms tempered with Fauré”, so it made a lot of sense to programme it alongside the first piano quartets of those other composers. A “supergroup” of... Read more... |
Dariescu, BBC Philharmonic, Storgårds, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - sounds of unquenchable optimismTuesday, 28 November 2023
John Storgårds found himself literally facing both ways for the third item on the BBC Philharmonic’s programme on Saturday: towards the audience, with one music stand in front of him, as he played the solo violin role in Sebastian Fagerlund’s Helena... Read more... |
MacMillan's Christmas Oratorio, Lois, Williams, RSNO, MacMillan, Usher Hall, Edinburgh – a great composer at the top of his gameMonday, 27 November 2023
It is not every day that a new choral work by a living composer can confidently be labelled a masterpiece. Yet this is what we have here. James MacMillan’s Christmas Oratorio is still sufficiently freshly-minted to be receiving its Scottish premiere... Read more... |
Louise Alder & Friends, Wigmore Hall review - magic carpet rides with soprano, strings and woodwindMonday, 27 November 2023
Sometimes all the stars align in musical performance. There’s no soprano more alive to the expression of musical joy and rapture than Louise Alder, no composer more levitational in his strange later adventures than Fauré, no instrumentalists strings... Read more... |
Aurora Orchestra, Kings Place review - experimental work in an immersive settingSunday, 26 November 2023
The Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottír found her work put under a strangely unforgiving lens when it was featured in Tár, the now infamous Todd Field film made in 2022 starring Cate Blanchett as a tempestuously exacting female conductor. In a... Read more... |
Morison, Immler, BBCSO, Bychkov, Barbican review - a Kafka journey and a mighty landmarkSaturday, 25 November 2023
The German composer Detlev Glanert, taught by Hans Werner Henze and a past collaborator with Oliver Knussen, received a Proms commission as far back as 1996. He remains, it might be fair to say, a shadowy presence here despite his prominence back... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Microphones, mazurkas and mad scenesSaturday, 25 November 2023
Beethoven: Piano Concertos 1-5 Garrick Ohlsson (piano), Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra/Sir Donald Runnicles (Reference Recordings)This set would be an artistic treat had it been captured onto a couple of C90 cassettes with a boombox.... Read more... |
Grosvenor, SCO, Emelyanychev, Usher Hall, Edinburgh review - lightness of touch and a sprinkling of humourFriday, 24 November 2023
Nobody would describe Felix Mendelssohn as a fringe composer, but his piano concertos aren’t exactly central classical repertoire either. They lack the foundational status of Mozart’s and the high Romantic seriousness of Beethoven’s or Brahms’, and... Read more... |
