Debussy
Hough, Hallé, Elder, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester online review - brassy, bouncy optimismFriday, 16 April 2021![]() Sir Mark Elder is back with the Hallé for the latest (and penultimate) filmed concert in their “Winter Season” of 2020 and 2021, including the world premiere of Huw Watkins' Second Symphony. He introduces it from the Bridgewater Hall foyer, and... Read more... |
Oslo Philharmonic, Mäkelä online review - focus, flair and midwinter heartbreakThursday, 10 December 2020![]() Artists’ management Harrison Parrott has started a concert streaming platform called Virtual Circle on emusiclive.com, launched two days ago and only available as a live event - no catch-ups. Watching its debut concert - the Oslo Philharmonic with... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Debussy, Respighi, The Red Book of OssorySaturday, 15 August 2020![]() Debussy: Images, Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune Hallé/Sir Mark Elder (Hallé)That Debussy used the Geordie folksong The Keel Row in the first of his three Images for Orchestra is well known, and careful listening makes one realise that he... Read more... |
Louis Schwizgebel, Fidelio Orchestra Café review – gilt-edged postcards from around the worldFriday, 31 July 2020![]() A front-rank pianist only takes on Musorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition in full confidence of being able to handle the massive bells and blazing chants of its grand finale, “The Great Gate of Kiev”. To risk it in a far from large café space adds to... Read more... |
Javier Perianes, QEH review - not a Spanish fire-eater but a world-class poetWednesday, 17 April 2019Expect no cliches about toreador pianism. Red-earth flamboyance is not Javier Perianes' style, and the seven dances he offered in his programme - eight including an encore - by fellow Spaniard Manuel de Falla were not the most consistently engaging... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Debussy, Feldman, LanggaardSaturday, 09 February 2019![]() Et la lune descend – piano music by Claude Debussy Olga Stezhko (Palermo Classica)Olga Stezhko writes in her extended sleeve note of wanting “to look beyond the multifaceted beauty of Debussy’s piano pieces and bring out the edge and ambiguity... Read more... |
CBSO, Leleux, Birmingham Town Hall review - oboe extraordinaireThursday, 18 October 2018![]() There’s always a special atmosphere when the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra returns to Birmingham Town Hall, and it’s not just because of the building’s Greek Revival beauty: the gilded sunburst on the ceiling, or the towering, intricately... Read more... |
Two-Piano Marathon, Kings Place review - dazzling duos, deep watersMonday, 08 October 2018![]() You get a lot of notes for your money in a two-piano recital - especially when seven pianists share the honours for two and a half hours' worth of playing time. Well, they did call it a marathon, crowning the London Piano Festival so shiningly... Read more... |
Katya Apekisheva, Charles Owen, Kings Place review - one plus one equals a hundredThursday, 04 October 2018![]() We could probably spend all day pondering what makes a great musical partnership. Is it long experience, special sensitivity, a shared sense of humour? We’d get nowhere, though because there is, genuinely, something about it that can't be explained... Read more... |
Prom 69, Skride, Boston SO, Nelsons / Proms at...Cadogan Hall 8, Berlin Philharmonic Soloists review - sophisticated limitsTuesday, 04 September 2018Crazy days are here again – many of us are lucky not to have been born when the last collectve insanity blitzed the world – and nothing in Shostakovich seems too outlandish for reality. On the other hand, there's a growing movement to liberate his... Read more... |
Prom 45, Capuçon, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Nott - scintillating new era for Swiss magiciansFriday, 17 August 2018Who is the greatest British conductor in charge of a major orchestra? It's subjective, but my answer is not what you might expect. Jonathan Nott has done all his major work so far on the continent. He left the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra in excellent... Read more... |
Prom 44, Gringytė, CBSO, Morlot review - eloquently sculpted Gallic richesThursday, 16 August 2018![]() This should have been the third much-anticipated Prom of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra's inspiring communicator-in-chief Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla. She's now on maternity leave. So those of us who hadn't experienced Ludovic Morlot live before... Read more... |
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