Classical Reviews
Prom 42: Cho, Philharmonia, Rouvali review - inflation offset by sweet oasesThursday, 17 August 2023
Chopin’s piano concertos and Strauss “symphonic fantasia” Aus Italien are young men’s music, bursting with inspired ideas, but baggy at times, hard to steer. Elgar’s In the South is up there with the mature Strauss tone poems – even if it couldn’t have taken the shape it did without them – but here the steering itself was the problem: missing the exuberance, the Philharmonia’s Principal Conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali stretched it on the rack. Read more... |
National Youth Choir of Scotland, RSNO, Bell / Quasthoff, Amatis Trio, Edinburgh International Festival 2023 review - from the heights to the depthsTuesday, 15 August 2023
The National Youth Choir of Scotland have the most easily pronounceable acronym in Scottish music: everyone up here knows who you’re talking about when you mention NYCOS. Read more... |
Prom 39: Schiff, Elbert, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Fischer 3 review - jaw-dropping standards of orchestral playingMonday, 14 August 2023
The Budapest Festival Orchestra never stops proving what a great ensemble it is. In last night’s concert, the third Prom of its weekend residency, the miraculous ways in which the absurd humour of Ligeti, the deep soulfulness of Bartók and the implacable genius of Beethoven were brought to the surface were not just joyful and completely fulfilling, but also unfailingly drew in the attention of the whole audience in a completely full Royal Albert Hall. Read more... |
Prom 38: Audience Choice, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Fischer 2 review - true democracy or tricksy referendum?Monday, 14 August 2023
It would be worth travelling a long way to hear the Budapest Festival Orchestra giving such a lithe, athletic performance under its founder and Music Director Iván Fischer of Glina’s Ruslan and Lyudmila Overture. That was the Radio 3 and Proms Audience Choice from 19 overtures and preludes whittled down to three. What happened next, despite some equally lustrous playing, didn’t always work so well. Read more... |
Han, KBS Symphony Orchestra, Inkinen / Dunedin Consort, Butt, Edinburgh International Festival 2023 review - a tale of two very different orchestrasSunday, 13 August 2023
There’s a Korean strain to the Edinburgh International Festival’s programme this year, more in the drama programme than in the music one, but it came to the Usher Hall in Friday night’s concert from the KBS Symphony Orchestra (★★★★). They play a similar role in Korea to what the BBC Orchestras do in the UK (KBS stands for Korean Broadcasting System) and if this concert is anything to go by then they’re a jolly impressive bunch of musicians. Read more... |
Prom 37: Schiff, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Fischer 1 review - landscapes and mindscapesSunday, 13 August 2023
“Very traditional, but fun,” ran the verdict of one fellow-traveller as we waited for a bus outside the Royal Albert Hall on Saturday night. No one can gainsay the infectious fun that the Budapest Festival Orchestra bring to every gig. For all its musical accomplishment, Iván Fischer’s all-singing (yes, they did) if not quite all-dancing (yet) outfit never forget that they belong to a, rather elevated, branch of show business. Read more... |
Schiff, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Fischer / Emmanuel Ceysson & Friends, Edinburgh International Festival 2023 review - Hungariana and harpFriday, 11 August 2023
You’d feel short-changed if an orchestra like the Budapest Festival Orchestra came to the Edinburgh Festival and didn’t play some Hungarian music, so why not put together a whole concert of the stuff? Read more... |
Ilker Arcayürek, Malcolm Martineau, Edinburgh International Festival 2023 review - vocal tension saved by poetic pianismThursday, 10 August 2023
It’s an everyday story of festival folk. The festival’s Queen’s Hall concert on Wednesday morning was meant to be a song recital from Günther Groissböck, but he cancelled at (I’m told very) short notice due to illness and the festival team had to scrabble around to find a replacement pronto. Read more... |
Stefan Jackiw and Friends, Edinburgh International Festival 2023 review - focused playing, with restraint thrown to the windsMonday, 07 August 2023
And we’re off! This concert marked the beginning not just of the 2023 Edinburgh International Festival but, perhaps more importantly, of Nicola Benedetti’s tenure in charge as the EIF’s Director. She came onstage for a chat before a note of music was played. Part of her mission as director appears to be to make the arts more accessible, and if her introductory chat wasn’t much more than a gentle hello then it still did the job. Any aim to demystify classical music has to be welcomed. Read more... |
Prom 28: Rangwanasha, National Youth Orchestra, Prieto review - playing, and singing, with a swingSunday, 06 August 2023
Programming works from the same decade – in this case the 1940s – can reveal fascinating contrasts: what an impressive gulf, for instance, between two masterpieces by Hindemith and Strauss in this first half, and what sensitivity to very different styles from the NYOGB under Carlos Miguel Prieto. Be careful what you choose as the big symphony, though. I’d always had my doubts about Copland’s Third, and though it couldn’t have been more compellingly lit and shaped, it paled by comparison. Read more... |
Pages
inside classical music
latest in today
Help to give theartsdesk a future!
It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
Batiashvili, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - French and Poli...
Three live, very alive Symphonie fantastiques in a year may seem a lot. But such is Berlioz’s precise, unique and somehow modern...
Music Reissues Weekly: Johnnie Taylor - Who's Making Lo...
Johnnie Taylor’s big break came with the ever-fabulous September 1968 single “Who's Making Love.” His ninth 45 for the Stax label, it went Top Ten...
Faust, Royal Opera review - pure theatre in this solid reviv...
“Satan come to me!” The Devil doesn’t so much appear in David McVicar’s Faust as reveal himself to have always been there. We discover...
Mrs. Warren's Profession, Garrick Theatre review - moth...
How do you make Bernard Shaw sear the stage anew? You can trim the text, as the director Dominic Cooke has, bringing this prolix writer's 1893...
Mongrel review - deeply empathetic filmmaking from Taiwan
There is a dark, spectral quality to this compassionate film about Southeast Asian migrant workers in rural Taiwan. At the centre...
Owen, Manchester Camerata, Takács-Nagy, Stoller Hall, Manche...
Manchester Camerata spent eight years performing and recording a complete edition of Mozart’s piano concertos with Jean-Efflam Bavouzet as soloist...
The Phoenician Scheme review - further adventures in the idi...
It’s not what he says, it’s the way he says it. Few filmmakers have bent the term “auteur” to their own ends more boldly than...
Album: Ammar 808 - Club Tounsi
Ammar 808 is the high octane vehicle for the Tunisian-born producer Sofyann Ben Youssef, now based in Denmark. His first album Maghreb United...