fri 29/03/2024

Classical Reviews

Siglo de Oro, Spinacino Consort, Allies, Wigmore Hall review - a fun 17th century musical Christmas

Bernard Hughes

The Wigmore Hall, the high church of Beethoven and Brahms, hosted something less elevated last night: a programme called “Hey for Christmas” presented by vocal ensemble Siglo de Oro and period instrument band Spinacino. The conceit was of recreating a mid-17th century English family’s musical diet through the Christmas season. And it was a whole lot of fun.

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Jansen, Ridout, Blendulf, Kozhukhin, Wigmore Hall review - Brahms in excelsis

Sebastian Scotney

Reviewing, they say, never gets easier. How can one possibly describe chamber music playing as good, as stupendously memorable, as last night’s all-Brahms programme from Dutch violinist Janine Jansen, English violist Timothy Ridout, Swedish cellist Daniel Blendulf and Russian-born pianist Denis Kozhukhin? (Clue: skip to the end for a three-word version.)

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SANSARA, The Waiting Sky: A Christmas Meditation, Kings Place review - a thrillingly mysterious and profound Christmas alternative

Rachel Halliburton

What a beautiful, alternative evening of Christmas music this was, ranging in tone from bleakness to transcendence – a thrilling escape from the season’s cloying commercialism to a sense of something both mysterious and profound.

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London Handel Players, Butterfield, Wigmore Hall review - Bach with bite for Christmas

Boyd Tonkin

We think of the Wigmore Hall as a venue for intimate revelations, but in the right hands it can feel like a stadium. Last night’s all-Bach programme of festive music from the London Handel Players managed to embrace both moods.

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Mariam Batsashvili, Wigmore Hall review - spectacular pianism, with a sense of fun

Boyd Tonkin

For a small nation, with a population not quite comparable to Scotland’s, Georgia has for long packed a mighty musical punch. Any visitor will know the soul-wrenching power of its choral polyphony, but a post-Soviet generation of classical soloists now walks proudly across the world stage. Pianist Mariam Batsashvili, only just 30, won the Franz Liszt international competition in 2014 and has since been a BBC New Generation artist.

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I Fagiolini, Hollingworth, St Martin-in-the-Fields review - it's not the Messiah...

Boyd Tonkin

“Nobody likes a Messiah…”, deadpanned Robert Hollingworth, with the timing of a practised stand-up. After a pause, “…more than I do.” At St Martin-in-the-Fields on Friday evening, however, the seasonal blockbuster did not, just for once, feature on the festive menu. Instead, Hollingworth’s ever-enterprising ensemble I Fagiolini served up a savoury and well-spiced alternative to Handel’s ubiquitous staple.

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Natalie Dessay, Philippe Cassard, Milton Court review - flashes of magic

David Nice

It could have been a winner: a charismatic star soprano of great emotional and interpretative intelligence, a top pianist given a little space to shine on his own, a programme that looked good on paper, of distinguished German/Austro-German women composers in the first half, French dark versus light in the second. But Milton Court is an unwelcoming venue, like being inside a dark-wood coffin, and the singer seemed uneasy between numbers to begin with.

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Paul Lewis, Wigmore Hall review - Schubert sonatas revisited

Ed Vulliamy

A decade has passed since Paul Lewis concluded an endeavour of a kind never previously undertaken: to perform, over two and a half years and across four continents, every work Schubert wrote for piano between 1822, the year he was diagnosed with syphilis – ergo, knew he was dying – and his death in 1828.

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Voces8 Foundation Choir and Orchestra, Smith, Voces8 Centre review - joyous Christmas music by Bach

Bernard Hughes

There’s a game called Whamageddon, where people see how deep into December they can go without hearing “Last Christmas”. I’m like that, but with the Bach Christmas Oratorio, and this year I made it four days. And who would want to wait any longer? Last night I was at the Voces8 Centre in London as part of a live audience for a concert also streamed in the ongoing Live from London series, started during the Covid summer of 2020 and continuing to flourish.

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Grosvenor, Park, Ridout, Soltani, Wigmore Hall review - chamber music supergroup in perfect accord

Bernard Hughes

Frank Bridge’s Phantasie Piano Quartet was astutely described by his student Benjamin Britten as “Brahms tempered with Fauré”, so it made a lot of sense to programme it alongside the first piano quartets of those other composers. A “supergroup” of brilliant young soloists came together as an ensemble as tight as any that plays together every day, and made a committed case for each piece.

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