LPO
Hough, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Alsop, Royal Festival HallThursday, 09 February 2012
Poor old Stephen Hough. The Liszt double. Again! Was he not at all Liszted out after last year's epic bicentenary? Were we not Liszted out by last year's epic bicentenary? Hough has been living, breathing and eating these two pieces for the past... Read more... |
Jansen, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Nézet-Séguin, Royal Festival HallThursday, 02 February 2012
At last, a bag of sweets! In earlier concerts from Vladimir Jurowski’s LPO series Prokofiev: Man of the People? much time was spent consuming the composer’s flat soufflés, experimental rock cakes, or the fancy dish that was really haddock.... Read more... |
Fleisher, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Jurowski, Royal Festival HallThursday, 26 January 2012
The London Philharmonic’s current festival – Prokofiev: Man of the People? – is all about the question mark. While the festival’s concerts, lectures and even its classical club-night each make their own statement, the overarching spirit here is one... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Honegger, Paul Hillier, LiberaSaturday, 10 December 2011
Honegger: Une cantate de Noël, Pastorale d’été, Symphony No 4 London Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir, New London Childrens’ Choir/Jurowski (LPO)Arthur Honegger’s best-known work is his short, mechanistic portrayal of a steam engine, Pacific... Read more... |
Jansen, London Philharmonic, Vänskä, Royal Festival HallThursday, 17 November 2011
Noticed that nip in the air recently? The reason now is obvious: conductor Osmo Vänskä, the brisk wind from Minnesota, has blown into town, challenging London’s orchestral musicians to give beyond their best and uncover new layers in repertory works... Read more... |
Leiferkus, LPO, Jurowski, Royal Festival HallThursday, 22 September 2011
How odd that Musorgsky, a composer sanctified beyond his very individual deserts for making social statements in his art, should be feted by an orchestra, or rather an orchestral management, which says music and politics don't mix. They clearly have... Read more... |
BBC Proms: Bavouzet, London Philharmonic Orchestra, JurowskiWednesday, 27 July 2011
The world tour that the Proms offer this year touches down in no more fascinating musical country than Hungary, with three of its great composers, Liszt, Bartók and Kodály brought into the Albert Hall last night by the ever-stimulating Vladimir... Read more... |
Why Ticciati will be great for GlyndebourneFriday, 08 July 2011
Robin the boy wonder, as he was somewhat patronisingly dubbed during his prodigious rise to conducting stardom, will make a bracing Batman for Glyndebourne Festival Opera when he takes over from current music director Vladimir Jurowski in January... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Mahler, Schubert, StravinskyFriday, 10 June 2011
A 20th-century Austrian symphony receives a memorable first recording, coupled with a witty, rarely played slice of Schubert. Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony is heard in a powerful reading recorded in the Royal Festival Hall. And we’ve an... Read more... |
L'elisir d'amore, Glyndebourne Festival OperaThursday, 09 June 2011
Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore must be the only opera from whose central lesson one can actually learn something. Its message - drink, chill out, back off and the girl will be yours - is as good a moral guide to life as any. But it was still... Read more... |
Another Brit conductor makes lightning progressThursday, 26 May 2011
Anyone who's attended an Aurora Orchestra concert at Kings Place will know that twentysomething conductor Nicholas Collon - oddly, the birth date seems elusive - is a force to be reckoned with. When he speaks, he looks as if butter wouldn't melt,... Read more... |
Brewer, LPO, Jurowski, Royal Festival HallWednesday, 04 May 2011
In a London Philharmonic season playing safer than before, principal conductor Vladimir Jurowski has earned the right to a few meat-and-two-veg programmes. Even in a concert containing more than a handful of your hundred best tunes, Wagnerian... Read more... |
