Classical music
Gavin Dixon
The Royal Opera’s Boris Godunov production made the short trip from Covent Garden to South Ken for the company’s appearance at the 2016 Proms. The opera (here in its original 1869 version) is a good choice for concert presentation: as Antonio Pappano writes in the programme, much of its music approaches oratorio. That is particularly true of the choral numbers, and the work is a tour de force for the Royal Opera Chorus. But every aspect of the music is this production is strong, so the gains balanced the losses, despite the minimal visual presentation.Little of Richard Jones’s visual Read more ...
Richard Bratby
It’s impossible to get the measure of the Cheltenham Music Festival in just one day. Lasting more than a fortnight, this is the festival that made the running in postwar British music: that helped put Malcolm Arnold and Robert Simpson on the map and defined a genre - the “Cheltenham Symphony”. Times change and financial pressures increase, but under the artistic directorship of Meurig Bowen, Cheltenham is still a powerful (if undervalued) force in contemporary classical music. Of the 120-odd composers in the 2016 Festival, at least one third are alive. The programme boasts 15 world premieres Read more ...
Jessica Duchen
The first notes of the first night of the Proms weren’t the ones expected. Instead of either “God Save the Queen” or simply the start of the Tchaikovsky, the “Marseillaise” rang out into the Royal Albert Hall, the Tricouleur projected in coloured light across the organ. Everyone stood. A fervent tribute to the tragedy of Nice, it set the tone for a strange and startlingly appropriate season opening.In one of those supreme ironies, given that it was planned ages ago, the programme couldn’t have been better for the occasion. Even if the Tchaikovsky Fantasy-Overture “Romeo and Juliet” was Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
Once confined to the concert hall, it’s a rare oratorio these days that doesn’t duck under the fence and sneak into the opera house. Bach’s Passions and most of Handel’s religious works have already made the transition, but this season it’s the turn of Haydn’s Creation. Rejecting the classic staged route, Garsington Opera have invited Mark Baldwin to choreograph it for his Rambert dancers. Add a trio of superb solo singers, Garsington’s own chorus and orchestra and artist Pablo Bronstein as designer, and you have an extraordinary hybrid conception.But any opera-goers expecting an oratorio Read more ...
graham.rickson
Elgar orch. Donald Fraser: Piano Quintet, Sea Pictures English Symphony Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, Rodolfus Choir/Kenneth Woods (Avie)Donald Fraser's orchestration of Elgar's expansive Piano Quintet was prompted by a 1918 entry in Lady Elgar's diary, describing a chance overhearing of her husband composing "wonderful new music... which should be in a War Symphony." It certainly feels symphonic, and Fraser's uninhibited transcription serves the work brilliantly, the more florid moments taking their cue from Elgar's own 1921 orchestration of Bach's Fantasia and Fugue. You'll be Read more ...
Richard Bratby
Edward Gardner gives the downbeat, and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra bursts into Verdi’s great opening guffaw. Enter stage left Graham Clark, as Dr Caius. Enter stage right Ambrogio Maestri, as Falstaff. And before a note has been sung, the audience is laughing. I know that in the post-Dumpygate era we’re not supposed to discuss a singer’s physical appearance. It’s just that everything about Maestri – his stature, his gait, his rolling eyes, his genial manner and his big rubbery smile – suggests that he was born to play the Fat Knight. He simply is Falstaff.That being so, he’s not Read more ...
theartsdesk
"Refreshingly traditional" is how one of our writers describes this year's BBC Proms programme. Alarmingly unadventurous might be another way of putting it, though only in comparison with many of the golden years under Roger Wright.It's true that there are few of the daring juxtapositions within programmes which have been such a Proms hallmark. But there are still the usual commissions, not always from the usual suspects, a distinguished roster of visiting orchestras - though some of their conductors are a matter of taste - and a striking line-up of operas in concert. There's also a venturing Read more ...
Richard Bratby
You know, of course, why you should always choose the left leg of a roast partridge? Because that’s the leg the bird stands on when resting: it’s plumper, tastier and altogether more succulent. These things matter, and in Jean Francaix’s extraordinary 20-minute a capella showpiece Ode à la gastronomie they’re elevated to the level of a religion. “It’s very French”, Robert Hollingworth warned us before this performance by I Fagiolini at the 2016 Lichfield Festival – and he wasn’t joking. “If Eve could lead us to perdition for an apple, what would she have done for a roast turkey?” “Dessert Read more ...
graham.rickson
James MacMillan: Since it was the day of Preparation Hebrides Ensemble/William Conway, with Brindley Sherratt (bass), Synergy Vocals (Delphian)A follow-up to James MacMillan's St John Passion, Since it was the day of Preparation tells the story of the Resurrection as narrated in the Gospel of St John. It feels like a big work, though scored with startling restraint for a solo bass, vocal quartet and just five instrumentalists. And what instrumentalists: Elizabeth Kenny's gorgeous theorbo solo opens proceedings, and a Steven Stirling's horn obbligato near the work's close recalls Messiaen's Read more ...
David Nice
All the best festivals develop organically, with a guiding hand from the best directors. When I first came to the East Neuk Festival two years ago, on its 10th anniversary, it was already a special case, thriving on the spirit of place and including an all-day Schubertiad from top international artists, many of whom were returning because they loved this special peninsula of the Fife coast so much. Since then a weekly "Retreat" for outstanding young artists guided by superlative coaches has started yielding unmissable special concerts, and beloved visitors have come for longer, three- or four Read more ...
Guy Johnston
In June 2014, I was invited to the late Sir John Tavener’s Memorial Service in Westminster Abbey. It was a poignant occasion, marked by a number of special tributes and performances. My childhood idol Steven Isserlis performed Threnos during the service and as I made my way up to thank him for his moving performance, I was aware he was clutching a big blue score, and talking with Meurig Bowen, the Artistic Director of the Cheltenham Festival.Just as I approached them, I heard Meurig ask Steven whom he would recommend to perform the premiere of the recently completed Read more ...
graham.rickson
Scriabin and Stockhausen: Light Vanessa Benelli Mosell (Decca)Scriabin and Stockhausen are both associated with excess, so it's pleasing to report that Vanessa Benelli Mosell's second Decca disc goes over the top in some areas: there's a bonkers sleeve image and some bizarre photos in the booklet. Due credit is given to Mosell's fashion designer and to Luxury Living magazine, and you suspect that neither composer would have objected. Mosell's set of Scriabin's Op. 11 Preludes is very fine indeed, largely because she's so good at nailing the character of each one. The fireworks present no Read more ...