Classical Reviews

Classical CDs Weekly: William Barton, William Lawes, Bernard Weinstock

graham Rickson Saturday, 22 September 2012

Kalkadungu: Music for didjeridu and orchestra William Barton (didjeridu) (ABC Classics)

Tetzlaff, Wigmore Hall

alexandra Coghlan Thursday, 20 September 2012

When you hear Christian Tetzlaff play you hear Brahms, or Beethoven or, in this case, Bach. What you don’t hear a lot of is Tetzlaff himself. I mean that in the best possible way – so willing is the violinist to submerge himself, to set aside ego and agenda.

Comment

The Leeds International Piano Competition finals, Leeds Town Hall

graham Rickson Sunday, 16 September 2012

Fans of the Leeds International Piano Competition argue that this triennial event, now in its 49^th year, has done more to raise the city’s profile than any other local institution. Supporters of Leeds United would doubtless disagree, but Dame Fanny Waterman’s long-running contest has grown into an influential, internationally renowned affair. Dame Janet Baker awards the prizes. Lang Lang is now the competition’s Global Ambassador along with Honorary Ambassador Aung San Suu Kyi.

Comment

The Last Night of the Proms, Benedetti, Calleja, BBCSO, Bělohlávek

Jasper Rees Sunday, 09 September 2012

The BBC Symphony Chorus did a mass Mobot. A posse of medal-winning rowers and sailors led the encore of Rule, Britannia. The Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja entered in Team GB trackies. It has been, we can probably agree, a summer unlike others we have known. Every year the Last Night of the Proms celebrates Britishness as if we’ve won a stack of golds and wowed the world, when mostly – these no longer being the 1890s - we haven’t.

Comment

BBC Proms: Vienna Philharmonic, Haitink

Edward Seckerson Saturday, 08 September 2012

The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra can play Haydn’s last symphony - No 104 “London” - in its sleep but that is not, I hasten to add, the impression one wants to take away from any performance of it and especially not in the city that inspired it.

Comment

BBC Proms: Perahia, Vienna Philharmonic, Haitink

Ismene Brown Friday, 07 September 2012

You’ve never seen so many people at a Prom, thousands of them packed into every space of the Albert Hall inside, while outside a 100-metre line of hopefuls queued in vain to stand in a pit where a small cat couldn’t have been added. But then this was a luxury Prom: with the Vienna Philharmonic and two musicians of golden integrity and sensitivity, lifetime members of the high table, the pianist Murray Perahia and the conductor Bernard Haitink playing two works born in Vienna.

BBC Proms: Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Chailly

Geoff Brown Monday, 03 September 2012

If you’re going to bash a tam-tam for six, the Albert Hall is the perfect place to do it. The reverberation lasts for ages; and everyone in the audience can see you bashing. That must explain in part why Messiaen’s hieratic, gong-crazy Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum has notched up 10 Prom performances in 45 years.

BBC Proms: Cameron Carpenter/ Znaider, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Chailly

Igor Toronyi-Lalic Sunday, 02 September 2012

I'd love to see the stats on the last time a Prom was this packed for an afternoon organ recital. Were it not for the fact that organist Cameron Carpenter was sporting spandex trousers encrusted in silver glitter, a wife beater and Mohawk, you could have been mistaken for thinking we were back in the organ glory days of the early 19th century.

Comment

Upshaw, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Tognetti, Cadogan Hall

alexandra Coghlan Sunday, 02 September 2012

“Well that was bloody fantastic,” a broad Aussie accent declared from somewhere behind me at the end of Ravel’s String Quartet in F major. And that’s the thing with the Australian Chamber Orchestra – it’s just that simple.

BBC Proms: Bronfman, Berlin Philharmonic, Rattle

Geoff Brown Saturday, 01 September 2012

Champagne on ice in the private boxes; scarcely any spare seats. This isn’t the normal situation for a concert climaxing in Witold Lutosławski’s Third Symphony, a modernist work whose usual audience is more than two men and a dog but still doesn’t pull in the crowds.