Classical music
Stephen Kovacevich, Wigmore Hall review - a sublime birthday treatMonday, 19 October 2020
What do you want to do on your 80th birthday? Well, playing two of your favourite pieces of music at the Wigmore Hall is not a bad option. To celebrate his big day, Stephen Kovacevich returned to the scene of many of his triumphs since 1961,... Read more... |
Cooper, Aurora Orchestra, Kings Place review - a heartwarming delightSunday, 18 October 2020
Rarely have I seen so many smiles on stage as at Kings Place on Saturday. The combination of the delight of the performers being back in their natural environment with the genial and generous-spirited music they were playing brought out the best in... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Jess Gillam, John Harle, Voces8Saturday, 17 October 2020
Jess Gillam: Time (Decca)Cellists, violinists and pianists have it easy. They’re spoilt for choice when it comes to solo repertoire, a point made when theartsdesk reviewed the BBC Young Musician 2016 final, the year when cellist Sheku Kanneh-... Read more... |
Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Queen's Hall, Edinburgh online review – two Parisian gemsFriday, 16 October 2020
Though live performances are, thankfully, starting to reappear throughout the country, and socially distanced seating, mask-donning and constant hand sanitising becomes the norm for audiences south of the border, those in Scotland are still eagerly... Read more... |
First Person: harpsichordist Chad Kelly on reimagining Bach's Goldberg VariationsThursday, 15 October 2020
As musicians took tentative steps into the unfamiliar world of PPE, socially-distanced rehearsals and audiences watching from home on a computer screen, a common water-cooler question was, “What did you do during lockdown?”. I am grateful to... Read more... |
Mariam Batsashvili, Wigmore Hall review – the serious virtuosoWednesday, 14 October 2020
“O wise young judge”, says Shylock to Portia in The Merchant of Venice.It seemed just such a figure who made her way to the piano at the Wigmore Hall last night. Besuited, bespectacled, with a poised upright posture that frees her arms, plus... Read more... |
Baker, Ridout, LaFollette, Schwizgebel, Fidelio Orchestra Cafe review - fun and ferocityWednesday, 14 October 2020
How many musicians can you fit in the main space of the Fidelio Orchestra Café? The answer is 23 string players in masks, for the recording of Strauss’s Metamorphosen of which I was a solitary witness in the summer. With diners accommodated,... Read more... |
First Person: composer Brian Elias on the Music@Malling Festival's retrospective of his worksTuesday, 13 October 2020
It is my very good fortune to be offered by Music@Malling what is, in effect, a retrospective of my work. The music that will be performed was written between 1969 and 2019, exactly half a century. Inevitably, such a survey makes me think about the... Read more... |
Louise Alder, Roger Vignoles, Wigmore Hall review - German Romanticism meets French eroticismSaturday, 10 October 2020
We may have started out among the wholesome pleasures of nature, but we ended up in the bedroom – once, that is, we had recovered from the flying breasts… Soprano Louise Alder’s recital – the last in the Wigmore Hall’s month-long lunchtime series –... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Ole Bull, Vítězslav Novák, SchumannSaturday, 10 October 2020
Ole Bull: Stages of Life Annar Follesø (violin), Norwegian Radio Orchestra/Eun Sun Kim, with Wolfgang Plagge (piano) (2L)Schumann thought that the Norwegian violinist and composer Ole Bull (1810-1880) was as accomplished a player as Paganini,... Read more... |
Elias Quartet, Wigmore Hall review – sinewy, muscular BeethovenWednesday, 07 October 2020
You could imagine that normality had returned watching the live webcasts from the Wigmore Hall. The Hall has bucked the trend, and managed to present a full autumn season, to a carefully separated but still substantial audience. Yesterday evening’s... Read more... |
András Schiff, Wigmore Hall review – passion, reason and refinementTuesday, 06 October 2020
How loud can the applause from a scanty, socially-distanced audience sound? Thunderous enough, as the response to Sir András Schiff’s back-to-back recitals at the Wigmore Hall proved. On both Sunday and Monday evenings, the happy few of 112 – the... Read more... |
