Classical Reviews
Einstein on the Beach, Barbican TheatreSaturday, 05 May 2012
Einstein on the Beach was meant to be one of the jewels in the crown for the Cultural Olympiad. The celebrated 1970s collaboration between Philip Glass, Robert Wilson and Lucinda Childs - which Susan Sontag claimed to be one of the greatest theatrical experiences of the 20th century - was receiving its UK premiere at the Barbican Theatre last night, thirty-six years after it was first created. And what we got was a technical shambles. Read more...
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Classical CDs Weekly: Bach, Debussy, Rachmaninov, StravinskySaturday, 05 May 2012
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Helmchen, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Jurowski, Royal Festival HallThursday, 03 May 2012
Two more contrasting pianists than Yuja Wang and Martin Helmchen would be hard to find. To move within 24 hours from the glittering assault of Wang’s technique to the restrained, almost introverted, Helmchen is an exercise in extremes, and one that left me yearning, Goldilocks-style, for a soloist neither too hot nor too cold, but just right. Read more... |
Yuja Wang, Queen Elizabeth HallWednesday, 02 May 2012
Let no one tell you that Chinese pianists can't play with passion. Yuja Wang ran the full gamut of emotions in last night's Queen Elizabeth Hall recital from the tender to the rhapsodic. But mostly she channelled her energies to delivering some of the most colourfully explosive playing I've heard for ages. Read more... |
Tetzlaff, London Symphony Orchestra, Eötvös, Barbican HallMonday, 30 April 2012
“I don’t want to be a Cyclops,” Pierre Boulez said in 2010, faced with the prospect of conducting a Chicago concert with only one working eye. Read more... |
Arvo Pärt Total Immersion, BarbicanMonday, 30 April 2012
How incredibly heartening that this latest edition of the BBC Symphony Orchestra's Total Immersion, focusing on the music of the contemporary Estonian composer, Arvo Pärt, sold out days in advance. Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Medtner, Martin Shaw, StravinskySaturday, 28 April 2012
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Conlon Nancarrow Weekend, South Bank CentreWednesday, 25 April 2012
This has to be the only music festival I've ever been to where two vacuum cleaners were on standby in case the star performer conked out. But that's what happens when your star performer is a player piano - they seem to run on Hoover tubes. With 11 concerts and one film in two days, this celebration of American maverick Conlon Nancarrow was London's alternative marathon. One that was no less eccentric, exhausting or adrenalin-generating (though much less running-based). Read more... |
Mitsuko Uchida, Royal Festival HallTuesday, 24 April 2012
Oh boy. More Schubert. Deep breath. I had flashbacks of last month's wall-to-wall Franzi on BBC Radio Three. Nothing's come closer to ending my lifelong love affair with the tubby Austrian than the endless stream of half-finished three-part drinking songs that seemed to become the mainstay of that week-long celebration. Thankfully, last night at the Royal Festival Hall, we weren't getting any old Schubert. We were getting the great final trio of piano sonatas. Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Adams, Beethoven, Berg, Debussy, SzymanowskiSaturday, 21 April 2012
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Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier Book 2 Peter Hill (piano) (Delphian)
Medtner: Arabesques, Dithyrambs, Elegies and other short piano works Hamish Milne (Hyperion)
John Adams: Harmonielehre, Short Ride in a Fast Machine San Francisco Symphony/Michael Tilson Thomas (SFS Media)Pages
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