LSO
alexandra.coghlan
With Kavakos, Faust, Shaham and Skride already been and gone, and Jansen, Ehnes, Bell and Ibragimova still to come, the LSO’s International Violin Festival has nothing left to prove. We’re not short of star power in London’s concert scene, but even by our spoilt metropolitan standards this is a pretty unarguable line-up. With excellence a given, then, it takes quite a lot to startle a crowd into delight – especially on a Sunday night. But that’s what Christian Tetzlaff did with the unassuming freshness and brilliance of his Beethoven.Ever thoughtful, Tetzlaff has taken the cadenzas that Read more ...
graham.rickson
Malcolm Arnold: Symphonies 1-9 London Symphony Orchestra/Richard Hickox, BBC Philharmonic/Rumon Gamba (Chandos)Malcolm Arnold's lasting reputation as a chameleonic comedian endures, though his more overtly serious cycle of nine symphonies shouldn't be overlooked. They span his compositional career – the bracing, bold No. 1 written in 1949, the alarming, sepulchral 9th completed in 1986. They exist in a very British parallel musical universe, miles from the European avant-garde. But Arnold wasn't an insular composer; these symphonies make overt reference to Berlioz, Sibelius, Read more ...
Peter Quantrill
Time was when a Boulez concert with the LSO would have been directed by the man himself, but that is no longer possible. In Peter Eötvös they have the next best thing, a conductor who has known the man and his music for decades, whose listening ear is scarcely less acute and whose most recent appearance wth the LSO, in Lachenmann and Brahms with Maurizio Pollini, made quite miraculous music from intensive rehearsal. It was evident that similar care had gone into the preparation of orchestral rites by Stravinsky and Boulez, preceded by the Livre pour cordes which the French composer fashioned Read more ...
graham.rickson
Britten & Barber: Piano Concertos Elizabeth Joy Roe (piano), London Symphony Orchestra/Emil Tabakov (Decca)For years, the only available recording of Britten's Piano Concerto was the one with Sviatoslav Richter accompanied by the composer. Richter is still a contender, his expansive first movement tempo allowing the details to register without underplaying the music's vivacity. Speedier recent accounts by Howard Shelley and Steven Osborne can sound a little breathless. Elizabeth Joy Roe's timings suggest that she's going to follow the Richter approach, but she's as swift as any Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
Michael Tilson Thomas is in town to celebrate his 70th birthday. And he's with old friends – he’s been working with the London Symphony since 1970, including six years as principal conductor. There is still plenty of chemistry here, and the orchestra’s strengths perfectly complement his, the clarity and boldness of his interpretations given voice in the orchestra’s precise ensemble and rich sonorities. The concert was a gala event with a retrospective feel, and each piece was well chosen to highlight an aspect of the long and fruitful relationship.Colin Matthews’ Hidden Variables ticks many Read more ...
David Nice
Having manoeuvred to get a new concert hall for London earmarked in principle, Sir Simon Rattle has finally agreed, as we thought he would, to take charge of the London Symphony Orchestra in 2017. By then, he'll by 62 (though I thought the big idea was to leave Berlin at 64, an appropriate benchmark for a Liverpudlian).Yes, it’s a good move in many ways, even if I can’t be as unreservedly ecstatic as the press at large, which has at least done the classical world the service of giving it a recognition outside the arts pages thanks to Rattle’s recent visit with the Berlin Philharmonic. Read more ...
Peter Quantrill
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 Stravinsky’s virgin in The Rite of Spring both meet gory if wordless ends. Ligeti’s Chief of Police in Le grand macabre reverses roles and deals death to anyone in her path. Or at least threatens it. So much for hysteria. Invention? In 1909 Webern ripped up the textbook of orchestral colour and wrote his own with the Orchestral Pieces Op.6, just as Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
Sir Simon Rattle wants you to hear Das Paradies und die Peri. He is convinced that Schumann’s oratorio is one of the great undiscovered masterpieces of the Romantic era. To that end, he has led performances with the Berlin Philharmonic and an all-star cast, and has now brought that cast to London to convert the Brits.He’s right. It is magnificent, and last night it received as good a performance as could be imagined. Every strength of Schumann’s art is showcased. The solo vocal writing is emotive and imaginative. The chorus is used prominently, and to excellent effect. The orchestration Read more ...
David Nice
You know what to expect from a standard programme of masterpieces like this, led by two great performers in careful control of their repertoire, and those expectations are never going to be disappointed. You’re not going to hear the kind of new-sound Brahms side by side with the more recent end of the German musical tradition – Zimmermann, say, or Henze; that’s the provenance of a fresh thinker like Vladimir Jurowski. But while last night’s kind of old-style concert format may not be with us for ever, we might as well treasure it while it lasts from the likes of Mitsuko Uchida, a pianist who Read more ...
graham.rickson
Dvořák: Symphony no 8, Janáček: Symphonic Suite from Jenůfa Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra/Manfred Honeck (Reference Recordings)Dvořák's Seventh has the Brahmsian drama, and the Ninth has the crowd-pleasing tunes. But the major key Eighth is the most radical, and Manfred Honeck's remarkable performance highlights its originality in some style. Honeck's interventionist approach won't be to all tastes, but he justifies every interpretive decision in his sleeve notes, and the musical results are pretty special. He sees the composer here as ''liberated from Germanic models... completely at Read more ...
edward.seckerson
It is not often we hear Bruckner’s colossal Eighth Symphony in its longer and far quirkier original version (1887 ed. Nowak) and when we do hear it in either of its two incarnations it invariably stands alone. That Fabio Luisi chose it for his debut with the London Symphony Orchestra was in itself more than a little revealing and the fact that he added Mozart’s 23rd Piano Concerto as an apéritif seemed to suggest that he had something to say about Bruckner’s uneasy quest for the kind of classical perfection that Mozart took for granted. The young French pianist Lise de la Salle (pictured Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
"Finally,” said Sir Simon Rattle, “I get a chance to say thank you. We have had forty years working together without an argument." The Royal Philharmonic Society was awarding an Honorary Membership to Martin Campbell-White, Rattle's agent. Campbell-White, who has been a guiding influence on the conductor's career since the 1970's made a rare appearance on stage, as he became the first artist manager ever to win this award in the RPS's 201-year history. There was a sense of occasion about this concert, which was also Rattle's first appearance with the LSO since the Olympics opening Read more ...