Mahler
Ismene Brown
Michael Tilson Thomas’s association with the London Symphony Orchestra runs deep - he was its principal conductor for eight years, and for his latest return to his old band last night the American programmed works that, while they had a Viennese theme, also seemed vividly designed to show off the jewels of this great orchestra, its wonderful wind players. How the clarinettists, oboists, flautists, horn-players and trumpeters must have delighted to see what they were to play: Schubert’s Donizetti-like Rosamunde, with its haunting woodwind songs, Mahler’s richly picturesque song cycle Des Read more ...
igor.toronyilalic
Over the past few years, Haitink’s London performances - and last night's was no different - have slowly but consistently chipped away at the conventional wisdom that conductors mature with age and reach an apex of musical understanding some two hours before they die. Some conductors, obviously, just go mouldy, like milk.
But Haitink goads not only one's understanding of conventional wisdom but also one’s moral fibre. It's hard to go against one's instinctive deference to one’s elders and betters. If any other 80-year-old had jumped on stage last night and provided the performance of Read more ...
igor.toronyilalic
The height of naffness? The best of British? A bit of fun? Opinions always splinter over the Last Night of the Proms. The received wisdom is that, if you have a brain or any genuine care for music, you’re not really meant to enjoy the Last Night; you’re meant to endure it, bravely, stoically, heroically, like a terminal illness, by taking each sonic and visual blow on the chin. What is really not meant to happen is for one to find - next to the usual bits of aural and intellectual GBH - moments of genuine comedy, emotion and even musical revelation.Things began before they'd begun. Conductor Read more ...