LPO
Bronfman, LPO, Jurowski, RFH review - weight and witMonday, 29 April 2019
Vladimir Jurowski is always a conductor for making connections, so one wonders why Brahms's Second Piano Concerto wasn't the first-half choice in this programme from the start (the advertised original had been the much stormier No 1). The sleight-of... Read more... |
Soltani, LPO, Gardner, RFH review – disciplined and dynamic accountsMonday, 25 March 2019
No successor has yet been named to Vladimir Jurowski as Principal Conductor of the London Philharmonic, so it is interesting to note that Edward Gardner is making several appearances with the orchestra this season. The two conductors are similar in... Read more... |
Bevan, Padmore, Foster-Williams, LPO, Jurowski, RFH review - rural blissMonday, 04 March 2019
Just as our brief, premature spring collapsed into the bluster of Storm Freya, the Enlightenment certainties of Haydn’s more dependable cycle of nature blew into the Royal Festival Hall. Perhaps because its lovely but (for the most part) serene... Read more... |
Die Walküre, LPO, Jurowski, RFH review - love shines outMonday, 28 January 2019
Harpers on the undeniably offensive aspect of Wagner the man might question attending a concert performance of his second Ring opera on World Holocaust Day. Fortunately there's nothing anti-semitic to be found anywhere in Die Walküre. As embodied by... Read more... |
The Swingles, LPO, Jurowski, RFH review – austere Stravinsky, luminous BerioMonday, 10 December 2018
The London Philharmonic’s year-long Stravinsky festival, Changing Faces, concluded here in spectacular style, with a tribute to “The Swingling Sixties”. Vladimir Jurowski, the soon to be leaving – and soon to be much-missed, Principal Conductor of... Read more... |
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... |
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