Classical music
David Nice
The greatest procession of mass movements ever composed merits the best line-up of soloists, both vocal and instrumental, as well as the perfect ensemble – small in size, big and rich in sound where needed – and inspired direction. That it was likely to get them seemed obvious from the advertised names, but last night, as always, Peter Whelan inspired everyone to go beyond what we might have imagined.He applies pressure points imperceptibly everywhere so that Bach opens out from period-style devotion to something more operatic, above all in the first choruses of the B minor Mass and Read more ...
David Nice
Georges Bizet was born on this day in 1838. He died at the tragically early age of 36, 150 years ago, and the anniversary year has brought forth for the most part only multiple productions of Carmen, his greatest masterpiece, with a spattering of Pearl Fishers (though not in the UK). Despite the promise of so much more, he left behind plenty of other gems, and Palazzetto Bru Zane, lavishly well-endowed “Centre for French Romantic Music”, has been at the forefront of illuminating them with a revelation in Paris and four CDs of relative rarities.The Palazzetto presentation sets - sumptuous in Read more ...
Simon Thompson
The Scottish Chamber Orchestra punches well above its weight when it comes to guest artists, and it was a big thing for them to have someone of the status of Alina Ibragimova as both soloist and guest director for this concert.She directed Haydn’s Drumroll Symphony (No. 103) from the leader’s chair, and wisely adopted a less-is-more approach, letting the opening drumroll (terrifically assertive from timpanist Louise Lewis Goodwin) and wind theme unfold without her observably moving a muscle. This then spilt over into a main allegro that was as bright as a button, which nonetheless allowed for Read more ...
David Nice
It was guaranteed: string masterpieces by Vaughan Williams, Britten and Elgar would be played and conducted at the very highest level by John Wilson and his Sinfonia of London.Would a rarity by Arthur Bliss and a slow movement from a Delius string quartet arranged by Eric Fenby match them? The otherworldly Delius did; the muscular Bliss, despite special pleading by John Wilson in an affable spoken introduction, sounded magnificent and was worth hearing, but not quite on the genius level. No matter; this was a vintage Wilson programme, and the mastery of him and his players was Read more ...
Rachel Halliburton
To hear Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason speaking live is to hear a woman who very much recognises that her lifelong mission to challenge the perception of who should play classical music is ongoing. Though she has given birth to seven children who have gone on to be stand out classical musicians, she knows that there are still those who deny them the recognition they deserve because of the colour of their skin.The complete failure of certain individuals to understand Sheku Kanneh-Mason’s statement last year that "Rule, Britannia!" at the Proms – with its references to slavery – might make people Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
Many orchestral concerts leaven two or three established classics with something new or unusual. The LSO reversed that formula at the Barbican last night, with three pieces written since 2000 offset by just one familiar item, Sibelius’s Third Symphony. The result was invigorating, challenging – and very enjoyable.The presiding artistic mind was that of Thomas Adès, featuring both as conductor and composer. His passion for the music he had chosen shone through, overcoming the rough-and-readiness of his baton technique, and his enthusiasm brought forth a range of sounds from the orchestra Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
Helping to build the careers of superb young singers is what Wigmore Hall has done for decades: I still remember Olaf Bär’s debut in the hall in 1983, having won the Walther Gruner Lieder competition, and also Matthias Goerne’s in 1997.But whereas Bär was 25 and Goerne 27 when they first appeared in Wigmore Street, Austrian mezzo-soprano Anja Mittermüller was not yet 21 when she won the Wigmore Hall/Bollinger International Song Competition last year. She has recently turned 22, and still has another year left as a student in Hanover.Hearing her remarkable Wigmore debut recital at the Read more ...
Oliver Pashley
“Why the name?” and “Why the instruments?” are the two most common things we get asked about our group. As a member of The Hermes Experiment, a quartet consisting of harp, clarinet, soprano and double bass, it’s perhaps understandable that these are the two things that stoke people’s curiosity. The combination of instruments was a stroke of chance, the collision of imagination and pragmatism. The structure of the group provides a traditional bass-chords-melody setup (albeit in an unconventional way), and we all knew each other (and each other’s playing) having recently finished studying Read more ...
Rachel Halliburton
This powerful, austere collaboration between Les Arts Florissants and the Amala Dianor Company – presented as part of Dance Umbrella – excavated all the violence, grief and transcendence of the events surrounding Christ’s betrayal and crucifixion.Gesualdo published his tortured, piercingly beautiful Tenebrae Responsories in 1611, 21 years after he murdered his first wife and her lover, imbuing the music with the anguish and contradictory emotions of a man who many believe was seeking redemption through his art.Perhaps it’s not surprising then that betrayal with a kiss dominated the first “ Read more ...
graham.rickson
British Piano Concertos: Walton, Britten & Tippett Clare Hammond (piano), BBC Symphony Orchestra/George Vass (BIS Records)I really liked this programme of neglected British piano concertos by the always excellent pianist Clare Hammond, accompanied by conductor George Vass, himself committed to the cause of promoting British music over many years. Britten’s one-handed Diversions, written for Paul Wittgenstein, and Walton’s Sinfonia Concertante are both full of youthful vivacity, although both have troubled histories.Best known by far is Michael Tippett’s Piano Concerto, a top-three Read more ...
Robert Beale
Manchester Camerata have had a ten-year association with composer-conductor Jack Sheen. For this short programme, one of the free Walter Carroll Lunchtime Concert series at the Martin Harris Centre in the University of Manchester, he and they created a partial re-enactment of the January 1914 inaugural concert of the Société Musicale Indépendante in Paris. To works by Stravinsky, Delage and Ravel were added two UK premieres, by Sheen himself and by Isabella Gellis. The plan back in 1914 had been to set new compositions alongside the recently created Pierrot Lunaire by Schoenberg, Read more ...
Robert Beale
Dennis Russell Davies and his musicians from the Czech Republic’s second city began a UK tour last night with an enterprising programme and a large and appreciative audience in Manchester.Freddy Kempf as piano soloist was an undoubted part of the attraction, but he was not there to play a conventional concerto but to join the bouncing Czechs in their love of jazz idioms.The Brno Philharmonic could hardly omit Janáček from their concert, as theirs is the city in which he spent most of his career, but it was a brief acknowledgment in the form of four out of six of his Lachian Dances – an early Read more ...