Classical Reviews
Castalian String Quartet, Wigmore Hall review - genius in works and performanceThursday, 26 January 2023
The Castalian String Quartet is half what I remember, but only literally: while viola-player Charlotte Bonneton and cellist Christopher Graves may have departed, their replacements, Ruth Gibson and Steffan Morris, more than earned their laurels in last night’s stunning programme. Read more... |
Belcea Quartet, Wigmore Hall review - a riveting new string quartetMonday, 23 January 2023
I am proud – if surprised – to continue to be pretty much a lone voice in the wilderness singing the praises of the composer Guillaume Connesson (b.1970), whose substantial new string quartet “Les instants retrouvés” was heard at the Wigmore Hall on Saturday. Read more... |
Sound Unwrapped Launch, Kings Place review - ravishing combination of ancient and modernSaturday, 21 January 2023
The distinctive silvery tones of the viola da gamba were eclipsed in the 18th century as music moved from intimate settings to the brasher acoustic demands of the concert hall. Read more... |
Watts, BBCSO, Wigglesworth, Barbican review - clarity, control and focusSaturday, 21 January 2023
Ryan Wigglesworth is a man of many talents. He has recently been appointed Chief Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony, but he is also a versatile opera conductor, and an operatic sensibility is clear in the musical personality he projects. Read more... |
Yevgeny Sudbin, World Heart Beat Embassy Gardens review - phenomenal pianism in close-upThursday, 19 January 2023
It was a rare treat to hear Yevgeny Sudbin’s piano artistry quite so close up. World Heart Beat Embassy Gardens is a new venue, in fact just in the process of being born (more about the venue lower down). In the room, with its seated capacity of just 120 on two levels, the sound is so clear and immediate, you could sometimes almost be inside the piano. Read more... |
Lowe, The Mozartists, Page, Wigmore Hall - an education, not quite a triumphWednesday, 18 January 2023
Ian Page’s “journey of a lifetime” with his Mozartists, taking the greatest genius year by year, lands us in 1773 with the adolescent Mozart's first durable crowdpleaser, the pretty-brilliant motet for soprano and orchestra Exsultate, jubilate (last night was its 250th anniversary). Read more... |
Faust, Tamestit, EBS, Gardiner, St Martin-in-the-Fields review - countless shades of brilliantSaturday, 14 January 2023
Haydn and Mozart symphonies from John Eliot Gardiner and his English Baroque Soloists are bound, at the very least, to be high, lucid and bright. Last night the X-factor was there too, and trebled in a surely unsurpassable account of Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante for violin, viola and orchestra by two of the world’s most communicative soloists, Isabelle Faust and Antoine Tamestit. Read more... |
Benedetti, Hallé, Elder, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - essays in transparencyFriday, 13 January 2023
Nicola Benedetti and Sir Mark Elder are both in the enviable position of being able to take audiences with them into music territory that might scare some away. So it was a gratifyingly near-capacity house that heard Szymanowski’s Second Violin Concerto last night as – on the first occasion they have worked together – they presented it to the Hallé audience. Read more... |
Mithras Trio, Wigmore Hall review - exhilarating, highly-toned performanceTuesday, 10 January 2023
The adrenalin was in full flow yesterday lunchtime at the Wigmore Hall as the dynamic young Mithras Trio delivered a vigorous, toned performance featuring Beethoven, Bridge and an electrifying new work by Joy Lisney. The trio, who have been together for just over five years, are part of Radio 3’s New Generation Artists scheme and dispatched the repertoire with an intensity and expressive range that was often as beguiling as it was exhilarating. Read more... |
National Youth Orchestra, Bloch, Barbican review - blazing and surging odysseysThursday, 05 January 2023
In precarious times, musical wonders never seem to cease – for now, at least. Who would have thought during lockdown that we’d be back so soon and so frequently to the kind of massive orchestra needed to play a cosmic blockbuster like Richard Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra? Of the three live performances I’ve heard since September 2021, last night’s, the biggest and youngest (160 players aged 14 to 19), was also the freshest and most exciting. Read more... |
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