sun 10/12/2023

Sibelius

Ruisi, Hallé, Elder, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - returning to Ravel’s glories

Continuing the retrospective aspect of his final season as music director of the Hallé, Sir Mark Elder returned last night to Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, the work with which he opened the orchestra’s 2014-15 Manchester series to such memorable effect....

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Douglas, Estonian NSO, Elts, Cadogan Hall review - perfect ebb and flow from conductor and pianist

Until last night, I’d only heard the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra (ERSO at home, “Riiklik” standing for “National”) live in unfamiliar contemporary epics, with Kristiina Poska and Anu Tali respectively conducting Lepo Sumera’s Fourth and...

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Grosvenor, Kanneh-Mason, Park, Hallé, Stasevska, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - the factors that make for a full house

What makes a classical box office draw these days? If there were a simple answer to that question, a lot of concert givers would be laughing all the way to the bank.Is it recognisability – artists whose names are familiar from big-viewing TV events...

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Total Immersion: Sibelius the Storyteller, Barbican review - a feast of sagas and psychic masterpieces

If there’s a dud or a dullard among Sibelius’s 116 official opus numbers, I haven’t heard it. Yet catching even many of the outright masterpieces live in concert isn’t easy; the brevity that can show us a world in under 10 minutes makes some...

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Classical CDs: Dragonflies, harmoniums and folded paper

 Colourise London Choral Sinfonia/Michael Waldron, with Roderick Williams (baritone), Andrew Staples (tenor), Elena Urioste (violin) (Orchid)Colourise, the latest album from by the London Choral Sinfonia, proved revelatory: I came for the...

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Denk, RSNO, Macdonald, Lammermuir Festival review - dark Sibelius and mighty Brahms

Once the shock of Queen Elizabeth’s death has faded, attention will surely turn to the many organisations and institutions of which she was patron. This concert not only marked the Royal Scottish National Orchestra’s debut at the Lammermuir Festival...

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Prom 34, Soltani, BBC Philharmonic, Ollikainen review - journeys into inner worlds

Proper music tells stories just about itself, the stern pedagogues insist; it doesn’t (or anyway shouldn’t) paint descriptive pictures of places and people. Well, maybe not – but it was hard to banish all thoughts of geography, even of biography, at...

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Davidsen, Oslo Philharmonic, Mäkelä, Barbican review - full workout for the nervous system

It could have been the most electrifying week of the musical year. Alas, Heathrow meltdown kept me from two of Klaus Mäkelä’s Sibelius concerts with his Oslo Philharmonic in Hamburg. But there was still what should have been the grand finale, the...

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Bournemouth SO, Karabits, Lighthouse, Poole – let there be light and joy

Returning to his Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra for the first time since the crisis began in his home country, Kirill Karabits’ arrival on stage was greeted by the entire Lighthouse audience rising to their feet with loud applause and cheers of...

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Philippens, BBCSSO, Wigglesworth, Usher Hall, Edinburgh review - peace and triumph side by side

Mark Wigglesworth is a semi-regular guest with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and he’s hugely experienced in the opera world, which might explain why my expectations were so high for his Wagner in this concert. In the event, though, I didn’t...

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Classical CDs: Star sopranos, forest spirits and a Mexican funeral march

  Die stille Stadt: Songs by Alma Mahler, Franz Schreker and Erich Wolfgang Korngold Dorothea Herbert (soprano), Peter Nilsson (piano) (7 Mountain Records)German dramatic soprano Dorothea Herbert will be playing Leonore in a new...

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First Night of the Proms, Hyde, BBCSO, Stasevska review - levitational ecstasies

Did absence from Albert’s colosseum from early September 2019 until now and a roof-raising finale hoodwink many of us into thinking Dalia Stasevska’s interpretation of Sibelius’s Second Symphony among the greats? Having listened to it again on the...

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