Classical music
David Nice
"You have to start somewhere," Debussy is reported to have said at the 1910 premiere of The Firebird. Which, at least, is a very good "somewhere" for Stravinsky, shot through with flashes of the personality to come. The Symphony in E flat of two years earlier, however, is little more than a theme park of all the ingredients amassed in Russian music since Glinka forged its identity less than a century earlier. It's fun to have on CD - and to play the opening in a "guess the composer" quiz (the reasonable answer would be Glazunov). To work in concert, it needs companions with more than the Read more ...
graham.rickson
Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2, Strauss: Burleske Joseph Moog (piano), Deutsche Radio Philharmonie/Nicholas Milton (Onyx)It's not you, it's me. That’s probably what I'd say to Brahms in attempting to explain why I generally prefer his craggy D minor piano concerto to its even longer sequel. That the two works are so different is a sign of Brahms's multifaceted genius, the B flat concerto's serene magnificence a happy reminder that growing older doesn’t necessarily mean becoming grumpier and terser. I've listened to this performance a lot over the past few days, and perhaps, at last, I'm Read more ...
David Nice
You can't have too much Dvořák in a single evening, at least not when the works in question operate at the highest level of volatility and melodic abundance like last night's overture, concerto and symphony. "Febrile centrists" might look like an oxymoron, but that just about sums up conductor Paavo Järvi and cellist Gautier Capuçon: superlative techniques, feet firmly planted only so that the music can fly, moving dexterously through the turbulence but never pushing too hard. With the Philharmonia burning for both, this was an incandescent event.Rarely did we encounter the Dvořák of sunlit Read more ...
Robert Beale
It began in semi-darkness. Appropriate for Arvo Pärt, perhaps – after all, Manchester Camerata have played his music in Manchester Cathedral to great atmospheric effect in the past. But the Choir of Clare College Cambridge, conducted by Graham Ross, delivered his Da pacem Domine in a hall where it seemed as if the lights had failed … not quite the same thing.They sang the brief, four-part, a cappella piece fairly accurately and, for the most part, confidently, but the 26 young singers could not create the spark, or the richness of tone, that might have brought its holy minimalism to real life Read more ...
David Nice
Make Arvo Pärt the bulwark of any concert and you can surprise as well as delight the full house he’s likely to win you with the rest of your chosen programme. This was a beautifully planned showcase for the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir under its Latvian conductor Kaspars Putniņš, poised between the introspective and the extrovert both within the all-Pärt first half and what followed after the interval, where Estonian composers no less precious than Pärt to their compatriots framed the late Jonathan Harvey’s mesmerising seraphics. And this Estonia 100 concert represented not just Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
Jörg Widmann writes fast. He is also one of the few young German composers who can write distinctive and idiomatic music without feeling the weight of his country’s musical heritage on his shoulders at every turn. Surprisingly, then, his Clarinet Quintet, which here received its UK premiere at Wigmore Hall, was eight years in the making, and was initially abandoned because "music history ... suddenly appeared as a great burden". Typically, though, his return to the project at the start of 2017 marked a period of intense creativity: "I felt that the music was simply pouring out of me."Widmann Read more ...
graham.rickson
Beethoven/Liszt: Complete Symphonies Yury Martynov (Erard, 1837 and Blüthner, 1867) (Alpha Classics)These performances were recorded between 2011 and 2015 and originally released as single discs. If you missed them first time round, snap up this slimline box now. I'd hitherto failed to realise just how extraordinary Liszt’s Beethoven symphony transcriptions can sound, much of the fun coming from hearing what Liszt strips away and what he decides to highlight. You're continually struck by Beethoven’s harmonic boldness. And, having just one musician allows for thrilling rhythmic Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
Oliver Knussen and the Royal Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra here took us on a whistle-stop tour of Stravinsky, early and late. Few composers changed so in style so dramatically over the course of their career, so there was plenty of variety here. And just for good measure, a work by Stravinsky’s teacher Rimsky-Korsakov was included too, his Russian Easter Festival Overture. Both composers were excellent orchestrators, and Knussen’s programme proved ideal for showcasing the players’ talents. Excellent readings from Knussen, too, a conductor long associated with Stravinsky’s music, Read more ...
Jessica Duchen
You could probably guess from the assembling audience that the orchestra making its Barbican debut last night came from Milan. That many mink coats rarely congregate in a London concert hall. And under the baton of its music director Riccardo Chailly, the Filarmonica della Scala – vastly more than the house band of Italy’s most famous opera house – delivered an evening of luxurious sophistication, dressing over-familiar repertoire in haute couture that made some oft-maligned masterpieces shine out like Cinderella on her way to the ball.La Scala’s seemingly unrufflable players, under Chailly’s Read more ...
Bell, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - life and imagination
Robert Beale
You can’t help liking Joshua Bell. The Peter Pan violin soloist of the classical world has been in the business for more than 30 years and still has his boyish looks and, more importantly, his enthusiasm and sense of enjoyment in making music. At the Bridgewater Hall last night the pages of his score stuck together at one point between movements, but he had a quip for the audience and carried on with a smile.Recalling Beecham’s line that Herbert von Karajan was “like a musical Malcolm Sargent”, I thought of saying that Bell’s playing in Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons was “like a musical…” – well Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
Rapture, ecstasy, ardour, and a few cheeky fumbles in the bushes – Louise Alder and James Baillieu’s Wigmore recital promised “Chants d’amour” and delivered amply, giving us love in all its bewildering, technicolour variety. From the heady eroticism of Bizet to the lazy, summer affections of Faure, the light, youthful lusts of Mozart to Strauss and Liszt’s mature desire, it was a programme calculated to stir both loins and ears.Alder’s star, very much in the ascendant in 2017 thanks to her exquisite Sophie in WNO’s Rosenkavalier, a scene-stealing Marzelline in the Proms Fidelio, as well as Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
Colin Currie is increasingly coming to be seen as Steve Reich’s representative on Earth. His Colin Currie Group was founded in 2006 for a Proms performance of Reich’s Drumming and has gone from strength to strength, now touring the world with Reich’s music. Reich himself endorses Currie’s work, but it’s hardly necessary: From any performance by the Group it is immediately clear that what we are hearing is the real thing.Even Reich’s greatest fans would admit there’s a risk of monotony in an all-Reich programme, but this one was well structured for contrast and flow. Each of the two halves Read more ...