Bach
Jasper Rees
It becomes increasingly hard for a music festival to stick out from the crowd these days. But high culture, high summer and high altitude create a rousing major chord each July in Verbier, which can genuinely claim to be the only festival you reach by cable car. When you get up there you are greeted by an alpine symphony of glaciers slithering off peaks and pastures clanging with cowbells. Streams descant and trill along gutters between chalets. No wonder stellar musicians drop their fee to return, both to play and listen. Egos are left at the bottom of the mountain.But location is only part Read more ...
igor.toronyilalic
Helmut Lachenmann is a sort of George Bush of contemporary classical composition, a bogeyman, a warrior, an ideologue. In my time his name has always been served up with an exclamation mark - "you like Lachenmann!?" - partly because his politics have always reveled in anti-social extremes, partly because his musical tools were always either abstraction, noise, difficulty or perversity (musica negativa, as Henze once put it), his enemy, having a good time. The results are as intimidating to the ears (and performers) as his medieval face (picture, left) is to the soul. And in 50 years of Read more ...
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 Read more ...
edward.seckerson
It’s a very assured - not to say very brave - young conductor who chooses to make his debut with the London Symphony Orchestra in Sibelius’ notoriously challenging Seventh Symphony. Mighty talents have fallen at this particular fence, defeated by the work’s circuitous evolution and elusive logic. Robin Ticciati has no fear, though, and more importantly has been mentored by a man who knows the Sibelian psyche and terrain better than most – Sir Colin Davis. Could this be his heir apparent?Opening with rather rarer but more instantly accessible Sibelius – the orchestral suite of incidental music Read more ...
jonathan.wikeley
Concert programming can become a little bit predictable, don’t you think? If we’re honest, there are quite a lot of standard programmes bouncing around our halls at the moment. Don’t get me wrong; I understand that putting together an original and enticing programme isn’t easy. There are problems by the bucketload: what to pair with a big symphony, other than another big symphony; what to partner with a radical contemporary piece, other than Bach or something medieval; what to put before Rach 2 at a Proms concert, other than 50 minutes of Xenakis; how to make a concert of bleeding chunks Read more ...
David Nice
As one who came to know the B minor Mass singing in a clogged, 150-strong choir, I welcomed the authentic-movement rush in the 1980s to whittle it down to What Bach Might Have Wanted (if, indeed, he had lived to hear his ideal religious compendium performed in its entirety). For a while, it shrivelled to anorexic dimensions in the shape of Joshua Rifkin's one-voice-per-choral-line hypothesis. Last night, though, showed how far we have come: a well-tempered Mass from Christophers' ensemble, with thankfully more than 16 in the chorus (26, to be precise), the occasional unexpected murk Read more ...
Jasper Rees
The career of Simon Russell Beale (b. 1961) needs little introduction. It took wing with the Royal Shakespeare Company but, give or take the odd foray into other buildings, including work with Sam Mendes at the Donmar Warehouse and more recently with the Bridge Project, he has made the National Theatre his home. Of all the Hamlets seen in the past 20 years, his seems to be the one that more than any remains unforgettable in the collective memory. Meanwhile, anyone who saw him as a camp King Arthur in Spamalot may not have guessed that long before Russell Beale took acting seriously, he took Read more ...
Ismene Brown
Tim Henman - brilliant and unfairly treated, or... not? Even when John McEnroe passionately enumerates Henman’s qualities, do you both nod hopefully and realistically shake your head? Because, yes, our lad may be a rare craftsman of the grass court game, but if the point is giving us the shock of unexplained genius that is, say, Federer's (or McEnroe's) habit, then no chance, mate. And so to Richard Alston, whose court is dance, and the point of dance is to make you feel exultant, shuffle off your mortal coil, thrill to music and movement, feel the out-of-body tug of that other world which is Read more ...
graham.rickson
This month's classical music releases include mighty new recordings of Bach, Brahms, Rachmaninov and Prokofiev by major orchestras. Other recordings shine new light on Nielsen and Dallapiccola and make a case for the genius of Bernard Herrmann. From the quirkier end of the spectrum there is choral music from the Baltic, Stravinsky's compositions for piano and violin, a trio of new and older recordings from Joanna MacGregor and Amy Dickson's playing Taverner and Glass on soprano saxophone. As ever, click on the links to buy these recordings on Amazon.Rachmaninov: Symphony No 2, Vocalise, Read more ...
igor.toronyilalic
Is there a greater singleton's soundtrack than Bach's restless, tormented Three Partitas for Solo Violin? The works represent the extraordinary pinnacle of the violin repertoire and also the summit of Bach at his most chromatically and psychologically screwy. Snuggling up to these intensely fragile works, as so many Valentines couples were preparing to do last night at Wigmore Hall, is about as fun as curling up to a slice of Von Trier's cinematic clitoridectomy. And the intensity, fragility and bitterness was never so clear as in Julia Fischer's nimble hands. Her sound was shockingly, Read more ...
theartsdesk
Johan Persson took photographs of Kim Brandstrup's new ballet with Tamara Rojo, Goldberg, which was premiered at the Linbury Studio Theatre, Royal Opera House, on 21 September 2009. Music is J S Bach's Goldberg Variations, designs Richard Hudson, lighting Paule Constable, video Leo Warner for Fifty Nine Productions Ltd, sound Ian Dearden. Performed by Tamara Rojo, Tom Whitehead, Steven McRae, Clara Barbera, Laura Caldow, Tommy Franzén, Riccardo Meneghini. Pianists Philip Gammon and Henry Roche. Read Ismene Brown's review.Click on a picture to enter full view and slideshow. [bg|/johanpersson/ Read more ...
Ismene Brown
At last a seriously good new ballet created not just inside the Royal Opera House’s bunker-like Linbury Studio Theatre but actually making complete sense of its space and atmosphere. Kim Brandstrup’s new creation with the Royal Ballet star Tamara Rojo, Goldberg, is a beautiful, grown-up piece of fine musical feeling and drama, and with a design and lighting scheme to die for.They came from left-field on this one, since to get anything made new at the Royal Ballet is generally a torturous business of compromise with time, cast and concept. But Rojo swung her weight about as ballerina and Read more ...