Classical Reviews
Wagner 200: Janice Watson, Joseph Middleton, Kings PlaceFriday, 28 June 2013
It only takes a few great Lieder by Schumann and Liszt to show the kinds of songs Wagner didn’t, or couldn’t, write. Very well, so the rarities in this programme were whimsies he composed in his youth, but even the Wesendonck Lieder, sole voice-and-piano masterpieces of his maturity, don’t show much concern for the little details of humanity. Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Britten, Copland, Handel, ShostakovichSaturday, 22 June 2013
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War Requiem, Berlin Philharmoniker, Rattle, Philharmonie BerlinSunday, 16 June 2013
How often should a music-lover go to hear Britten’s most layered masterpiece? From personal experience, I’d say not more than once every five years, if you want to keep a sense of occasion fresh. So how often should an orchestra play it? Sir Simon Rattle and his Berlin Philharmonic decided they could manage three nights in a row towards the end of their 2013-14 season. At the first of the performances, it already felt like a lot might have been kept in check. Read more... |
RLPO, Petrenko, Liverpool Philharmonic HallMonday, 10 June 2013
With the Albert Dock just a few hundred yards down the road, and Liverpool the launchpad for two centuries of Atlantic crossings, it’s perhaps not too shocking to hear Wagner’s intercontinental Ride of the Valkyries resound round Philharmonic Hall. Read more... |
War Requiem, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Litton, Bergen International FestivalFriday, 07 June 2013
In Bergen’s Grieg Hall (one is tempted to say the Hall of the Mountain King) the 2013 Bergen Festival concludes with the mournful tolling of bells. A consonant “Amen”, like a healing benediction, is the last word and with it comes perhaps a glimmer of hope. But the mood is sombre not celebratory. Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem, for all its theatricality, would be an unlikely choice to close a festival in any year but this - Britten's hundredth anniversary. Read more... |
Elisabeth Leonskaja, Queen Elizabeth HallThursday, 06 June 2013
On most of her London visits, Elisabeth Leonskaja has been an unassuming high priestess of the mysteries and depths in core sonatas by Beethoven, Chopin and Schubert. This time she applied her Russian-school style of orchestral pianism, tempered as always by absolute clarity, to burning the mists off Ravel, Debussy and the French-inspired Romanian, Enescu. Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: John Adams, Dobrinka Tabakova, WagnerSaturday, 01 June 2013
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London Symphony Orchestra, Gergiev, Trafalgar SquareTuesday, 28 May 2013
Down Whitehall, the English Defence League had been making ripples, and at 7.40pm some of its packs were still roaring round Trafalgar Square. At that moment, Berlioz’s March to the Scaffold from the Symphonie fantastique drowned them out in one big va t’en which you could have translated into a hundred languages. Read more... |
London Contemporary Orchestra, Hugh Brunt, Aldwych StationTuesday, 28 May 2013
Three hundred years ago we danced and ate to art music. Before that we worshipped to it. In the 19th century we began to sit and stare at it. The immersive music movement of the past decade has moved things along again. Today we are encouraged to swim through performances, sniffing the music out, hunting it down. The latest ensemble to free themselves from the sit-and-stare model are the enterprising outfit, the London Contemporary Orchestra (LCO). Read more... |
Berezovsky, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Järvi, Royal Festival HallSaturday, 25 May 2013
In 1980, an orchestra and conductor then hardly known in Britain came to the Royal Festival Hall. I went to hear Elisabeth Söderström in Strauss’s Four Last Songs; I left stunned by an unorthodox Sibelius Second Symphony and above all by one of the encores, Cantus to the Memory of Benjamin Britten by one Arvo Pärt. Read more... |
Britten and Shostakovich: Violin Concertos James Ehnes (violin), Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra/Kirill Karabits (Onyx)
John Adams: Nixon in China Peter Sellars (director), Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Chorus and Ballet/John Adams (Nonesuch)Pages
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