Mendelssohn
RLPO 175th Birthday Concert, Petrenko, Liverpool Philharmonic HallSaturday, 14 March 2015
When the curtain came down on Liverpool’s year in the limelight as European Capital of Culture, back in 2008, there may have been some who thought that the party was over. Things in the city’s arts world were never going to the same, however, and... Read more... |
OAE, Tognetti, Queen Elizabeth HallWednesday, 26 November 2014
As I sat, engaged and occasionally charmed but not always as impressed as I’d been told I would be, through violinist-animateur Richard Tognetti’s lightish seven-course taster menu of string music with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, it... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Barry, Mendelssohn, Schumann, ShostakovichSaturday, 08 November 2014
Barry: The Importance of Being Earnest Soloists, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group/Thomas Adès (NMC)I missed the live performances of this work; being allergic to Wilde as a dramatist, I wasn't in any hurry to assimilate The Importance of... Read more... |
City of London Sinfonia, Layton, Southwark CathedralThursday, 09 October 2014
Stratford-upon-Avon calling. The City of London Sinfonia has embarked on a series of three Bard-based October concerts in London to commemorate the 450th anniversary year of Shakespeare's death. The first of the three stopping-off points last night... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Dresden and Berlin: Happy Birthday, Richard StraussWednesday, 11 June 2014
Richard Strauss was born in Munich 150 years ago today. Christian Thielemann is celebrating the fact by conducting the Staatskapelle Dresden in the juiciest of all-Strauss operatic potpourris, a festive concert to be held in the city’s glorious... Read more... |
The Dream/Connectome/The Concert, Royal BalletSaturday, 07 June 2014
The Dream has at its heart a great partnership. Not just the original, magical pairing of Anthony Dowell and Antoinette Sibley, for whom Frederick Ashton created the ballet fifty years ago (thereby launching one of the top couples in ballet history... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Verbier: Festival scales new heightsSunday, 04 August 2013
The moment when Alfred Brendel shuffled on stage during the Verbier Festival’s 20th Anniversary Concert not to play, but to turn pages for long-time colleague Emmanuel Ax, expressed everything that is so special, so extraordinary about this festival... Read more... |
BBC Proms: Cameron Carpenter/ Znaider, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, ChaillySunday, 02 September 2012
I'd love to see the stats on the last time a Prom was this packed for an afternoon organ recital. Were it not for the fact that organist Cameron Carpenter was sporting spandex trousers encrusted in silver glitter, a wife beater and Mohawk, you... Read more... |
Ibragimova, Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment, Gardner, Mansion HouseFriday, 29 June 2012
For the general public, getting to see the Mansion House in the City of London is almost as easy a task as becoming a dentist who specialises in hen’s teeth. But that was not the only reason for coming along to last night’s Orchestra of the Age of... Read more... |
The Grand Tour/ Faster/ The Dream, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Birmingham HippodromeThursday, 28 June 2012
Cafés, ballets, it’s all the same to the mighty petty bullyboys of the London Olympics, who have not only devised two of the most revolting mascots in Olympic history (the one-eyed slugs Wenlock and Mandeville) but also employed teams of... Read more... |
YouTube hoaxer makes a very convincing MozartSaturday, 07 April 2012
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... Read more... |
The Dream/ Song of the Earth, Royal BalletThursday, 02 February 2012
Oberon in Frederick Ashton’s The Dream was the hurdle at which the ferociously promising young Sergei Polunin refused when he quit the Royal Ballet last week, and whether it was the deceptive complexity and difficulty of it that caused his sudden... Read more... |
