wed 02/04/2025

Ravel

Classical CDs Round-Up 17

'Bypassing any tradition-encrusted patina': Sigurd Slåttebrekk has attempted to reproduce Grieg

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...

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Steven Isserlis, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Viviane Hagner, Wigmore Hall

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...

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La Valse/ Invitus Invitam/ Winter Dreams/ Theme & Variations, Royal Ballet

Rojo in 'Theme and Variations': 'The diamond beauty of Balanchine’s ballet language at its most classical'

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...

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Matsuev, London Symphony Orchestra, Gergiev, Barbican Hall

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...

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Sydney Symphony, Ashkenazy, Grimaud, Royal Albert Hall

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...

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Bavouzet, Philharmonia Orchestra, Salonen, Royal Albert Hall

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...

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Aimard, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Nott, Royal Albert Hall

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...

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Classical Music CDs Round-Up 4

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...

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Gergiev, LSO, Barbican

Is 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...

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