Classical music
Sean Shibe, Wigmore Hall online review - persuasive and poignantWednesday, 24 February 2021
Returning to the Wigmore Hall for another socially distanced concert, Edinburgh-born guitarist Sean Shibe brought a programme of moving, often melancholy music, apt for these still locked-down times. He opened with a trio of works by John Dowland... Read more... |
Hughes, Manchester Collective, Lakeside Arts online review - creating the occasionMonday, 22 February 2021
There’s an atmosphere of tender restraint through most of the programme created by Ruby Hughes and Manchester Collective for Lakeside Arts at the University of Nottingham. It was streamed live yesterday afternoon, and, as is the way with most... Read more... |
Coote, Blackshaw, Fiennes, Wigmore Hall online review – lonely hearts club bandSunday, 21 February 2021
Why, in Lieder singing above all, should an outpouring of deep feeling so frighten critics? Alice Coote’s unabashed emotionalism as a recitalist can sometimes bring out the worst in the stiff-upper-lip brigade, as reactions to her high-impact... Read more... |
Budapest Festival Orchestra, Fischer online review - Mahler movements for the fishSaturday, 20 February 2021
In verses from the folk anthology Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth's Magic Horn) set by Mahler as a song, later adapted for the scherzo of his Second Symphony, St Anthony of Padua sermonizes on repentance to the fish, who all listen politely and... Read more... |
Pavel Kolesnikov, Wigmore Hall online review - the joyful wisdom of the GoldbergsWednesday, 17 February 2021
Aside from the happy accident of longevity, something that set Bach and Handel and Telemann apart from their contemporaries was fluency. I’m speaking here of musical rather than verbal tongues: the least polyglot of them was Bach, with his command... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Elephants, pestilence and lockdown fiddlingSaturday, 13 February 2021
Anna Clyne: Mythologies BBC Symphony Orchestra/Marin Alsop, Sakari Oramo, Andrew Litton, André de Ridder (Avie Records)The musical content is impressive enough, but this disc is almost an unofficial tribute to the BBC as a supporter of new... Read more... |
Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Emelyanychev online review – versatile virtuosity from EdinburghMonday, 08 February 2021
Seated at the harpsichord, Maxim Emelyanychev introduces this concert in charmingly fractured English. “Hello from Queen’s Hall in Edimbourg, today with chamber group of musicians from Scottish Chamber Orchestra…” But he falters, the camera cuts... Read more... |
Classical musicians on life after Brexit - 3: violinist Sara Deborah Struntz-TimossiThursday, 04 February 2021
Sara Deborah Struntz-Timossi is an international award-winning violinist who has toured with early music ensembles like the European Union Baroque Orchestra, Dunedin Consort and The English Concert, as well as performing across Europe as a soloist... Read more... |
David Webb's 'Winter Journey', Wigmore Hall online review - an epic sharedSaturday, 30 January 2021
The bleak isolation and lonely angst felt in Schubert’s Winterreise is only too appropriate for a lockdown January. However, one positive to shine from this gloom is tenor David Webb’s own "Winter Journey". Cycling around his home in London every... Read more... |
Classical CDs: recorders, fishermen, Spanish nightlife and waltzesSaturday, 30 January 2021
Bach: Sonatas for recorder, harpsichord and viola da gamba Michala Petri (recorder), Hille Perl (viola da gamba), Mahan Esfahani (harpsichord) (OUR Recordings)That these sonatas were originally composed by Bach for flute is surely of no... Read more... |
Classical musicians on life after Brexit - 2: violinist Victoria SaylesThursday, 28 January 2021
In March 2020, all my work in Australia and Sweden, where I had won contracts for several months to come, was cancelled on the day I was due to fly. Both organisations who had engaged me promptly honoured their contracts with me financially... Read more... |
The Hermes Experiment, Wigmore Hall online review - innovative and upliftingWednesday, 27 January 2021
Fast making a name for themselves in contemporary chamber music, The Hermes Experiment players here give a wonderful debut recital at the Wigmore Hall, With a range of pieces as eclectic as their line up – harp, soprano, double bass and clarinet –... Read more... |
