Shostakovich
Müller-Schott, RSNO, Søndergård, Usher Hall, Edinburgh - spectacular Shostakovich to end the seasonSaturday, 07 June 2025
There was a neat conjunction of commemorations to this concert, the most obvious one being the fact that that 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of the death of Dmitri Shostakovich, so it’s completely appropriate the Royal Scottish National Orchestra... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Jelly Babies, porridge and kazoosFriday, 16 May 2025
Brahms: Lieder Christian Gerhaher (baritone), Gerold Huber (piano) (Sony)The concert I attended of Brahms Lieder in the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford in October 2024, with Christian Gerhaher in fabulous voice and Gerold Huber at the peak of his... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Chinese poetry, rollercoasters and old bookshopsSaturday, 03 May 2025
Jürg Frey: Voices EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble/James Weeks (Neu Records)A new CD from EXAUDI is a guaranteed treat for all the senses: the sound quality is always impeccable, the CD presentation a tactile pleasure. Heck, it even smells good (a... Read more... |
Philharmonia, Alsop, RFH / Levit, Abramović, QEH review - misalliance and magical marathonSaturday, 26 April 2025
“Let the music guide your imagination” was never going to be the slogan of the Southbank Centre’s Multitudes festival. Its 13 events offer parallel visions, intended in the case of Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé (a shared project between the LPO and... Read more... |
Levit, Sternath, Wigmore Hall review - pushing the boundaries in Prokofiev and ShostakovichSaturday, 05 April 2025
Igor Levit is a master of the unorthodox marathon, one he was happy to share last night with 24-year-old Austrian Lukas Sternath, his student in Hanover. Not only did Sternath get the obvious stunner of two Prokofiev sonatas in the first half; he... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Big bands, beasts and birdcallsSaturday, 05 April 2025
Vox Feminae: music by Barbara Strozzi, Antonia Bemba, Hieryonymus Kapsberger... Les Kapsber’girls/Albane Imbs (Alpha)What a complete transformation from one album to the next. The last one, Vous-avez dit brunettes? – "did you say... Read more... |
Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Czech Philharmonic, Bychkov, Barbican review - from Russia, with tough loveSaturday, 08 March 2025
Exactly half a century ago, Semyon Bychkov fled the USSR for the United States as he sought to swap tyranny for liberty. Last night, in a world that feels utterly different yet even more terrifying, the great conductor turned the stellar talents of... Read more... |
Biss, BBCSO, Hrůša, Barbican review - electrifying Shostakovich at a crucial timeSaturday, 01 February 2025
At the end of an exhausting week in which Holocaust Memorial Day struck a more urgent note than ever as fascism started tearing through the USA, parts of this concert were bound to hit hard. That they did so to the power of 100 was thanks to the... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Antiphons, ale dances and elvesSaturday, 11 January 2025
Paavo Järvi: The Complete Erato Recordings (Erato)Big box sets celebrating great conductors are piling up thick and fast, and this one, unusually, features an artist who’s very much alive. Paavo Järvi is just 62 (still young for a conductor).... Read more... |
Liepe, National Youth Orchestra of Ireland, Cottis, NCH, Dublin review - a spirited shot at ShostakovichMonday, 06 January 2025
There’s nothing like an anodyne new(ish) work to give a masterpiece an even higher profile. Rachel Portman‘s Tipping Points, promising to address climate change issues, was so bland and featureless it could have been composed by AI. Any one bar of... Read more... |
Kanneh-Mason, Sinfonia of London, Wilson, Barbican review - taking the roof off the BarbicanWednesday, 16 October 2024
A programme of less-loved siblings – Shostakovich’s gnarly Second Cello Concerto and Rachmaninov’s “not-the-Second” Symphony No. 1 – gave John Wilson and his Sinfonia of London the chance to do what they do best: force an audience to take a second... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Dinosaurs, harmonicas and final frontiersSaturday, 17 August 2024
Fauré: Requiem, Gounod: Messe de Clovis Le Concert Spirituel/Hervé Niquet (Alpha-Classics)It was as an avid fan of the short story author Saki that my eye was drawn to the title of Gounod’s Messe de Clovis, although the Clovis here is the... Read more... |
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