Classical music
alexandra.coghlan
A previous visit to the Wigmore Hall saw the Jerusalem Quartet make headlines for all the wrong reasons, after political protestors disrupted the live-broadcast concert. Last night however all was mercifully calm and music-focused for the start of the first three-concert sequence in the quartet’s Shostakovich cycle, though audience members did have to brave the rather incongruous bouncers, lined up in their casual-with-just-a-hint-of-don’t-even-think-about-it chic outside the hall doors.Working chronologically through Shostakovich’s chamber repertoire, the quartet’s triptych of concerts gain Read more ...
igor.toronyilalic
The Southbank’s artistic director Jude Kelly was out in force at this penultimate weekend of The Rest is Noise festival, delivering little triumphalist, Ryan Air-like fanfares, reminding us how pioneering they had been to programme composers such as Igor Stravinsky, Richard Strauss, Benjamin Britten and Philip Glass - composers who no one had ever heard of before they'd bravely decided to put them on. She also proclaimed that two-thirds more tickets were sold than is normal for contemporary classical concerts, which could have been true had the festival actually contained any Read more ...
David Nice
How many reviews of War Requiem do you want to read in Britten centenary year? This is theartsdesk’s fourth, and my second – simply because though I reckon one live performance every five years is enough, Rattle’s much-anticipated Berlin Philharmonic interpretation fell almost entirely flat, and I wanted to hear at least one good enough to move me to tears.Last night’s under the special circumstances of Remembrance Sunday wasn’t just good; it hit the heights and plumbed the depths, with no weak link in any of the soloists, choirs, orchestra or instrumental soloists. So much so that the tears Read more ...
graham.rickson
Dvořák: Cello Concertos Steven Isserlis (cello), Mahler Chamber Orchestra/Daniel Harding (Hyperion)How wonderful to hear a familiar work sounding so fresh and potent. Steven Isserlis's Dvořák anthology is revelatory, in so many ways. There's the sumptious orchestral playing from Daniel Harding's Mahler Chamber Orchestra. It's warm, rich, but never overwhelms the solo line, and Dvořák's wind and brass writing has rarely sounded more clean and clear. I'm thinking of the nostalgic horn solo which steals into the B minor concerto's first movement, or the quiet trumpets in the same work's Read more ...
theartsdesk
Following theartsdesk's Monday opinion piece on reasons for moving towards a boycott on Valery Gergiev's concerts, and in the general climate created by other reports and protests, the conductor has issued the following statement, to which David Nice responds with an open letter.Valery Gergiev's statementI am aware of the gay rights protest that took place at the Barbican last week prior to my concert with the LSO. I have said before that I do not discriminate against anyone, gay or otherwise, and never have done, and as head of the Mariinsky Theatre this is our policy. It is wrong to suggest Read more ...
David Nice
French-Canadian pianist Hamelin has the technique and the stamina to play anything, which is why the note-crazy, obsessive “Night Wind” Sonata of Nikolay Medtner buzzed around at the heart of his recital. But between the proud resonance of its many climaxes and the distant voices he showcased so effectively in his own Barcarolle – three movements rather than one, unexplained in a note which simply ignored it – there’s little delicacy in the middle ground.That made much of Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit less than phantasmagorical. “Ondine” should be the plaintive water-nymph, billowing to gusts of Read more ...
David Nice
Last Thursday I was giving a talk before a concert in Birmingham, decently but not inspiringly conducted by the much-liked Vasily Sinaisky. Had I been in London I could have taken my pick between two greater interpreters, Valery Gergiev launching his Berlioz series with the London Symphony Orchestra and veteran Yury Temirkanov returning to one of his standard programmes with the Philharmonia.Both appeared on the list of 549 "trustees" supporting Vladimir Putin’s 2012 re-election campaign. Temirkanov recently established chauvinist credentials which made the foolish remarks of young Vasily Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
Berlioz wanted to make the first arrival of his demon onstage unforgettable, with an extreme sound effect - violins and violas marked sul ponticello, strettissimo, starting fortissimo, with interjections from three trombones snarling in minor seconds. In last night's performance of La Damnation de Faust that moment was glossed over. It flashed past as if it had never happened.In many of the sections of the work which involved the vocal soloists and chorus, particularly in the first half, Valery Gergiev seldom looked up from his score. It produced a detached reading of the work. He took a Read more ...
Kimon Daltas
This was Sakari Oramo's first concert with the BBC Symphony Orchestra since taking over as chief conductor. Of course he knows the orchestra well already, but it was important to make this a good ’un, and so it was.It opened with the world premiere of a 20-minute work by French composer Tristan Murail, with the double title Reflections/Reflets. As the title perhaps suggests it offered an evocative, colouristic sound world. The first half, "Spleen", dealt in bells, swells and waves rising out of a murky brass and low string background. The second, "High Voltage", featured slow glissandi, Read more ...
David Nice
Pure, unorthodox genius: the terms apply both to the three works on the Belcea Quartet’s programme – Haydn at his most compressed, Britten unbuttoned and sunny, Shostakovich hitting the tragic heights – and, if the term “genius” can be applied to re-creative artists, to the players themselves. Corina Belcea could surely have as big a solo career as violinists like Julia Fischer and Lisa Batiashvili, but she chooses to work with equally committed colleagues Axel Schacher, Krzystof Chorzelski and Antoine Lederlin in what is by and large a greater, wider repertoire.Shostakovich once asked the Read more ...
graham.rickson
Prokofiev: Works for piano 1908-1938 Roger Woodward (Celestial Harmonies)You don't often hear this music articulated with such steely power and intensity. Recently I've spent too much time listening to Prokofiev's more romantically-inclined later output; a few minutes' exposure to this disc will remind you of this composer's ability to dazzle and shock. Many of the early works bristle with demonic energy – I'm thinking of the Suggestion Diabolique, or the four Sarcasmes. But the aggression always seems positive and open-hearted – this is music which demands to be liked, every grimace Read more ...
David Nice
Imagine how discombobulated the audience must have felt at the 1962 premiere of Shostakovich’s most outlandish monster symphony, the Fourth, 26 years after its withdrawal at the rehearsal stage. Those of us hearing its natural successor, Schnittke’s First Symphony, for the first time live last night didn’t have to (imagine, that is). There have been by all accounts several hair-raising London performances since the historic first performance in the "closed" Soviet city of Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod) in 1974, but surely each time anyone confronts this confounding work – running at around 70 Read more ...