Classical Reviews
NYCC, NYJO, Southwark CathedralFriday, 03 July 2015
Cleopatra in her barge gliding down the nave of Southwark Cathedral? Only figuratively, in the hypnotic “Half the Fun” movement of Duke Ellington’s constantly surprising Shakespeare compendium Such Sweet Thunder. Still, it wouldn’t be that much stranger than the combination of a jazz orchestra and a chamber choir – so superlative as not to need the “youth” in their names observed – celebrating Shakespeare in his local place of worship. Read more... |
Max Raabe, Wigmore HallWednesday, 24 June 2015
Fair exchange? German humour, perhaps? Read more... |
Continuum Ensemble, Headlam, Kings PlaceSunday, 21 June 2015
Zeitoper, single scene micro-opera for modern times, enjoyed a brief vogue in the Weimar era, but disappeared as fast the Republic itself. This programme from the Continuum Ensemble resurrected four examples, all from the years 1927-28, to offer a snapshot of Germany’s quickly evolving music theatre scene between the wars. The works, by Hindemith, Ernst Toch and Kurt Weill, are short, with little narrative, and even less musical subtlety. Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Gál, Prokofiev, Raffi BesalyanSaturday, 13 June 2015
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Juntunen, Philharmonia, Ashkenazy, RFHFriday, 12 June 2015
Vladimir Ashkenazy should be made an honorary Finn: not just for his constant championship of Sibelius’s orchestral works throughout his conducting life so far, but above all for the way he understands them. Read more... |
Phantasm, Elizabeth Kenny, Wigmore HallWednesday, 10 June 2015
There’s an intimacy, an interiority, to music for viol consort that even the string quartet can’t match. The physical placement of the three members of Phantasm who opened this concert of music by Gibbons, Purcell, Locke and Lawes was telling. Occupying three sides of a square, facing one another directly, theirs was a private musical conversation the audience was permitted to overhear. Read more... |
Schubert Sonatas 4, Barenboim, RFHWednesday, 03 June 2015
One man and his piano can occasionally fulfil a role more satisfying than the finest orchestra in full sail. The last of Daniel Barenboim's four-recital traversal of Schubert's piano sonatas proved just such an occasion. Read more... |
Jansen, LSO, Harding, BarbicanWednesday, 03 June 2015
How to respond to Mahler? That was the challenge set by the London Symphony Orchestra to Edward Rushton when they commissioned him to write an opener for this programme. Rushton’s response was to take a story from a biography of Alma and spin it into an orchestral fantasy. The story goes that Alma, listening to Gustav compose the Fifth Symphony, complained about the excessive orchestration, which he then dutifully toned down. Read more... |
Schubert Sonatas 3, Barenboim, RFHMonday, 01 June 2015
“You don’t love Schubert’s music?” Such, according to the greatest of living Schubert interpreters Elisabeth Leonskaja, was the response of her mentor Sviatoslav Richter to students who omitted the exposition repeats in the piano sonatas. Daniel Barenboim doesn’t observe them either, on the evidence of yesterday afternoon's concert, but four recitals and much in them ought to prove th Read more... |
The Dream of Gerontius, RSNO, Oundjian, Usher Hall, EdinburghSunday, 31 May 2015
To close its 2014-15 season the Royal Scottish National Orchestra chose the choral masterpiece that Elgar preferred not to call an oratorio, The Dream of Gerontius. Performances in Scotland are rare, whether this is because of Presbyterian unease with Catholic sentiment, or the unfashionable nature of big-bottomed Anglican choral textures, it is difficult to say. North of the border we are more likely to turn to Brahms’ German Requiem for spiritual consolation. Read more... |
Hans Gál: Symphonies 1-4 Orchestra of the Swan/Kenneth Woods (Avie)Pages
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