piano
Lane, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Manze, RFHThursday, 12 March 2015
Andrew Manze chose an all-English programme for his debut with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Clarity of texture and disciplined, propulsive tempos are the hallmarks of his conducting, the results of many years as a violinist and ensemble leader... Read more... |
Donohoe, BBCSSO, Prieto, City Halls, GlasgowFriday, 06 March 2015
Shock and Shakespeare were the two forces that powered a typically thoughtful programme from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. I said as much in a pre-performance talk where the links weren’t hard to find: that also means coming clean at the... Read more... |
Hannigan, Uchida, Philharmonia, Salonen, Royal Festival HallFriday, 13 February 2015
While the Berlin Philharmonic's progress through London with Simon Rattle has grabbed the column inches away from the rest of the capital's classical music offerings this week, a delightful mostly Ravel programme from the Philharmonia should not be... Read more... |
Colli, BBCSO, Oramo, Barbican HallSaturday, 17 January 2015
Was 1911 the best ever year for music? Works premiered or composed then include Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, Stravinsky’s Petrushka, Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde and the Tenth Symphony he’d completed in outline by the time of his death that May,... Read more... |
Scriabin Anniversary Recital, Ohlsson, Wigmore HallWednesday, 07 January 2015
Of Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin, who died 100 years ago aged 43, it was said at one time (by Rimsky-Korsakov) that he was “warped, a poser and opinionated”, at another (by Boris Pasternak) that he could seem “as tranquil and lucent as God resting... Read more... |
Best of 2014: Classical ConcertsTuesday, 30 December 2014
Offshoots of the Venezuelan El Sistema’s worldwide dissemination as well as other youth and music projects continued to bloom and grow in 2014. The morning after what was the orchestral concert of the year for many who caught it, Alexandra Coghlan (... Read more... |
Ohlsson, BBCSO, Oramo, BarbicanSaturday, 13 December 2014
How disorienting it is to find century-old works in the concert repertoire of which you can still say “I’ve never heard anything like it”. That must have been the reaction of most audience members last night to Tuscan-German composer Ferruccio... Read more... |
Stefanovich, Currie, Queen Elizabeth HallMonday, 08 December 2014
Tamara Stefanovich and Colin Currie – a dream team for Birtwistle’s The Axe Manual. Both are new music specialists with a gift for grace and dexterity, even in the most complex works. The score sets up a range of sophisticated relationships between... Read more... |
Levit, LPO, Jurowski, Royal Festival HallThursday, 04 December 2014
If Brahms’s First Symphony has long been dubbed “Beethoven’s Tenth”, then the 23-year-old Rachmaninov’s First merits the label of “Tchaikovsky’s Seventh” (a genuine candidate for that title, incidentally, turns out to be a poor reconstruction from... Read more... |
Tsujii, RLPO, Petrenko, Philharmonic Hall, LiverpoolFriday, 21 November 2014
The knots on the purse-strings have certainly been untied at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and it was good to hear another world première in less than a week. This time it was the turn of Michael Torke, the composer of Ecstatic Orange and Yellow... Read more... |
Leonskaja, SCO, Kamu, Usher Hall, EdinburghFriday, 14 November 2014
Most pianists never truly master one of Brahms’s two piano concertos, those colossal symphonies for soloist and orchestra, let alone both. To present the two in one concert, then, seems foolhardy – and apparently was when András Schiff went for the... Read more... |
Uchida, LSO, Haitink, Barbican HallFriday, 31 October 2014
You know what to expect from a standard programme of masterpieces like this, led by two great performers in careful control of their repertoire, and those expectations are never going to be disappointed. You’re not going to hear the kind of new-... Read more... |
