Classical Reviews
Elias Quartet, Wigmore Hall review – sinewy, muscular BeethovenWednesday, 07 October 2020
You could imagine that normality had returned watching the live webcasts from the Wigmore Hall. The Hall has bucked the trend, and managed to present a full autumn season, to a carefully separated but still substantial audience. Yesterday evening’s concert was to be given by Quatuor Ébène, but they pulled out at the last minute—problems with travelling from France perhaps the reason. Read more... |
András Schiff, Wigmore Hall review – passion, reason and refinementTuesday, 06 October 2020
How loud can the applause from a scanty, socially-distanced audience sound? Thunderous enough, as the response to Sir András Schiff’s back-to-back recitals at the Wigmore Hall proved. On both Sunday and Monday evenings, the happy few of 112 – the venue’s Covid-era maximum – did their depleted best to raise the roof in answer to Schiff’s unstintingly, and typically, lavish commitment... Read more... |
Ragged Music Festival review - musical utopia in an East End schoolroomTuesday, 06 October 2020
A muse of fire descended on the top floor of a former warehouse in the East End, unextinguished by the rain which fell almost continuously outside during the four stupendous concerts – three advertised, one a generous bonus – of the Ragged Music Festival. Read more... |
Bryn Terfel, Britten Sinfonia, Barbican review – a moment of re-connectionMonday, 05 October 2020
This concert by Sir Bryn Terfel and the Britten Sinfonia, the very first concert given at the Barbican in front of an audience since 15 March, was surely in need of some stronger explanation than that offered by the blurb for the evening, namely “comfort and familiarity” and a “remedial tonic of an evening.” Read more... |
Istanbul International Music Festival online review – East-West flair and finesseSaturday, 03 October 2020
Salzburg, Verbier and other high-end festivals have scraped together reduced, still impressive programmes over the summer for consumption online. Read more... |
Danny Driver, Wigmore Hall review - ingenious sleight-of-handFriday, 02 October 2020
Like many musicians, Danny Driver had not given a recital since the pandemic took hold in March. Read more... |
Viktoria Mullova, Misha Mullov-Abbado, Fidelio Orchestra Cafe review - a rainbow of brilliant artistryThursday, 01 October 2020
There should eventually be a plaque on the outside of the Fidelio Orchestra Café in Farringdon, to the effect that London’s musical life after lockdown re-ignited here. And how, in early July, with Steven Isserlis exuberantly stepping up to play Bach before a rapt small audience. Read more... |
Bach’s The Art of Fugue, Angela Hewitt, Wigmore Hall – the many voices of humanityTuesday, 29 September 2020
How do they do it? Read more... |
Academy of St Martin in the Fields review - from solo meditations to collective celebrationsMonday, 28 September 2020
Clearly it takes peculiar circumstances for some of us to hear the Academy of St Martin in the Fields within its eponymous church – that’s a first for me. The lure was considerable. Read more... |
Castalian Quartet/Elizabeth Llewellyn, Simon Lepper, Wigmore Hall review - out of this worldFriday, 25 September 2020
Songs of the beyond versus the profundity of the here and now struck very different depths in the Castalians’ evening concert at the Wigmore Hall and Elizabeth Llewellyn’s recital with equal partner Simon Lepper the following lunchtime. It was good to have the very human anchoring of Haydn’s “Emperor” Quartet, Op. 76 No... Read more... |
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