wed 23/07/2025

Classical Reviews

Breaking the Rules, LSO St Luke's review – music and murder with Gesualdo

Jessica Duchen

The “concert drama” is on the up, offering audiences a mingled-genre means to experience music and its context simultaneously.

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National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, Elder, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review – maturity from teenage players

Robert Beale

Seventy years old and still imbued with youthful flair and enthusiasm – that’s the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, which pioneered new territory in its first concert of 2018 last night. The flair and enthusiasm also apply to Sir Mark Elder, who conducted the event.

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Ivana Gavrić, Wigmore Hall review - more earth than air

David Nice

Power and intelligence combined make Sarajevo-born British pianist Ivana Gavrić stand out from the crowd. Bass lines are clear and strong; right-hand melodies move in keenly articulated song.

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Joyce DiDonato and Brentano Quartet, Wigmore Hall - not enough variety

Sebastian Scotney

Even for a singer as driven, communicative and self-reliant as Joyce DiDonato, the song recital with string quartet is a bold step. Whereas an endless repertoire of songs with piano exists, there is virtually nothing off-the-peg for singer and string quartet; it is a case of commissioning the arrangements, and to some extent building your own art form.

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Christmas Oratorio, LPO, Jurowski, RFH review - right piece, wrong place

Peter Quantrill

Just when you can scarcely move for Messiahs, two Christmas Oratorios came along at once on Saturday night. That’s London concert schedules for you.

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Coates, Tenebrae, Short, Kings Place review - effective meeting of cello and choir

Bernard Hughes

This time of year lots of choirs give lots of Christmas concerts that are more or less the same: traditional repertoire perhaps sprinkled with a few novelties.

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Zimerman, LSO, Rattle, Barbican review - a diverse Bernstein centenary

Gavin Dixon

Leonard Bernstein is 100 already. Actually, he’s not – his centenary falls in 2018, but the LSO, an orchestra he conducted many times, is building up to the anniversary with a series of concerts featuring his three symphonies.

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Octets, Wigmore Hall review - Heath Quartet and star friends effervesce

David Nice

To compose a masterpiece in your teens is rare enough; to choose the most elaborate form in chamber music, an octet for eight strings, ensures a peculiar kind of immortality.

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Schumann Street, Spitalfields Festival review - illumination on a winter's night

Helen Wallace

An icy, wet wind snuck under the door of house number 8 in Fournier Street, where Uri Caine, bundled in coat and woolly hat, conjured Schumann’s darkly powerful "Im Rhein". Beside him, perched on a weaver’s stool, was improvising legend Phil Minton, rasping, whistling and groaning his way through "The wilderness of my life".

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Mark Padmore, Mitsuko Uchida, Wigmore Hall review - direct and uncompromising Schubert

Gavin Dixon

Expectations ran high for Mark Padmore and Mitsuko Uchida in Winterreise.

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