mon 20/10/2025

Classical Reviews

Britten and Poulenc at the Cheltenham Music Festival

David Nice

"Britten or Poulenc?" The question may seem a fatuous one, geared to the 100th anniversary of the Englishman's birth and 50 years since the Frenchman's death. Yet it certainly livens up what would otherwise be the usual dreary artists' biographies, presented with typical elan in this year's Cheltenham Music Festival programme book. "Has anyone said Poulenc in response to this?" asks pianist James Rhodes.

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East Neuk Festival, Cambo Estate/Crail Church

alexandra Coghlan

Scotland’s East Neuk is a little like Hardy’s Wessex – less a geographical specific and more an idea, a resonance. Tucked up into the crook of the Firth of Forth, directly below St Andrews, the region encompasses the tiny coastal towns of Crail, Pittenweem, Anstruther and St Monans, where stern stone cottages and still sterner churches have done battle with the elements since at least the 9th century.

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John Tavener, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

philip Radcliffe

It was an inspired Manchester International Festival initiative to devote a concert to the work of Sir John Tavener as he approaches his 70th birthday. Not only that, but the programme featured three world premieres, including a choral piece specially commissioned for the MIF Sacred Voices, made up of 70 women from all faiths and none. Leading it all with the BBC Philharmonic was conductor Tecwyn Evans.

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Classical CDs Weekly: Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Szymanowski, Wolf-Ferrari

graham Rickson

 

Elgar: Enigma Variations, Vaughan Williams: The Wasps, Fantasia on Greensleeves Kansas City Symphony/Michael Stern (Reference Recordings)

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Classical CDs Weekly: Bach, Bruckner, Schoenberg, Schubert

graham Rickson

 

Bach: Double and Triple Concertos Rachel Podger (violin), Brecon Baroque (Channel Classics)

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Wagner 200: Janice Watson, Joseph Middleton, Kings Place

David Nice

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.

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Classical CDs Weekly: Britten, Copland, Handel, Shostakovich

graham Rickson

 

Britten and Shostakovich: Violin Concertos James Ehnes (violin), Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra/Kirill Karabits (Onyx)

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War Requiem, Berlin Philharmoniker, Rattle, Philharmonie Berlin

David Nice

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.

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RLPO, Petrenko, Liverpool Philharmonic Hall

Roderic Dunnett

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.

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War Requiem, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Litton, Bergen International Festival

Edward Seckerson

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.

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