Classical Reviews
Jerusalem Quartet, Wigmore Hall review - shock and sophistication in ideally-proportioned BeethovenFriday, 01 April 2022
Three Beethoven quartets, early, middle and late, in a single evening – inevitably as part of a cycle, like the Jerusalems’ Wigmore Hall triptych last night – is demanding on the audience, supremely tough on the players. Read more... |
Hodges, LPO, Gardner, RFH review - four UK premieres, from random to abundantThursday, 31 March 2022
Kudos, first, to Edward Gardner for mastering a rainbow programme of 21st century works in his first season as the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s Principal Conductor. Three Americans and a Berlin-based Brit, two women composers and two men, one of them a Pulitzer Prize-winning Afro-American who wrote the work in question in his nineties, all had the benefit of committed, clearly well-prepared performances, enthusiastically received by an ideally mixed audience. Read more... |
Damrau, Kaufmann, Deutsch, Barbican review - intermittent ignitionThursday, 31 March 2022
This recital of love songs by Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms, devised by the pianist Helmut Deutsch and sung by the megastar duo of soprano Diana Damrau and tenor Jonas Kaufmann, looked on paper like the Lieder event of the year. In practice, it left a good deal to unpick. Read more... |
Sounds of Estonia, Kings Place review - one of the world's great choirs on spellbinding formMonday, 28 March 2022
The history of Estonia has been described as “a story set to song”. The Estonian activist Heinz Valk called singing “our nation’s most glorious form of self-expression.” There are, of course, other nations where singing is seen as an expression of national identity, but probably none more so than the Baltic country. Read more... |
Ferrández, RPO, Petrenko, RFH review - music defying oppressionFriday, 25 March 2022
This concert started with a heartfelt and moving speech from the Festival Hall podium by Vasily Petrenko, half-Ukrainian, brought up in St Petersburg. “What could I have done? What could we all have done? Read more... |
St John Passion, English Touring Opera, Lichfield Cathedral review - free-range Bach doesn't quite add upTuesday, 22 March 2022
JS Bach’s Passions as music theatre? Well, why not? Whatever the aura of untouchability around these works, they were always conceived as part of a bigger picture: a communal sacred ritual in which the divide between performer and audience wasn’t so much blurred as nonexistent. Read more... |
Hallé Choir, BBC Philharmonic, Davis, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - celebrating Vaughan WilliamsTuesday, 22 March 2022
Continuing the joint BBC Philharmonic/Hallé celebration of Vaughan Williams, Sir Andrew Davis took on the job of presenting three substantial works on Saturday. Read more... |
Angela Hewitt, Wigmore Hall review - grand tour in a luxury vehicleMonday, 21 March 2022
The four years of Angela Hewitt’s globe-trotting “Bach Odyssey” confirmed time and again that she brings a nonpareil artistry and authority to the most demanding, and rewarding, of all keyboard repertoires. Yet the Canadian pianist, as we already knew, carries plenty of other arrows in her musical quiver. Read more... |
Kolesnikov, Tsoy, LSO St Luke’s review - light, air and adventure from two pianosMonday, 21 March 2022
After the turbulence of masterpieces over the previous three evenings – Janáček, Britten, and the greats featured in this duo’s Fidelio Café fundraiser for Ukraine – it was balm to feel the air and leisure of the first three miniatures in this beautifully-planned programme. Read more... |
Bournemouth SO, Karabits, Lighthouse, Poole – let there be light and joySaturday, 19 March 2022
Returning to his Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra for the first time since the crisis began in his home country, Kirill Karabits’ arrival on stage was greeted by the entire Lighthouse audience rising to their feet with loud applause and cheers of support. Read more... |
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