Classical music
Classical CDs: Nightingales, seasons and practical jokesSaturday, 02 July 2022
Beethoven, Berg, Bartók: Violin Concertos Frank Peter Zimmermann Berliner Philharmoniker/Daniel Harding, Kirill Petrenko, Alan Gilbert (Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings)Recent Berliner Philharmoniker own-label releases have included hefty... Read more... |
George Fu, St Martin-in-the-Fields review - high intellect and visceral shocksSaturday, 25 June 2022
Semi-standing ovation at a lunchtime concert in a London church? Predictable, perhaps, from the first recital I heard George Xiaoyuan Fu give at the Two Moors Festival, an avian programme which made me long to hear him play Messiaen’s complete... Read more... |
First person: Ukrainian violinist Valeriy Sokolov on performing while his homeland is destroyedFriday, 24 June 2022
A fortnight ago I performed Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto with the Aurora Orchestra, joining them and their Principal Conductor Nicholas Collon in Cologne. Tonight we shall present the same programme at the Royal Festival Hall. These are my first... Read more... |
Hughes, Manchester Collective, Hallé St Peter’s, Manchester review - new work and stunning singingFriday, 24 June 2022
Manchester Collective were back on home ground last night in the tour of a programme featuring the first performances of a new song cycle by Edmund Finnis, Out of the Dawn’s Mind. Soprano soloist was the amazing Ruby Hughes.It was home ground for... Read more... |
First Person: director Richard Wilson on a musical midsummer night film premiereTuesday, 21 June 2022
In today’s near-normal times it is easy to forget how hard COVID-19 had hit the music industry, especially for touring orchestras like the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. Masked, socially-distanced performances; streamed concerts from empty... Read more... |
Isabelle Faust, Alexander Melnikov, Wigmore Hall review - surprise and spontaneitySaturday, 18 June 2022
Isabelle Faust and Alexander Melnikov concluded their three-concert survey of Beethoven’s violin sonatas on the warmest day of the year. But the Wigmore Hall is always comfortable, and the temperature was well under control. The heat deterred the... Read more... |
First Person: composer Gavin Higgins on his new cantata 'The Faerie Bride'Friday, 17 June 2022
I was a strange child, I didn’t really fit in. I would twitch and distort my face into awkward shapes. I obsessively bit my fingers and knuckles till they bled. I collected leaflets and piled them high in neat stacks in the corner of my room. I was... Read more... |
theartsdesk at the Dublin International Chamber Music Festival - extraordinary women to the foreThursday, 16 June 2022
The organisation now proudly and legitimately re-named the Dublin International Chamber Music Festival may be half a century old – of its 52 seasons, those of the two lockdown years can be lopped off the live reckoning – but its outlook is youthful... Read more... |
Classical CDs: mediation, survival and the conquering of shynessSaturday, 11 June 2022
Karel Ančerl: Live Recordings (Supraphon)Karel Ančerl’s nascent conducting career was interrupted by World War II, Ančerl and his family being sent to the Theresienstadt camp in 1942. Two years later, he and his family were sent to Auschwitz.... Read more... |
Hewitt, Concerto Budapest SO, Keller, Cadogan Hall review - magical Mozart and bullish BeethovenTuesday, 07 June 2022
Considering its status as the most famous piece of classical music [citation needed], Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is actually quite rarely programmed in London. I can’t remember the last time I heard it live before last night, and it took the... Read more... |
Davidsen, Oslo Philharmonic, Mäkelä, Barbican review - full workout for the nervous systemMonday, 06 June 2022
It could have been the most electrifying week of the musical year. Alas, Heathrow meltdown kept me from two of Klaus Mäkelä’s Sibelius concerts with his Oslo Philharmonic in Hamburg. But there was still what should have been the grand finale, the... Read more... |
LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - four centuries of Italian music on paradeFriday, 03 June 2022
If you sought a spectacular shrugging-off of jubileemania last night, you could have done no better than this programme to coincide with Italian Republic Day from our own national treasures Antonio Pappano – Knight of the British Empire, if you’ll... Read more... |
