Classical Reviews
Prom 38: Audience Choice, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Fischer 2 review - true democracy or tricksy referendum?Monday, 14 August 2023
It would be worth travelling a long way to hear the Budapest Festival Orchestra giving such a lithe, athletic performance under its founder and Music Director Iván Fischer of Glina’s Ruslan and Lyudmila Overture. That was the Radio 3 and Proms Audience Choice from 19 overtures and preludes whittled down to three. What happened next, despite some equally lustrous playing, didn’t always work so well. Read more... |
Han, KBS Symphony Orchestra, Inkinen / Dunedin Consort, Butt, Edinburgh International Festival 2023 review - a tale of two very different orchestrasSunday, 13 August 2023
There’s a Korean strain to the Edinburgh International Festival’s programme this year, more in the drama programme than in the music one, but it came to the Usher Hall in Friday night’s concert from the KBS Symphony Orchestra (★★★★). They play a similar role in Korea to what the BBC Orchestras do in the UK (KBS stands for Korean Broadcasting System) and if this concert is anything to go by then they’re a jolly impressive bunch of musicians. Read more... |
Prom 37: Schiff, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Fischer 1 review - landscapes and mindscapesSunday, 13 August 2023
“Very traditional, but fun,” ran the verdict of one fellow-traveller as we waited for a bus outside the Royal Albert Hall on Saturday night. No one can gainsay the infectious fun that the Budapest Festival Orchestra bring to every gig. For all its musical accomplishment, Iván Fischer’s all-singing (yes, they did) if not quite all-dancing (yet) outfit never forget that they belong to a, rather elevated, branch of show business. Read more... |
Schiff, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Fischer / Emmanuel Ceysson & Friends, Edinburgh International Festival 2023 review - Hungariana and harpFriday, 11 August 2023
You’d feel short-changed if an orchestra like the Budapest Festival Orchestra came to the Edinburgh Festival and didn’t play some Hungarian music, so why not put together a whole concert of the stuff? Read more... |
Ilker Arcayürek, Malcolm Martineau, Edinburgh International Festival 2023 review - vocal tension saved by poetic pianismThursday, 10 August 2023
It’s an everyday story of festival folk. The festival’s Queen’s Hall concert on Wednesday morning was meant to be a song recital from Günther Groissböck, but he cancelled at (I’m told very) short notice due to illness and the festival team had to scrabble around to find a replacement pronto. Read more... |
Stefan Jackiw and Friends, Edinburgh International Festival 2023 review - focused playing, with restraint thrown to the windsMonday, 07 August 2023
And we’re off! This concert marked the beginning not just of the 2023 Edinburgh International Festival but, perhaps more importantly, of Nicola Benedetti’s tenure in charge as the EIF’s Director. She came onstage for a chat before a note of music was played. Part of her mission as director appears to be to make the arts more accessible, and if her introductory chat wasn’t much more than a gentle hello then it still did the job. Any aim to demystify classical music has to be welcomed. Read more... |
Prom 28: Rangwanasha, National Youth Orchestra, Prieto review - playing, and singing, with a swingSunday, 06 August 2023
Programming works from the same decade – in this case the 1940s – can reveal fascinating contrasts: what an impressive gulf, for instance, between two masterpieces by Hindemith and Strauss in this first half, and what sensitivity to very different styles from the NYOGB under Carlos Miguel Prieto. Be careful what you choose as the big symphony, though. I’d always had my doubts about Copland’s Third, and though it couldn’t have been more compellingly lit and shaped, it paled by comparison. Read more... |
Prom 27: Wang, Hampson, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Mäkelä review - glittering night with music’s golden coupleSaturday, 05 August 2023
Yuja Wang and Klaus Mäkelä, two of the classical world’s biggest hitters, have recently united to make that even more powerful item, the “power couple”. But much as they are both photogenic and charismatic, their reputations are also based on musical excellence, as was on display at last night’s sizzling Prom. Read more... |
Prom 17: CBSO, CBSO Chorus, Yamada review - Carmina Burana presses all the right buttonsFriday, 28 July 2023
It stunned me to discover that last night was only the sixth time Carmina Burana had been heard at the Proms. It seems tailor-made for the festival: large-scale and bombastic in a way that fits the proportions of the Albert Hall, familiar to occasional concert-goers but with much more to it than the "famous bit". And in this performance the CBSO and an array of choirs went at it with gusto, raising the audience to its feet at the end. Read more... |
Prom 16: Hallé, Elder review - a mighty Russian journeyThursday, 27 July 2023
Perhaps music and politics should always stay at a decent arm’s length; in the modern world, they seldom can. The Hallé’s annual visit to the Proms presented an all-Russian bill and closed with Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony: his much-disputed “Soviet artist’s response to just criticism” and a classic instance of the collision between art and power as, in 1937, the composer struggled to survive Stalin’s potentially fatal disapproval. Read more... |
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