Classical music
Adam Gatehouse
Dame Fanny Waterman was a true force of nature, in the best sense of the word. Her diminutive height belied a giant intellectual force and a steely determination to achieve the seemingly unachievable through every means she could muster.She certainly had a powerful armoury at her disposal: charm (which she possessed in spades – who has not been totally seduced by that wonderful twinkly smile, or that throaty chuckle?); an energy that continued unabated right until the end and that many of us half her age envied; an uncanny nose for musical talent, particularly among the very young; an Read more ...
graham.rickson
Bach: Christmas Oratorio Stuttgarter Hymnus-Chorknaben, Handel’s Company/Rainer Johannes Homburg (MDG)Another year, another new Bach Christmas Oratorio. Not that I’m complaining; this one is another zinger, up there with excellent contemporary versions from Stephen Layton and John Butt. Rainer Johannes Homberg’s Stuttgart Hymnus Boys’ Choir sing with incisive clarity, high-class support coming from Handel’s Company and a starry trio of trumpets. The first cantata’s opening chorus is all brassy exuberance, Homburg highlighting Bach’s ability to express unbuttoned joy. Try the first Read more ...
David Nice
Adaptability backed up by funding has been the course of the most successful musical organisations since mid-March – but it’s been especially tough from November onwards. One abrupt lockdown meant that anything scheduled to be performed before a carefully limited live audience within or around that month bit the dust, and the London Symphony Orchestra’s series planned to match Beethoven piano concertos with Stravinsky’s smaller-scale orchestral works at the Barbican with Krystian Zimerman as soloist and Simon Rattle conducting was a major casualty. So was the Beethoven concertos marathon Read more ...
Johannes Vogel
Think of the finale at a big fireworks show: the anticipation; the build up. There is nothing bigger than the Ninth Symphony. It is the climax of this year’s Beethoven celebrations. A year ago, no-one would have expected 2020 to be turned upside down in the way that it has, with so few concerts being held in Europe. Optimism is growing and what better way to bring joy into people’s lives than with a colossal event celebrating one of the greatest composers of all time?As conductor of the 123-strong Sychron Stage Orchestra for the performance, I wanted to be able to lead a concert so magical Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
Just before the doors closed again on live audiences at the Wigmore Hall, Iestyn Davies and members of the Arcangelo ensemble celebrated the private side of a very public composer. The peerless counter-tenor, whose powerfully polished command of phrase and line makes this music feel as natural and necessary as breathing, sang Handel’s nine German-language arias to pious texts by Bartold Heinrich Brockes (who also wrote the words to the “Brockes Passion”). In between clusters of songs, the Arcangelo players – violinist Matthew Truscott, lutenist Thomas Dunford and cellist Jonathan Manson, with Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
Voces8 are the Rolls-Royce of British a cappella ensembles and their LIVE From London - Christmas online festival is the Rolls-Royce of online festivals. Amazingly, it is their second such festival of the year: the first, during the summer, which I regret I didn’t catch any of, featured recorded, streamed performances by leading vocal groups from this country (I Fagiolini, Stile Antico) and the US (Chanticleer). The Christmas edition that has followed soon after has mopped up some important groups missing in the summer, with expanded international element and a Young Performers Spotlight.The Read more ...
David Nice
Perhaps it’s just the conventional mind which celebrates the pathos, tragedy and triumph in Beethoven’s music at the expense of his humour. And that’s the one aspect of the composer which has been a constant revelation – to me, at any rate – in his anniversary year. Too often the laughs have been solitary, listening to CDs or watching online. On Saturday night, in the warm and friendly atmosphere of the Fidelio Orchestra Café, the pleasure could be audibly shared in two of the composer’s wittiest and most surprising piano sonatas, and amplified by the revelation of another major Beethoven Read more ...
Robert Beale
Adaptability is the name of the game for big companies in the music business now. And Opera North’s streamed presentation of Beethoven's Fidelio from inside Leeds Town Hall is a prime example of just how adaptable things need to be.The orchestra is down to 33: single (hardworking!) woodwind, two horns, two trumpets, no trombones, in a score reduction by Francis Griffin. The chorus numbers 24, and between them that’s going some for a socially distanced ensemble these days. The soloists are spread along the front of the extended platform, with space to act and interact to some degree. Lighting Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
Like a hokey-cokey, we’re back to live music in London – but for how long? I overheard another audience member explaining it was her third time at Kings Place this week, as people cram in as many concerts as possible before a feared return to cultural lockdown. Kings Place has been in the London vanguard (with Wigmore Hall) of venues opening as much as possible, and Aurora Orchestra have responded with imagination, transforming their Mozart concerto cycle to a festival of chamber music.The format was the same as the Imogen Cooper concert I reviewed in October: starry soloist, Mozart concerto Read more ...
David Nice
For the performers and the venue there can be nothing but praise. To be back in Kings Place’s Hall One after so long was to realise afresh that no other London venue gives such air to soaring strings – and these ones truly did soar and gleam. For the programme, not quite so much. When you begin in the heights – as the first of the evening’s concerts, the one I was lucky enough to attend, did – with Ravel’s Duo for violin and cello, two bouts of romantic rodomontade can quickly pall, however committed the performances.A confession: I signed up for “Kanneh-Masons and friends” without looking at Read more ...
Robert Beale
The second of the Hallé’s Winter Season concerts-on-film is scarcely less ground-breaking than the first. But this time we are in the orchestra’s second home, the former church now extended to be Hallé St Peter’s in the regenerated part of Manchester's city centre. The same skilful use of camera techniques to show a socially distanced ensemble, with Sir Mark Elder as conductor and, this time, Roderick Williams as vocal soloist, makes satisfying visuals to go with arresting sound. Despite limited resources in the installed lighting, there’s still effective use of washes of colour in the Read more ...
graham.rickson
Stravinsky: Petrushka, Rossini/Respighi: La Boutique Fantastique Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Vasily Petrenko (Onyx)Stravinsky’s Petrushka is usually played in the 1947 revision, so it’s a pleasure to hear the 1911 original. The musical material is identical, though the later version’s sharp glitter is less apparent; this Petrushka looks back as much as it looks forward. Vasily Petrenko’s Liverpool recording is a triumph; it’s sharply played, neatly characterised and full of life. Think thick oil paint rather than neat line drawing. There’s a wealth of detail that emerges as Read more ...