Classical Reviews
King's Singers, Cadogan HallSunday, 19 December 2010
An awful lot of bad singing goes on in the name of Christmas. If it’s not the endless piped renditions of Slade and Cliff Richard, then it’s anaemic carol singers in every railway station and foyer. Each street corner becomes a concert hall (albeit one with exceptionally poor acoustics) and every passer-by an unwitting (not to say unwilling) audience member. Music becomes a commercial mood-board, a festive ear-worm to prompt charitable giving and personal spending in equal measure. How... Read more... |
Ogrintchouk, BBCSO, Bělohlávek, BarbicanFriday, 17 December 2010
Everywhere I looked I saw children, some burying their heads in their mothers' chests, some doodling on programme notes. One was dancing to Prokofiev's Sixth Symphony. Ambitious. Last night's BBC Symphony Orchestra concert had been given over to family listening. My first thought was why? Stravinsky's fun but dry Dumbarton Oaks is hardly suitable. And Prokofiev's Sixth is psychologically X-rated when done right. Sandwiched between these two works, however, was, superficially, a...
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Thomas Zehetmair, Wigmore HallFriday, 17 December 2010
Perhaps it was the effect of the elaborately mosaicked and marbled stage of the Wigmore Hall, but when a black-clad Thomas Zehetmair stepped out last night to occupy this space with just his violin and Bach for company, the image was incongruous. Even devotees of the hall will surely acknowledge the fussiness of its aesthetic appeal, the lingering visual excesses of a bygone age making it as unlikely a setting for Zehetmair’s deconstructed style as for the sharp architectural edges of Bach’s... Read more... |
Zimmermann, LPO, Saraste, Royal Festival HallWednesday, 15 December 2010
If you've just come back from a taxing, tiring orchestral tour, as has the London Philharmonic, the last thing you want to face is a programme of four tough works which demand, at the very least, bright-eyed vigilance but more often a tense, finger-wrecking articulation. So the players must have been relieved to find firm hands on the wheel in the shape of the electrifyingly assured Finnish master Jukka-Pekka Saraste and that most intelligent, repertoire-curious of solo violinists, Frank... Read more... |
Wolfgang Holzmair, Imogen Cooper, Wigmore HallTuesday, 14 December 2010
The last time I saw Wolfgang Holzmair in concert (at last year’s Oxford Lieder Festival, delivering one of the finest live performances of Winterreise I have heard) the silence that followed the cycle lasted almost 30 seconds – an absolute age where a fidgety post-concert audience is concerned. Last night’s programme of Schumann saw Holzmair finish and pause, hands raised prayerfully, holding his listeners’ attention like so many butterflies within his cupped palms. The release that... Read more... |
Brewer, BBCSO, Bělohlávek, Barbican HallSunday, 12 December 2010
Exactly an hour and a half after Wagner's first orchestral brew of sex and religion had raised the curtain on the Royal Opera Tannhäuser, the pilgrims and floozies were at it again over the other side of town. If there was hardly the whiff of elemental theatrics ahead in Jiří Bělohlávek's surprisingly staid conducting of the overture, different treats were in store: the most opulent and musicianly of all living sopranos, Christine Brewer, in cheerful love songs by... Read more... |
Samling Showcase, Wigmore HallFriday, 10 December 2010
In a world obsessed with the next big thing, I was surprised not to see a larger crowd at last night’s Samling Showcase. Since this masterclass programme for young professional singers started 14 years ago, alumni have included Jonathan Lemalu, Anna Grevelius, Christopher Maltman and Toby Spence – a roster that speaks for itself and for the finely honed ears at work within the organisation. Joined by patron and course director Sir Thomas Allen as well as pianist Malcolm Martineau, four of... Read more... |
Cecilia Bartoli Sings Handel, Barbican HallWednesday, 08 December 2010
Cecilia Bartoli invites you to her party, she stands on stage beaming and welcoming you as her guest, about to serve up a banquet of song. This is what last night’s concert felt like in the glowing warmth of this remarkable Italian mezzo-soprano’s company, singing one of her favourite composers, Handel, ranging from the sunlit laughter that seems embedded in her voice to some of the most tragically moving singing I’ve heard. Read more... |
Hardenberger, Philharmonia Orchestra, Nelsons, Royal Festival HallWednesday, 08 December 2010
The heroics came fast and fervently with Andris Nelsons and the Philharmonia Orchestra emerging from suffocating pianissimi to rip out the exultant fanfares of Beethoven’s Leonora No 3 Overture as if already limbering up to take on Strauss’s critics in Ein Heldenleben. That he saw them off so decisively didn’t, on his present form, come as much of a surprise. Nelsons doesn’t need anyone to fight his battles for him – not even the egotistical Strauss. Read more... |
Scholl, Jaroussky, Ensemble Artaserse, BarbicanWednesday, 08 December 2010
The egos and rivalries of the great castrati – of Senesino, Carestini, Farinelli – are legendary. Too few arias, too unheroic a role, or just too little virtuosity (Handel’s beautiful “Verdi prati” was almost lost to us when Senesino rejected its simplicity) were all cause enough for a tantrum. How times have changed. Collaborating for their new Purcell project, superstar countertenors Andreas Scholl and Philippe Jaroussky are trading jealousy for duets, and proving that you really... Read more... |
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