Classical Reviews
BBC Proms: Ehnes, Sinfonia of London, Wilson review - aspects of loveSaturday, 13 September 2025
Critics (including this one) casually refer to John Wilson’s Sinfonia of London as an all-star outfit, an army made up of generals. This week I was able to see, and hear, exactly what that means. A few days ago, in Scotland, I marvelled at flautist Adam Walker’s agility and versatility in his outstanding performances with the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective at the Lammermuir Festival. Read more... |
Presteigne Festival 2025 review - new music is centre stage in the Welsh MarchesFriday, 12 September 2025
If you were a devotee of Dmitri Shostakovich whose only opportunity to attend some live performances marking this year’s 50th anniversary of his death was spending the weekend of 21 - 25 August at the Presteigne Festival, you probably wouldn’t have felt short-changed. Read more... |
Lammermuir Festival 2025 review - music with soul from the heart of East LothianWednesday, 10 September 2025
One piece that you’re unlikely to hear at the Lammermuir Festival is Lucia di Lammermoor. As co-director James Waters explained during a drive to the absurdly picturesque church and castle at Crichton (fit setting for a Netflix epic, let alone a blood-soaked bel canto opera), venues and resources do set some limits to works that can be presented to the standards he demands. Read more... |
BBC Proms: Steinbacher, RPO, Petrenko / Sternath, BBCSO, Oramo review - double-bill mixed bagTuesday, 09 September 2025
My final visit to the Proms for this year was a Sunday double-header of the RPO playing Respighi, Milhaud and Vaughan Williams at 11am and an evening concert of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and massed choirs in Gipps, Grieg and Bliss. Read more... |
theartsdesk at the Lahti Sibelius Festival - early epics by the Finnish master in contextSaturday, 06 September 2025
It’s weird, if wonderful, that vibrant young composers at the end of the 19th century should have featured death so prominently in their hero-sagas. Assume their inspiration came from Wagner’s Siegmund, Siegfried and Tristan. But Sibelius, Mahler and Richard Strauss took very different paths on the route to obliteration. That’s only one of many things that helps to make Hannu Lintu’s three-year exploration of Sibelius in the context of his predecessors and contemporaries so fascinating. Read more... |
Waley-Cohen, Manchester Camerata, Pether, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester review - premiere of no ordinary violin concertoFriday, 05 September 2025
Manchester Camerata is enhancing its reputation for pioneering with three performances featuring Nick Martin’s new Violin Concerto, which it has commissioned, two of them in art galleries rather than conventional music venues. Read more... |
BBC Proms: Barruk, Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, Kuusisto review - vague incantations, precise lamentsTuesday, 02 September 2025
Every year, the Royal Albert Hall proves complicit in the magic of the quietest utterances if, as Barenboim put it, you let the audience come to you and don’t try too hard. Pekka Kuusisto is the ultimate communicator, the ideal guide for the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra. Stitching "classical" string music with numbers from a Sámi singer, Katarina Barruk, though, didn’t quite come off. Read more... |
BBC Proms: Alexander’s Feast, Irish Baroque Orchestra, Whelan review - rapturous Handel fills the spaceMonday, 01 September 2025
Many Londoners would already have experienced the musicality incarnate of Peter Whelan and his Irish Baroque Orchestra. A smaller ensemble rocked two of Irish National Opera’s Vivaldi specials in the Linbury Theatre – one a major award winner – and the best Messiah I’ve ever heard in the Wigmore Hall. Their first Prom was pure celebration, and how they filled the Royal Albert Hall, both collectively and solo-wise, in the revised Dublin version of Alexander’s Feast. Read more... |
BBC Proms: Moore, LSO, Bancroft review - the freshness of morning wind and brassSunday, 31 August 2025
11am concerts do take some getting used to. The BBC Proms season has no fewer than seven of them this year, three on Saturdays and four on Sundays. And yet, strangely, for this programme, mainly consisting of works for concert band, it did genuinely seem like the right time of day. Read more... |
Willis-Sørensen, Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, Wilson, Cadogan Hall review - romantic resilienceSaturday, 30 August 2025
This week Vladimir Putin tried to murder my hosts in Ukraine. He failed. In more hopeful days, I spoke at a seminar organised by the British Council’s branch in Kyiv. Its offices (along with the EU delegation) felt the force of a Russian missile strike on Wednesday night. No one died there, thankfully, although 23 more civilians in the city perished. Read more... |
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