Classical music
Gavin Dixon
Dresden is filled with music at this time of year. The Dresden Music Festival runs through May and early June, with concerts at all the famous venues – the Frauenkirche, the Semperoper – but also recitals in smaller halls and unlikely settings.My visit also coincided with the Dresden Dixieland Festival. This is a huge outdoor event, with stages in each of the city’s historic squares. Walking through the Baroque streets, you find your footsteps synchronising with a gently persuasive bass line from some distant Sousaphone. Then you’ll turn a corner and be confronted with the abrasive tone of an Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
I came for the Schubert and it didn’t disappoint. Which was good, as the Mozart and Stravinsky did, a little. I came to know Schubert’s Fifth Symphony only relatively recently, fell in love with it instantly and, with the zeal of a convert, love it immoderately and would never miss any chance to hear it (which leads to the sad reflection that I’ve already heard it live more times than Schubert himself did.)This performance, by the English Chamber Orchestra under Giovanni Guzzo, was pretty much ideal – he had a smile on face through most of it, and so did I. Conducting from memory, Guzzo – who Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
Conductor and pianist came at Liszt from opposite directions last night. Michael Tilson Thomas is a venerable presence at the podium and has been Laureate Conductor of the London Symphony for decades. Their relationship speaks of deep empathy and close communication. In the Liszt First Piano Concerto, MTT dug deep into the rich string tone of the LSO for round, warm sonorities, and always with plenty of bass. Lukáš Vondráček (pictured below) is a generation or two younger than MTT, and is the leading Czech pianist of his generation. He’s not a complete stranger to the LSO; they played Read more ...
Robert Beale
Saturday’s concert by the BBC Philharmonic was in large measure about the Mahlers – Gustav and Alma. The former’s First Symphony formed the substantial second part of the programme: Frau Mahler was the inspiration of the piece that opened the evening. New Zealand-born Gemma New returned to Manchester to conduct: we saw her last October on the Hallé rostrum, and the energy and fierce attention she brought then were even more evident this time.That first piece was Die Windsbraut, by Alissa Firsova (daughter of Elena and of Dmitri Smirnov), a short essay in putting pictorial ideas into music, Read more ...
graham.rickson
Mozart, Hummel and Vanhal – Bassoon Concertos Sophie Dervaux (bassoon/conductor), Mozarteumorchester Salzburg (Berlin Classics)The performance of the Hummel Grand Concerto for bassoon from 1805 here is just superb. French-born Sophie Dervaux (née Dartigalongue, just like the armagnac) is principal bassoon in the Vienna Philharmonic, and she has said of the instrument she plays: “What makes the bassoon special for me is this flexibility, this warmth in the sound.” Her previous CD for Berlin Classics included some classics of the French song repertoire (try the gorgeous “À Chloris” Read more ...
Robert Beale
The Mancunian tribute to Ralph Vaughan Williams – a symphonic cycle shared by the BBC Philharmonic and Hallé – reached its conclusion with the Eighth Symphony last night. But, unlike most concerts in the RVW150 sequence, in this one (the final performance in the Hallé Thursday concerts series of 2021-22), Sir Mark Elder added an eclectic mix of other composers’ work to the evening. Value for money, without a doubt (main picture: Sir Mark Elder with the Hallé).First up was Stravinsky. The Concerto for piano and wind instruments is a challenge to the ensemble as much as its soloist, and there Read more ...
David Nice
When in 2018 Andris Nelsons and his "new" Leipzig orchestra sealed an auspicious partnership with a locally significant but modestly scaled symphony, Mendelssohn’s “Scottish” (No. 3), they could not have foreseen two years ahead when the bigger orchestral works would stay under wraps. Nelsons’ “Richard Strauss project”, shared between Leipzig and his other orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, makes sumptuous amends.Sadly, the Boston diptych due to follow this one in London has been cancelled, and the second of the Leipzig concerts (★★★) – I missed the first owing to Europe Day duty/ Read more ...
Ian Julier
Although the composer singled out as the flagship promotional hook for the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra’s concert was the “Brilliant Mendelssohn”, the programme also highlighted Mozart, Schubert and Britten to complete a quartet of musical child prodigies.Nurtured in Vienna via choral, orchestral and operatic work as well as studying the violin, the Austrian-Spanish conductor Teresa Riveiro Böhm has recently been Leverhulme Conducting Fellow in partnership at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland with the BBC Scottish SO, as well as working towards a Specialised Master’s Degree in conducting Read more ...
Simon Thompson
The programme for this concert had Andrew Manze’s fingerprints all over it. Of all the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s semi-regular guest conductors, he’s the one who most consistently delivers on the highest level. A thinker to his fingertips, he constructs programmes as intelligently as he plays them.So what a wonderful idea to begin with music by Grace Williams and end with music by her teacher, Ralph Vaughan Williams. I wasn't familiar with Grace Williams’ music before this concert, but even if you didn’t know the connection you could hear some of RVW’s influence in the way she uses a string Read more ...
Miranda Heggie
Following on from the success of last year’s Symphonic Sessions, musicians from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra returned to popular street food venue Hockley Social Club for their first joint event of 2022. With a bigger band than before - and a changing line-up - the musicians performed a range of mostly modern chamber works led by CBSO violinist Collette Overdijk.Opening with a work for string quartet, John Adams’s Toot Nipple, the four string players produced an energetic, robust sound. Pausing halfway through the piece, Birmingham poet laureate Casey Baily gave an interlude with Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
Amid the warm familiarity of a programme of established Vaughan Williams favourites, presented at the Barbican by the RPO and the City of London Choir, what really drew me in was the chance to hear his Fantasia on the “Old 104th” Psalm Tune, performed at the Proms in 1950 and apparently not heard again in London since.The piece, seemingly modelled on Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, pits choir and orchestra against solo piano in a set of variations on a 17th century hymn tune. Unfortunately it turns out there is a good reason it hasn’t been heard for more than 70 years: it's a bit of a dud.This Read more ...
Robert Beale
In the first and sixth symphonies of Vaughan Williams, Sir Mark Elder had two of the most ambitious and rewarding of the whole canon to present in Saturday’s VW 150 concert, which consisted of those two works alone. A Sea Symphony in particular (the first) is a big work in every sense and worthy of his expertise in marshalling and inspiring large forces: performed second, it brought the evening to a marvellous end and received an enthusiastic standing ovation of the kind more usual at pop concerts than from classical fans.The Sixth Symphony, however, is music of remarkable freshness, in many Read more ...