LPO
Borodin Quartet, LPO, Jurowski, RFH review - mixed results in oddball CzechfestThursday, 08 November 2018
How many times have you heard live in concert a concerto for string quartet and instrumental ensemble? In my case, three, all of the occasions performances of John Adams's Beethoven-based giant scherzo Absolute Jest. Two more got added to the list... Read more... |
The Rake's Progress, LPO, Jurowski, RFH review - supreme fluency from Eden to BedlamMonday, 05 November 2018
Lightness and gravity in perfect equilibrium have always graced Vladimir Jurowski's Stravinsky. From his first London Rake's Progress at English National Opera, proving that he could do the delicate and translucent after his Royal Opera debut... Read more... |
Uchida, Connolly, Skelton, LPO, Jurowski, RFH review – songs of farewellMonday, 01 October 2018
Not all composers require the finger of mortality pointing at them to develop what becomes a late style. Charges of detachment and even indifference have been levelled at the B flat major Piano Concerto K595 which Mozart completed early in the year... Read more... |
Vanessa, Glyndebourne review - blowsy histrionics and a great finaleMonday, 06 August 2018
"Sounds like an opera by Handel," said a friend when I told him that I was going to see Vanessa at Glyndebourne. Possible – the name first appeared in print as "invented" by Jonathan Swift in 1723 – had Handel not stuck to mythological and Biblical... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Sibelius, Strauss, Bernstein the PianistSaturday, 28 July 2018
Sibelius: Finlandia, The Swan of Tuonela, En Saga, The Oceanides BBC National Orchestra of Wales/Thomas Søndergård (Linn)Earlier releases in Thomas Søndergård’s ongoing Sibelius cycle were marred by indifferent engineering, so it’s nice to report... Read more... |
Prom 5, Pelléas et Mélisande, Glyndebourne review - for the ears, not the eyesWednesday, 18 July 2018
What a fabulous score Pelléas et Mélisande is, and what a joy to be able to hear it in a concert performance without the distraction of some over-sophisticated director’s self-communings. Well, if only. What last night’s Prom in fact served up was a... Read more... |
Pelléas et Mélisande, Glyndebourne review - frigid metatheatreSunday, 01 July 2018
Pierre Boulez simply crystallised the obvious when he described Debussy's unique masterpiece as "theatre of cruelty," despite its enigmatic beginnings. Richard Jones, when I asked him to talk about its plot, declared "it's about two men who love the... Read more... |
Andsnes, LPO, Jurowski, RFH review - dazzling symphonic contrasts, plus odditiesThursday, 19 April 2018
Kudos, as ever, to Vladimir Jurowski for making epic connections. Not only did he bookend a rich LPO concert with two very different symphonies from the late 1930s by Stravinsky and Shostakovich; he also masterminded and attended the early evening... Read more... |
Donohoe, LPO, Orozco-Estrada, RFH review – wit aplenty in rare StravinskyThursday, 22 March 2018
I left this concert a bit depressed, but not because of anything I heard: rather, by the conservatism of London concert-goers. As London orchestras focus on programming the usual wall-to-wall Brahms, Beethoven and Mahler, the LPO was rewarded for... Read more... |
Brantelid, LPO, Petrenko, RFH review - orchestral excesses redeemed by graceful ElgarSaturday, 24 February 2018
The London Philharmonic, conductor Vasily Petrenko and cellist Andreas Brantelid are just back from a tour of China, so they’ve had plenty of time to get to know each other. That affinity is apparent in the ease with which Petrenko (pictured below... Read more... |
Baráti, Lyddon, LPO, Jurowski, RFH review - Stravinsky's bright but derivative beginningsMonday, 05 February 2018
"You have to start somewhere," Debussy is reported to have said at the 1910 premiere of The Firebird. Which, at least, is a very good "somewhere" for Stravinsky, shot through with flashes of the personality to come. The Symphony in E flat of two... Read more... |
Das Rheingold, LPO, Jurowski, RFH review - orchestral revelations, but cursing Alberich trumps wooden WotanSunday, 28 January 2018
Vladmir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic Orchestra have been to the bottom of the Rhine before, but in 2015 only did a whistlestop tour of the rest of Rheingold's terrain with an extensive array of excerpts. Having worked with the players on... Read more... |
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