Shostakovich
Gillam, NYOS, Hasan, Usher Hall, Edinburgh - stunning variety from the new generationMonday, 18 April 2022![]() I expected the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland’s Usher Hall concert to be jam-packed with a joyful melee of admiring friends and relatives. This is a vast orchestra of over 100, and it wouldn’t take that many aunts and uncles to fill the Usher’... Read more... |
Bournemouth SO, Karabits, Lighthouse, Poole review - more voices from the eastTuesday, 12 April 2022![]() The last of this season’s Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra concert series Voices from the East featured music from Azerbaijan with Kirill Karabits focusing on works by the contemporary composer Franghiz Ali-Zadeh and her teacher Kara Karayev.Born in... Read more... |
Kanneh-Mason, LPO, Bloxham, Congress Theatre, Eastbourne review - stark Russian contrastsWednesday, 23 February 2022![]() With a predictable Sheku sell-out in the hall, the context of post-Eunice clean-up and current teetering on the brink with Russia lent a strangely unsettling and salutary resonance to the programme of Shostakovich’s Second Cello Concerto framed by... Read more... |
Stikhina, Kowaljow, LSO, Noseda, Barbican review - dramatic songs of death, electrifying dances of lifeFriday, 04 February 2022![]() “This symphony comprises 11 songs about death and lasts about one hour,” the conductor Mark Wigglesworth declared before a second New York performance of Shostakovich’s Fourteenth – people had left in droves during the first – only to see a swathe... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Two bass drums, three oranges and seven symphoniesSaturday, 30 October 2021![]() Prokofiev: The Symphonies Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra/Andrew Litton (BIS)The first CD alone (containing almost 87 minutes of music!) in this five-disc set should be enough to convince you to buy the whole thing. Andrew Litton’s Bergen... Read more... |
Ólafsson, Philharmonia, Järvi, BBC Proms review - a ravishing Proms debutMonday, 16 August 2021![]() What does it mean to be Classical? It’s the question award-winning Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson has consistently asked in a career that has collided music from Bach to Debussy, presenting them as part of a single conversation and continuum.... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Soviet symphonies, popular classics and percussionSaturday, 14 August 2021![]() Louise Farrenc; Symphonies 1&3 Insula Orchestra/Laurence Equilbey (Erato)Louise Farrenc’s music is good as you’d expect from a precocious talent who’d studied piano with Hummel and composition with Reicha. Born in 1804, Farrenc’s... Read more... |
Carducci Quartet, Wigmore Hall review - complexity and depthMonday, 12 July 2021![]() This programme was a bit of a calling card from the Carducci Quartet. They have previously recorded all three works, and the three composers, Haydn, Shostakovich, Beethoven, clearly play to their strengths. Add to that a modest running time, the... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Three great conductors remembered, Mahler with accordion and a song cycle with no singerSaturday, 05 June 2021![]() André Previn: The Warner Edition – Complete HMV & Teldec Recordings (Warner Classics)Flicking through this box set will provoke a Proustian rush if you’re of a certain age. These recordings were mostly made for EMI, though Warner Classics... Read more... |
Wigmore Hall at Portman Square / Wang, LSO, Tilson Thomas, LSO St Luke's review - al fresco chamber, full orchestra indoorsTuesday, 01 June 2021![]() Sometimes the big musical institutions follow off-piste trailblazers. John Gilhooly of the Wigmore Hall has been a hero in lockdown year, keeping musicians paid up and performing to audiences live or via livestream (or both); but it was clarinettist... Read more... |
Romances on British Poetry / The Poet's Echo, English Touring Opera online review - Britten and Shostakovich in a double mirrorTuesday, 26 January 2021![]() A darkened stage; a pool of light; a solitary figure. And then, flooding the whole thing with meaning, music – even it’s just a soft chord on a piano. It’s no secret to any opera goer that even the barest outlines of a staging can magnify the... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Mahler, Shostakovich, Chris Watson and Georgia RodgersSaturday, 26 September 2020![]() Mahler: Symphony No. 7 Orchestre National de Lille/Alexandre Bloch (Alpha Classics)Mahler 5’s five movements trace a lucid journey from darkness to light, and No. 6’s tautly-structured outer movements don’t contain a wasted note. Whereas... Read more... |
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