tue 19/03/2024

Daniel Barenboim

Prom 34: Argerich, West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, Barenboim review - erratic star, sleek ensemble

Perhaps those who came for the Argerich touch and left at the interval of this instant-sellout Prom were satisfied. After all, the legendary Argentinian pianist gave us some vintage minutes of her silk-spinning mercurialism. Yet it was in the midst...

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Prom 43, Batiashvili, West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, Barenboim review – from Russia with love

The days are long gone when a Proms gig by Daniel Barenboim and his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra felt like a life-changing visitation by a major prophet. Expectations of the ensemble he and the scholar-writer Edward Said founded in 1999 to encourage...

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Soltani, West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, Barenboim, RFH review - passionate pilgrimages

A legendary name and the chance to change the face of a cruel condition set the stakes high for what Prince Charles, in his programme preface for this Southbank spectacular, told us was called the Stop MS Jacqueline du Pré Tribute Concert. There she...

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Prom 70: Staatskapelle Berlin, Barenboim

Daniel Barenboim is as distinctive as he is unpredictable. His considerable strengths – dynamism, passion, keen intellectual engagement – are balanced by some notable weaknesses – clunky tempo changes, lack of detail – but all configure differently...

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Prom 43: Argerich, West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, Barenboim

It's not so long since Daniel Barenboim sat around a table with Israeli officials telling him that Wagner couldn't be played in the homeland when someone's mobile fanfared the "Ride of the Valkyries", demolishing the opposition's case. At the...

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Barenboim 60th Anniversary Concert, Simón Bolívar SO, Dudamel, RFH

The memories were flooding back last night. Daniel Barenboim's speech after the concert, lasting about a quarter of an hour, contained vivid recollections of his first appearance on that stage in 1956 as a 13-year-old (playing the Mozart A major...

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Schubert Sonatas 3, Barenboim, RFH

“You don’t love Schubert’s music?” Such, according to the greatest of living Schubert interpreters Elisabeth Leonskaja, was the response of her mentor Sviatoslav Richter to students who omitted the exposition repeats in the piano sonatas. ...

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Schubert Sonatas 2, Barenboim, RFH

Personality is essential for Schubert’s piano sonatas. Listen to two recordings of the same one and you could easily think they are different works, such is the performer's input. Daniel Barenboim would therefore seem ideal. He’s a huge...

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Schubert Sonatas 1, Barenboim, RFH

It’s not often that you arrive for a piano recital to see members of the audience on the stage, clustering around the instrument and taking photos of it. Those curious about the newly unveiled, straight-strung Barenboim-Maene concert grand (the name...

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Batiashvili, Staatskapelle Berlin, Barenboim, RFH

Gasps of surprise were heard across the country last month, when Richard Morrison on BBC Radio 3's "Building a Library" announced Daniel Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin as his library choice for Elgar’s Second Symphony. That...

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Argerich, Staatskapelle Berlin, Barenboim, RFH

It looked like a potential misalliance between performers used to looking at the stars and a programme of earthly, ideally rather broadly humorous delights. In the event, Martha Argerich, who can turn her high, lucid playing to most ends, sought out...

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Classical CDs Weekly: Brahms, Elgar, Tobias Hume

 Brahms: The Violin Sonatas Corey Cerovsek (violin), Paavali Jumppanen (piano) (Milanollo)Listening to Brahms's chamber music in hefty doses is good for the soul. The symphonies and concertos are weighty, rich creations – magnificent in their...

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