Mahler
Kimon Daltas
This was Sakari Oramo's first concert with the BBC Symphony Orchestra since taking over as chief conductor. Of course he knows the orchestra well already, but it was important to make this a good ’un, and so it was.It opened with the world premiere of a 20-minute work by French composer Tristan Murail, with the double title Reflections/Reflets. As the title perhaps suggests it offered an evocative, colouristic sound world. The first half, "Spleen", dealt in bells, swells and waves rising out of a murky brass and low string background. The second, "High Voltage", featured slow glissandi, Read more ...
graham.rickson
I’d not previously identified much comedic potential in Mahler’s gargantuan Sixth Symphony, a piece which would feature prominently in many people’s lists of most depressing works. Which presumably explains why this astonishing concert wasn’t a sell-out, and why the prevailing gloom prompted a fair few audience members to make an intrusive dash for the exit before the double basses sounded their final pizzicato.Still, despite the darkness, there were giggles to be had. Mahler’s hammer blows of fate are difficult to realise. Here, a poker-faced percussionist precariously wielded a giant mallet Read more ...
David Nice
Mahler, who like most of us thought Bach was “the greatest of them all” and studied in depth the edition of his complete works, would have been delighted by last night’s extravaganza – a true celebration of what makes the Proms the much quoted “biggest music festival in the world”. Only two Bach oratorios – cantatas in all but name – could possibly follow, after a sizeable break for supper, the Mahler symphony, his Second, which ends in such a blazing resurrection. It’s disappointing, then, to record that while there was so much to enjoy in both concerts, the expected transportation on angel Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
The moment when Alfred Brendel shuffled on stage during the Verbier Festival’s 20th Anniversary Concert not to play, but to turn pages for long-time colleague Emmanuel Ax, expressed everything that is so special, so extraordinary about this festival. Walking off together, arms around each other’s shoulders, these were not just international soloists, they were two great old men and two even greater musicians. Verbier has made a lot of good friends during its 20-year history – a mere blink of the eye, as classical festivals go – and in this birthday year it was no surprise that they might just Read more ...
Ismene Brown
A magical folktale, a male duet, a classical jewel-box - programmes like this should be a rich part of the warp and weft of a ballet company, a night of rich interest and variety, stimulating dancers with challenges to their grace and storytelling skills. That it comes as the briefest glimpse in English National Ballet’s year is truly a pity, especially as it pays tribute to that superlative catalyst in ballet, Rudolf Nureyev.As a legend he almost instinctively attracts the adjective “blinding”, so impossible an act to follow was he as a stage creature, particularly for the men - but in fact Read more ...
graham.rickson
Grainger: Works for Large Chorus and Orchestra Melbourne Symphony Orchestra/Sir Andrew Davis (Chandos)Here's a welcome postscript to Chandos’s mammoth Grainger Edition – one of the best, wackiest box sets out there. This new anthology of rarities for chorus and orchestra has the added advantage of having been recorded in Melbourne, and the performances are consistently successful. The works themselves are of variable quality though; Grainger’s output could be maddeningly inconsistent. Here, the high spots are magnificent. Few composers were such brilliant arrangers, and Grainger can Read more ...
graham.rickson
Mahler: Symphony no 9 Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra/Gustavo Dudamel (DG)This new, live, Mahler 9 sounds impressive – microphones are closely placed and you really feel in the thick of things. Dudamel’s intakes of breath are clearly audible but not intrusive. His first movement is outstanding. The timings are expansive, but the pace doesn’t slacken. Each precipitous climax is paced with mature skill, the tension cannily ratcheted up. There are moments when you genuinely think that it’ll all end happily, making the third, funereal crisis a shocker, Dudamel’s raucous trombones putting Read more ...
graham.rickson
Mahler: Symphonies 1-9 London Symphony Orchestra/Valery Gergiev (LSO Live)Buying a set of Mahler symphonies used to mean blowing one’s annual record budget in one swoop. You can now buy cycles by the likes of Bernstein and Tennstedt for less than £30, and this economically priced LSO Live box collects Valery Gergiev’s live recordings. All were taped in the Barbican apart from the 8th, performed in St Paul’s Cathedral. It’s unreasonable to expect any one conductor to get all these pieces right. And, when Gergiev does really hit the mark, these performances contain sensational moments. I’m Read more ...
David Nice
Why so much of Vladimir Jurowski and the LPO on theartsdesk, you may ask, when other concerts pass unremarked? The answer is simple: quite apart from the immaculate preparation and the most elegant conducting style in the business, Jurowski programmes with an imagination matched by none of London’s other principal conductors – unless you like lots of Szymanowski served up by Gergiev with lumpy Brahms – and, more important, always finds connections.This stunning event was an excellent demonstration of the art, and introduced with typical eloquence by a Jurowski bent on pointing out a healthy Read more ...
David Nice
Never mind the huge interpretative challenges; Mahler’s Eighth, dubbed the "Symphony of a Thousand" owing to the gargantuan forces the composer marshalled as conductor of its 1910 Munich premiere, needs an even greater mastery of logistics. Markus Stenz (b 1965), who has been chief conductor of Cologne’s 500-year old Gürzenich Orchestra since 2003 in addition to major posts at the Hallé and Hilversum's Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, had so far wielded a Mahler cycle of terrific impetus and fresh approach to detail. How would he get 600 or so singers and players to move forward with an equal Read more ...
graham.rickson
Lutosławski: Orchestral Works III Paul Watkins (cello), BBC Symphony Orchestra/Edward Gardner (Chandos)If your passing acquaintance with Lutosławski’s output goes no further than the masterly early Concerto for Orchestra, the 1950 Mała Suite shouldn’t present any problems. This brief, four-movement work is equally disrespectful to the folk melodies to which it superficially pays lip service. It’s glorious – 10 minutes of slyly tuneful, lucidly orchestrated fun. Revel in the opening dance, its chirpy piccolo rudely, brutally squashed by pounding Stravinskian string chords. Move on to the Read more ...
David Nice
Now the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s second Conductor Laureate, Jiří Bělohlávek was always going to deserve a hero’s welcome for taking his players to the finishing line of their six-year cycle through Mahler’s symphonies. As more superficially brilliant Mahler series like Gergiev’s, squeezed into a single anniversary season, seem a distant memory, many of Bělohlávek’s slow burn, deep vein interpretations live on in the mind and soul. Last night’s Second Symphony, following an equally well prepared Schumann Piano Concerto with the scrupulous Francesco Piemontesi, shared many of those qualities. Read more ...