Classical Reviews
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Jurowski, Royal Festival HallThursday, 26 November 2009![]()
J S Bach was very much at the spiritual centre of this cunningly devised programme for the South Bank’s current Alfred Schnittke fest: Between Two Worlds. But by the time we emerged shaken but, in my case, not stirred by Schnittke’s preposterous 3rd Symphony the entire Austro-German symphonic legacy had flashed before our ears. Well, not flashed exactly, rather ground to a halt from a slow rewind of ever diminishing returns. Read more... |
Elisabeth Leonskaja, Wigmore HallMonday, 23 November 2009![]()
Elisabeth Leonskaja, who turned 64 on Sunday, is one of the last links to a grand school of Russian pianism where technique meant the marshalling of piano possibilities into a positively orchestral array of expressive means. Often noted in harness with Sviatoslav Richter, with whom she frequently played, Leonskaja deserves renown of her own. Read more... |
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Jurowski, Royal Festival HallWednesday, 18 November 2009![]()
The Schnittke Festival kicked off on Sunday at the Royal College of Music with electric and bass guitars as part of the unwieldy ensemble. Lodged in the Royal Festival Hall last night, Vladimir Jurowski’s programming continued in the second concert with similar flair, but this time two 18th-century horns and two cors anglais were the odd ones out. We were back in 1764 and the early days of the symphony viewed through the prism of Joseph Haydn – every inch as much of an original as... Read more... |
Schnittke Festival, Jurowski, Royal College of MusicMonday, 16 November 2009![]()
Whether or not you rate Vladimir Jurowski among the top 10 hardest-working, most inspirational conductors in the business – I do – you have to award him the palm for enterprise. His passionate involvement in youth projects of various kinds, and a quest for innovative programming that would send most concert managements running, combined in the launch of his latest festival centred around the work of a single composer. Read more... |
Philharmonia Orchestra, Petrenko, Royal Festival HallFriday, 13 November 2009![]() It is quickly apparent when you are in the company of exceptional talent. In even the most hackneyed repertoire nothing is quite as you expect it to be: there’s a charge in the air, phrasings take on a different urgency, textures are opened up and newly revealed. And on this night, certain revelations concerning Shostakovich’s 5th Symphony were, under the exciting baton of Vasily Petrenko, no longer conjecture but irrefutable fact. Read more... |
Bryn Terfel, Royal Festival HallWednesday, 11 November 2009![]()
Bryn Terfel is a good guy. I know; he never forgets a face, and I’ve seen him making the tea for the entire team at a recording session – no one-off, they assured me. Yet the nature of the bass-baritone beast is given over to more villains than noble souls. The "bad boys" of opera and musical theatre are grist to Terfel’s satanic mill in his latest CD-linked tour. Read more... |
Angela Gheorghiu, Royal Festival HallTuesday, 10 November 2009![]()
The famously tempestuous Romanian soprano is, we learn, living a separate life from her husband Roberto Alagna. If Opera's Most Romantic Couple is no more, will Brand Angela be terminally damaged? Surely a showcase performance in the South Bank's International Voices season would be just the thing to rally the faithful and reaffirm Ms Gheorghiu's spectacular star quality, but I must admit that by the time we reached the interval, I was beset with gnawing doubt. Read more... |
LSO/Tilson Thomas, Goerne, Barbican HallSunday, 08 November 2009![]()
Michael Tilson Thomas’s association with the London Symphony Orchestra runs deep - he was its principal conductor for eight years, and for his latest return to his old band last night the American programmed works that, while they had a Viennese theme, also seemed vividly designed to show off the jewels of this great orchestra, its wonderful wind players. Read more... |
Maria di Rohan, Royal Festival HallSunday, 08 November 2009![]()
So many 19th-century opera plots park themselves on fertile historical ground, amid all the colour, character and juice you could ever want, and then spend three hours picking at some anaemic daisies at the edges. It was a worry last night as I watched Donizetti’s Maria di Rohan in concert at the Royal Festival Hall. By sidestepping the heavyweight power players of Louis XIII’s reign, the eminently operatic figures of Cardinal Richelieu (endlessly...
Read more...
|
Philharmonia Orchestra, Pletnev, Royal Festival HallFriday, 06 November 2009![]() Shostakovich’s Festive Overture marked the 30th anniversary of the 1917 Revolution with earnest fanfares and jolly tunes. 62 years on it smacks more of “Looney Tunes” and a cheesy kind of newsreel patriotism and you can’t help wondering if, behind all the laughter and frenetic flag-waving, the disillusionment had already set in. Mikhail Pletnev’s face suggested it had. Read more... |
Pages
inside classical music
latest in today
![Margo Guryan: she saw herself as a songwriter, a figure with no public profile](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Margo%20Guryan%20Words%20and%20Music_header_1000.jpg?itok=CobbX4dG)
Late summer 1966. Jazz was Margo Guryan’s thing. She was not interested in pop music. This changed when she was played The Beach Boys’s “God Only...
![Shifting colours in mother of pearl: the Collegium Vocale Gent](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/CVG-choir-2-by-Eric-de-Mildt-2022-scaled.jpg?itok=mYvIRcPw)
There’s a masterful subtlety to Philippe Herreweghe’s interpretation of Bach’s last great choral work – it shuns blazing transcendence for a sense...
!['She finds a connection to the old religion of her island'](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/03_SORCERY%201125.jpg?itok=NnXxvUhZ)
Islands off the coast of southern Chile, to the Spanish and German settlers of the 19th century, represented the edge of the world. To the...
![A distinctly British habitat: David Edward-Robertson in 'The Moor'](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Moor1.jpg?itok=mzl4xVH5)
A number of films in recent years have added a distinctly local flavour to the folk-horror genre. Mark Jenkin was inspired by...
![John Moreland’s Visitor: Haunting, haunted, hard to get your head around, let alone the heart](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/John%20Moreland%20-%20Visitor.jpg?itok=XcFs5ccZ)
The mournful, lonesome voice of John Moreland from Bixby, Oklahoma, will be known by a few, but not many, in this country. The 12 songs on his...
![The Smashing Pumpkins, dressed to impress for a night with Weezer](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Pumpkins.jpeg?itok=izbirGsc)
The current trend for package tours with two headliners appears to be growing, and this jaunt presented somewhat unlikely bedfellows – the...
![Nanny dearest: Ilça Moreno and Louise Mauroy-Panzani](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/1_A%CC%80ma-Gloria_ZFF23_Website_Stills_21zu9_2560x1080px.jpg?itok=_TJ0lGIr)
In Marie Amachoukeli’s Àma Gloria there’s a remarkable performance by a child actor, Louise...
![If you go down to the woods today. Jesse Eisenberg and Christophe Zajac-Dene act surprised](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Sasquatch-Sunset-_still-1894x1080.png?itok=8z_AOeD5)
There’s a category of movies that are best seen having read nothing about them. Susquatch Sunset falls into that blood group as...
![Jazz Emu, aka Archie Henderson, ex-Cambridge Footlights](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/JazzEmu.David%20Monteith-Hodge%20-%20Photographise%20please%20credit%20-%20Jazz%20Emu%20-%20%28DMH_7513%29.jpg?itok=tc7e9i31)
Jazz Emu bounds on to the stage, launching into a song that talks about the importance of team work and how he has no ego. But strangely enough,...
![Moby goes noir](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/moby_2.jpg?itok=wcWaHUjO)
US electronic perennial Moby has had a good run. He was a rave...