Classical music
Jessica Duchen
Arcadi Volodos is a relatively rare visitor to London these days. Although the Russian pianist, 42, rose early to fame, his development has perhaps taken him in a direction that startles those who were initially seduced by the astounding virtuoso transcriptions – many of them his own – in which he initially established his reputation.Anyone hoping for a taste of those at his Royal Festival Hall recital last night had to wait until his third encore. This programme had a very different focus, one that could scarcely have been more intimate and pure-hearted: an early Schubert sonata, Brahms’s Read more ...
Ismene Brown
What a day for piano-lovers and Beethoven-lovers – Elisabeth Leonskaja for lunch, Maria João Pires for supper. Beethoven from both, stupendous playing from both, all in all generating a general sense of disbelief in this member of the audience. I mean, really! The Wigmore Hall is the epicure’s choice for music, but even by Wiggie standards this was beyond expectations.Still more, these two grand pianists were bringing Beethoven the virtuoso pianist himself to life, turning from a display of his dynamic improvisation powers to his instinctive pleasure in the more rule-based working-out of Read more ...
Christopher Lambton
I declare an interest. In the last 10 years or so the Scottish Ensemble has twice, at my invitation, visited the Borders village where I live, about 30 miles south of Edinburgh. On both occasions the ensemble performed a rich and challenging programme in front of a rural audience awestruck that such uncompromisingly competent music-making could descend on a village hall more accustomed to flower shows and badminton tournaments. As a promoter, I was amazed that the ensemble’s answer to my invitation was, without equivocation, “yes”. When the day came, a dozen players turned up, and with Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
James McCarthy’s oratorio Malala is both a heartfelt tribute to the young Nobel Peace laureate, Malala Yousafzai, and political statement in favour of the education of women. In it, as in its companion piece A Child of Our Time, a persecuted individual is turned into a symbol of all mankind. Indeed, Malala writes in a statement in the programme that “I wasn’t chosen because I am just one girl – I was chosen because of the belief in all girls whose voices can be heard.” This is put more simply in the music, which ends with the full chorus singing “we are all Malala!”The text of Malala, by the Read more ...
Kimon Daltas
This concert was part of a tour of Canada’s National Arts Centre orchestra to five cities in the UK themed around the anniversary of the start of World War One. The Ottawa-based orchestra joined forces with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Choir for this London centrepiece to the tour, under the baton of violinist-turned-conductor Pinchas Zukerman. Splicing two orchestras together with necessarily minimal rehearsal time may not make perfect musical sense but, as artistic director of the NCA orchestra and principal guest conductor of the RPO, Zukerman is uniquely Read more ...
Christopher Lambton
Is there an ideal way to programme Metamorphosen? Richard Strauss’s elegiac masterpiece requires 23 solo strings. That’s more than most chamber orchestras can muster, but with a full size symphony orchestra the piece leaves most of the players with nothing to do. In this Usher Hall concert the Royal Scottish National Orchestra chose to let Metamorphosen stand in glorious isolation before the interval. Those players that could opted to stand – not an option for the lower strings – in a tight semicircle round principal guest conductor Thomas Søndergård, with the rest of the orchestra’s Read more ...
graham.rickson
Bach: Partitas 1-6 Igor Levit (piano) (Sony)Martin Geck's sleeve essay accompanying this pair of discs is a good read, hinting at the subtleties and complexities lying just below the surface of what may, superficially, look like six simple suites of dance movements. Bach's title page for the first Partita describes it as music "for keyboard practice... composed for music lovers, to refresh their spirits". Geck quotes from a letter about Bach written by Schumann in 1840: “I confess my sins to this lofty figure every day, while seeking to purify and strengthen myself through him... I'm Read more ...
David Nice
Musical theatre needn’t be dominated by the human voice. Instrumental dramas with an element of acting can be a good way into the wonderful world of chamber music for younger audiences, and the Wigmore Hall’s new gambit of special student tickets for contemporary music paid off with the very different crowd there last night. It was rewarded with playing of the highest imaginative order from soloists in their own right: violinists Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Pekka Kuusisto, viola-player Lilli Maijala and cellist Pieter Wispelway. Yet though they got the musical dramas of early Beethoven and a Read more ...
David Nice
When I entered the light and spacious chief conductor’s room in Bamberg’s Konzerthalle, Jonathan Nott was poised with a coloured pencil over one of the toughest of 20th century scores, Varèse’s Arcana. He thought he might have bitten off rather a lot to chew the day after that night’s Bamberg programme of Jörg Widmann’s Violin Concerto, Strauss’s Eine Alpensinfonie and a new commission as part of the orchestra’s new Encore! project, David Philip Hefti’s con moto.An Amsterdam Concertgebouw special beckoned, a large-scale throwback to Nott’s days at the head of the Asko Ensemble and the Read more ...
graham.rickson
Mahler: Symphony no 9 Danish National Symphony Orchestra/Michael Schønwandt (Challenge Classics)The halting, juddering opening of Mahler 9 is nicely characterised in this live reading. Low harp notes ring out like bells, the stuttering rhythm on cellos and horn sharply pointed. Michael Schønwandt conducted this performance at short notice owing to a colleague's illness, and there's an unusual flexibility and spontaneity on display. The build up to the first climax, three minutes in, is well handled. Schønwandt lets us hear all – the orchestral playing fiery and radiant, the tempi Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
Pianist Mitsuko Uchida's concentration, calm and grace under pressure are an inspiration. Towards the end of the first piece on her programme, played to a packed Royal Festival Hall last night, the quiet but insistent high-pitched screech of a fire alarm kept going off. Low voices on walkie-talkies at the entrances to the hall were also audible. Whatever the confusion they were sharing with each other, they were failing to lift it. While the noises persisted, Uchida continued the delicate hand-crossing dialogues of Schubert's F Minor Impromptu from the D935 set. She would quizzically hover a Read more ...
David Nice
What Anne-Sophie Mutter is to the violin, Alison Balsom to the trumpet and Sabine Meyer to the clarinet, so is Sioned Williams to the harp. Though Meyer had the glass-ceiling distinction of being the first woman in the Berlin Philharmonic, Williams’s service to the BBC Symphony Orchestra has been longer (nearly 25 years so far as principal harp). And while all four artists have had major new works composed for them, the harpist’s commission of six pieces to celebrate her 60th birthday would seem to be a record. And who else would have part-remortgaged her home to pay for the enrichment, an Read more ...