Classical music
David Nice
Romantic concerto, contemporary work, classical symphony: it's a common format at the Proms, but not usually in that order. Both David Sawer's 1997 firework The Greatest Happiness Principle and Haydn's ever-radical Symphony No. 99, sharing a light-filled second half, would normally be reserved as what composer Anders Hillborg once told me is known in America as "parking-lot music", taking the opening slot.The idea here was to move from dark and steaky Brahms upwards into Haydn's heaven, but as it turned out there was plenty of dancing radiance in this unusual, often exquisite interpretation Read more ...
graham.rickson
Prokofiev: Piano Concertos 1&3, Overture on Hebrew Themes Simon Trpčeski (piano), Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Vasily Petrenko (Onyx)Good recordings can make you notice things you've never heard before. Like this one: Simon Trpčeski’s balletic, light-footed account of Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No 3 is outstanding. It's one of the swifter performances on disc, Trpčeski matched every step of the way by Vasily Petrenko's pliant Liverpool players. Listen to the way the first movement's second subject is enunciated so crisply, and how often do we get to hear the lower strings Read more ...
Peter Quantrill
Expectations ran high for this first performance of Julian Anderson’s piano concerto, and they weren’t disappointed. Taking its title from a book of the same name by Andre Malraux, The Imaginary Museum goes on a journey around the world over the course of its six movements. Malraux’s idea was that a coherent collection – of art, artefacts, the stuff of culture – can only be assembled in our heads, when their physical manifestations are scattered to the four winds in the galleries and palaces of the globe.Coherence is the key word here. Ever since his Thebans opera – long in the making, first Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
A packed Royal Albert Hall on a Tuesday night for a programme of 20th-century English music. Have the nation’s concert-goers come over all prematurely patriotic? Is Holst’s The Planets really that much of a draw? Or could the crowds have more to do with John Wilson – the straight-backed, schoolmasterly figure at the centre of the musical maelstrom? Whatever their motivation, the capacity crowd surely got what they came for in the scope and drama of this compact Prom.If the Holst was the headliner here, then Vaughan Williams’ Ninth Symphony was a thoughtful opener, sneaked in under the cover Read more ...
David Nice
When Glyndebourne's Music Director Robin Ticciati conducts the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in the new production of Mozart's La clemenza di Tito starting tonight, you can be sure that it will sound utterly fresh, startling even. As did their collaboration on two earlier Mozart operas, La finta giardiniera in 2014 and Die Entführung aus dem Serail the following season – and, in a class of its own, his richly vindicated decision to conduct the last three Mozart symphonies with his Scottish Chamber Orchestra in a single evening last October.This three-act orchestral drama, with the Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
Ten days ago I reviewed the First Night of the 2017 Proms. Last night I was back at the Royal Albert Hall to hear the First Night of the 1966 Proms. This time-capsule experience was courtesy of a re-enactment of Sir Malcolm Sargent’s 500th Prom, in what turned out to be his final season. It gave an idea of Sargent’s musical tastes – middle-of-the-road classics and English music – and, in places, of his famously audience-pleasing conducting style.Andrew Davis was in energetic and animated form on the podium, belying his years with a physical engagement with the music. There was something of Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
When a trail-blazing orchestra takes on a world-transforming work, it would be pointless to leave the staid old rules of concert etiquette intact. Not only did the Aurora Orchestra under Nicholas Collon stretch their repertoire of symphonies performed from memory to cover the epic expansiveness and ear-bending innovations of Beethoven’s Third, the Eroica. For half an hour, as this Prom began, Collon and presenter Tom Service also turned the Royal Albert Hall into Britain’s biggest classroom as they sought to scrub the crust of over-familiarity from Beethoven’s breakthrough monster from 1803, Read more ...
graham.rickson
Beethoven: Symphonies 1-9 Gewandhausorchester Leipzig/Herbert Blomstedt (Accentus)There's already an excellent set of Beethoven symphonies conducted by Herbert Blomstedt with the Staatskapelle Dresden, recorded in the late 1970s. It's now on a budget label and can be picked up for a pittance. This new one, taped live between 2014 and 2017, is a tad pricier, but well worth the extra outlay. The playing of the Gewandhausorchester is indecently good: how refreshing to hear a full-size orchestra playing these pieces, the weight of sound thrilling in places. Blomstedt doesn't do anything Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
It’s at times like this that I give thanks for the Proms. Who else would (or could) have put together a programme pairing Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique with an 18th-century sonic fantasy, or topped it off with a substantial UK premiere? A bit bonkers on the page, it remained so in performance. But the dramatic logic was absolutely sound; forget a stroll in the Swiss Alps or on Italian hillsides, these were musical journeys of a more primal kind, tugging at the thread of the human psyche and following it down to its darkest depths.Hell, according to a certain French authority, may be “other Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
Nicola Benedetti was the star of this show, no doubt about that. She is a Proms regular and favourite, attracting a large and enthusiastic audience, the Royal Albert Hall filled almost to capacity. And she didn’t disappoint, giving a performance of Shostakovich's First Violin Concerto that demonstrated all her strengths: precision, focus, variety of colour and mood, but above all the passion and conviction needed to make sense of this long and emotionally complex work.The concerto is in four movements, with an extended cadenza linking the last two. The first movement has the mood of a serene Read more ...
David Nice
The message must be getting through. On the First Night of the Proms, Igor Levit played as encore Liszt's transcription of the great Beethoven melody appropriated as the European Anthem; in Prom 2, Daniel Barenboim unleashed his Staatskapelle Berlin on Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance following an inspirational speech about European culture, education and humanism. Yesterday afternoon's manifesto was a given, showcasing the finest of all European bands under a Dutch citizen of the world who resided for many years in London. Bernard Haitink is also the world's greatest living Mozart conductor now Read more ...
theartsdesk
The Hospital Club’s annual h.Club100 awards celebrate the most influential and innovative people working in the UK’s creative industries, with nominations from the worlds of film and fashion, art, advertising, theatre, music, television and more. This year they are teaming up with theartsdesk.com – the home of online arts journalism in the UK – to add a brand new award to the line-up.The Young Reviewer Award is aimed at bold, thoughtful young writers aged 18-30 who are serious about a career in arts journalism. It will be presented to the author of the best review of any art-form that we Read more ...