Classical music
Miranda Heggie
A gem in Edinburgh International Festival’s classical music programming has always been the Queen’s Hall series. Hosting some of the finest chamber musicians on the international stage, that venue has seen countless incredible, more intimate performances over the years. While the doors of the Queen’s Hall remain closed for International Festival activity this year (there are still other concerts happening there), EIF’s chamber music programme is currently taking place just down the road, in a purpose-built outdoor venue housed in Edinburgh’s Old College Quad. And, despite the obvious concerns Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
For many years, first as a punter then latterly as a reviewer, I have sat in the section of the Royal Albert Hall stalls near stage right, under the BBC Radio broadcast box, knowing that that is where they sit the composers being premiered at the Proms. This means, among other things, that you have to be discreet in voicing opinions about new pieces, and to avoid staring too pointedly.This week I will find the boot on the other foot as I make an appearance at the Proms as a composer, my new piece Birdchant featuring in the BBC Singers’ concert on 19 August. It is, needless to say, a lifetime Read more ...
Miranda Heggie
The Edinburgh International Festival has returned this year, with a programme of socially distanced events held almost completely outdoors. Yup, that’s right. Outdoors. In Scotland. (Top tip: if you’re going to one of the 8pm concerts, wear a winter coat. It gets somewhat chilly when the sun goes down.) The purpose-built structures which house EIF’s classical music programme are actually pretty robust, and the venue for the larger-scale classical concerts – the grounds of Edinburgh Academy Junior School – is just within walking distance of the city centre, but far enough from busy roads that Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
I was looking forward to this Prom by the Manchester Collective, an exciting young group founded in 2016, which has quickly established a reputation for innovative presentation of contemporary repertoire. And while I found the playing excellent, demonstrating the commitment and intensity of the performers, I had some reservations about the programme, particularly some questions of proportion. It felt a bit out of balance.There was a nice mixture of in-your-face music – the equivalent of getting stared down by an Indian fast bowler – and a more genial second half. String ensembles often try to Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
There is much to love about the latest Voces8 Live from London online festival. It goes beyond having a purely choral line-up, embracing instrumental music for the first time, while maintaining its focus on vocal performances of the highest standard.In addition, the production values remain unimpeachable and the group has shown that there is a market across the world – they boast of selling tickets in 75 countries – for streamed concerts if the quality is good enough. But perhaps most admirable is the generosity of Voces8 in sharing their spotlight. The festival offers valuable performance Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
What does it mean to be Classical? It’s the question award-winning Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson has consistently asked in a career that has collided music from Bach to Debussy, presenting them as part of a single conversation and continuum. Here, in a striking BBC Proms debut, he continued to probe and challenge, with a little help from the Philharmonia Orchestra and Paavo Järvi.A late substitute for the Philharmonia’s new music director Santtu-Matias Rouvali (a casualty of pandemic travel logistics), Järvi was able to present the programme unchanged, preserving the careful logic that Read more ...
graham.rickson
Louise Farrenc; Symphonies 1&3 Insula Orchestra/Laurence Equilbey (Erato)Louise Farrenc’s music is good as you’d expect from a precocious talent who’d studied piano with Hummel and composition with Reicha. Born in 1804, Farrenc’s misfortune was to be a female composer in 19th century Paris, a city with a highly progressive musical culture but antediluvian sexual politics. She was a renowned pianist and teacher, becoming a Professor of Piano at the Paris Conservatoire in 1842 and having to fight to receive the same salary as her male colleagues. Farrenc’s three symphonies are Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
We finished with a pure Hollywood moment when John Gilhooly – as Chair of the Royal Philharmonic Society – popped up after the warm applause to announce that the Society had awarded its gold medal to Vladimir Jurowski. Oddly, Covid rules meant that the actual handover took place backstage. So Jurowski leaves the London Philharmonic Orchestra after 14 years as principal conductor– to lead the Bavarian State Opera in Munich – armed with the gong formerly bestowed on Brahms, Barbirolli, Bernstein, Barenboim and Brendel (that’s just the Bs). Richly merited, of course, and last night’s farewell Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
It’s nobody’s fault, but – try as they might – the BBC Proms can often feel rather middle-aged. Whether it’s the lumbering albatross of a building, the ushers in their dated, casino waistcoats or the tone of zealous jollity (Have fun! But silently and according to the rules!), it somehow all adds up to a lack of freshness, spontaneity. Thank goodness for Aurora Orchestra.Nicholas Collon’s ensemble has taken a one-off novelty – an orchestral performance from memory – and made it an annual festival fixture. There’s a formula, of course, but thanks to Collon himself and co-presenter Tom Service Read more ...
David Nice
To excel at one massive Brahms piano concerto in a standard concert hall is cause enough for celebration. To master two over one evening in a very unorthodox space – namely, below the roof of Peckham’s former multi-storey car park – brings the performer close to recreative genius. The vision in this case was shared between pianist mover and shaker Samson Tsoy, Bold Tendencies – the wonderful organisation which has put together a series of concerts from remarkable artists beyond even its usual ken this summer, from Isata Kanneh-Mason and the Peckham Multi-Story Orchestra to the Jess Gillam Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
In this most atypical Proms season this was actually an archetypal Proms programme: a world premiere: a neglected masterpiece and a good solid 19th-century symphony for those put off a bit by the first two. But this American-themed programme never felt run of the mill. There was a palpable energy in the hall, for both audience and orchestra, to be in the same space again. And if the extended applause at the end seemed a bit indulgent – each section, nearly each player having their own curtain-call – it was clearly born of the thrill of a return to live concert-making.The BBC National Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
In a normal year, the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain descends mob-handed on the Royal Albert Hall for a Prom that complements the sheer quality of the young musicians’ work with joyful, raucous, roof-raising quantity. I recall a Turangalîla symphony in the other Olympic season of 2012 that rocked all Kensington with its heaven-storming, gold-medal exuberance. This summer, with caution still the proper watchword, the NYO has built its admirable “Hope Exchange” programme into a series of steps into the musical future.They begin with the members' personal dreams and ideals, and grow Read more ...