tue 19/03/2024

conductors

Best of 2023: Classical CDs

 There’s still a market for classical music, whether you stream, download or get your fix from your local classical CD shop. Universal’s acquisition of the independent Hyperion label worried many listeners early in 2023, but the fact that...

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Maestro review - the infinite variety of Leonard Bernstein

The only seriously false note about Maestro is its title. Yes, Bernstein was masterly as a conductor, and Bradley Cooper gives it his best shot. But he was no master of his life as a whole. Maybe the title should have been something like Lenny and...

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Aimard, Concerto Budapest SO, Keller, Cadogan Hall review - lords of the dance

The Zurich International series at Cadogan Hall has turned into a horizon-expanding stage on which to catch those visiting orchestras that don’t always claim top billing in bigger venues. The hall’s welcoming acoustic shows off the sound and style...

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LPO, Jurowski, RFH / LSO, BBC Singers, Rattle, Barbican review - spiderwebs, sublimity and a powerful speech

Complex, ambiguous late romantic works in concert programmes need something more direct to keep them company. Mozart and Richard Strauss make excellent bedfellows (and Strauss was an extraordinary Mozart interpreter): no wonder Vladimir Jurowski’s...

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First Person: Donatella Flick on why the conducting competition in her name is needed more than ever

What are the qualities that make a great conductor? It’s something that has been debated for years, brought into focus recently not least because of Cate Blanchett’s award-winning performance as fictional maestra Lydia Tár. Despite what you may...

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First Person: conductor Harry Bicket on filming the complete Handel for The English Concert's big new project

Of the many questions we asked ourselves during lockdown, I suspect that many of us looked at our lives and professions and asked, “Why?”.Perhaps a period of forced introspection is a positive thing if it helps clarify what is truly important and...

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theartsdesk at the Pärnu Music Festival 2022 - conductors from 15 to 85, and the greatest players

When I first came to Estonia with a then still-exiled Neeme Järvi and his Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra in 1989, the world-class young musicians who dazzled at this year’s Pärnu Music Festival hadn’t been born.A new Estonian musical golden age is...

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Album: Paul Weller - An Orchestrated Songbook

It’s a far cry from his beginnings in a tight, no-frills power-pop-post-punk three piece, that’s for sure. Last May, Paul Weller took to the stage with guitarist Steve Craddock, a smattering of guest vocalists and the BBC Symphony Orchestra to...

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Philharmonia, Rouvali, RFH review - the really big orchestra is back for cosmic Strauss

Two suns, two moons, two Philharmonia leaders sharing a front desk, two aspirational giants among Richard Strauss's symphonic poems bringing the number of players, in the second half, to 134. Who’d have thought we’d be witnessing such phenomena when...

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First Person: conductor Enrique Mazzola on Verdi's time-travelling 'Luisa Miller'

It is difficult to know why some operas succeed while others remain unknown. The reasons can be emotional or historical, or it might be as simple as a poor cast who couldn’t quite launch the opera into the stars. In the case of Luisa Miller, we have...

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Classical CDs: Three great conductors remembered, Mahler with accordion and a song cycle with no singer

 André Previn: The Warner Edition – Complete HMV & Teldec Recordings (Warner Classics)Flicking through this box set will provoke a Proustian rush if you’re of a certain age. These recordings were mostly made for EMI, though Warner Classics...

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theartsdesk Q&A: conductor Klaus Mäkelä

Let the facts – and the music-making you can see and hear online – speak for themselves first. Finnish conductor Klaus Mäkelä became the Oslo Philharmonic’s chief conductor last September, at the age of 24; he takes up the same post with the...

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