Classical music
Classical CDs Weekly: US Election SpecialSaturday, 31 October 2020
A New Century The Cleveland Orchestra/Franz Welser-Möst (Cleveland Orchestra)Have we reached peak box set? This debut release from the Cleveland Orchestra’s own label ups the stakes considerably, an exquisitely designed and engineered... Read more... |
Julia Bullock, Philharmonia, Salonen, RFH review – bewitching dreamscapesFriday, 30 October 2020
Nobody would wish it this way, but orchestras playing on a stage specially built-up for distancing to a handful of invitees have never sounded better in the Royal Festival Hall. The Philharmonia’s outgoing principal conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen is a... Read more... |
Pavel Kolesnikov, Wigmore Hall review - the stuff of dreamsWednesday, 28 October 2020
To plan a programme around The Tempest, its symbolism and the idea of evanescence, the fragility of the human condition, is one thing. To pull it off convincingly is quite another. The young Russian pianist Pavel Kolesnikov not only did so in... Read more... |
Philharmonia, Rouvali, RFH review – wide range of American voicesTuesday, 27 October 2020
There’s an old rule in the theatre that you don’t have to go on if there are more people on stage than in the audience. Last night I counted less than 15 people listening in the cavernous auditorium of the Royal Festival Hall pitted against a fairly... Read more... |
Northern Chords Festival, Church of St James and St Basil, Newcastle review - high, lucid and brightTuesday, 27 October 2020
Whatever happens next – and even in Tier 3 the Royal Liverpool Phlharmonic goes on playing to carefully distanced audiences – this will be remembered by all participants as a day of dazzling brilliance, its bright autumn light matched by so much of... Read more... |
Brecon Baroque, Podger, Brecon Cathedral online review - Bach recolouredMonday, 26 October 2020
Bach’s Goldberg Variations, written for harpsichord in about 1741 supposedly (or perhaps not) for a certain Johann Goldberg to play to the insomniac Count Keyserlingk, have enjoyed – or suffered – countless arrangements for other instruments,... Read more... |
City of London Sinfonia, Southwark Cathedral / Kanneh-Masons, Barbican review - soaring teamworkSunday, 25 October 2020
“Live music is back,” runs the Barbican's latest slogan, so treasure it and get out there while you can. Thursday evening in London offered an embarrassment of riches. I chose the City of London Sinfonia live in Southwark Cathedral over the Kanneh-... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Henrique Oswald, Saint-Saëns, Tilson Thomas, Smaro GregoriadouSaturday, 24 October 2020
Henrique Oswald: Piano Concerto, Saint-Saëns: Piano Concerto No. 5 Clélia Iruzun (piano), Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Jac van Steen (Somm)You can never have enough of Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concerto No. 5, a piece tailor-made to soothe and... Read more... |
Tasmin Little Farewell Recital, RFH review - memories, tributes and dreamsFriday, 23 October 2020
Bidding farewell to the Royal Festival Hall, Tasmin Little was at the very peak of her powers. It’s almost unthinkable that we will never see her play here again. Many have hoped that she’d be one of those musicians who announce their retirement... Read more... |
Allan Clayton, Stephanie Wake-Edwards, James Baillieu, Wigmore Hall review - consummate musicality and techniqueThursday, 22 October 2020
Last seen gurning and camping his way across the Royal Opera House stage in absurdist musical fantasy Frankenstein!!, it was a very different Allan Clayton who held the Wigmore Hall in stillness just a few nights later.We’ve seen a lot of the tenor... Read more... |
Jeneba Kanneh-Mason, Sode, Chineke! Orchestra, Edusei, RFH review - protest, passion and joyWednesday, 21 October 2020
During the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in London earlier this year, a black man named Patrick Hutchinson hoisted over his shoulder an injured white man from the counter-protest of the English Defence League and carried him to safety. The... Read more... |
London Symphony Orchestra, Hasan, LSO St Luke's review - dances great and smallTuesday, 20 October 2020
Big orchestras to serve the late romantic masterpieces and contemporary blockbusters still aren’t the order of the Covid-era day, even in streamed events, at least not in the UK. The London Symphony Orchestra is so far unique in bigging up the... Read more... |
