Mozart
The Magic Flute, English National OperaSaturday, 06 February 2016
“We are at a time of present crisis.” When Sarastro addressed his boardroom of business-suited acolytes last night, there can’t have been many in the Coliseum whose thoughts didn’t turn to English National Opera. Even by the standards of a company... Read more... |
Giordano, SCO, Mendez, Queen's Hall, EdinburghFriday, 22 January 2016
Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven: it’s a while since I have heard the Scottish Chamber Orchestra play such an essentially classical programme on its home turf, the Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh. Recent reviews have focused on concerts in the much more... Read more... |
Alder, Hulett, Classical Opera, Page, Wigmore HallWednesday, 20 January 2016
Unlike Schubert, Mendelssohn and Shostakovich, Mozart composed nothing astoundingly individual before the age of 20. That leaves any odyssey through his oeuvre, year by year – this one will finish in 2041, by which time I’ll be nearly 80 if I live... Read more... |
Mozart's Piano 1, Butt, Aurora Orchestra, Kings PlaceSunday, 17 January 2016
One down, 26 to go. “Mozart's Piano” is a series of concerts by the Aurora Orchestra at Kings Place, based around a complete cycle of Mozart's piano concertos. It started last night, and will reach its conclusion in 2020.It was Peter Millican of the... Read more... |
Leonskaja 70th Birthday Concert, Wigmore HallMonday, 23 November 2015
It was a massive but never overbearing three-parter, a three-and-a-half hour celebration, a mini-festival of youth and experience. Wouldn’t we all want to mark a major birthday in the company of friends of all ages? Elisabeth Leonskaja, much-loved... Read more... |
Gerhaher, Huber, Wigmore HallMonday, 09 November 2015
Christian Gerhaher is a classy recitalist. His stage manner is debonair, his tailoring immaculate (although his hair can be unruly). His artistry focuses on key vocal virtues: directness of expression and beauty of tone. In this evening’s recital,... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Soprano Elizabeth WattsSunday, 08 November 2015
Not many people write conspicuously brilliant tweets, but Elizabeth Watts is someone who does. Working on the most demanding aria on her stunning new CD of operatic numbers and cantatas by the lesser-known of the two Scarlattis, father Alessandro... Read more... |
Fröst, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Chailly, BarbicanSaturday, 24 October 2015
Final thoughts: a fitting theme for the farewell concert of this year’s Gewandhaus Barbican residency. But the connections proved tenuous: Death and Transfiguration, the gloomy opener, was written when Strauss was only 25, and the Mozart Clarinet... Read more... |
Tetzlaff, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Chailly, BarbicanFriday, 23 October 2015
In practice as well as in prospect, the second in Riccardo Chailly’s Strauss/Mozart trilogy was a concert of two very different halves. The first offered small Bavarian and Austrian beer in the shape of Strauss’s fustian Macbeth, unbelievably close... Read more... |
Pires, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Chailly, BarbicanWednesday, 21 October 2015
Riccardo Chailly’s Strauss odyssey with his Leipzig orchestra peaked in Saxony last year, the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth. I was lucky to catch a razor-sharp Till Eulenspiegel and a saturated Death and Transfiguration in Dresden’s... Read more... |
Accentus, Insula, Equilbey, BarbicanTuesday, 22 September 2015
The frail bridge between Baroque and Classical aesthetics was the theme for this debut UK appearance by Insula, the period-orchestra extension to Laurence Equilbey’s superb vocal ensemble accentus.With a chunky harpsichord continuo and urgent pulse... Read more... |
10 Questions for Conductor Laurence EquilbeyWednesday, 16 September 2015
It’s a sunny afternoon at altitude – 1,082 metres, to be precise – in the precincts of France’s highest historic building, the austerely impressive early Gothic Abbey-Church of St-Robert, La Chaise-Dieu. I’m relaxed because I arrived the... Read more... |
