thu 28/03/2024

Classical Reviews

Winterreise, Bostridge, Adès, Barbican Hall

alexandra Coghlan

Ian Bostridge’s relationship with Schubert’s song-cycle Winterreise goes back 30 years. Many of those years have been spent in the public eye (and ear), allowing us to watch the tenor grow and grow-up with this music. It’s been over a decade since his first recording of the cycle with Leif Ove Andsnes, and almost that long since David Alden’s filmed version; the Bostridge who tours the cycle with Thomas Adès this year is quite a different singer and performer.

Read more...

Das Paradies und die Peri, LSO, Rattle, Barbican

Gavin Dixon

Sir Simon Rattle wants you to hear Das Paradies und die Peri. He is convinced that Schumann’s oratorio is one of the great undiscovered masterpieces of the Romantic era. To that end, he has led performances with the Berlin Philharmonic and an all-star cast, and has now brought that cast to London to convert the Brits.

Read more...

In C, London Sinfonietta, Kings Place

Geoff Brown

There’s nothing like Terry Riley’s In C to reawaken a past epoch. Of variable length, built from 53 melodic fragments, this minimalist construct of 1964 was almost designed to be performed and experienced lying on cushions in a marijuana haze – though a state somewhat ruptured by the home listener’s need to stir and turn over the vinyl LP in order to hear the other side.

Read more...

Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela Concert 2, RFH

alexandra Coghlan

The Simón Bolívar orchestra is the musical answer to the question “Would you like to supersize that?” A youth orchestra in bulk, if no longer in name, the ensemble has made a signature of its heft, making repertoire work on its own terms rather than adjusting itself to fit. On Thursday night, full-fat Beethoven and Wagner that threatened to overspill in the generosity of their gestures, so how would the orchestra fare with Mahler’s mighty Fifth Symphony?

Read more...

Classical CDs Weekly: Janáček, Orff, David Childs

graham Rickson

 

Read more...

Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, Dudamel, RFH

David Nice

Youth may have vanished from the title, and its first flush is gone from the cheeks of most of the young persons. Now they’re in their prime, a magnificent sight – and the sound, too, is that of a world-class orchestra with a voice. Which we heard at its most distinctive, deep and muscular, from the strings in the opening signals of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. So what went wrong with the music from Wagner’s Ring in their first 2015 Southbank concert’s second half?

Read more...

Scriabin Anniversary Recital, Ohlsson, Wigmore Hall

David Nice

Of Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin, who died 100 years ago aged 43, it was said at one time (by Rimsky-Korsakov) that he was “warped, a poser and opinionated”, at another (by Boris Pasternak) that he could seem “as tranquil and lucent as God resting from his labours on the seventh day”. Only Pasternak’s definition applies to the magnificence of Garrick Ohlsson, a lion couchant who can use his wings to fly into the sun when Scriabin so requires.

Read more...

National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, Wilson, Leeds Town Hall

graham Rickson

Elgar. Hmm. Music for the home counties. Party conferences. Golf clubs, and chaps wearing tweed jackets. All wrong, of course; it’s easy to forget that this most misunderstood of composers was actually a bit of an outsider. A self-taught, working-class Catholic, he definitely wasn’t a member of the establishment.

Read more...

Classical CDs Weekly: Konstantia Gourzi, Ravel, Sarah Willis

graham Rickson


Konstantia Gourzi: Music for piano and string quartet (ECM)

Read more...

Best of 2014: Classical Concerts

David Nice

Offshoots of the Venezuelan El Sistema’s worldwide dissemination as well as other youth and music projects continued to bloom and grow in 2014. The morning after what was the orchestral concert of the year for many who caught it, Alexandra Coghlan (see below) and myself included, players of the European Union Youth Orchestra reconvened in the Albert Hall to workshop three classics with musicians from nine British youth orchestras and London schools.

Read more...

Pages

latest in today

First Person: author-turned-actor Lydia Higman on a play tha...

I first read Anne Gunter’s story about five years ago, when I was in my first year of university at Oxford, little knowing it would over time lead...

The Origin of Evil review - Laure Calamy stars in gripping F...

A young woman (Laure Calamy; Call my Agent!; Full Time; Her Way) is trying to pluck up the courage to call her...

Foam, Finborough Theatre review - fascism and f*cking in a G...

In a too brightly tiled Gentlemen’s public convenience (Nitin Parmar’s beautifully realised set is as much a character as any of the men we meet...

Album: Ride - Interplay

What a time to be alive it is for fans of late Eighties, early Nineties ...

Schubert Piano Sonatas 4, Paul Lewis, Wigmore Hall review -...

“Death doesn’t scare me at all,” said my friend Christopher Hitchens during our last telephone conversation. “After all, it’s the only certainty...

Vossa Jazz 2024 review - Norwegian festival embraces William...

“The name of this group is Mayan Space Station.” In spite of the billing as The William Parker Trio, their bassist – coolly introducing himself as...

First person: playwright Paul Grellong on keeping pace with...

I’m writing this in the lobby of the...

Album: Sum 41 - Heaven :x: Hell

Sum 41 honour their 27-year career with Heaven :x: Hell, a 20-track double album, due to be their final, without a single skip. Harking...

3 Body Problem, Netflix review - life, the universe and ever...

From Game of Thrones producers David Benioff and DB Weiss, in cahoots with Alexander Woo, 3 Body Problem is Netflix’s daring...