Classical Reviews
LSO, Haitink, BarbicanTuesday, 30 May 2017
Bernard Haitink is one of the great Bruckner conductors of our time. His interpretations are expansive yet vivid and always go straight to the heart of the music. But he is also an old man, and physical frailty is increasingly inhibiting his work, reducing the spontaneity of his communication with the orchestra. The results are both frustrating and inspiring, with details lost and clarity of texture often compromised. Read more... |
Sebestyén, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Fischer, RFHWednesday, 24 May 2017
This was a very fine concert indeed, plus a lot more. The first half was a very carefully planned series of unveilings around the theme of Béla Bartók and Hungarian folk music, the second an overwhelming performance of his Duke Bluebeard’s Castle. Read more... |
Kempf, Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, Simonov, Cadogan HallFriday, 19 May 2017
It could have been your standard Russian touring programme: Tchaikovsky ballet music as hors d'oeuvre, Rachmaninov piano concerto, Shostakovich symphony. Read more... |
Monteverdi Vespers, Vox Luminis, FBC, St John's Smith SquareMonday, 15 May 2017
On paper this was a knockout concert: Gramophone Award-winning Belgian ensemble Vox Luminis teaming up with the wonderfully gutsy Freiburg Baroque Consort to perform Monteverdi’s Vespers in the composer’s 450th anniversary year – one of the highlights of this year’s London Festival of Baroque Music.... Read more... |
Bach Brandenburg Concertos, OAE, Bridgewater Hall, ManchesterFriday, 12 May 2017
Enlightenment is a wonderful idea, and the members of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment who played Bach’s six Brandenburg Concertos in Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall last night brought the wisdom of today’s period instrument movement to bear on music that most would see as belonging to the age of the pre-Enlightenment. Read more... |
CBSO, Wilson, Symphony Hall BirminghamThursday, 11 May 2017
It’s been said – and with some justification – that John Wilson’s own Orchestra has the finest-sounding string section in the world today. What’s certain is that when Wilson guests with other orchestras, he transforms their string sound. It’s not merely the unselfconscious touches of period style – those perfectly gauged expressive slides – and nor is it just the unforced luminosity: how the surface sheen seems to be lit from within. Read more... |
Lise Davidsen, James Baillieu, Wigmore HallWednesday, 10 May 2017
Few young singers make a UK recital debut like Lise Davidsen’s. But then, few singers come to that debut with such a weight of reputation and expectation. Taking not only the First Prize but also the Audience Prize and Birgit Nilsson Awards at 2015’s Operalia competition, established the then 28-year-old Norwegian soprano as one to watch. Read more... |
theartsdesk at Tectonics Glasgow 2017Tuesday, 09 May 2017
Has Glasgow’s Tectonics weekend turned away from its wilder excess? Has it, in its fifth outing, even – well, grown up and got serious? Read more... |
Total Immersion: Edgard Varèse, BarbicanMonday, 08 May 2017
Made from girders, say the brewers of an infamous Scottish fizzy drink. If you could siphon the music of Edgard Varèse into a can, that’s what it would taste like. Blunt, acrid, inimitable, fizzing with closely guarded, possibly unpleasant ingredients. The danger was that exposure to his entire output in one day would prove no more palatable than chugging through a two-litre bottle of Irn-Bru. Read more... |
Chineke! Orchestra, Brighton Festival / Saleem Ashkar, Wigmore HallMonday, 08 May 2017
Anyone who missed the opening Southbank concerts of the Chinike! Orchestra, figurehead of a foundation which aims to give much-needed help to young Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) classical musicians, could and now can (on YouTube) catch snippets of the players in action on the splendid documentary about young cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason. Read more... |
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