Classical music
Robert Beale
The BBC Philharmonic and its chief guest conductor John Storgårds introduced their Manchester audience to two new things – possibly three – in this concert. One was a world premiere, and you can’t get much newer than that. The other big item was a symphony that’s already nearly 40 years old, yet having only its third performance in Britain.The first piece was Schumann’s Overture, Scherzo and Finale, which is hardly new, but still rarely heard. It dates from soon after the "Spring" Symphony, though the finale was re-written some time later, and is in reality a symphony without a slow movement Read more ...
Peter Quantrill
Time was when the BBC Symphony Orchestra played austerely wholesome programmes of modern and romantic classics to third-full houses. Now on a more varied diet – such as the collaboration with Neil Gaiman and Alwyn's Miss Julie in concert announced this week for their forthcoming season – they pull in respectable audiences, though last night’s concert of classical, romantic and contemporary Austrians had a reassuringly old-fashioned feel about it.The orchestra itself has also been transformed under Sakari Oramo’s leadership, into one of the most flexible, up-for-anything large ensembles in the Read more ...
graham.rickson
Vyacheslav Artyomov: In Memoriam, Lamentations, Pietà, Tristia I (Divine Art)Born in 1940, Vyacheslav Artyomov trained as a physicist before switching to music. He joined forces with fellow composers Sofia Gubaidlina and Viktor Suslin in the mid-1970s to form a group specialising in improvisation with unconventional instruments. Like Shostakovich and Prokofiev before him, Artyomov fell foul of the Soviet authorities, his music effectively banned for several years. Though Tikhon Khrennikov, the famously cantankerous chief of the Composers’ Union, performed a volte-face a decade later and Read more ...
David Nice
Give me some air! Stop screaming at me! Those are not exclamations I'd have anticipated from the prospect of a Vienna Philharmonic Mahler Ninth Symphony, least of all under the purposeful control of Ádám Fischer. Less well known here than his younger brother Iván - both have been admirably outspoken critics of Orbán's regime - Ádám has impressed with his stunning Budapest Wagner and his masterful Mahler cycle as chief conductor of the little-known Düsseldorf Symphony. Maybe if he'd brought the Düsseldorfers here, there would have been more of a sense of inner feeling; maybe the Viennese are Read more ...
Miranda Heggie
For its first ever performance in this country, the Symphony Orchestra of India - formed in only 2006 - kicked off its UK tour in spectacular style at Symphony Hall, Birmingham yesterday evening. Based at the National Centre of Performing Arts in Mumbai, the SOI is India’s first and only professional symphony orchestra. Founded by NCPA chairman Khushroo Suntook and Khazak violinist Marat Bisengaliev - who’ll join the orchestra as a soloist for some of the tour’s later dates - this is a group that’s achieved a remarkable amount in its 13 years of existence. They’ve worked with a host of world- Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
The first visual impression of Monday’s Wigmore Hall song recital was of the marked height difference between Irish soprano Ailish Tynan and the willowy baritone Benjamin Appl. But as they warmed to their task, their voices, which initially seemed an unlikely pairing, grew on me, whether in solo or duet numbers. Appl has an unforced and warm sound and is capable of sudden switches of tone and emotion that are very effective. Tynan’s is a more intense voice, animated in fast music, but always with a complete control of vowel sounds and a varied vibrato.The concert, part of the Wigmore’s “Sense Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
The arc of Daniil Trifonov’s reputation has soared and then, to some ears, stalled in a familiar modern way. Russian Wunderkind pianist bags a sackful of competition trophies (Rubinstein, Tchaikovsky prizes; Gramophone Awards). Early recitals and recordings display stupendous technique allied to audacious, beyond-his-years interpretation. Hype shoots off the scale. The prodigy from Nizhny Novgorod (born 1991!) is the new Richter, Rubinstein, Argerich und so weiter… Then come the iffy PR-driven choices; the unwisely stretched repertoire; the odd duff gig. The jury, having garlanded the Read more ...
David Nice
It seems an almost indecent luxury to have heard two top mezzos in just over a week with so much to express, backed up by the perfect technique and instrument with which to do so. Georgian Anita Rachvelishvili with Pappano and the Royal Opera Orchestra the Friday before last only had to hold the spell through a Rachmaninov sequence in the middle of an all-Russian concert. For her long sold-out Wigmore Hall recital, Latvian Elīna Garanča chose a daunting sequence of song series by Schumann, Wagner and Mahler, ending the official programme with other-worldly poise in what sounded exactly as it Read more ...
David Nice
British concert audiences now know and love one great Lithuanian, among the most communicative and individual conductors in the world today (note I don't even need to prefix "conductors" with "women"). On Saturday night, Lithuania's Independence Day passing untrumpeted save for a flag-wave or two, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla introduced lucky Birmingham listeners to an ambitious orchestral tone-poem by another, Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis (1875-1911), the country's national hero among composers. With her customary programming genius, always matched by the playing of what is now "her" City of Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
The Venezuelan pianist and composer Gabriela Montero is an outspoken advocate for political change in her country, using her musical standing as a platform from which to highlight Venezuela’s "hijacking" by "forces of criminality, barbarism and nihilism". She also seeks to express this struggle through her own music and indeed, in this case, through the programming and staging of a whole concert. In this, she was broadly successful, although not unreservedly so.This concert, with the strings of the Scottish Ensemble, was centred around Montero’s 2018 quasi-piano concerto Babel, surrounded by Read more ...
graham.rickson
Mahler: Symphony No 6 Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Simon Rattle (Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings)This lavish box set documents Sir Simon Rattle’s final appearance as the Berlin Philharmonic’s principal conductor: his performance of Mahler's Sixth last June was streamed live to cinemas around the world, and it's also available on the orchestra’s Digital Concert Hall. Cannily, this release couples it with Rattle’s Berlin debut back in November 1987, conducting the same work. The two performances are remarkably consistent. Maybe there’s a greater sense of terror, of risk in the Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
“My first recital in about a gazillion years in London!” wrote Sarah Chang a week ago for her 140,000 Twitter followers. “I usually work with orchestras whenever I'm in town so what an absolute joy+pleasure to be playing a duo program with piano!”There were indeed musical aspects of this recital by the duo of Chang and pianist Ashley Wass which did impart "joy+pleasure", and the Chang faithful who attended – Cadogan Hall was not quite half full – cheered and cooed their appreciation, and clearly loved every moment of it. There were even some very young, impeccably quiet children, taken there Read more ...