Classical music
theartsdesk at the Lahti Sibelius Festival - early epics by the Finnish master in contextSaturday, 06 September 2025
It’s weird, if wonderful, that vibrant young composers at the end of the 19th century should have featured death so prominently in their hero-sagas. Assume their inspiration came from Wagner’s Siegmund, Siegfried and Tristan. But Sibelius, Mahler... Read more... |
Waley-Cohen, Manchester Camerata, Pether, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester review - premiere of no ordinary violin concertoFriday, 05 September 2025
Manchester Camerata is enhancing its reputation for pioneering with three performances featuring Nick Martin’s new Violin Concerto, which it has commissioned, two of them in art galleries rather than conventional music venues.So the concerto had its... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Sleigh rides, pancakes and cigarsSaturday, 06 September 2025
Joan Sutherland: The Complete Decca Recordings - Operas 1959-1970 (Decca)The legend of "La Stupenda" was born at Covent Garden in 1959, when Joan Sutherland sang and – by all accounts – acted her socks off as Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor.... Read more... |
BBC Proms: Barruk, Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, Kuusisto review - vague incantations, precise lamentsTuesday, 02 September 2025
Every year, the Royal Albert Hall proves complicit in the magic of the quietest utterances if, as Barenboim put it, you let the audience come to you and don’t try too hard. Pekka Kuusisto is the ultimate communicator, the ideal guide for the... Read more... |
BBC Proms: Alexander’s Feast, Irish Baroque Orchestra, Whelan review - rapturous Handel fills the spaceMonday, 01 September 2025
Many Londoners would already have experienced the musicality incarnate of Peter Whelan and his Irish Baroque Orchestra. A smaller ensemble rocked two of Irish National Opera’s Vivaldi specials in the Linbury Theatre – one a major award winner – and... Read more... |
BBC Proms: Moore, LSO, Bancroft review - the freshness of morning wind and brassSunday, 31 August 2025
11am concerts do take some getting used to. The BBC Proms season has no fewer than seven of them this year, three on Saturdays and four on Sundays. And yet, strangely, for this programme, mainly consisting of works for concert band, it did genuinely... Read more... |
Willis-Sørensen, Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, Wilson, Cadogan Hall review - romantic resilienceSaturday, 30 August 2025
This week Vladimir Putin tried to murder my hosts in Ukraine. He failed. In more hopeful days, I spoke at a seminar organised by the British Council’s branch in Kyiv. Its offices (along with the EU delegation) felt the force of a Russian missile... Read more... |
BBC Proms: Faust, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Nelsons review - grace, then grandeurWednesday, 27 August 2025
Does the orchestra that sways together play together? Quite apart from their (reliably gorgeous) sound, the tight-packed strings of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig made quite a sight at the Proms as they collectively surged through key passages of... Read more... |
BBC Proms: Jansen, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Mäkelä review - confirming a phenomenonTuesday, 26 August 2025
How often is an orchestral concert perfect in every texture, every instrumental entry, every phrase? Wednesday's Phiharmonia Prom struck sound-spectrum gold, but its chief conductor, Santtu Matias Rouvali, could do with more humanity. My colleague... Read more... |
BBC Proms: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Mäkelä review - defiantly introverted Mahler 5 gives food for thoughtSunday, 24 August 2025
Klaus Mäkelä teased out all the fragility and the sense of impending mortality in Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, revealing a vision that was as intricate as it was quietly luminous. Famously Mahler almost died from an intestinal haemorrhage in the year... Read more... |
Dunedin Consort, Butt / D’Angelo, Muñoz, Edinburgh International Festival 2025 review - tedious Handel, directionless song recitalSaturday, 23 August 2025
Handel probably wrote his cantata Clori, Tirsi e Fileno in 1707 while he was in the service of the Marquis of Ruspoli in Rome. It tells the story of the shepherdess, Clori, who has two lovers that she plays off against one another to no great effect... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Dungeons, microtones and psychic distressSaturday, 23 August 2025
Shostakovich: Symphonies; Concertos; Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District Yuja Wang (piano), Baiba Skride (violin), Yo-Yo Ma (cello), Boston Symphony Orchestra/Andris Nelsons (DG)Shostakovich: The Symphonies Gürzenich-Orchester Köln/Dmitrij... Read more... |
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