piano
Album: Lana Del Rey - Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean BlvdFriday, 24 March 2023
Compared to her peers, Lana del Rey is mightily prolific. This is her eighth album since her breakthough 11 years ago (her ninth in total). Her last album appeared 15 months ago. There’s still much she wants us to hear. Did You Know That There’s a... Read more... |
Osborne, RSNO, Chan, Usher Hall, Edinburgh - cinematic sweep and surging dramaTuesday, 21 March 2023
Two women featured prominently in this programme; the one a composer and the other a conductor.To the composer first. Long before she hit New York big time, Anna Clyne was at Edinburgh University, so there’s a strong link with Scotland that the... Read more... |
Boris Giltburg, Wigmore Hall review - tonal beauty trumps subjective romanticsWednesday, 15 February 2023
What a difference a piano can make. Boris Giltburg, like Angela Hewitt, prefers a very special Fazioli over the Steinways which dominate the concert scene at the Wigmore Hall and elsewhere. While those may yield a greater depth of field, more... Read more... |
Dmitri Alexeev, Leighton House review - shadows and light from a master pianistWednesday, 08 February 2023
You can brush aside any problems septuagenarian pianists may have in the toughest repertoire, especially if they give you more than glimpses of why they’re legends in the first place. Those were frequent from the masterly Dmitri Alexeev, long... Read more... |
Ólafsson, LPO, Gardner, RFH review - spirit of delightMonday, 30 January 2023
This concert was advertised as the completion of an Elgar symphony cycle, though in the absence of the reconstructed Third, that meant the second of two. Both were planned with interesting concerto couplings. The First Symphony was presented with... Read more... |
Album: Sebastian Rochford, Kit Downes - A Short DiarySaturday, 28 January 2023
A Short Diary, a duo album for piano and drums, contains music of astonishing directness, calm and concentration. The story of how it came into being is fascinating, but it also stands on its own as pure music of luminous quality, and is bound to be... Read more... |
DVD: Oscar Peterson - Black + WhiteTuesday, 24 January 2023
I can’t help enjoying the continuing elevation of the jazz pianist Oscar Peterson (1925-2007) to national monument status in Canada. A park or a square here (Montreal), a boulevard there (Mississauga), a school, a concert hall, a statue, a... Read more... |
Yevgeny Sudbin, World Heart Beat Embassy Gardens review - phenomenal pianism in close-upThursday, 19 January 2023
It was a rare treat to hear Yevgeny Sudbin’s piano artistry quite so close up. World Heart Beat Embassy Gardens is a new venue, in fact just in the process of being born (more about the venue lower down). In the room, with its seated capacity of... Read more... |
Pavel Kolesnikov, Wigmore Hall review - conjuring spirits from solstitial darknessFriday, 23 December 2022
Quite apart from the stunning range of colours and phrasing, Pavel Kolesnikov’s recitals always give you much more than the programme promises. A golden thread through shorter pieces has been one approach, but here he did something different –... Read more... |
Sheku Kanneh-Mason and Harry Baker, Noisenight 13, Jazz Cafe review - distinctive and easygoing chemistryTuesday, 29 November 2022
The elation in the queue was palpable as people stood laughing and chatting in the November cold waiting for the doors of the Jazz Café to open for the latest crowd-funded event organised by Through the Noise. This 13th Noisenight – which brings... Read more... |
Boris Giltburg, Wigmore Hall review - power and grace in elegies and monumentsSaturday, 08 October 2022
A double-sided A4 sheet is better than a programme online only – the default for several London venues now – but the Wigmore Hall missed a vital trick in failing to tell us what Boris Giltburg intended in a transcendental sequence which should have... Read more... |
George Fu, St Martin-in-the-Fields review - high intellect and visceral shocksSaturday, 25 June 2022
Semi-standing ovation at a lunchtime concert in a London church? Predictable, perhaps, from the first recital I heard George Xiaoyuan Fu give at the Two Moors Festival, an avian programme which made me long to hear him play Messiaen’s complete... Read more... |
