Shostakovich
Classical CDs Weekly: Handel, Russians, Labèques, SackbutsFriday, 08 April 2011
There is a change to our coverage of classical CD releases. Since theartsdesk began in September 2009, we have been reviewing on a monthly basis. As of today we're switching to weekly and our round-up of the new classical albums will now appear... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, SackbutsSaturday, 02 April 2011This week, we’ve a Russian flavour – historic, idiomatic performances of Tchaikovsky symphonies, and exciting readings of Shostakovich piano concertos. And there’s a sackbut recital…Shostakovich, Piano Concertos, Piano Quintet, Martin Helmchen (... Read more... |
Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Neeme Järvi, Usher Hall, EdinburghSaturday, 26 March 2011
White-knuckle crescendos loom large in that greater-than-ever conductor Neeme Järvi's spruce Indian summer. Short-term bursts were the chief payoff in tackling Dvořák's deceptively simple-seeming Serenade for Strings with a huge department on all... Read more... |
Kavakos, London Symphony Orchestra, Gergiev, Barbican HallWednesday, 23 March 2011
Heavy-goods vehicles stacked with lamentations have been thundering through the Barbican Hall. Saturday's lugubrious Rachmaninov found a mid-20th-century counterpart last night in the tough elegies of Shostakovich's First Violin Concerto - apt for a... Read more... |
Ax, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Jurowski, Royal Festival HallSaturday, 19 March 2011
Send in the clowns. Or at least that was Vladimir Jurowski’s musical thinking in bringing together the mighty foursome of Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Haydn and Shostakovich and seeing just how far their capricious natures might take us. The allusions and... Read more... |
Zehetmair Quartet, Wigmore HallMonday, 14 February 2011
This is the second Sunday in a month that I've sat in the Wigmore Hall and been plunged into an evening of ferocious concentration from the very first bars. Mid-January saw violinist Leonidas Kavakos and his phenomenal pianist Enrico Pace carving... Read more... |
Khachatryan, London Symphony Orchestra, Gergiev, Barbican HallTuesday, 18 January 2011
Valery Gergiev’s survey of the Tchaikovsky symphonies began here on a chilly January night with youthfully idealistic Winter Daydreams thrown into the sharpest relief against a disillusioned and angry Shostakovich whose own journey into the bleak... Read more... |
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Vasily Petrenko, Royal Festival HallThursday, 25 November 2010
That in itself was enough to tell us that Petrenko isn’t just a supremely elegant conductor, an easy stylist able to make Stravinsky’s fiddly early Scherzo fantastique sound natural and to paper over the cracks of a tottering soloist, Oleg Marshev,... Read more... |
Farewell, Rudolf Barshai (1924-2010)Saturday, 06 November 2010
"Who?" many readers may be asking. You'll have to take it on trust - and a handful of outstanding recordings - that the Russian conductor, viola player and arranger, who died on 2 November aged 86, really was up there among the musical greats of his... Read more... |
Classical CDs Round-Up 13Saturday, 23 October 2010
This month’s releases include two contrasted crossover discs, one in tribute to Armenian Orthodox church music, the other by, er, Phil Collins-era Genesis. There’s an Elgar oratorio, and a disc of choral music inspired by the untimely death of a... Read more... |
Nicholas Daniel, Britten Sinfonia, MacMillan, Queen Elizabeth HallTuesday, 19 October 2010
If you were one of the world's top soloists but with a limited concerto stock - as woodwind players' tend to be - wouldn't you find it more rewarding to work as a principal in the orchestral ranks? That's the ideal, surely, but few carry it out in... Read more... |
Mullova, London Symphony Orchestra, Nelsons, Barbican HallFriday, 01 October 2010
This season's LSO artist-in-focus, violinist Viktoria Mullova, is an incorrigible off-roader. The rougher the terrain the better. Early, modern, rock, folk: she'll absorb their shocks, vault their bumps, relish their pitfalls and come out without so... Read more... |
