Classical music
Leif Ove Andsnes, Wigmore Hall review - colour and courage, from Hardanger to MajorcaTuesday, 14 January 2025
Forthright and upright, powerful and lucid, the frank and bold pianism of Leif Ove Andsnes took his Wigmore Hall audience from Norway to Poland (or rather, Paris and Majorca) with a final stop in France. A recital that began with two large-scale... Read more... |
Chamayou, BBC Philharmonic, Wigglesworth, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - Boulez with bonbonsMonday, 13 January 2025
Top Brownie points for the BBC Philharmonic for being one of the first (maybe the first?) to celebrate the birth centenary of Pierre Boulez this year. His Rituel – in memoriam Bruno Maderna was paired somewhat uneasily with a second half of bonbons... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Antiphons, ale dances and elvesSaturday, 11 January 2025
Paavo Järvi: The Complete Erato Recordings (Erato)Big box sets celebrating great conductors are piling up thick and fast, and this one, unusually, features an artist who’s very much alive. Paavo Järvi is just 62 (still young for a conductor).... Read more... |
Liepe, National Youth Orchestra of Ireland, Cottis, NCH, Dublin review - a spirited shot at ShostakovichMonday, 06 January 2025
There’s nothing like an anodyne new(ish) work to give a masterpiece an even higher profile. Rachel Portman‘s Tipping Points, promising to address climate change issues, was so bland and featureless it could have been composed by AI. Any one bar of... Read more... |
Davis, National Symphony Orchestra, Maloney, National Concert Hall, Dublin review - operetta in excelsisThursday, 02 January 2025
In one sense it was a New Year’s Day “nearly”, just stopping short of giving us the already great Irish lyric-dramatic soprano Jennifer Davis in the music of the man she was born to sing, Richard Strauss. Berlin will witness her Arabella shortly,... Read more... |
Best of 2024: Classical music concertsTuesday, 31 December 2024
As always, great concerts have outnumbered great opera productions over a year, and all of our national orchestras can be proud of their record. I’ve sometimes started by celebrating youth, and it’s good to be able to do that in the shape of two... Read more... |
Spence, Perez, Richardson, Wigmore Hall review - a Shakespearean journey in songMonday, 30 December 2024
“O stay and hear,” sings Twelfth Night’s jester Feste in his song “O mistress mine”, “your true love’s coming,/ That can sing both high and low.” And loud and soft, earthbound and airborne, Heldentenor-grave and night-club frivolous: Nicky Spence’s... Read more... |
Best of 2024: Classical CDsSaturday, 28 December 2024
I’m a sucker for a well-produced box set, and some of this year’s choices examples included celebrations of conductors Paavo Berglund (Warner Classics), William Steinberg (DG) and Louis Lane (Sony). The Berglund box contains no fewer than... Read more... |
First Person: cellist Matthew Barley on composing and recording his 'Light Stories'Tuesday, 24 December 2024
For many thousands of years, humans have turned to art to tell stories about themselves and others because it feels good. It feels good because we sense that it helps us to understand ourselves, and the sharing of these uniquely human stories brings... Read more... |
The English Concert, Bicket, Wigmore Hall review - a Baroque banquet for ChristmasMonday, 23 December 2024
Enough is as good as a feast, they say. But sometimes, especially at Christmas, you crave a properly groaning table. At the Wigmore Hall, The English Concert, directed by Harry Bicket, concluded their festive Baroque banquet with Bach’s Magnificat... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Woden, waltzes and watchmakingSaturday, 21 December 2024
Ravel: The Complete Works with Piano François-Xavier Poizat, Philharmonia/Simone Menezes et al(Aparté)Ravel was by no means a prolific composer but, including absolutely everything in his catalogue that includes piano, François-Xavier Poizat’s... Read more... |
Messiah, Wild Arts, Chichester Cathedral review - a dynamic battle between revelatory light and Stygian gloomWednesday, 18 December 2024
The Wild Arts Ensemble was founded by Orlando Jopling in 2022 to create a dynamic, pared-back style of performance in which, as he put it, the “costumes, set and props… can be packed up into a couple of suitcases that we can take with us on the... Read more... |
