Rachmaninov
theartsdesk Q&A: Pianist Stephen KovacevichSunday, 18 October 2015
“Whatever happened to Stephen Bishop?” is not a question likely to be asked by followers of legendary pianism. Born in San Pedro, Los Angeles on 17 October 1940, the young talent took his stepfather’s name as his career was launched at the age of 11... Read more... |
Trpčeski, CBSO, Măcelaru, Symphony Hall BirminghamFriday, 25 September 2015
Cards on the table: the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is looking for a new music director. Having filled its new season with emerging talents – Andrew Gourlay, Daniele Rustioni, Ryan Wigglesworth and Ben Gernon, to name just four – it’s an... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Medtner, Sibelius, TchaikovskySaturday, 11 July 2015
Medtner: Piano Sonatas Alessandro Taverna (Somm)It's tempting to dismiss Nikolai Medtner without having heard a note of his music. Those who dismiss him as a less flamboyant Rachmaninov contemporary are making a huge mistake. Prokofiev enjoyed... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Gál, Prokofiev, Raffi BesalyanSaturday, 13 June 2015
Hans Gál: Symphonies 1-4 Orchestra of the Swan/Kenneth Woods (Avie)Previously paired with those by Schumann, Hans Gál'sfour symphonies are now sensibly repackaged as a slimline two-cd set. Musicians are always trying to make the case for previously... Read more... |
Kozhukhin, BBCSO, Oramo, BarbicanSunday, 24 May 2015
No two symphonic swansongs could be more different than Sibelius’s heart-of-darkness Tapiola and Nielsen’s enigmatically joky Sixth Symphony. In its evasive yet organic jumpiness, the Danish composer’s anything but “Simple Symphony” – the Sixth’s... Read more... |
Grivnov, LPO, Jurowski, RFHThursday, 30 April 2015
Deep pain and sadness expressed through intense creative discipline aren’t qualities noted often enough in the music of Sergey Rachmaninov. Yet they’ve been consistently underlined, with rigour to match, in Vladimir Jurowski’s season-long “Inside... Read more... |
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Chorus and Orchestra, Scapucci, Liverpool Philharmonic HallSunday, 08 February 2015
The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic has something of a track record when it comes to finding conductors destined for great heights. After all, Sir Simon Rattle was a player in Merseyside Youth Orchestra and started his conducting career in Liverpool.... Read more... |
Bondarenko, LPO, Jurowski, Royal Festival HallSunday, 08 February 2015
The concert season’s title may be Rachmaninoff Inside Out. But the work that dominated and got people talking in yesterday’s instalment of Vladimir Jurowski’s London Philharmonic series was by another composer entirely. “Weird, isn’t it?” said the... Read more... |
Leiferkus, LPO, Jurowski, RFHThursday, 22 January 2015
To pair Rachmaninov’s brooding and little-performed The Miserly Knight with Wagner's brooding but much-performed Das Rheingold is an audacious piece of programming. The operas share an interest in the mortal power of money, and Rachmaninov’s score... Read more... |
Colli, BBCSO, Oramo, Barbican HallSaturday, 17 January 2015
Was 1911 the best ever year for music? Works premiered or composed then include Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, Stravinsky’s Petrushka, Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde and the Tenth Symphony he’d completed in outline by the time of his death that May,... Read more... |
Ohlsson, BBCSO, Oramo, BarbicanSaturday, 13 December 2014
How disorienting it is to find century-old works in the concert repertoire of which you can still say “I’ve never heard anything like it”. That must have been the reaction of most audience members last night to Tuscan-German composer Ferruccio... Read more... |
Levit, LPO, Jurowski, Royal Festival HallThursday, 04 December 2014
If Brahms’s First Symphony has long been dubbed “Beethoven’s Tenth”, then the 23-year-old Rachmaninov’s First merits the label of “Tchaikovsky’s Seventh” (a genuine candidate for that title, incidentally, turns out to be a poor reconstruction from... Read more... |
