Barbican
Sibelius Cycle 2, Kavakos, Berliner Philharmoniker, Rattle, BarbicanThursday, 12 February 2015
Bass lines were Edward Seckerson’s starting point yesterday in welcoming the Berlin Philharmonic Sibelius cycle to London, and none strikes more terror from the depths than the subterranean growl that launches the most selectively-scored symphony of... Read more... |
Sibelius Cycle 1, Berliner Philharmoniker, Rattle, BarbicanWednesday, 11 February 2015
Sir Simon Rattle’s Sibelian journey has been long and fruitful and has taken him all the way from Birmingham to Berlin, and more particularly the revered Philharmonic where the spaces between the notes now resonate in extraordinary ways and the bass... Read more... |
Six Characters in Search of an Author, Théâtre de la Ville-Paris, BarbicanThursday, 05 February 2015
"The fantastical should come so close to the real that you must almost believe it," declared Dostoyevsky on Pushkin’s ghostly short story The Queen of Spades. Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota and his superb French ensemble have brought off the feat twice now... Read more... |
Tutuguri, BBCSO, Nagano, BarbicanSunday, 01 February 2015
If what you wanted to do was go out to the middle of the Mexican desert, invert the Cross and dip it in blood, screaming obscenities all the while, surrounded by a sunburnt band of fellow travellers all off their heads on mescalin, Tutuguri is... Read more... |
10 Questions for Pianist Benjamin GrosvenorWednesday, 21 January 2015
At all of 22, the British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor has already become one of the best-loved solo pianists in the UK, with an international career that spans the globe. A remarkable child prodigy from Southend-on-Sea, he first shot to prominence... Read more... |
Colli, BBCSO, Oramo, Barbican HallSaturday, 17 January 2015
Was 1911 the best ever year for music? Works premiered or composed then include Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, Stravinsky’s Petrushka, Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde and the Tenth Symphony he’d completed in outline by the time of his death that May,... Read more... |
Hannigan, LSO, Rattle, Barbican HallFriday, 16 January 2015
For his second programme this week with the London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Simon Rattle conducted variations on a programme he’s been doing for years. So what’s the theme? Invention and hysteria, you might say. Berg’s Marie in Wozzeck and... Read more... |
Winterreise, Bostridge, Adès, Barbican HallTuesday, 13 January 2015
Ian Bostridge’s relationship with Schubert’s song-cycle Winterreise goes back 30 years. Many of those years have been spent in the public eye (and ear), allowing us to watch the tenor grow and grow-up with this music. It’s been over a decade since... Read more... |
National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, Wilson, Leeds Town HallSunday, 04 January 2015
Elgar. Hmm. Music for the home counties. Party conferences. Golf clubs, and chaps wearing tweed jackets. All wrong, of course; it’s easy to forget that this most misunderstood of composers was actually a bit of an outsider. A self-taught, working-... Read more... |
Henry IV, Parts One and Two, RSC, BarbicanSunday, 14 December 2014
Heritage Shakespeare for the home counties and the tourists is just about alive but not very well at the Royal Shakespeare Company. If that sounds condescending, both audiences deserve better, and get it at Shakespeare’s Globe, where the verse-... Read more... |
Ohlsson, BBCSO, Oramo, BarbicanSaturday, 13 December 2014
How disorienting it is to find century-old works in the concert repertoire of which you can still say “I’ve never heard anything like it”. That must have been the reaction of most audience members last night to Tuscan-German composer Ferruccio... Read more... |
The GrandmasterFriday, 05 December 2014
Hong Kong master Wong Kar Wai has ventured into new territory with The Grandmaster. Many years in the making, his new film is a remarkable portrayal of martial-arts traditions, specifically the story of kung fu master Ip Man from his early life in... Read more... |
