Classical Reviews
theartsdesk at the Pärnu Music Festival 2020 – great live orchestra, ecstatic audienceSaturday, 25 July 2020
“At the Pärnu Music Festival 2020” were words I never expected to type. A fortnight ago Estonia finally upped its non-quarantinable country rate from 15 to 16 infections in every 100,000 people (the UK was then on 15.9; our unfathomable Foreign Office has not, to my knowledge, returned the compliment, despite Estonian rates being next to 0 for weeks). Read more... |
BBC Lunchtime Concerts from Glasgow's City Halls, BBC Radio 3 review - a feast for ears if not for eyesMonday, 20 July 2020
After the success of BBC Radio 3’s live lunchtime broadcasts from the Wigmore Hall, live music is now kicking off again north of the border, with four concerts broadcast from City Halls, Glasgow, presented by... Read more... |
Kanneh-Mason, Philharmonia, Wilson online review - light in darknessFriday, 17 July 2020
Presenting online concerts has been a Matterhorn-steep learning curve for the music sector. Now, after a few months in which imaginations have been tested to the limit, it’s becoming clear what works and what doesn’t. Read more... |
Alina Ibragimova, Samson Tsoy, Fidelio Orchestra Café review – cataclysms and calm on the Clerkenwell RoadWednesday, 15 July 2020
The Fidelio Orchestra Café is where you go for electric-shock and deep immersion therapy from the greatest of musicians. Read more... |
This House is Full of Music, Imagine..., BBC One review – a spring dream of a lockdown concertMonday, 13 July 2020
No happy family, surely, was ever quite like this one. Love and mutual respect bound up with music-making at the highest level make the Kanneh-Masons of Nottingham a role-model for this country in times of trouble, with their reiterated message that music is for everyone, something to be shared at every level. Read more... |
Classical music/Opera direct to home 20 - more signs of musical life around the UKSaturday, 11 July 2020
So, arts people, you’ve had precisely two days to get your outdoor events ready, so where are they? Well, it seems that Glyndebourne had advance notice and will be holding its garden concerts soon, though they sold out almost immediately. Opera Holland Park will be doing something later this month; these and others are adaptable and inventive, given half a chance. Read more... |
Steven Isserlis, Fidelio Orchestra Café review – distilled reflection, joy and witThursday, 09 July 2020
What music would you choose to hear for your first live event after nearly four months of lockdown? For me, it would be Bach, and probably any one of the Cello Suites. Interpreter? Read more... |
Mark Padmore, Mitsuko Uchida/ Benjamin Baker, Timothy Ridout, Wigmore Hall online/BBC Radio 3 review – hail and farewellSunday, 28 June 2020
Of course, we just had to end with a midsummer Winterreise. The Wigmore Hall’s month of lockdown concerts for BBC Radio 3 had begun with a legendary elegy – the Chaconne from Bach’s D minor Partita, written according to musical folklore in memory of his first wife, with which Stephen Hough so gravely, beautifully, broke the pandemic silence on 1 June. Read more... |
Live from Covent Garden 2, Royal Opera and Ballet online review - heaven and earth in a nutshellWednesday, 24 June 2020
Solitude, mortality and transcendence have never been more profoundly expressed in music than by Mahler, who composed Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth) in the valley of the shadow of death (too superstitious to give it the name of Ninth Symphony, though that and a sketched-out Tenth did follow, he never lived to hear it performed). Read more... |
Alina Ibragimova, Kristian Bezuidenhout/Iestyn Davies, Elizabeth Kenny, Wigmore Hall online/BBC Radio 3 review - two perfect pairingsTuesday, 23 June 2020
Last Tuesday’s offering from the Wigmore Hall’s series of live broadcasts was a fiery recital from Russian violinist Alina Ibragimova partnered by pianist Kristian Bezuidenhout. Read more... |
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