Classical Reviews
Hallé, Elder, Gernon, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, review - fiery Beethoven tributeFriday, 28 February 2020
Honouring Beethoven in Manchester is a united enterprise, at least between the Hallé and BBC Philharmonic, two symphony orchestras that have worked out a series of Beethoven specials between them. Read more... |
Grosvenor, Park, Ridout, Soltani, QEH review - inspired collegiality at the highest levelFriday, 28 February 2020
Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss are not the composers you'd hear at a typical chamber music concert. Their early efforts at piano quartets made up the first half of an evening at the Queen Elizabeth Hall with Benjamin Grosvenor and friends that was, in any case, far from typical. Topped off with the mature Brahms’s Third Piano Quartet, wasn’t it going to be too much rugged Alpine rocky road? In the hands of these youthful musicians, it wasn’t. The audience couldn’t get enough of them. Read more... |
Simon Trpčeski, Barbican review - a charismatic chameleonWednesday, 26 February 2020
When Macedonian pianist Simon Trpčeski first bounced on to the concert scene, he seemed part will-o-the-wisp, part jack-in-the-box, a real personality of coruscating brilliance. Read more... |
Gabetta, NHK SO, Järvi, RFH review - transparency and dynamismTuesday, 25 February 2020
This concert represented the British leg of the NHK Symphony Orchestra’s European tour. Tokyo’s radio orchestra is Japan’s flagship ensemble, and they are fine advocates for the country’s thriving musical culture, the playing precise and the tone focused. Read more... |
Joanna MacGregor, Adrian Brendel, Gildas Quartet, Wigmore Hall review - gold and silverTuesday, 25 February 2020
Startlingly high levels of expression and focused fire made this rich concert worthy of the dedicatee who radiated those qualities, Jacqueline du Pré. Read more... |
Aimard, Gürzenich-Orchester Köln, Roth, RFH review - Beethoven as avant-gardistSaturday, 22 February 2020
In Beethoven anniversary year, there are three ways to enhance our ongoing concert dialogues with the composer beyond the bog-standard overture-concerto-symphony format: complete cycles of the quartets, symphonies and sonatas, preferably without old vulgarians presenting; focusing on Beethoven and his contemporaries, including programmes recreated from the early 1800s; and linking the genius with what our... Read more... |
Andsnes, Mahler Chamber Orchestra Soloists, Wigmore Hall review - conversations with MozartFriday, 21 February 2020
Leif Ove Andsnes’s long-term partnership with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra has already yielded rich fruit, and the Mozart quartets and trio he performed last night with members of the top-notch nomad band proved just as succulent. However, I would hardly have been alone in leaving the Wigmore Hall with my strongest impressions stirred by the single solo work that the versatile Norwegian master-pianist allowed himself. Read more... |
Mahler's 'Resurrection' Symphony, Philharmonia, Hrůša, RFH review - big picture, stunning detailsFriday, 21 February 2020
So many performances of Mahler's most theatrical symphony every season, so few conductors who have something radically fresh to say about it. Read more... |
Frang, CBSO, Yamada, Symphony Hall Birmingham review - the tingle factorThursday, 20 February 2020
There’s a particular moment of a particular recording – I suppose every slightly over-obsessive record collector has one – that I just keep listening to over and over again. It’s in Fritz Reiner’s 1960 Chicago Symphony recording of Respighi’s The Fountains of Rome, and it comes right after the first flood of the Triton Fountain starts to recede. |
Michael Collins, Michael McHale, London Winds, Wigmore Hall review - flying the flag for wind chamber musicTuesday, 18 February 2020
In a week when my colleague Jessica Duchen was delighted by the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective, last night’s concert, also at Wigmore Hall, by Michael Collins and London Winds showed that chamber music with winds need not be the poor relation of that with strings. Read more... |
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