Classical music
BBC Proms: First Night, Batiashvili, BBCSO, Oramo review - glorious Vaughan WilliamsSaturday, 19 July 2025
The auditorium and arena were packed – and the stage even more so, bursting at the seams with players and singers: the perfect set-up for a First Night of the Proms. This is traditionally an opportunity to programme a large-scale choral work, and... Read more... |
BBC Proms: McCarthy, Bournemouth SO, Wigglesworth review - spring-heeled varietyTuesday, 22 July 2025
It started like Sunday afternoon band concert on a seaside promenade, a massive ensemble playing it light. But while there were several too many Shostakovich pops, the Ravel concerto and Walton symphony ahead sailed for deeper waters, And the... Read more... |
Interview: Quinteto Astor Piazzolla on playing in London and why Mick Jagger's a fanWednesday, 16 July 2025
“I still can’t believe that some pseudo-critics continue to accuse me of having murdered tango,” Astor Piazzolla once declared. “They have it backward. They should look at me as the saviour of tango. I performed plastic surgery on it.”Thirty-three... Read more... |
theartsdesk at the Ravenna Festival 2025 - Cervantes, Beethoven and Byron transfiguredThursday, 10 July 2025
Anyone seeking local genius in an international festival should look no further than the annual Ravenna concerts from Riccardo Muti – Neapolitan by birth, Ravennate by adoption – with his Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra. Well, maybe a little further... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Bells, birdsong and braggadocioSaturday, 05 July 2025
Thomas Adès, Oliver Leith, William Marsey: Shanty, Aquifer et al Hallé Orchestra/Thomas Adès (Hallé)This album on the Hallé’s own label, rounds up recent works by Thomas Adès, alongside pieces by two British composers he has... Read more... |
Siglo de Oro, Wigmore Hall review - electronic Lamentations and Trojan tragedySaturday, 05 July 2025
Siglo de Oro are a vocal ensemble who specialise in older music – and especially neglected older music – but they have also always programmed new music, and the centrepiece of this recital at the Wigmore Hall was a large-scale commission by... Read more... |
Alfred Brendel 1931-2025 - a personal tributeFriday, 27 June 2025
Alfred Brendel’s death earlier this month came as a shock, but it wasn’t unexpected. His health had gradually deteriorated over the last year or so, and I was fortunate to see him just a few days before he died. I visited him for one of our regular... Read more... |
Aldeburgh Festival, Weekend 2 review - nine premieres, three young ensembles - and Allan ClaytonThursday, 26 June 2025
Actually it was a Thursday evening to Saturday experience, but what riches in seven concerts. The only Britten I heard was one of the Six Metamorphoses after Ovid as I approached the Red House on a hot Saturday morning, just too late for that... Read more... |
Schubertiade 3 at the Ragged Music Festival, Mile End review - five great musicians keep spirits soaringTuesday, 24 June 2025
Aldeburgh offered strong competition for the three evenings of Schubert at the discreetly restored Ragged School Museum, but I knew I had to return for the last event of Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy’s third festival here, much as I’d love to... Read more... |
Immersive Night Music Show, Makita, Londinium Ensemble, World Heart Beat Embassy Gardens - multimedia musings on a midsummer nightTuesday, 24 June 2025
To mark this year’s summer solstice, a small audience gathered at London’s newest concert venue, the World Heart Beat Embassy Gardens, a small and perfectly formed hall bristling with “state-of-the-art” acoustics and digital facilities. On a balmy... Read more... |
RNCM International Diploma Artists, BBC Philharmonic, MediaCity, Salford review - spotting stars of tomorrowSaturday, 21 June 2025
Two concerts in the BBC Philharmonic’s series in their own studio form the climax of studies at the Royal Northern College of Music for a small number of soloists on the postgraduate International Artist Diploma there, and also for some young... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Bells, whistles and bowing techniquesSaturday, 21 June 2025
Michel Béroff: Complete Erato Recordings (Erato)My associating French pianist Michel Béroff with ‘modern’ music says more about my age than it does about Béroff’s actual specialities. If you were looking for Messiaen in an early 1980s record... Read more... |
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