Austria
Elisabeth Leonskaja, Wigmore Hall review - a universe of sound and emotion in Schubert’s last three sonatasMonday, 30 September 2024
Wonders never ceased in Elisabeth Leonskaja’s return to the Wigmore Hall. Not only did she play Schubert’s last three sonatas with all repeats and the full range of a unique power undiminished in a 78-year old alongside a never too overstated pathos... Read more... |
Prom 61, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Rattle review - Bruckner without tearsFriday, 06 September 2024
Hot on the glittering heels of the Berlin Philharmonic and Kirill Petrenko, Sir Simon Rattle brought another stellar German outfit to the Proms, bearing the gift of a Bruckner symphony in the composer’s 200th birthday year. With his (relatively) new... Read more... |
Prom 5, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Bancroft review - a luxury orchestral cruiseTuesday, 23 July 2024
This looked like a classic Prom in the grand old BBC tradition: two big but lesser-known pieces by pivotal figures (Schoenberg and Zemlinsky) played by a major non-metropolitan ensemble, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. And so it proved, with... Read more... |
The Merry Widow, Glyndebourne review - fun and frolics in the EmbassyTuesday, 11 June 2024
Why would anyone want to stage a work like The Merry Widow in this day and age? Silly question. It’s the music, stupid. Of course, it’s an entertaining story and there are some good jokes. But I'd bet that if Heuberger had composed the music to this... Read more... |
Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, Sousa, St Martin-in-the-Fields review - Beethoven, younger than springtimeMonday, 20 May 2024
Better (much better, indeed) late than never. The Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique should have given their cycle of Beethoven symphonies at St Martin-in-the-Fields in May 2020, after touring to Spain and the US. A lot has happened since. The... Read more... |
Coote, LSO, Tilson Thomas, Barbican review - the triumph of lifeTuesday, 14 May 2024
Programme notes for Mahler’s monumental symphonies will often blithely chat about the works’ epic struggle between life and death, creation and destruction, joy and dread. In a comfy hall with a slick orchestra and a polished maestro, all of that... Read more... |
Josefowicz, LPO, Järvi, RFH review - friendly monstersMonday, 08 April 2024
At first glance, this looked like an odd coupling: Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto from 1931, all spiky neo-classicism and short-winded expressionist sparkle, as a tributary opening before the mighty rolling stream of Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony.Yet in... Read more... |
Schubert Piano Sonatas 4, Paul Lewis, Wigmore Hall review - feverish and sometimes violentWednesday, 27 March 2024
“Death doesn’t scare me at all,” said my friend Christopher Hitchens during our last telephone conversation. “After all, it’s the only certainty in life. Dying, however, scares me shitless”.However hard one tries to remove these three final sonatas... Read more... |
Winterreise, Clayton, Aurora Orchestra, Collon, QEH review - new maps for the great journeyFriday, 15 March 2024
Like Hamlet or Fidelio, Schubert’s Winterreise can withstand and overcome (almost) any kind of re-imagining. In the case of Hans Zender’s 1993 “composed interpretation” of the work for chamber orchestra – and sundry sound effects – the new model has... Read more... |
theartsdesk at Salzburg Jazz & the City Festival - perfection in free venuesTuesday, 24 October 2023
As a cultural destination, Salzburg really is hard to beat. Each year, a million and a half tourists descend on this compact city with its baroque architectural delights, and a population of just 150,000. The city of Mozart and of the Salzburger... Read more... |
Prom 65: Bruckner's Eighth, BBCSO, Bychkov review - a friendly giantTuesday, 05 September 2023
Bruckner's behemoth has always had its fervent champions – and its muttering sceptics. The 85-odd minutes of his Eighth Symphony, finally performed after major revisions in 1892, build into a titanic testament. Advocates read into it enough... Read more... |
Budapest Festival Orchestra, Iván Fischer, RFH review - elegy and ecstasyThursday, 18 May 2023
Standing ovations on the less-than-passionate South Bank can have a dutiful, grudging quality. However, I’ve seldom heard more heartfelt ardour at the Royal Festival Hall than the acclaim for Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra last... Read more... |
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