Ravel
Classical CDs Round-Up 17Saturday, 26 March 2011![]() This month, we’ve some virtuoso pianola, Bruckner and Chopin get downsized, and there’s some full-fat Mahler. Rare American orchestral works rub shoulders with Mozart, and a Russian conductor gives his final performance. A British pianist tackles... Read more... |
Steven Isserlis, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Viviane Hagner, Wigmore HallFriday, 12 November 2010![]() First, an admission. I have a blindspot for the chamber work of Fauré, Saint-Saëns and Ravel. I've tried my best, acquainted myself with the most stirring recordings of the finest pieces, got friends to hold my hand. But I've never been able to... Read more... |
La Valse/ Invitus Invitam/ Winter Dreams/ Theme & Variations, Royal BalletFriday, 15 October 2010![]() The ballet world knows uniquely well how to stage gracious gestures to one of its own - dance history is close-knit and last night the Royal Ballet’s first mixed bill of the season turned into a surprising celebration of the Cuban ballerina Alicia... Read more... |
Matsuev, London Symphony Orchestra, Gergiev, Barbican HallSunday, 26 September 2010![]() Shchedrin's best works, in my experience - and his output has been prolific of late - colour and treat the themes of others: chastushki or Russian street songs in the brilliant Naughty Limericks Concerto (to be heard in the second programme of the... Read more... |
Sydney Symphony, Ashkenazy, Grimaud, Royal Albert HallTuesday, 24 August 2010![]() To be interestingly disappointed isn’t bad - it’s being uninterestingly disappointed that is. This was an intriguing Prom with a full house, possibly because of Hélène Grimaud’s presence in the Ravel piano concerto, as well as Vladimir Ashkenazy on... Read more... |
Bavouzet, Philharmonia Orchestra, Salonen, Royal Albert HallSaturday, 21 August 2010![]() From Russian “avant-garde constructivism” to Estonian minimalism via a jazz-inspired French concerto and the defiant originality of Scriabin – last night’s Prom from Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia Orchestra had a lot of ground to cover. I... Read more... |
Aimard, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Nott, Royal Albert HallTuesday, 03 August 2010![]() It was a huge irony that the focus of last night's Proms programme was the musical duet: the concerto, the waltz, the visual-aural duet of a Ravel tone poem. For the one duet that really mattered - the dance of necessity between conductor, Jonathan... Read more... |
Classical Music CDs Round-Up 4Friday, 15 January 2010![]() Heading up this month's classical selection is a 16-CD budget box set of the complete works of Frédéric Chopin, issued to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the consumptive Pole's birth. Plus we review a rare piano concerto by Ralph Vaughan Williams... Read more... |
Gergiev, LSO, BarbicanMonday, 21 September 2009Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s Valery Gergiev shimmying his way through Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe. There he was, London’s loosest-limbed maestro, back on the Barbican podium (just about) with the London Symphony Orchestra, after a summer... Read more... |
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