Classical music
Guido Gärtner
Nine cities in seven countries; all in all, eleven concerts, on top of that, an appearance at home in Munich. Celebrating its 500th anniversary, the Bayerisches Staatsorchester is currently on an extended journey. We have been looking forward with great anticipation to this tour during which we are aiming to present everything from our longstanding tradition that has stood the test of time and share it with a great number of music lovers throughout Europe.The Bayerisches Staatsorchester (Bavarian State Orchestra) can count itself lucky to be able to call the National Theatre in Munich home ( Read more ...
David Nice
To master even one of Brahms’s three early sonatas is a colossal task for any pianist. To play them all with towering authority in a single concert takes a phenomenon. Elisabeth Leonskaja seems just that more than ever in her late 70s; not only is there no loss of the epic stops she can pull out in the most tumultuous music, but for all her poise, she’s also still willing to embrace the craziness and iconoclasm of the 20-year-old composer as if the works were written yesterday.All this, too, from memory, like another septuagenarian pianist, Idil Biret, when I last saw her. Leonskaja's first Read more ...
Rachel Halliburton
It’s proving to be an extraordinary year for Cairo-born soprano Fatma Said, one of the most exciting musicians to bridge the gap between the Arab and the Western classical music worlds. This April she made her debut at the Carnegie Hall, while as artist in residence at the Wiener Konzerthaus she will be collaborating with musicians including Marin Alsop and the acclaimed Polish countertenor Jakub Jozef Orlinski.Last night, however, in the second concert she has performed for Through the Noise, she told the audience that “When I looked back at my year this was absolutely one of my highlights Read more ...
David Nice
Few pianists manage stylistic perfection in both Mozart and Ligeti, but to Jeremy Denk it seems to come naturally. We should have heard the riveting contrasts in quick first-half succession, but European air traffic control had wasted much of the Danish String Quartet’s day and they hadn't arrived by the start of the concert. So perfect programming went out the window and Ligeti had to stand alone before the interval.I wonder if in the original order we’d also have got Denk’s short talk before the first book of Ligeti Etudes. He’s a natural here too, demonstrating ideas without looking at the Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
The Zurich International series at Cadogan Hall has turned into a horizon-expanding stage on which to catch those visiting orchestras that don’t always claim top billing in bigger venues. The hall’s welcoming acoustic shows off the sound and style of its guests as the grander barns might never do.After an acclaimed debut UK tour in 2022, Thursday night saw a return engagement for the Concerto Budapest Symphony Orchestra: not, at present, Hungary’s most fêted ensemble but one that, on this form, more than deserves its loud hosannas. Founded (as the Hungarian Symphony Orchestra) before the Read more ...
theartsdesk
A conductor who can now add "Gár" to his less flattering sobriquets may not have appeared as advertised at this year's Proms, but surely Chris Christodoulou can find a photo of him punching the air among his 43 years' worth of conductor portraits from "the biggest music festival in the world". We'll do without this time.For the past 13 of those years, Chris has given theartsdesk the benefit of images which may not have made the main cut but which are wonderfully revealing of commitment and idiosyncrasy. His selection for 2023, like the season itself which was a huge success both financially Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
Bruckner's behemoth has always had its fervent champions – and its muttering sceptics. The 85-odd minutes of his Eighth Symphony, finally performed after major revisions in 1892, build into a titanic testament. Advocates read into it enough apocalyptic doom and gloom to make Wagner sound like Offenbach.Thank the gods, therefore, that the always-impressive Semyon Bychkov guided the BBC Symphony Orchestra through across these craggy Alpine peaks at the Proms with a listener-friendly finesse, even geniality. With its explosive timpani, tank-division horns and earth-trembling low strings, the Read more ...
graham.rickson
Rachmaninov: Piano Concertos 1-4, Paganini Rhapsody Lukáš Vondráček, Prague Symphony Orchestra/Tomáš Brauner (Supraphon)Yuja Wang, Los Angeles Philharmonic/Gustavo Dudamel (DG)Yet more Rachmaninov, but I’m not complaining, and comparing pianists Lukáš Vondráček and Yuja Wang in the composer’s five concertante works has been an enjoyable experience. Vondráček’s set was recorded between February and June 2021 in pandemic conditions, whereas Wang’s cycle was taped live over two weekends in February 2023. Vondráček favours broader tempi and plenty of introspection in Concertos 2 and 3, Read more ...
David Nice
During his transformational time at the helm of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Vladimir Jurowski conducted the complete Threepenny Opera in concert and two performances of Rachmaninov’s Third Symphony which changed my mind about its being good only in parts. Last night’s interpretation made his fellow Russian’s late fantasy billow and soar, while Weill’s Little Threepenny Music opened with sheer stylish delight in the song/dance numbers framed by incisive austerity.That supposedly orchestral pianist so responsive to a genial Jurowski and the wind players of the Berlin Radio Symphony Read more ...
Simon Thompson
The Edinburgh International Festival’s Queen’s Hall series ended with two very impressive debuts. Thursday morning brought the Isidore Quartet, who winningly, if slightly naively, told us that Edinburgh had a similar energy to their native New York.These four young men – the oldest member is 24 – were charm personified in the second of Haydn’s “Sun” Quartets, combining easy grace with carefree beauty, and using vibrato only discreetly to colour the sound carefully. Similarly, their take on the third of Mendelssohn’s Op 44 Quartets combined delicacy with warmth and terrific clarity of Read more ...
David Nice
Funfairs and dance music, old world and new, should have guaranteed a corker of a second Prom from the Boston Symphony Orchestra with its chief conductor, Andris Nelsons. Glitter it did; but wit, drive and violence took a back seat to showcase sophistication, at least from where I was sitting in the hall (always a necessary qualification)If Nelsons seems to have lost the spark of his vintage days with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, his polish fits the classy Boston band very well – there’s little of the brave new brashness of the New York Philharmonic from these players, though Read more ...
Rachel Halliburton
Few singers can match the exhilarating range of counter-tenor Iestyn Davies’ performances, whether it’s in the free-soaring clarity of his voice in rapid recitative-style passages or the white heat of intensity he brings to sustained notes.In this heady, captivating late-night Prom, he – together with the English Concert, inspirationally directed by Kristian Bezuidenhout (pictured below) – delivered a programme of Bach that was as linguistically fascinating as it was musically uplifting.The opening piece was the solo cantata Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust, which Bach wrote in 1726 when he Read more ...