Bruckner
Andsnes, LSO, Flor, BarbicanMonday, 09 May 2016
Laid low by a bug, Daniel Harding had to withdraw at the last minute from conducting the LSO last night. Booked as the soloist, Leif Ove Andsnes stepped into the breach to lead Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 20 from the piano, as the composer would have... Read more... |
Bruckner 6, OAE, Rattle, RFHSaturday, 23 April 2016It’s always fun to watch the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. As members of a self-governing orchestra, and often soloists in their own right, the players like to do things their way. Come the ripe second theme of the Bruckner Adagio and the... Read more... |
Bruckner 8, LSO, Rattle, BarbicanFriday, 15 April 2016
Last and most imposing of Bruckner’s completed symphonies, the Eighth invites and frequently receives architectural comparisons. Such talk of pillars and cathedrals could only be wide of the mark in the wake of this unconventional, beautifully... Read more... |
Gutman, LPO, Jurowski, RFHThursday, 28 January 2016
Risk-taking is what gives so many of Vladimir Jurowski's concerts with the London Philharmonic Orchestra their special savour. But did two risks for last night's programme pay off? I was as excited as many Russians and hardcore Russophiles at the... Read more... |
Pires, LSO, Harding, BarbicanThursday, 17 December 2015
Imagine knowing Hamlet as a four-act play, or The Ambassadors without its bottom third. Imagine Mozart’s Requiem as a torso that halts eight bars into the Lacrymosa, or Mahler’s Tenth as the lone Adagio (as, indeed it too often appears). We... Read more... |
Hardenberger, Philharmonia, Nelsons, RFHMonday, 07 December 2015
Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Nobody knows de trouble I see is a popular concerto, but it’s an unlikely hit. Zimmermann maintains a distanced relationship with the spiritual on which the work is based, and, while there are jazz elements too, this is a... Read more... |
LPO, Skrowaczewski, RFHSunday, 01 November 2015
Stanisław Skrowaczewski has become a legend in his own, considerable, lifetime. From the ecstatic ovation as he took the stage, it seemed many were here just to see this iconic figure in the flesh. Fortunately, the performance of Bruckner’s Fifth... Read more... |
Perianes, LPO, Ticciati, RFHThursday, 16 April 2015
Conductor Robin Ticciati and pianist Javier Perianes are an odd couple. Ticciati is forthright and disciplined, while Perianes is reticent but erratic. But they demonstrated last night that Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto can accommodate those... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Brahms, Bruckner, StravinskySaturday, 14 March 2015
Brahms: Serenades Gewandhausorchester/Riccardo Chailly (Decca)This delectable supplement to Chailly's Leipzig Brahms symphony cycle is predictably good. Brahms's early D minor piano concerto sounds like an attempt to compose on an explicitly... Read more... |
BBCSO, Segerstam, BarbicanMonday, 02 March 2015
The BBC Radio 3 announcer came on stage to introduce the concert and promised us "the 100 minutes" of Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony in the second half. Some of us smiled and assumed he (or his scriptwriter) had made a howler. Last time the Eighth was... Read more... |
Lewis, Philharmonia, Nelsons, Royal Festival HallMonday, 09 February 2015
Andris Nelsons is flavour of the month in London. He is in town to conduct The Flying Dutchman at Covent Garden, but between performances he is moonlighting at the Festival Hall, giving two concerts with the Philharmonia. This, the first, opened... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Bruckner, Unsuk Chin, DvořákSaturday, 30 August 2014
Bruckner: Symphony no 2 Wiener Symphoniker/Carlo Maria Giulini (Wiener Symphoniker)No apologies for reviewing a reissue, as this disc is fabulous. Originally a 1974 EMI recording, it's now released on the Wiener Symphoniker's own label. Carlo... Read more... |
