Messiaen
Turangalîla-Symphonie, LSO, Rattle, Edinburgh International Festival 2023 review - impressive climax to residencyMonday, 21 August 2023
A performance of Olivier Messiaen’s kaleidoscopic Turangalîla-Symphonie is always going to be a bit of an event. The Edinburgh International Festival set this one up nicely by making it not only the impressive culmination of a four-concert residency... Read more... |
Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy, Bold Tendencies review - visions under the car-park roofMonday, 17 August 2020
Before the not-quite-clear all-clear was given for distanced performances indoors, Bold Tendencies already had the perfect summer solution in the floor space beneath its rooftop terrace in Peckham’s former multi-storey car park. Never was its... Read more... |
Edinburgh Festival 2018 review: Aimard, SCO, Pintscher - psychedelic visionsSaturday, 25 August 2018
There were two immediate casualties at Pierre-Laurent Aimard’s high-energy account of Messiaen’s monumental Des canyons aux étoiles… with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra at the Edinburgh International Festival.First was one of the strings in the... Read more... |
theartsdesk at the Lucerne Easter Festival: Haitink, Schiff and an alternative PassionFriday, 30 March 2018
Anyone passionate about great conducting would jump at the chance to hear 89-year-old Bernard Haitink giving three days of masterclasses with eight young practitioners of the art, his eighth and possibly last series in Lucerne (though he's not... Read more... |
Messiaen & Shostakovich, St John's Smith Square review - Osborne and Gerhardt anchor 1940s masterpiecesWednesday, 15 November 2017
Only connect. As the Southbank Centre's International Chamber Music Series at St John's showcased supreme eloquence in two searing but perfectly-proportioned meditations from the Second World War, over the road at Smith Square Europe House was... Read more... |
Ensemble InterContemporain, Wigmore HallWednesday, 21 June 2017
The Paris-based Ensemble InterContemporain brought a wide-ranging programme to the Wigmore Hall. They are known as new music specialists – the group was founded by Pierre Boulez as the house band for the IRCAM electronic music studio – so Ravel and... Read more... |
Sughayer, Manchester Camerata Soloists, Manchester CathedralWednesday, 03 May 2017
Two works whose whole significance depends on (unspoken) sacred texts made a stimulating combination for a concert in Manchester Cathedral’s sacred space. Haydn’s The Seven Last Words of our Saviour on the Cross – usually heard in its string... Read more... |
Aimard, Stefanovich, St John's Smith SquareWednesday, 25 January 2017
Visions de l’Amen was a shoo-in for Belief and Beyond Belief, the year-long festival of art inspired by religious faith. The festival’s goals seem dangerously nebulous – almost anything could fit its remit – but it is hard to imagine a... Read more... |
Catalogue d'Oiseaux, Aimard, Aldeburgh FestivalTuesday, 21 June 2016
"He is one of the few pianists who will not make them sound like angry birds," said young pianist-animateur Víkingur Ólafsson in Reykjavík when I told him that in little over 24 hours' time I'd be hearing Pierre-Laurent Aimard work his way through... Read more... |
Uchida, Musicians from the Berlin Philharmonic, Wigmore HallWednesday, 18 December 2013
Exactly what constitutes “the End of Time” in Olivier Messiaen’s extraordinary Quartet for piano, violin, cello and clarinet? Not surely “the end of days” but rather the end of measured time; music unfettered, music of the spheres, music without... Read more... |
BBC Proms: Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, ChaillyMonday, 03 September 2012
If you’re going to bash a tam-tam for six, the Albert Hall is the perfect place to do it. The reverberation lasts for ages; and everyone in the audience can see you bashing. That must explain in part why Messiaen’s hieratic, gong-crazy Et expecto... Read more... |
BBC Proms: Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, ChungTuesday, 19 July 2011
Never has a French invasion of these shores been quite so welcome. The two-day siege currently being staged in the Royal Albert Hall by Myung-Whun Chung and his Orchestra Philharmonique de Radio France opened last night with patriotic fervour in an... Read more... |
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