Liszt
BBC Proms: Lazić, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Fischer/ Audience Choice PromSaturday, 03 September 2011
"Don't expect polish," announced Ivan Fischer apologetically. "Things vill go rrrong. We may start pieces again." The tuba had been turned into a tombola. The percussionists were playing their buttocks. Someone else was blowing a Hungarian... Read more... |
BBC Proms: Douglas, BBC Symphony Orchestra, DausgaardMonday, 22 August 2011
Having been away in remote mountain places, I hadn't heard that the BBCSO's chief conductor Jiří Bělohlávek was taking a month off to recover from a virus. So it was a bracing last-minute shock to find the man stepping up to the podium to conduct... Read more... |
Yevgeny Sudbin, Wigmore HallFriday, 29 July 2011
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... Read more... |
BBC Proms: Bavouzet, London Philharmonic Orchestra, JurowskiWednesday, 27 July 2011
The world tour that the Proms offer this year touches down in no more fascinating musical country than Hungary, with three of its great composers, Liszt, Bartók and Kodály brought into the Albert Hall last night by the ever-stimulating Vladimir... Read more... |
First Night of the 2011 PromsSaturday, 16 July 2011
Here we are again. Marvel as you enter at the aptly gaudy lighting of Albert's colosseum, but know that unless your place is with the Prommers towards the front of the arena, the musicians will often sound as if they're in another galaxy - maybe one... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Beethoven, Liszt, SibeliusFriday, 08 July 2011
This week’s reviews include a generous Liszt anthology played by one of the 20th century’s most fondly remembered pianists. There’s a reissued box of Beethoven symphonies performed on modern instruments by one of the classiest European orchestras.... Read more... |
Barenboim, Staatskapelle Berlin, Boulez, Royal Festival HallMonday, 13 June 2011
What next - Boulez and Daniel Barenboim in Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov? The two numbered Liszt concertos are probably as far as they're going to go in lacier romantic repertoire, and last night it didn't feel far enough to justify the predictable... Read more... |
The teenage Liszt's song for EuropeTuesday, 10 May 2011
For last year's Europe Day concert, presidency-holder Spain fielded a Paco Peña showstopper in what's for the past three years been the venue of choice, St John's, Smith Square. This 9 May, the Hungarians' six-month stint yielded not a wow-factor... Read more... |
Evgeny Kissin, Barbican HallMonday, 14 February 2011
Word was that four strings had broken in rehearsals. One had snapped only half an hour before the start of last night's Liszt-fest at the Barbican. It meant one of two things: either pianist Evgeny Kissin had finally switched off the safety-first... Read more... |
Hough, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Fischer, Royal Festival HallMonday, 17 January 2011
Who knew the changeover of the EU Presidency could be this much fun? Amid the formal bowing and scraping at the Royal Festival Hall bunfights last night that signalled that the Hungarians were now at the tiller of this sinking political ship were... Read more... |
Stephen Kovacevich 70th Birthday Concert, Wigmore HallMonday, 18 October 2010
Heartfelt birthday salutations to the great pianist first known as plain Stephen Bishop. For a recital in the early 1980s, when he first added the paternal Croatian "Kovacevich", introducing me to late Brahms piano music - Op 117, never more... Read more... |
PianomaniaMonday, 16 August 2010
Nobody can remember seeing a film about a piano tuner before. Happily, Pianomania isn’t merely unique; it’s a riveting documentary into the bargain. It takes as its subject the micro-detailed and nit-pickingly demanding routine of Stefan Knüpfer,... Read more... |
