mon 06/10/2025

Classical Reviews

London Piano Festival, Kings Place review - feasts of fearless fingerwork

Jessica Duchen

What has 12 hands, 18 legs, 176 keys and two page-turners? Party night at the London Piano Festival, of course. The six-pianist, two-piano marathon on Saturday evening was a high point of this delectable four-day event – though far from the only one.

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Widmann, CBSO, Gražinytė-Tyla, Symphony Hall Birmingham review - when Mirga met Jörg

Richard Bratby

Apparently it was Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla’s idea to invite Jörg Widmann to be the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra’s Artist in Residence this season – indeed, according to backstage rumours she made the phone call herself.

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Roman Rabinovich, Hatchlands review - poetry from Chopin's very own Pleyel piano

David Nice

What pianist wouldn't long to lay fingers on keyboards impregnated, as Roman Rabinovich put it in his introduction yesterday afternoon, with the DNAs of Haydn and Chopin?

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Anne Schwanewilms, Charles Spencer, Wigmore Hall review - going deep in Schubert

David Nice

They say that Wigmore Hall audiences know their Lieder singers, but last night's far from packed house dispelled that illusion; the hall has been full for much lesser artists than German soprano Anne Schwanewilms. No matter; she gave her usual masterclass, ineffably poised between tone-colour, phrasing and word-pointing.

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Goode, LPO, Jurowski, RFH review - tender Mozart, dynamic Bruckner

Gavin Dixon

Richard Goode is one of the world’s great pianists, but you wouldn’t guess it from his humble and unpretentious stage manner. He wears thick glasses and squints into the music, and when he plays he sings along under his breath. When he is not playing, he often turns and gestures vaguely at the orchestra, not so much aping the conductor as moving with the flow of the music. He clearly lives every note, and everything he does is to the service of the score.

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Kuusisto, Philharmonia, Salonen, RFH review - Icelanders fare better than Sibelius

David Nice

London orchestras do communicate with each other, sometimes at least, when it comes to programming.

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Pogostkina, BBCSO, Oramo, Barbican review - human emotions in Sibelius's heaven

David Nice

It was on the strength of a single concert including a startling Sibelius Luonnotar and Third Symphony, thankfully reported here, that Sakari Oramo was appointed Chief Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

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Lammermuir Festival 2017 review - rich and deeply rewarding

David Kettle

Increasingly, the Lammermuir Festival is – one audience member whispered conspiratorially to me – what East Lothian music lovers are switching to alongside the Edinburgh International Festival. It’s insidious to compare, of course – but still, you can see the attraction.

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BBCPO, Mena, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - Mahler's Third lovingly realised

Robert Beale

Juanjo Mena memorably began his tenure as chief conductor at the BBC Philharmonic with a Mahler symphony (the Second), and chose to enter his seventh and last season with them at the Bridgewater Hall with the Third. It was a testimonial to an era at the end of which he leaves with the orchestra in at least as good shape as he found them, and in some ways better still.

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The Tallis Scholars, Phillips, Cadogan Hall review - intimacy in late Renaissance music

Gavin Dixon

Peter Phillips and the Tallis Scholars have nothing to prove when it comes to Renaissance choral music – few ensembles can match them for clarity, balance and purity of tone.

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