Classical Reviews
National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, Daniel, Leeds Town HallSunday, 05 January 2014
Middle-period Mahler can be hair-raising enough under normal circumstances. In this performance of the Fifth Symphony, the angst and intensity dials had been turned up to 11. Every orchestral colour shone with greater intensity, and each change in dynamics registered with piercing clarity. Which could only mean that this year's freshly reconstituted National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain were giving their first concert of the season. Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Ramon Humet, Mozart, Ronald StevensonSaturday, 04 January 2014
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Sonia Prina, Wigmore HallTuesday, 31 December 2013
The great Marilyn Horne used to joke that she was going to release an album entitled “Chestnuts for Chest Nuts”. She never did, but that leaves the door wide open for Sonia Prina whose dark, thrillingly low sound marks her out as the real deal, a genuine contralto. But the excitement of Prina in performance isn’t just about her extraordinary skill at using her unusual range. Read more... |
Vadim Gluzman, Angela Yoffe, Wigmore HallSunday, 29 December 2013
There were two strong reasons, I reckoned, for struggling to the Wigmore Hall during the interstitial last week of the year. One was an ascetic wish to be harrowed by a mind and soul of winter, both within and without, in Prokofiev’s towering D minor Violin Sonata, after so much Christmas sweetness and light. Read more... |
Classical and Opera 2013: A Year of AnniversariesSaturday, 28 December 2013
Which musical calendar year isn’t laden down with composer commemorations, too often a pretext for lazy and unimaginative planning? The last 12 months, with Verdi, Wagner and Britten as the birthday boys (in case you failed to hear), have raised the stakes. Read more... |
Christmas Oratorio, Trinity College Choir, OAE, Layton, St John's Smith SquareMonday, 23 December 2013
Not every Yuletide fixture need be commercial and routine. Certainly St John’s annual Christmas Festival packs them in, but why wouldn’t it when the voices for the last two events, backed up by no less than the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, are the best you could possibly find for the great monuments of Handel and Bach? Read more... |
Bach B minor Mass, Clare College Choir, Aurora Orchestra, Collon, Kings PlaceSunday, 22 December 2013
Nothing tests small-hall acoustics better than that most exuberant of holies, the Sanctus from Bach’s B minor Mass. After one of the year’s big disappointments, the blowsy sound coming from chamber ensembles in the Barbican/Guildhall School’s new Milton Court – a surprise miscalculation from Arup acousticians - it seemed imperative to get back to Kings Place’s Hall One, which feels bigger but is some 200 seats smaller (420 to Milton Court’s 608). Read more... |
BBC Singers, St James's Baroque, Hill, Temple ChurchSaturday, 21 December 2013
There’s a reason why many people think Handel and, particularly his Messiah, is dull. Relatively easy to play, his music is incredibly difficult to perform well. Take this Temple Winter Festival outing with choral expert David Hill conducting the immensely skilled BBC Singers who can, and largely do, sing everything; four soloists all banishing grandiose, wobbly vibrato from days of yore; and the accomplished St James’s Baroque. Read more... |
Brewer, BBCSO, Gardner, BarbicanSaturday, 21 December 2013
Although worlds away from festive mangers and mince pies, the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s pre-Christmas offering spread good cheer aplenty thanks to an absorbing programme of Austro-German repertoire that explored the outer reaches of Romanticism without ever quite leaving its orbit. Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Tchaikovsky, Harry Christophers, 4 Girls 4 HarpsSaturday, 21 December 2013
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Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake (complete ballet) Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra/Neeme Järvi, with James Ehnes (violin) (Chandos)Pages
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