tue 15/07/2025

Dvořák

Vogt, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Gardiner, Royal Albert Hall

Short of rolling around the podium like a delirious pig in a mudbath, Sir John Eliot Gardiner couldn't have hidden his enjoyment of the warm, plush sounds and well-upholstered vibrato of this wonderfully old-fashioned orchestra, the Czech...

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Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Boyd, Royal Albert Hall

Douglas Boyd: a sprightly, soulful guide through late-night master serenades

The banquet's laid, the host is absent but the guests can still relish the first-class fare in his memory. Sir Charles Mackerras was perhaps looking down happily in the company of Mozart and Dvořák as another oboist-turned-conductor like himself,...

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Rusalka, Opera North

A thousand miles away from the Disney version, the transformation scene in Dvořák’s Rusalka is bleak and terrifying. With not a cauldron, bat or cobweb to be seen, the heroine is strapped to an operating table before imbibing the witch’s magic...

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Classical Music CDs Round-Up 6

Leonard Bernstein latest complete Mahler is released this month: the conductor 'clearly loved Mahler nearly to death'

This month’s reviews have a heavy late-romantic bias: chamber music by Dvořák, fascinating and idiosyncratic Mahler from Bernstein and Tennstedt, and some superb recordings of Bruckner, Sibelius and Rachmaninov (or Rachmaninoff, as Gianandrea Noseda...

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Czech National Symphony Orchestra, Libor Pešek, Cadogan Hall

A young Libor Pešek:

You can't ever expect immediate liftoff from a rusty old Lada. Spluttering, shaking and rattling make up as much of the first few minutes of the experience as that of actually moving. But then, before you know it, you're halfway to Plovdiv, and you...

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