Classical Reviews
St Matthew Passion, Ex Cathedra, Skidmore, Symphony Hall Birmingham - powerful, poignant BachSaturday, 20 April 2019
For the final instalment of their three Matthew Passions this Holy Week, Ex Cathedra gave a large scale performance of Bach’s oratorio in their home town on Birmingham, after dates with lesser forces in London and Bristol. Read more... |
Javier Perianes, QEH review - not a Spanish fire-eater but a world-class poetWednesday, 17 April 2019
Expect no cliches about toreador pianism. Red-earth flamboyance is not Javier Perianes' style, and the seven dances he offered in his programme - eight including an encore - by fellow Spaniard Manuel de Falla were not the most consistently engaging part of the recital. Read more... |
Philharmonia, Blomstedt, RFH review - gravity and graceMonday, 15 April 2019
Great conductors, like efficient auto engines, apply a lot of torque – they can use a little energy to achieve great surges of movement. Now aged 91, the American-born Swedish maestro Herbert Blomstedt sometimes hardly seems to raise his baton-free hands. His feet, meanwhile, remain more or less immobile. Read more... |
Ehnes, BBC Philharmonic, Wilson, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - contrasts from the 1930sMonday, 15 April 2019
John Wilson conducted Vaughan Williams’ Fifth Symphony with the BBC Philharmonic in Manchester just over a year ago with great success, in a programme of music from the 1940s. This time it was the very different, troubled Fourth, and the context was British composition. Read more... |
JACK Quartet, Wigmore Hall review – superlative Elliott Carter quartetsMonday, 08 April 2019
At Wigmore Hall the JACK Quartet presented the complete Elliott Carter string quartets in a single day – an astonishing feat given the scale and complexity of the music. Read more... |
Voces8, Cadogan Hall review – masterful madrigal singing and moreFriday, 05 April 2019
The vocal octet Voces8, approaching its 15th anniversary, is a purring musical machine: vocally top-notch, precisely and exhaustively rehearsed, imaginative in repertoire and equally at home in Monteverdi and Duke Ellington. And if the classical items grabbed me more than the kitsch swing numbers they ended with, there is no denying the whole concert was put together with panache and musical excellence. Read more... |
Judith, Royal Festival Hall review - a musical curiosity gets a rare airingThursday, 04 April 2019
If Gilbert and Sullivan did the Bible it would sound a lot like Hubert Parry’s Judith. Premiered in 1888 and last heard in London a year later, the oratorio – whose principal claim to fame is as the original home of tearjerker hymn tune Repton, better known as “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind – has been lovingly restored to life by conductor William Vann and the English Song Festival, who will record it with Chandos later this year. Read more... |
Bach St John Passion, OAE, Rattle, RFH review – earnest devotionsWednesday, 03 April 2019
We live in a secular age, or so we’re told. Yet we seem to need rituals, the age-old practice and province of religion, as much as ever. Read more... |
Melzer, Albion Quartet, Birmingham Town Hall review - songs without wordsWednesday, 27 March 2019
This was a fascinating, unexpected prospect; instantly appealing to anyone who’s ever wondered about the string quartet’s niche in the 21st-century musical ecosystem. Read more... |
Biss, Philharmonia, Boyd, RFH review – compulsive life-forceTuesday, 26 March 2019
Mozart in E flat (the Overture to The Marriage of Figaro) and in G (the K.453 Piano Concerto), and Schubert in C – the “Great” C major Symphony, no less – ushered spring into the Festival Hall on a warm and sunny... Read more... |
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