Classical music
Best of 2022: Classical music concertsWednesday, 28 December 2022
While the call for livening up the concert format remains dubious – beyond unusual settings and a will to communicate, the rest is window-dressing – there’s always a special buzz about festival-like concatenations of events. For that reason, four... Read more... |
Pavel Kolesnikov, Wigmore Hall review - conjuring spirits from solstitial darknessFriday, 23 December 2022
Quite apart from the stunning range of colours and phrasing, Pavel Kolesnikov’s recitals always give you much more than the programme promises. A golden thread through shorter pieces has been one approach, but here he did something different –... Read more... |
Dunedin Consort, Butt, Wigmore Hall review - Christmas glory in Venice and DresdenWednesday, 21 December 2022
St Mark’s shadow fell gloriously over the Wigmore Hall last night with a programme of Christmas music performed in, or inspired by, the great basilica of Venice. The Dunedin Consort braided festive works from pioneers who wrote for its grandly... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Canons, castles and a converted chapelSaturday, 17 December 2022
In Márta’s Garden Katharina Weber (piano) (Intakt)The Márta of the title of this solo piano album by many-faceted Swiss pianist, composer and teacher Katharina Weber (b. 1958) is Márta Kurtág (1927 -2019). Weber first got to know the... Read more... |
Bach Christmas Oratorio, Monteverdi Choir, EBS, Gardiner, St Martin-in-the-Fields review - soul-piercing song and danceFriday, 16 December 2022
Across three and a half decades, John Eliot Gardiner’s 1987 recording of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with his Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists spoiled one for live performances. Not that many of those weren’t equally fine and alive in... Read more... |
Chasing the Night, Echo Vocal Ensemble and Friends, Latto, Kings Place review - midwinter songs from around the worldFriday, 16 December 2022
At this of year there is always a good range of seasonal choral concerts on offer in London – and an audience for them all, weather and strikes permitting. But while I enjoy a canter through Carols for Choirs as much as anyone, I am perhaps more... Read more... |
Bach Christmas Oratorio (Parts 1-3 & 6), Britten Sinfonia, Polyphony, Layton, Barbican review - glorious riposte to Arts Council axeThursday, 15 December 2022
What do you do when your high-achieving ensemble has just been dealt a brutal, capricious blow, but you have the most joyfully festive work in the repertoire on your seasonal agenda? To say that the Britten Sinfonia came out with all trumpets (and... Read more... |
William Thomas, Malcolm Martineau, Wigmore Hall review - a richly modulated journeyWednesday, 14 December 2022
William Thomas has fast made an impact as a rapidly rising (or should that be descending?) star of the bass world. Though he has only recently graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, his awards include Winner of the Veronica Dunne... Read more... |
Batiashvili, Philharmonia, Shani, RFH review - Nordic mystery, Alpine tragedyFriday, 09 December 2022
Sibelius and Mahler so often figure as the irreconcilable chalk and cheese of turn-of-the-century orchestral writing that it can be a salutary experience to hear them together on one bill.For sure, the Finn – whose Violin Concerto Lisa Batiashvili... Read more... |
Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, LPO, Jurowski, RFH review - a performance to make the heart beat fasterMonday, 05 December 2022
This greatest of symphonies starts with what’s plausibly described as arrhythmia of the heart, so it shouldn’t have been surprising to find my own racing as Vladimir Jurowski drove a line through the peaks, troughs and convalescences of its massive... Read more... |
Manchester Collective String Orchestra, RNCM, Manchester review - a remarkable new work for string ensembleSaturday, 03 December 2022
Manchester Collective’s string orchestra programme, opening last night at the Royal Northern College of Music and touring to the South Bank, Leeds and Liverpool, is notable chiefly for the world premiere of will o wisp, by Oliver Leith, a remarkable... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Christmas discs 2022Saturday, 03 December 2022
GoldMund, Anna Veit: Mehr Oder Weniger Lametta – arrangements of Tchaikovsky, Bach, Humperdinck, Martin Luther, John Rutter (Solo Musica)What works best here are the classy, and occasionally witty and wacky brass arrangements, plus some very... Read more... |
