wed 14/05/2025

LPO

London Philharmonic holds on to the best

It already has the finest balance in its team of house conductors, and fortunately - though few are more sought after worldwide - Vladimir Jurowski and Yannick Nézet-Séguin have pledged to extend their contracts with the London Philharmonic...

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LPO, Jurowski, Royal Festival Hall

For many of us, this was bound to be an emotional evening. Noëlle Mann, doyenne of all things Prokofievian on the editorial, archival, teaching and performing fronts, died peacefully at home last Friday, and it was to her that Vladimir Jurowski...

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Gorecki singer makes it despite volcanic ash

Joanna Wos (left, no relation to Jonathan Ross) put in a stellar performance last night singing in Gorecki's Third Symphony at the Royal Festival Hall with the LPO, singing the part made famous on the million-selling recording by Dawn Upshaw. To...

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LPO, Jurowski, Royal Festival Hall

This is the fifth time on theartsdesk that a review has been headed as above - so you must be thinking it had better be justified or bribery will be suspected. But it's not just the phosphorescent fascination that flickers around the charismatic...

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LPO, Jurowski, RFH

The angel of death, portrayed above by Evelyn de Morgan, strikes twice in Josef Suk's elegiac symphony

Asrael, angel of death, rarely glides up to the concert platform; I've only heard Josef Suk's painful and protracted symphony of the same name once before in the Festival Hall, championed by Rattle. In the past, all Suk's great Czech compatriots,...

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LPO/ Vänskä, Royal Festival Hall

Osmo Vänskä: 'When Vänskä conducts Sibelius he doesn’t just traverse the musical landscape, he inhabits it'

Whoever said it was better to journey than to arrive might have been thinking of Sibelius. The arrivals can be pretty spectacular – as here in Osmo Vänskä's tremendous account of the Second Symphony – but the getting there – or not – is what this...

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LPO, Vänskä, Royal Festival Hall

As was hoped, Osmo Vänskä, the livewire music director of the Minnesota Orchestra, showed us exactly why he's the greatest living Sibelian last night in the first concert of the London Philharmonic's Sibelius cycle. Ducking and diving, crouching and...

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LPO, Jurowski, RFH

Laid-back Tenerife and Gran Canaria won't know what's hit them when the London Philharmonic Orchestra and its principal conductor Vladimir Jurowski land next week. The islands can expect to be sense-bombed by the jungly exuberance of Szymanowski and...

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The Seckerson Tapes: Edward and Igor look back at 2009

Nina Stemme gives a career-defining performance as Isolde at Covent Garden in Autumn 2009

Since before Christmas theartsdesk has been reviewing the past decade and previewing the year to come in the arts. As an extra we offer this special edition of The Seckerson Tapes, in which Edward Seckerson and Igor Toronyi-Lalic discuss the year in...

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Classical Music CDs Round-Up 3

CD of the Month: 'All the frisson of live performances but none of the technical disadvantages'

Our pick of the latest Classical CDs ranges from Tchaikovsky's first and final symphonies to Greek-themed songs by Schubert, by way of late Stravinsky ballets, rare Roussel, a complete Sibelius cycle, cross-over music for recorder and a Superman...

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Schnittke Festival finale, Jurowski, RFH

Eliot's "time future contained in time past" has been conductor Vladimir Jurowski's unofficial motto throughout a festival which has had to take itself very seriously, and managed miraculously to carry a surprisingly large, loyal audience...

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London Philharmonic Orchestra, Jurowski, Royal Festival Hall

J S Bach was very much at the spiritual centre of this cunningly devised programme for the South Bank’s current Alfred Schnittke fest: Between Two Worlds. But by the time we emerged shaken but, in my case, not stirred by Schnittke’s preposterous 3rd...

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