Classical music
Robert Beale
Enlightenment is a wonderful idea, and the members of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment who played Bach’s six Brandenburg Concertos in Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall last night brought the wisdom of today’s period instrument movement to bear on music that most would see as belonging to the age of the pre-Enlightenment. Present-day enlightenment lies not just in historical accuracy, however, but also – from an audience point of view – in catching the spirit of its original creators.The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment do that extremely well. The expertise of their techniques is Read more ...
Richard Bratby
It’s been said – and with some justification – that John Wilson’s own Orchestra has the finest-sounding string section in the world today. What’s certain is that when Wilson guests with other orchestras, he transforms their string sound. It’s not merely the unselfconscious touches of period style – those perfectly gauged expressive slides – and nor is it just the unforced luminosity: how the surface sheen seems to be lit from within. It’s the phrasing, too: the sense of space that Wilson can generate around a melody, the way fast passages never feel hurried and slow passages have room to Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
Few young singers make a UK recital debut like Lise Davidsen’s. But then, few singers come to that debut with such a weight of reputation and expectation. Taking not only the First Prize but also the Audience Prize and Birgit Nilsson Awards at 2015’s Operalia competition, established the then 28-year-old Norwegian soprano as one to watch. Two years on and Davidsen is sounding better than ever, poised on the brink of a major international career, with debuts at the Teatro Real, Covent Garden, Aix-en-Provence and the Wiener Staatsoper in the diary.This Rosenblatt recital at Wigmore Hall Read more ...
David Kettle
Has Glasgow’s Tectonics weekend turned away from its wilder excess? Has it, in its fifth outing, even – well, grown up and got serious? That was partly the sense from the opening day of conductor Ilan Volkov’s visionary mix of contemporary classical, rock, folk, jazz, electronica, and all the uncategorisable hinterlands in between them, a concept that he kicked off in Reykjavík and which he’s now delivered all over the globe. In Glasgow’s previous offerings, we’ve had works directed from a kids’ sandpit, foley artists making music from scrunching packets of dried pasta and flicking through Read more ...
Peter Quantrill
Made from girders, say the brewers of an infamous Scottish fizzy drink. If you could siphon the music of Edgard Varèse into a can, that’s what it would taste like. Blunt, acrid, inimitable, fizzing with closely guarded, possibly unpleasant ingredients. The danger was that exposure to his entire output in one day would prove no more palatable than chugging through a two-litre bottle of Irn-Bru.Thanks to some sensitive programming and superbly prepared performances, however, the BBC’s “Total Immersion Day” did not entail saturation. Instead, the indomitable strength of a personality, and a Read more ...
David Nice
Anyone who missed the opening Southbank concerts of the Chinike! Orchestra, figurehead of a foundation which aims to give much-needed help to young Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) classical musicians, could and now can (on YouTube) catch snippets of the players in action on the splendid documentary about young cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason. There's no doubt at all that Kanneh-Mason, BBC Young Musician 2016, who reprised his already celebrated interpretation of Haydn's C major Cello Concerto in All Saints Hove on Saturday night to launch the Brighton Festival, is the real deal, and so are the Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
For most pianists, playing the Ligeti Piano Concerto would be enough exertion for one night, to be followed by a stiff drink and some down time. Not for the tireless Shai Wosner at Kings Place last night. By the time the Ligeti came along, not only had he already played a Mozart concerto, he then went on to appear in every remaining item in the programme. It was exhausting just to watch – but also exhilarating.This concert was the latest instalment of Aurora Orchestra’s five-year survey of all the Mozart piano concertos, in roughly chronological order. The accompanying programming is Read more ...
graham.rickson
Gražyna Bacewicz: Chamber Music Diana Ambache and friends (Ambache Recordings)This is an easy disc to love. Gražyna Bacewicz’s music is consistently good, often exceptionally so, and it's gratifying that new recordings on Hyperion and Chandos have appeared in recent years. Pianist Diana Ambache’s wide-ranging compilation contains some brilliant stuff, the quality of the performances reflecting her evangelical powers of persuasion. Every player is on inspired form, beginning with the soloists in the invigorating Quartet for Four Violins – a combination which works so well you wonder why Read more ...
David Nice
It's funny how Parisians grumble about any major new venue which lies outside their chic central stamping ground. First they moan about having to trundle out to the Philharmonie concert hall in the Cité de la Musique, and now they look as if they'll need some persuading to support major music-making in Les Hauts-de-Seine, an administrative département which generously supports its culture. In fact the Seine Musicale on the Île Seguin, part of a projected cultural hub which was the brainchild of Jean Nouvel, is only an efficient 20 minutes' metro journey from just about anywhere in the centre Read more ...
Robert Beale
Two works whose whole significance depends on (unspoken) sacred texts made a stimulating combination for a concert in Manchester Cathedral’s sacred space. Haydn’s The Seven Last Words of our Saviour on the Cross – usually heard in its string quartet version – is an instrumental version of Christ's words from the Gospels’ descriptions of the Passion. On this occasion the Camerata musicians chose to give three of its nine sections (there’s an introduction and a short final account of the earthquake that follows the death of Jesus in the Bible account) to their guest pianist, Iyad Sughayer – an Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
The Hagen Quartet has been playing together for decades, and it shows. The group, which includes three siblings, performs with a deep and intuitive sense of unity: of timbre, technique, articulation and intent. Where most quartets are clearly led by the first violin, the Hagens move as one, the motivation coming simultaneously from each player. They put this finely honed ensemble to the service of emotive performances, but also retain a sense of intimacy and proportion. The result is an approach that is close to ideal for both Schubert and Beethoven, composers whose string quartet music is Read more ...
graham.rickson
Laurence Crane: 6 Trios, 2 Solos and 1 Quintet The Ives Ensemble (RTF Classical)It's a rare pleasure to discover a contemporary composer whose work speaks with such effortless clarity. You'll know within a few seconds of Laurence Crane’s Trio for Ros and Peter whether it's your sort of thing – repeated diatonic piano chords supporting slow string lines, the whole thing brilliantly sustained for four minutes. It's definitely my thing, recalling Howard Skempton's delicious piano miniatures as well as, oddly, Brian Wilson’s backing tracks for the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds. If you’re in search of Read more ...