Royal Albert Hall
Prom 61 review: Fleming, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Oramo - heliotropic ecstasiesThursday, 31 August 2017
No sunshine without shadows was one possible theme rippling through this diva sandwich of a Prom. Even Richard Strauss's chaste nymph Daphne, achieving longed-for metamorphosis as a tree, finds darkness among the roots; and though Renée "The... Read more... |
Proms at... & Prom 56 reviews: Multi-Story Orchestra / BBCSO, Hrůša - the best of all possible worldsMonday, 28 August 2017
There we had it, in one extraordinary Proms day: the brave new world of contemporary classical music for all in a repurposed Peckham car park followed by the consolidation of the old order in all-Czech programming of remarkable originality and... Read more... |
Prom 54 review: Kavakos, Filarmonica della Scala, Chailly - cool Milanesi mute Roman exuberanceSaturday, 26 August 2017
Last night was one of those rare occasions when I'd rather have heard Respighi's gaudy-brilliant Roman Festivals than Brahms's Violin Concerto. It wasn't just that concerts like Charles Dutoit's 2014 Prom had shown us that the Italian's Roman... Read more... |
Prom 53 review: Buckley, Metropole Orkest - extravagantly entertaining jazzSaturday, 26 August 2017
Think Charles Mingus, and it’s unlikely that a neon-coiffed saxophonist playing acoustic house while doing a solo can-can around the stage will come to mind. A highly original, introspective figure whose best music is a thrillingly rumbustious... Read more... |
Prom 50 review: Josefowicz, Clayton, CBSO, Gražinytė-Tyla - personality in every barTuesday, 22 August 2017
Everything you may have read about Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla's wonder-working with her City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is true. Confined to a Turkish hospital bed when their first Prom together took place last August, I wondered from the radio... Read more... |
Proms 47, 48 & 49 review: Reformation Day - superlative Bach as the bedrockMonday, 21 August 2017
Reformation Day, Luther 500 - in Proms terms it can only mean Bach, the alpha and omega of music, flourishing roughly two centuries after the Wittenberg Nightingale nailed his 95 theses to the church door. Those of us who headed home on Saturday... Read more... |
Prom 46 review: Gurrelieder, LSO, Rattle - gorgeous colours, halting movement in Schoenberg's monsterpieceSunday, 20 August 2017
From sunset to sunrise, across aeons of time, usually flashes by in Schoenberg's polystylistic epic. Not last night at the Proms: Simon Rattle is too much in love with the sounds he can get from the London Symphony Orchestra - here verging on a... Read more... |
Proms 37 / 38 review: Latvian Radio Choir, Gavrylyuk, BBCSSO, Dausgaard - numinous Rachmaninov triptychMonday, 14 August 2017
So it was Rachmaninov night at the Proms, but with a difference: a trinity of works sacred and profane, the first two introduced by the Latvian choir due to perform the third singing harmonised Russian Orthodox chants of the kind on which the... Read more... |
Proms 34 & 35 review: Oklahoma!, John Wilson Orchestra - music triumphs, words and drama sufferSaturday, 12 August 2017
Only one thing could equal the "wow!" factor of seeing and hearing a youngish Hugh Jackman launch into “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’“ at the start of the National Theatre’s 1998 staging of Oklahoma!: John Wilson and his orchestra trilling and... Read more... |
Prom 33 review: Davidsen, Gerhardt, BBC Philharmonic, Storgårds - Nordic music glowing with colourFriday, 11 August 2017
Goodness the BBC Philharmonic plays well for John Storgårds. The orchestra’s chief guest conductor has a lovely easy manner on the podium – all curved gestures and loose arms, and the result is a partnership that brings the absolute best out of the... Read more... |
Prom 31 review: La Damnation de Faust, Gardiner - Berlioz tumbles out in rainbow coloursWednesday, 09 August 2017
The road to hell is paved with brilliant ideas in Berlioz's idiosyncratic take on the Faust legend. John Eliot Gardiner proved better than anyone in last night's Prom that this splendidly lopsided "dramatic legend" can only be weakened by its many... Read more... |
Prom 30 review: Bournemouth SO, Karabits - pagan fire and thunderTuesday, 08 August 2017
A Prom of unrelenting momentum began promisingly with Beethoven, and the false start that opens his First Symphony. On this showing, Kirill Karabits has coached his Bournemouth musicians in the classical repertoire with a dash and flair that brings... Read more... |
