Berlin Philharmonic
Uchida, Musicians from the Berlin Philharmonic, Wigmore HallWednesday, 18 December 2013
Exactly what constitutes “the End of Time” in Olivier Messiaen’s extraordinary Quartet for piano, violin, cello and clarinet? Not surely “the end of days” but rather the end of measured time; music unfettered, music of the spheres, music without... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly, Sean Hickey, Lang Lang, Piers LaneSaturday, 12 October 2013
Sean Hickey: Cello Concerto, Clarinet Concerto Dimitry Kouzov (cello), Alexander Fiterstein (clarinet), St Petersburg State Academic Symphony Orchestra/Vladimir Lande (Delos)Sean Hickey’s 2007 Cello Concerto solves the problem of balancing soloist... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Goossens, Mackintosh, StravinskySaturday, 06 April 2013
Goossens: Orchestral works vol.2 Melbourne Symphony Orchestra/Sir Andrew Davis (Chandos)British conductor and composer Sir Eugene Goossens achieved major fame leading the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in the 1950s. Previously he'd given the first... Read more... |
Q&A Special: Conductor Sir Simon RattleWednesday, 30 January 2013
Sir Simon Rattle (b. 1955) and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (est. 1986) have been together from the beginning. Founded by period-instrument musicians eager to run their own affairs rather than play obediently for conductor-managers like... Read more... |
RBMA presents LFO, XOYOMonday, 21 January 2013
Of all the major acts from the the acid house/rave explosion, Leeds's LFO seem least interested in becoming a “heritage act”. Perhaps it's because Mark Bell (the sole member of LFO since the early departure of Gez Varley) has no need to cash in on... Read more... |
Best of 2012: Top 12 Classical CDsSaturday, 15 December 2012
Listening to a recording can never replace the joys of live performance. But if you don’t live in London, opportunities to explore quirky new repertoire can be thin on the ground. CDs most often excel as introductions to composers and works that you... Read more... |
BBC Proms: Bronfman, Berlin Philharmonic, RattleSaturday, 01 September 2012
Champagne on ice in the private boxes; scarcely any spare seats. This isn’t the normal situation for a concert climaxing in Witold Lutosławski’s Third Symphony, a modernist work whose usual audience is more than two men and a dog but still doesn’t... Read more... |
BBC Proms: Berlin Philharmonic, RattleFriday, 31 August 2012
It's not completely unheard of what Sir Simon Rattle did at the start of last night's Prom, where he elided two familiar works - Ligeti's colouristic classic Atmosphères and the Prelude to Act One of Wagner's Lohengrin - into a... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Beethoven, Bruckner, Poulenc, ShostakovichSaturday, 19 May 2012
Bruckner: Symphony No 9 (with Finale completed by Samale-Phillips-Cohrs-Mazzuca) Berliner Philharmoniker/Sir Simon Rattle(EMI)Anton Bruckner’s last symphony is near perfect in its three-movement form. The realisation that the Finale was left... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Berlin Philharmonic Horn QuartetSaturday, 24 December 2011
Mozart: Piano Concertos no 6, 8 and 9 Angela Hewitt (piano), Orchestra da Camera di Mantova (Hyperion)This first volume in Angela Hewitt’s projected Mozart concerto series deserves praise for featuring three early pieces, instead of starting... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Brahms, Stephen Hough, Joby Talbot, SchoenbergSaturday, 13 August 2011
This week we've a glittering, shimmering ballet score with an aquatic theme, and a brilliant British pianist shows off his compositional skills. Plus, in a week where we all need cheering up, 20th-century music's scariest genius shows that he... Read more... |
London Symphony Orchestra, Rattle, Barbican HallTuesday, 08 March 2011
Sir Simon Rattle's intriguing return to the London Symphony Orchestra podium after years away threw up a curious thought: what happens after Berlin? The fate of six of his eight predecessors at the Berlin Phil has been death on the job. Was... Read more... |
