Mendelssohn
Prom 36, McGill, BBCSSO, New review - summery Shakespearean mummerySaturday, 17 August 2024
My three Proms so far this year have all featured regional BBC orchestras conducted by women, all excellent, and it surely reflects well on the Proms management that they have done so much to address this gender imbalance in recent years. In last... Read more... |
Bell, Perahia, ASMF Chamber Ensemble, Wigmore Hall review - joy in teamworkWednesday, 17 April 2024
All three works in the second of this week’s Neville Marriner centenary concerts from the ensemble he founded vindicated their intention to reign for ever and ever. Those very words as set by Handel in his “Hallelujah” Chorus were treated fugally by... Read more... |
St Mary's Music School, RSNO, Søndergård, Usher Hall, Edinburgh review - a shining role for young choristersWednesday, 20 March 2024
For the second year in a row the Royal Scottish National Orchestra chose to share its platform in Edinburgh’s Usher Hall with the young musicians of St Mary's Music School. As RSNO chief executive Alistair Mackie pointed out in a short opening... Read more... |
Elijah, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - vivid declamation powers Old Testament blockbusterMonday, 29 January 2024
That it would be a vividly operatic kind of oratorio performance was never in doubt. Mendelssohn, who said he wanted to create “a real world, such as you find in every chapter of the Old Testament,” instigates high drama with Elijah’s brass-backed... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Fringes, canons and contestsSaturday, 27 January 2024
Leif Ove Andsnes: The Warner Classics Edition 1990-2010 (Warner Classics)It’s good to review a compendious box set celebrating a musician who’s very much still around. The 36 discs in this set certainly aren’t what you’d call historical... Read more... |
Balanas Sisters, Anonimi Orchestra, The Bomb Factory, Marylebone review - talented Latvian conductor heads exciting new ensembleWednesday, 24 January 2024
In an evening filled with "firsts" one of the many striking aspects was the effect the Anonimi Orchestra debut had on people walking past on the Marylebone Road. As we sat in the warehouse space of the Bomb Factory – with its exposed brick walls and... Read more... |
Grosvenor, SCO, Emelyanychev, Usher Hall, Edinburgh review - lightness of touch and a sprinkling of humourFriday, 24 November 2023
Nobody would describe Felix Mendelssohn as a fringe composer, but his piano concertos aren’t exactly central classical repertoire either. They lack the foundational status of Mozart’s and the high Romantic seriousness of Beethoven’s or Brahms’, and... Read more... |
West-Eastern Divan Ensemble, Michael Barenboim, QEH review - enchantment and convivialityMonday, 13 November 2023
What a month, and what a day, for Michael Barenboim to bring the West-Eastern Divan Ensemble to London. Created in 1999 by Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said, the original West-Eastern Divan Orchestra has always impressed because it gathers Israeli,... Read more... |
Fanny: The Other Mendelssohn review - a tale of two siblingsMonday, 30 October 2023
Documentaries intended for cinema release don’t always come off, and cynics might suggest that Sheila Hayman’s Fanny: The Other Mendelssohn would work perfectly well as a BBC Radio 3 broadcast. Fortunately, Hayman’s visual flourishes and a sense of... Read more... |
Isidore Quartet / Mao Fujita, Edinburgh International Festival 2023 - carefree beauty and improvisatory flairTuesday, 29 August 2023
The Edinburgh International Festival’s Queen’s Hall series ended with two very impressive debuts. Thursday morning brought the Isidore Quartet, who winningly, if slightly naively, told us that Edinburgh had a similar energy to their native New York.... Read more... |
Prom 37: Schiff, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Fischer 1 review - landscapes and mindscapesSunday, 13 August 2023
“Very traditional, but fun,” ran the verdict of one fellow-traveller as we waited for a bus outside the Royal Albert Hall on Saturday night. No one can gainsay the infectious fun that the Budapest Festival Orchestra bring to every gig. For all its... Read more... |
Kozhukhin, BBCSSO, Menezes, Usher Hall, Edinburgh review - shimmering Saariaho and moody MendelssohnTuesday, 16 May 2023
How apt that on her first visit to Scotland, Italian-Brazilian conductor Simone Menezes would lead the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Mendelssohn's Third Symphony, the “Scottish”. Though there may not be many particularly "... Read more... |
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