wed 15/01/2025

Classical Music reviews, news & interviews

Leif Ove Andsnes, Wigmore Hall review - colour and courage, from Hardanger to Majorca

Boyd Tonkin

Forthright and upright, powerful and lucid, the frank and bold pianism of Leif Ove Andsnes took his Wigmore Hall audience from Norway to Poland (or rather, Paris and Majorca) with a final stop in France. A recital that began with two large-scale Norwegian sonatas – one a remarkable discovery – culminated in the ostensibly remote sound-world of Chopin’s 24 Preludes, part-written on the Balearic island.

Chamayou, BBC Philharmonic, Wigglesworth, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - Boulez with bonbons

Robert Beale

Top Brownie points for the BBC Philharmonic for being one of the first (maybe the first?) to celebrate the birth centenary of Pierre Boulez this year. His Rituel – in memoriam Bruno Maderna was paired somewhat uneasily with a second half of bonbons by Ravel (it’s his 150th anniversary year, too).

Classical CDs: Antiphons, ale dances and elves

Graham Rickson

 Paavo Järvi: The Complete Erato Recordings (Erato)Big box sets celebrating great conductors are piling up thick and fast, and this one,...

Liepe, National Youth Orchestra of Ireland,...

David Nice

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...

Davis, National Symphony Orchestra, Maloney,...

David Nice

In one sense it was a New Year’s Day “nearly”, just stopping short of giving us the already great Irish lyric-dramatic soprano Jennifer Davis in the...

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Best of 2024: Classical music concerts

David Nice

Young and old in excelsis, and competition finales turned into winning programmes

Spence, Perez, Richardson, Wigmore Hall review - a Shakespearean journey in song

Boyd Tonkin

A festive cabaret - and a tenor masterclass

Best of 2024: Classical CDs

Graham Rickson

Our pick of the year's best classical releases

First Person: cellist Matthew Barley on composing and recording his 'Light Stories'

Matthew Barley

Conceived a year ago, a short but intense musical journey

The English Concert, Bicket, Wigmore Hall review - a Baroque banquet for Christmas

Boyd Tonkin

Charpentier's charm, as well as Bach's bounty, adorn the festive table

Classical CDs: Woden, waltzes and watchmaking

Graham Rickson

Big box sets, a great British symphony and a pair of solo cello discs

Messiah, Wild Arts, Chichester Cathedral review - a dynamic battle between revelatory light and Stygian gloom

Rachel Halliburton

This supple inventive interpretation of the 'Messiah' thrillingly delivers the story

Messiah, Academy of Ancient Music, Cummings, Barbican review - once more, with real feeling

Boyd Tonkin

The seasonal standby returns with heart, zest and grace

Christmas with Connaught Brass, Milton Court review - delightful seasonal fare from Bach to Boulanger

Bernard Hughes

Young quintet dazzle with their technical accomplishment and easy charm

Classical CDs: Christmas 2024

Graham Rickson

The year's best seasonal releases

Giltburg, Bournemouth SO, Wigglesworth, Portsmouth Guildhall review - seemingly effortless élan

David Nice

New chief conductor turns Tchaikovsky waltz king, and a Rachmaninov partnership flows

Bach Mendelssohn Festival, Part I, Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra review - the flame that never died

Boyd Tonkin

Top-flight performers show how a musical legacy endured

Currie, Hallé, Wong, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - sparkle and intrigue

Robert Beale

Energy and excitement in MacMillan… and then a surprise

Rajakesar, Selaocoe, The Hermes Experiment, Wigmore Hall review - a joyful, fascinating laboratory of noise

Rachel Halliburton

Celebrating the avant-garde through different cultures

Classical CDs: Vitamins, kings and magic spells

Graham Rickson

A neglected ballet score, romantic piano concertos and contemporary British music

Kavakos, Philharmonia, Blomstedt, RFH review - a supreme valediction forbidding mourning

David Nice

Nonagenarian conductor provides the flow, his players the passion, in Mahler's Ninth

Perianes, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Payare, Barbican review - elegance and drama but not enough bite

Rachel Halliburton

Often dynamic Venezuelan conductor misses the darkness of the 'Symphonie fantastique'

La Serenissima, Wigmore Hall review - an Italian menu to savour

Boyd Tonkin

Tasty Baroque discoveries, tastefully delivered

Roman Rabinovich, Wigmore Hall review - full tone in four styles

David Nice

Fascinating Haydn, Debussy and Schumann, odd Beethoven

Wyn, Dwyer, McAteer, RSNO & Choirs, Diakun, Usher Hall, Edinburgh review - ebullient but bitty

Simon Thompson

‘Carmina Burana’ is fun in parts, but Langer’s ‘Dong’ doesn’t flow

Gerhardt, BBC Philharmonic, Chauhan, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - from grief to peace

Robert Beale

Anna Clyne, Shostakovich and Richard Strauss tell us about loss, struggle and healing

Bach Brandenburg Concertos, OAE, QEH review - forever young

Boyd Tonkin

Zest, dash and fun in rejuvenated favourites

First Person: Alec Frank-Gemmill on reasons for another recording of the Mozart horn concertos

Alec Frank-Gemmill

On ignoring the composer's 'Basta, basta!' above the part for the original soloist

Andrej Power, LSO, Mäkelä, Barbican review - singing, shrieking rites of darkness and light

David Nice

Radical masterpieces by Sibelius and Stravinsky have never sounded more extraordinary

Footnote: a brief history of classical music in Britain

London has more world-famous symphony orchestras than any other city in the world, the Philharmonia, Royal Philharmonic, London Philharmonic and London Symphony Orchestra vying with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Royal Opera House Orchestra, crack "period", chamber and contemporary orchestras. The bursting schedules of concerts at the Wigmore Hall, the Barbican Centre and South Bank Centre, and the strength of music in Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Cardiff, among other cities, show a depth and internationalism reflecting the development of the British classical tradition as European, but with specific slants of its own.

brittenWhile Renaissance monarchs Henry VIII and Elizabeth I took a lively interest in musical entertainment, this did not prevent outstanding English composers such as Thomas Tallis and William Byrd developing the use of massed choral voices to stirring effect. Arguably the vocal tradition became British music's glory, boosted by the arrival of Handel as a London resident in 1710. For the next 35 years he generated booms in opera, choral and instrumental playing, and London attracted a wealth of major European composers, Mozart, Chopin and Mahler among them.

The Victorian era saw a proliferation of classical music organisations, beginning with the Philharmonic Society, 1813, and the Royal Academy of Music, 1822, both keenly promoting Beethoven's music. The Royal Albert Hall and the Queen's Hall were key new concert halls, and Manchester, Liverpool and Edinburgh established major orchestras. Edward Elgar was chief of a raft of English late-Victorian composers; a boom-time which saw the Proms launched in 1895 by Sir Henry Wood, and a rapid increase in conservatoires and orchestras. The "pastoral" English classical style arose, typified by Vaughan Williams, and the new BBC took over the Proms in 1931, founding its own broadcasting orchestra and classical radio station (now Radio 3).

England at last produced a world giant in Benjamin Britten (pictured above), whose protean range spearheaded the postwar establishment of national arts institutions, resulting notably in English National Opera, the Royal Opera and the Aldeburgh Festival. The Arts Desk writers provide a uniquely rich coverage of classical concerts, with overnight reviews and indepth interviews with major performers and composers, from Britain and abroad. Writers include Igor Toronyi-Lalic, David Nice, Edward Seckerson, Alexandra Coghlan, Graham Rickson, Stephen Walsh and Ismene Brown

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