fri 03/01/2025

Haydn

Mørk, LPO, Nézet-Séguin, Royal Festival Hall

Mozart and Wagner were the opposite compass points of Richard Strauss’s classical-romantic adventuring, and Amadeus has often made an airy companion to the rangy orchestral tone poems in the concert hall. By choosing Haydn instead as the clean...

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Evgeny Kissin, Barbican Hall

Why is music? A child’s question, a great question. One answered by Evgeny Kissin’s piano recital at London’s Barbican Centre last night, where you might want to engage analysis and come up later with answers but what happened was that you left the...

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BBC Proms: Vienna Philharmonic, Haitink

The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra can play Haydn’s last symphony - No 104 “London” - in its sleep but that is not, I hasten to add, the impression one wants to take away from any performance of it and especially not in the city that inspired it. The...

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Classical CDs Weekly: Beethoven, Haydn, Gabriel Prokofiev

 Beethoven for All: Symphonies 1-9 West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, Daniel Barenboim (Decca)The back story behind this ensemble is an inspiring one – an orchestra founded by Edward Said to enable Arabic and Israeli musicians to perform together....

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YouTube hoaxer makes a very convincing Mozart

Norman Lebrecht, the seasoned and ever-alert musical commentator, thinks he and his readers may have uncovered someone making a very good stab at being Mozart. Three pieces have been discovered on the internet DIY-video channel being played by a...

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Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker & Jérôme Bel, 3Abschied, Sadler’s Wells

When the subject of funding for the arts arises, the phrase “allowed to fail” is frequently heard: artists must be enabled to try new things, press against the outer edges of what they know. Enter Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Jérôme Bel, two of...

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Symphony, BBC Four

Having blazed a trail through choral music, Simon Russell Beale now focuses his attentions on the symphony in this new four-part series. At last able to put aside the mind-games and chicanery of his role as Home Secretary William Towers in Spooks (...

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Yevgeny Sudbin, Wigmore Hall

Yevgeny Sudbin: shining a brilliant light on complex works

Older pianomanes may lament the passing of the great Russian schooling that gave us the likes of Sofronitsky, Yudina and Richter. I'm not so sure. The younger generations may have dropped the mystic torch, but their more even-tempered approach can...

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theartsdesk Q&A: Trumpeter Alison Balsom

A tall and exceptionally striking Valkyrie of a blonde, Alison Balsom (b 1978) is the polar antithesis of a hard-drinking, slightly tubby, very male trumpeter from central casting. For the photoshoots which fetch up on her CD sleeves, and public...

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Classical CDs Weekly: Górecki, Haydn, Shostakovich, Second Viennese School

Second Viennese School quartets: 'Music which can curdle milk, so make sure the fridge door is closed'

It’s string-quartet Saturday – a young German group tackle Soviet classics and a rejuvenated Russian quartet smile with Haydn. There’s music from a contemporary Polish master and exquisitely uncomfortable fin-de-siècle music from Vienna....

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Classical CDs Weekly: Haydn, Gershwin, Ciccolini, Sheherazade

Riccardo Chailly's 'Gershwin': Fun music that can take a bit of stretching

Today we’ve Easter-themed music from Haydn and a rare chance to hear some delectable Grieg played by an old master. A kitsch Russian classic is given a new slant, and two Italians have serious fun with Gershwin.Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue, Concerto...

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Ax, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Jurowski, Royal Festival Hall

Vladimir Jurowski: A demonic twinkle in the eye

Send in the clowns. Or at least that was Vladimir Jurowski’s musical thinking in bringing together the mighty foursome of Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Haydn and Shostakovich and seeing just how far their capricious natures might take us. The allusions and...

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