Poland's most imaginative composer after Chopin, and his natural heir in the realm of sensual reverie, certainly knew how to yoke a full orchestra to his dreams and fantasies. Yet the work by Szymanowski I've most longed to hear in concert is the three-movement Mythes for violin and piano. A recording of it by Kaja Danczowska and the great Krystian Zimerman quickly acquired cult status in the 1980s. So it seemed like a heaven-sent gift to hear it live in the hands of an even more rounded violinist, young Norwegian Henning Kraggerud, and another maverick Polish pianist, Piotr Anderszewski. They could hardly have made a more dazzling case; yet by the end of the concert it was clear that a single dance theme in an early quartet by Bartók, rigorously developed, was worth more than all the Szymanowski in a packed programme.
classical music reviews
Ismene Brown
Since the passing of Luciano Pavarotti, there’s been a gigantic hole for a tenor of gold-plated opera chops and the gift of communication, and Rolando Villazón - young as he is, at only 38 - already appears to have sealed that gap up effortlessly. His stint as judge on the lamentable Popstar to Operastar on ITV recently left everyone tarnished but him. Villazón not only has a dazzling voice and uniquely electric hair, but sports about on the platform with a puppyish vivacity that brings dead places to life around him and endears him widely.
David Nice
"Madness! Madness! Everywhere madness!" The unsung words of cobbler-philosopher Hans Sachs in the third-act prelude to Wagner's Die Meistersinger might seem like an odd opening manifesto for the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra's annual May Day ceremonial concert this morning, hosted this year by Oxford in the gorgeous venue where the Berliners had last played under Karajan a very long time ago. But there was method in it. Whether or not Oxford's traditional May Day eve revels last night had any drunken brawl as threatening as the one which set Sachs meditating on human folly there was certainly a bacchanalian atmosphere outside the Sheldonian - and even more to be found inside.
edward.seckerson
It didn’t take long for memories of Anatoly Liadov’s The Enchanted Lake to fade in the dramatic shift Stateside which dominated Antonio Pappano’s latest outing with the London Symphony Orchestra. Every tone fleetingly shimmered as Liadov’s dreamy miniature hinted at an evening full of Eastern promise. A touch of Scriabinesque harmonic ripeness in the middle of the piece suggested the possibility of an effulgent climax. But none was forthcoming. Silky playing from the muted LSO strings rarely rose above mezzo forte. And then we were crossing not a lake but an ocean; the shores of the USA came into view and, boy, did everything change.
David Nice
For many of us, this was bound to be an emotional evening. Noëlle Mann, doyenne of all things Prokofievian on the editorial, archival, teaching and performing fronts, died peacefully at home last Friday, and it was to her that Vladimir Jurowski dedicated a typically bold programme of Prokofiev's late epic for cello and orchestra, the Symphony-Concerto, and a big but rather less focused symphony by his closest composer-friend Nikolay Myaskovsky. Perhaps it's presumptuous to speak for the departed; but I could hear Noëlle responding vitally to her master's voice, applauding Jurowski for championing the lesser-known figure but sternly proclaiming the verdict shared by most of us: that while Prokofiev was touched by the divine spirit, poor, diligent Myaskovsky clearly wasn't.
David Nice
It's still not clear whether his clever, brilliantly orchestrated compositions are here to stay (though they're certainly having a good run at the moment). As a conductor, he's not yet nimble on his feet. Yet after yesterday evening's colossal recital, I doubt if anyone would deny that Thomas Adès is a pianist of the first order, a dramatic master of keyboard colour who pulls you into his edgy but often very beautiful sound world and sometimes casts you adrift from your critical moorings.
igor.toronyilalic
For those of you who think that classical music ends with Mahler - or Brahms just to be on the safe side - that the musical experimentation of the past 60 years was some sort of grim continental joke, an extended whoopee cushion of a musical period that seemed to elevate the garden-shed accident into some kind of art form, you have two people to blame: Adolf Hitler and Edgar Varèse.
David Nice
It needs saying yet again, until the message gets through: Bohuslav Martinů is one of the great symphonic masters of the 20th century, and his fellow Czech, chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra Jiři Bĕlohlávek, once more proves the right man to marshal a golden Martinů revival. It needs saying above all because, for all the beauties and oddities in every bar of the six symphonies, composed at the height of the exiled composer's mastery in America and France between 1942 and 1953, the Third Symphony is perhaps the one which cries out masterpiece from embattled start to shatteringly moving finish. I never thought I'd be writing this, but last night it even outshone by a long way two intriguing but problematic works by Stravinsky and Prokofiev.
David Nice
He may not be the most famous musical Swede - in terms of name-recognition that would be Benny of Abba fame rather than Bengt the long-term recital partner of the divine Anne Sofie von Otter - but everyone in the business seems to adore Forsberg, a true musicians' pianist (and the only one I've ever seen unostentatiously to shake hands with his page turner). His boundless curiosity has always contributed to the repertoire of the great artists he works with; last night he stepped into the limelight - modest in presentation, infinitely tender in slow movements but tough as a top virtuoso needs to be in the fieriest works of his 11 chosen composers.
David Nice
Why, a modish reader might ask, did I go to hear a rum-looking cove conducting a classical lollipop at the Festival Hall when I might have tasted the latest fruits of a controversial prodigy over at the Barbican? First, because there's plenty of time to wait and see whether bumptious wunderkind Alex Prior will get beyond the derivative, lurid monsterworks he's currently producing. Second, because the immensely likeable cove, French-born Stéphane Denève, is so busy transfiguring his Royal Scottish National Orchestra that we Londoners all too rarely get to see him. And last, because you can't beat the impact of Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade when it's firing on all cylinders and seducing with every gorgeous solo. Philharmonia players and a peculiar audience seemed overwhelmingly convinced about that last night.