contemporary classical
London Sinfonietta, Adès, Queen Elizabeth HallFriday, 11 March 2011
Like so much fine music, Gerald Barry's new work began life as detritus. Feldman's Sixpenny Editions, which received its world premiere at the Queen Elizabeth Hall last night, are elaborations on the tacky little Edwardian jingles whose... Read more... |
Brian Ferneyhough Day, Barbican CentreSunday, 27 February 2011
Earlier this month something happened to me that's never happened before. Brian Ferneyhough's Sixth String Quartet roughed-up my critical faculties and left them for dead. I couldn't tell you what had happened, why, in what order,... Read more... |
Arditti Quartet, Wigmore HallThursday, 03 February 2011
Being a composer of contemporary classical music is a treacherous business. It's about the only art form in which stylistic choices can still force a creator into permanent exile. Two composers who have fallen foul of the British house style in... Read more... |
The Portrait, Opera NorthWednesday, 02 February 2011
Based on a short story by Gogol, Alexander Medvedev’s libretto for Mieczysław Weinberg’s The Portrait was originally conceived for Shostakovich. It was subsequently passed to Weinberg, who finished his opera in 1980. It’s a bleak, Faustian tale... Read more... |
Los Angeles Philharmonic, Dudamel, Barbican HallFriday, 28 January 2011
There had been murmurings that his star had dimmed. That Gustavo Dudamel's partnership with the Los Angeles Philharmonic (greeted with such fanfare in 2009) had yet to set the West Coast on fire. Had this Icarus flown too high? Would their debut... Read more... |
Markovich, LPO, Jurowski, Royal Festival HallWednesday, 26 January 2011
The great thing about the paucity of Mahler compositions is that, when anniversary time comes, his late-Romantic buddies get to join in. And some of them, like Alexander Zemlinsky in his ravishing Lyric Symphony - being given a rare outing by the... Read more... |
Southbank Centre, 2011 SeasonMonday, 17 January 2011
Mahler, Mahler and anyone who even remotely knew Mahler. There is, of course, more to the South Bank's 2011 season listings than this but the great symphonic agoniser (and his many chums) forms the bedrock of the classical programming as we all go... Read more... |
Year Out/Year In: Classical Music and OperaFriday, 31 December 2010
Earlier this month, George Osborne, Vince Cable and Jeremy Hunt were spotted in a Royal Opera House box surveying the country's most expensive artistic patrimony. What they thought - and how they and the Arts Council might wield their axe - will... Read more... |
Ogrintchouk, BBCSO, Bělohlávek, BarbicanFriday, 17 December 2010
Everywhere I looked I saw children, some burying their heads in their mothers' chests, some doodling on programme notes. One was dancing to Prokofiev's Sixth Symphony. Ambitious. Last night's BBC Symphony Orchestra concert had been given over to... Read more... |
The Risør Festival at the Wigmore HallSunday, 28 November 2010
A hell of a lot of talent was on display last night at the Wigmore Hall, where pianist Leif Ove Andsnes's home festival of Risør was stationed for the weekend. The big draw was a performance of The Rite of Spring for two pianos. The work is violent... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Conductor Riccardo ChaillySaturday, 27 November 2010
When Riccardo Chailly (b 1953) left the Royal Concertgebouw for the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Richard Morrison said it was as if Bill Gates had ditched Microsoft for Aeroflot. The Gewandhaus has since become one of the lustiest of orchestral beasts in the... Read more... |
The Seckerson Tapes: Composer Dario MarianelliSaturday, 06 November 2010
Dario Marianelli won an Oscar and a Golden Globe for his score for the movie Atonement, and his return to the theatre after a long absence as composer for the Young Vic's new production of Tennessee Williams's first big Broadway success, The Glass... Read more... |
