Classical Reviews
Bach St John Passion, Bach Collegium Japan, Suzuki, Barbican review - intense pain and dancing consolationWednesday, 11 March 2020
Eyes watering, heart thumping, hands clenched: no, not The Thing, but a spontaneous reaction to the opening of Bach's St John Passion in the urgent hands of Masaaki Suzuki. How his Bach Collegium oboes seared with their semitonal clashes while bass lines throbbed with pain, before the chorus added a different, supernatural turn of the screw. Read more... |
Anderszewski, CBSO, Wellber, Symphony Hall Birmingham review - grandeur in restraintWednesday, 11 March 2020
No orchestra wants its conductor to cancel in the week of a concert. Read more... |
Beyond the Grace Note, Sky Arts review - march of the women conductorsMonday, 09 March 2020
Perhaps the most surprising thing is how good natured they all sound. There’s no anger. At least, not much – one can’t help wondering what they say off air. Read more... |
BBC Philharmonic, Wellber, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - making music magicMonday, 09 March 2020
Omer Meir Wellber, who once used to do magic with music for children, pulled a whole set of rabbits out of the hat in his reading of Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony on Saturday. Others may make the work's rhythms and melodies alluring through the sheer forward momentum of a steady beat. Not Wellber. Read more... |
Sean Shibe, Wigmore Hall review - mesmerising journey from light to darkSaturday, 07 March 2020
"All true spiritual art has always been RADICAL art": thus spake the oracular Georges Lentz, composer of the pitch-black odyssey for electric guitar that took everyone by surprise last night. Read more... |
SCO, Emelyanychev, Usher Hall, Edinburgh review - Beethoven at too insistent a lickFriday, 06 March 2020
Fast is fine in Beethoven, so long as you find breathing-spaces, expressive lines and crisp articulation within it. Read more... |
Missa solemnis, BBCSO, Runnicles, Barbican review - affirmation in the face of adversityThursday, 05 March 2020
The tough, knotty writing of the Missa solemnis – its “unrelenting integrity”, Donald Runnicles said in a pre-concert interview – was addressed unflinchingly last night by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. They have a distinguished history with the piece, having given memorable Proms performances with Sir Colin Davis and Bernard Haitink – and remembered now by a hissy tape transfer, Pierre Boulez to open the 1972 season. Read more... |
Denk, LPO, Vänskä, RFH review - 200 years of joy and sorrowSaturday, 29 February 2020
Three works two centuries apart, two of them rarities, with 100/200 years between each: that's no guarantee for programming success, and no way to fill a hall (though the London Philharmonic Orchestra admin deserves a good medal for the intricacy of its “2020 Vision” series planning, linked to the Beethoven anniversary and explained by Gavin Dixon in his review of Vladimir Jurowski’s launch concert earlier this month... Read more... |
Hallé, Elder, Gernon, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, review - fiery Beethoven tributeFriday, 28 February 2020
Honouring Beethoven in Manchester is a united enterprise, at least between the Hallé and BBC Philharmonic, two symphony orchestras that have worked out a series of Beethoven specials between them. Read more... |
Grosvenor, Park, Ridout, Soltani, QEH review - inspired collegiality at the highest levelFriday, 28 February 2020
Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss are not the composers you'd hear at a typical chamber music concert. Their early efforts at piano quartets made up the first half of an evening at the Queen Elizabeth Hall with Benjamin Grosvenor and friends that was, in any case, far from typical. Topped off with the mature Brahms’s Third Piano Quartet, wasn’t it going to be too much rugged Alpine rocky road? In the hands of these youthful musicians, it wasn’t. The audience couldn’t get enough of them. Read more... |
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