tue 01/04/2025

Classical Music reviews, news & interviews

Connolly, BBC Philharmonic, Paterson, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - a journey through French splendours

Robert Beale

The BBC Philharmonic took its Saturday night audience on a journey into French sonic luxuriance – in reverse order of historical formation, beginning with Duruflé, continuing with Chausson and ending with Saint-Saëns. It was conducted by Geoffrey Paterson and featured Dame Sarah Connolly as mezzo-soprano soloist, neither of them the artists originally announced, but 100 per cent good value as their substitutes. 

Biss, National Symphony Orchestra, Kuokman, NCH Dublin review - full house goes wild for vivid epics

David Nice

On paper, it was a standard programme with no stars to explain how this came to be a sellout concert. But packed it was, an audience of all ages which sat with concentrated awe through the spellbinding slow movement of Brahms’s First Piano Concerto and went wild at the end of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. Both works were groundbreaking at the time, sounding absolutely fresh here with the passion and precision awesomely well balanced by conductor Lio Kuokman.

Verdi Requiem, Philharmonia, Muti, RFH review -...

Boyd Tonkin

Forget, for a moment, the legend and the lustre. If you knew nothing about Riccardo Muti’s half-century of history with Verdi’s Messa da Requiem for...

Batsashvili, Hallé, Wong, Bridgewater Hall,...

Robert Beale

Mariam Batsashvili, the young virtuosa pianist from Georgia, is a star. No doubt about that. Trained at the Liszt Academy in Weimar and winner of the...

Naumov, SCO, Egarr, Queen's Hall, Edinburgh...

Simon Thompson

The Scottish Chamber Orchestra has had to put up with its fair share of artist cancellations over the last month, and the ensuing games of musical...

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Classical CDs: Shipping lines, sabre dances and sea lice

Graham Rickson

Neglected piano concertos, Italian art songs and new music for trombones

Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno, Irish Baroque Orchestra, Whelan, St George’s Hanover Square review - Handel’s journey of a soul

David Nice

Pleasure gets the best deal despite Beauty’s struggle to higher things

Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Marsalis, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - sounds above substance

David Nice

Phenomenal playing and conducting just about hold focus through an overlong symphony

Uproar, Rafferty, Royal Welsh College, Cardiff review - colourful new inventions inspired by Ligeti

Stephen Walsh

Unfussy professionalism from Wales-based new music ensemble

Attacca Quartet, Kings Place review - bridging the centuries in sound

Alexandra Coghlan

Grammy-winning quartet bring more American punch than Gallic je-ne-sais-quoi to Ravel

Manchester Collective, RNCM review - exploring new territory

Robert Beale

The string quartet – plus percussion and electronics – goes on a journey

Bavouzet, BBCSO, Stasevska, Barbican review - ardent souls in mythic magic

David Nice

Vivid realisation of fantastical masterpieces by Bartók, Ravel and Janáček

Levit, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Fischer, RFH review - anger unleashed, fantasy finessed in Prokofiev

David Nice

Instant communication from Berlin-based pianist and Hungarian army of generals

A Form of Exile: Edward Said and Late Style, CLS, Wood, QEH review - baggy ferment of ideas and sounds

David Nice

Superlative actors and musicians in an over-ambitious event running to three hours

BBC Philharmonic, Bihlmaier, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - an International Women's Day special

Robert Beale

Spotlight on today’s composers and one of their sisters from the past

Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Czech Philharmonic, Bychkov, Barbican review - from Russia, with tough love

Boyd Tonkin

Cellist, conductor and a great orchestra play Shostakovich for today

Classical CDs: Funeral marches, festivals and film noir

Graham Rickson

Choral music, solo piano recitals and the best violin concerto you've never heard

Mahan Esfahani, Wigmore Hall review - shimmering poise and radical brilliance

Rachel Halliburton

Magnificent demonstration of a lifelong dedication to the harpsichord

Gromes, Hallé, Chauhan, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - new concerto and music of triumph

Robert Beale

Spirit of Germany in the 1930s captured in Herz’s tense and despondent work

Helen Charlston, Sholto Kynoch, Temple Church review - fine singing, powerful stage presence

Sebastian Scotney

Coups de théâtre in a well-constructed programme

Ridout, 12 Ensemble, Wigmore Hall review - brilliant Britten and bombastic Brahms

Bernard Hughes

Dazzling solo and ensemble playing in pieces inspired by music of the past

Argerich, Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra, Papadopoulos, Barbican review - the great pianist as life and soul

Rachel Halliburton

Her delivery of the Beethoven made it clear that she still merits legend status

Jessica Duchen: Myra Hess - National Treasure review - well-told life of a pioneering musician

Bernard Hughes

Biography of the groundbreaking British pianist who was a hero of the Blitz

Chamayou, BBC Philharmonic, Morlot, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - blasts of Boulez, magical Ravel

Robert Beale

Celebration of the two French masters continues in big bangs and gentleness

Classical CDs: Snow, shards and swinging oars

Graham Rickson

Contemporary choral works, revamped lieder plus piano music from Ireland and Scotland

Bach's Mass in B minor, The English Concert, Bezuidenhout, St Martin-in-the-Fields review - solemnity and splendour

Boyd Tonkin

The greatest of choral anthologies smoulders, then flies

Sidorova, Philharmonia, Alsop, Royal Festival Hall review - ladies of the dance

Boyd Tonkin

Vitality, virtuosity and sensuality on a pan-American trip

MacMillan's Ordo Virtutum, BBC Singers, Jeannin, Milton Court review - dramatic journey of a medieval soul

David Nice

Choral music's finest advocate runs the gamut in an epic battle of heaven and hell

Gilliver, Liverman, Rangwanasha, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - a rainbow of British music

David Nice

Poetic Maconchy and Walton, surging Vaughan Williams bursting its confines

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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