Rachmaninov
Symphonic Dances, Royal Ballet review - a truly interesting creationFriday, 19 May 2017
Liam Scarlett must be worked off his feet. Just at the Royal Ballet, he made a full-length work, Frankenstein, last year and is currently working on a new Swan Lake; and now last night he has premiered a new abstract work, Symphonic Dances at the... Read more... |
Kempf, Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, Simonov, Cadogan HallFriday, 19 May 2017
It could have been your standard Russian touring programme: Tchaikovsky ballet music as hors d'oeuvre, Rachmaninov piano concerto, Shostakovich symphony. But the symphony was hardly the usual (Sixth rather than Fifth or Tenth). And any chance should... Read more... |
Gerstein, BBC Symphony Chorus and Orchestra, Bychkov, BarbicanSaturday, 29 October 2016
What a relief to find Semyon Bychkov back on romantic terra firma after his slow-motion Mozart at the Royal Opera (performances speeded up somewhat, I'm told, after a sticky first night). On his own, dark-earth terms, there's no-one to touch him for... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Melartin, Rachmaninoff, RzewskiSaturday, 03 September 2016
Erkki Melartin: Traumgesicht, Marjatta, The Blue Pearl Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra/Hannu Lintu, with Soile Isokoski (soprano) (Ondine)Contrary to what you might read, there wasn’t just one composer active in early 20th century Finland. A recent... Read more... |
Prom 53: Stadler, RLPO, PetrenkoFriday, 26 August 2016
He still looks every inch the golden boy, but Vasily Petrenko has just turned 40, and next month celebrates a decade with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. Time well spent, as this impressive evening revealed: after years of Russian immersion under... Read more... |
Lill, Moscow State Symphony Orchestra, Kogan, Symphony Hall BirminghamTuesday, 17 May 2016
Behemoth Dances. Who dances? You know, Behemoth, the huge demonic black cat who cakewalks through Stalin’s Moscow in Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita spreading mayhem and magic; the spirit – as quoted by Bulgakov, and taken by Stephen Johnson as... Read more... |
Zuev, LPO, Jurowski, RFHMonday, 02 May 2016
It often sounds as though Richard Strauss makes the ascent of his Alpine Symphony in too many layers of clothes. Hopes were that Vladimir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic Orchestra would give us a characteristically sinewy, more lightly-clad... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Pianist Boris GiltburgSunday, 28 February 2016
London has been missing out on Boris Giltburg for too long. He's been playing Shostakovich concertos back to back with Petrenko in Liverpool, and the big Rachmaninov works up in Scotland (see theartsdesk's review today of the latest Royal Scottish... Read more... |
Giltburg, RSNO, Prieto, Usher Hall, EdinburghSunday, 28 February 2016
To a freezing grey night in Scotland’s capital, the conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto brought a welcome ray of Mexican sunshine. Wearing a broad grin he marched onto the platform of the Usher Hall and launched into Rodion Shchedrin’s impish Concerto... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Oslo: Vasily Petrenko, the Leningrad Dynamo, comes to townWednesday, 24 February 2016
I've never thought of myself as a Shostakovich fan, tending to regard what I know of his output as bleak and forbidding. Photographs of the stone-faced composer with the mortuary attendant's demeanour haven't helped.All this changed after a night... Read more... |
Rhapsody/The Two Pigeons, Royal BalletMonday, 18 January 2016
Perhaps the director of the Royal Ballet is a pigeon fancier? With this January run of The Two Pigeons following hard on the heels of one in November, the Royal Ballet's dancers have spent most of the autumn and winter practising the fluttering,... Read more... |
Kovacevich, Argerich, Wigmore HallTuesday, 03 November 2015
“People think when a person becomes old, he has to become serene,” declared that great pianist Claudio Arrau in his mid-seventies. “That’s absurd. The expressive intensity is, I feel, much stronger, much more concentrated in my playing than years... Read more... |
