wed 11/12/2024

Messiaen

Turangalîla-Symphonie, LSO, Rattle, Edinburgh International Festival 2023 review - impressive climax to residency

A performance of Olivier Messiaen’s kaleidoscopic Turangalîla-Symphonie is always going to be a bit of an event. The Edinburgh International Festival set this one up nicely by making it not only the impressive culmination of a four-concert residency...

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Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy, Bold Tendencies review - visions under the car-park roof

Before the not-quite-clear all-clear was given for distanced performances indoors, Bold Tendencies already had the perfect summer solution in the floor space beneath its rooftop terrace in Peckham’s former multi-storey car park. Never was its...

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Edinburgh Festival 2018 review: Aimard, SCO, Pintscher - psychedelic visions

There were two immediate casualties at Pierre-Laurent Aimard’s high-energy account of Messiaen’s monumental Des canyons aux étoiles… with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra at the Edinburgh International Festival.First was one of the strings in the...

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theartsdesk at the Lucerne Easter Festival: Haitink, Schiff and an alternative Passion

Anyone passionate about great conducting would jump at the chance to hear 89-year-old Bernard Haitink giving three days of masterclasses with eight young practitioners of the art, his eighth and possibly last series in Lucerne (though he's not...

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Messiaen & Shostakovich, St John's Smith Square review - Osborne and Gerhardt anchor 1940s masterpieces

Only connect. As the Southbank Centre's International Chamber Music Series at St John's showcased supreme eloquence in two searing but perfectly-proportioned meditations from the Second World War, over the road at Smith Square Europe House was...

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Ensemble InterContemporain, Wigmore Hall

The Paris-based Ensemble InterContemporain brought a wide-ranging programme to the Wigmore Hall. They are known as new music specialists – the group was founded by Pierre Boulez as the house band for the IRCAM electronic music studio – so Ravel and...

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Sughayer, Manchester Camerata Soloists, Manchester Cathedral

Two works whose whole significance depends on (unspoken) sacred texts made a stimulating combination for a concert in Manchester Cathedral’s sacred space. Haydn’s The Seven Last Words of our Saviour on the Cross – usually heard in its string...

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Aimard, Stefanovich, St John's Smith Square

Visions de l’Amen was a shoo-in for Belief and Beyond Belief, the year-long festival of art inspired by religious faith. The festival’s goals seem dangerously nebulous – almost anything could fit its remit – but it is hard to imagine a...

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Catalogue d'Oiseaux, Aimard, Aldeburgh Festival

"He is one of the few pianists who will not make them sound like angry birds," said young pianist-animateur Víkingur Ólafsson in Reykjavík when I told him that in little over 24 hours' time I'd be hearing Pierre-Laurent Aimard work his way through...

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Uchida, Musicians from the Berlin Philharmonic, Wigmore Hall

Exactly what constitutes “the End of Time” in Olivier Messiaen’s extraordinary Quartet for piano, violin, cello and clarinet? Not surely “the end of days” but rather the end of measured time; music unfettered, music of the spheres, music without...

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BBC Proms: Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Chailly

If you’re going to bash a tam-tam for six, the Albert Hall is the perfect place to do it. The reverberation lasts for ages; and everyone in the audience can see you bashing. That must explain in part why Messiaen’s hieratic, gong-crazy Et expecto...

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BBC Proms: Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Chung

Sibling rivalry: The charismatic Capuçon brothers face off in two concertos in two nights

Never has a French invasion of these shores been quite so welcome. The two-day siege currently being staged in the Royal Albert Hall by Myung-Whun Chung and his Orchestra Philharmonique de Radio France opened last night with patriotic fervour in an...

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