Mendelssohn
theartsdesk at the Dresden Music Festival - orchestral abundance in a spectacular settingWednesday, 25 May 2022Dresden is filled with music at this time of year. The Dresden Music Festival runs through May and early June, with concerts at all the famous venues – the Frauenkirche, the Semperoper – but also recitals in smaller halls and unlikely settings.My... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Double reeds, double pianos and double string orchestrasSaturday, 14 May 2022Mozart, Hummel and Vanhal – Bassoon Concertos Sophie Dervaux (bassoon/conductor), Mozarteumorchester Salzburg (Berlin Classics)The performance of the Hummel Grand Concerto for bassoon from 1805 here is just superb. French-born Sophie... Read more... |
Baráti, Bournemouth SO, Riveiro Böhm, Lighthouse, Poole review - a quartet of musical child prodigiesTuesday, 10 May 2022Although the composer singled out as the flagship promotional hook for the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra’s concert was the “Brilliant Mendelssohn”, the programme also highlighted Mozart, Schubert and Britten to complete a quartet of musical child... Read more... |
Album: Helen Sung – Quartet+Thursday, 09 September 2021Dazzling. That was the first adjective with which the illustrious Marian McPartland described Helen Sung’s piano playing, when she had the remarkable Houston-born pianist as her guest for an episode of the NPR radio show Piano Jazz in 2006.On... Read more... |
East Neuk Festival 2021 / Benjamin Baker, Fidelio Orchestra Café review – singing in the rainFriday, 16 July 2021The heading may be a bit misleading. There were no vocalists at this year’s ingeniously adapted East Neuk Festival – live events held exclusively in the big space of the Bowhouse, St Monans, to a compulsorily limited audience – and the only rain was... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Osvaldo Golijov, Mendelssohn, Vaughan WilliamsSaturday, 21 November 2020Osvaldo Golijov: Falling Out of Time Silkroad Ensemble (In a Circle Records)Along with many others, I was beguiled by DG’s recording of Osvaldo Golijov's Pasión Según San Marcos a decade ago, an exuberant Latin American take on Bach. After... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Enescu, Mendelssohn, Tuur, Sara StoweSaturday, 27 June 2020Mendelssohn: Octet, Enescu: Octet Gringolts Quartet & Meta4 (BIS)Mendelssohn began work on his delicious Octet at the age of 16. He’d been composing for several years previously, though this work, along with the equally miraculous overture... Read more... |
Ibragimova, LSO, Stutzmann, Barbican review – grace and gravityFriday, 10 January 2020Alina Ibragimova’s solo journey (in 2015) through the peaks and abysses of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas gave me vivid Proms memories to treasure for a lifetime. The Russian-born violinist’s Bach abounds in both majesty and tenderness, as well as a... Read more... |
Prom 40: Hough, OAE, Fischer review - pretty royal thingsSaturday, 17 August 2019There it gleamed, the pearl in the massive oyster of Albert's colosseum: the gilded, decorated piano supplied to his Queen by Érard in 1856. Pearly in sound it was not, though often harp-like; the programme was of mostly silver works, with a gold... Read more... |
theartsdesk at Incontri in Terra di Siena: galloping concertos and Stravinsky by starlightSaturday, 10 August 2019July in Tuscany and the heat is intense. Oak-forested hills offer tempting shade; pale dust flies from the roads; in the houses curtains are drawn against the ferocious sun and around irrigated gardens the mosquitos are growing plump. If you love... Read more... |
London Mozart Players, Davan Wetton, St Giles Cripplegate - rousing Shakespearean revelSaturday, 29 June 2019The festival Summer Music in City Churches is in only its second year, filling a gap left by the demise of the long-running City of London Festival. This year’s festival had the theme of Words and Music and offered an enticing programme of recitals... Read more... |
Schumann Series 3 & 4, LSO, Gardiner, Barbican review - upstanding brillianceMonday, 11 February 2019Schumann revitalized by John Eliot Gardiner and the London Symphony Orchestra last year left us wanting more: namely two of the four symphonies (transcendently great, as it turns out from these revelatory performances). But those concerts also... Read more... |