Wigmore Hall
Borletti-Buitoni Trust 20th Anniversary Weekend, Bold Tendencies, Wigmore Hall review - dazzling past, present and futureTuesday, 13 June 2023Founded two decades ago by Franco Buitoni and his wife Ilaria in league with their good friend Mitsuko Uchida, the Borletti-Buitoni Trust never seems to put a foot wrong in its choices: the present and future are as dazzling as the last 20 years. As... Read more... |
Jerusalem Quartet, Wigmore Hall review - singing to make the heart leapWednesday, 31 May 2023Conversation just before this concert started concerned Verdi’s Il trovatore and the truism that it needs “the four greatest voices in the world”. Whether or not the quartets we heard by Mozart, Prokofiev and Brahms demand the same in string terms,... Read more... |
Paul Lewis, Wigmore Hall review - superlative SchubertMonday, 01 May 2023Paul Lewis secured his reputation as a leading advocate of the Viennese Classical repertoire with two releases of late Schubert sonatas on Harmonia Mundi. That was 20 years ago, but he returned to Schubert in 2022, with a release of earlier sonatas... Read more... |
Castalian String Quartet, Wigmore Hall review - late Britten keeps equally demanding companySaturday, 29 April 2023Rigorous, hauntingly original and unlike each other, Britten’s three numbered quartets could share a programme and still stake equal claims on our attention. That might be tough on the players, but the Castalians haven’t been easy on themselves in... Read more... |
Elsa Dreisig, Jonathan Ware, Wigmore Hall review - a glorious voice unleashedFriday, 21 April 2023French-Danish soprano Elsa Dreisig’s operatic schedule is so busy and so successful, it is perhaps not surprising that she – and Texas-born pianist Jonathan Ware – treat the song recital platform as a place of freedom, where, rather than... Read more... |
Belcea Quartet, Chamayou, Wigmore Hall review - romantic winged beast soars over neobaroque chameleonFriday, 14 April 2023In search of relatively rare fabulous beasts like César Franck’s Piano Quintet – given a fantastical performance last night – you often have to take in the ubiquitous Shostakovich specimen, the modest work of a master using simple means to his own... Read more... |
Messiah, Irish Baroque Orchestra, Whelan, Wigmore Hall review - wonderful, easy, light and dark in perfect poiseTuesday, 04 April 2023This Palm Sunday served up an epiphany. Previous encounters with Handel's Messiah, in whatever version, and whether listening or performing, turned out to have been through a glass darkly. And here we were face to face with undiluted genius, served... Read more... |
Williams, Dunedin Consort, Truscott, Wigmore Hall review - star soprano, total teamworkFriday, 31 March 2023When your special guest is a young soprano with all the world before her, the total artist already, your programme might seem to run itself. Yet the Dunedin Consort’s sequence seen and heard in Glasgow, Edinburgh and (last night) London followed a... Read more... |
Gerstein, Bintner, Waarts, Wigmore Hall review - fascinating connections, uneven musicTuesday, 07 March 2023Stefan Zweig once wrote that the difference between Busoni and every other pianist he had ever heard was the way the influential Tuscan-born Germanophile performer, composer and intellectual would always appear to be listening so intently to his own... Read more... |
Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Wigmore Hall review - virtuoso brilliance and thoughtfulness reveal Haydn's rangeTuesday, 21 February 2023In a recent interview with the New York Times, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet mischievously described interpreting Haydn’s piano sonatas as “putting clothes on a rather naked skeleton… You have this joy of bringing it to life with all the tools you can... Read more... |
Jerusalem Quartet, Leonskaja, Wigmore Hall review - freedom and rigour in perfect balanceFriday, 17 February 2023It’s not often that the most bittersweet moment in a rich concert comes in the encore. Elisabeth Leonskaja had already played the generous extra in question, the Dumka movement of Dvořák’s A major Piano Quintet, with the Staatskapelle Quartet only a... Read more... |
Boris Giltburg, Wigmore Hall review - tonal beauty trumps subjective romanticsWednesday, 15 February 2023What a difference a piano can make. Boris Giltburg, like Angela Hewitt, prefers a very special Fazioli over the Steinways which dominate the concert scene at the Wigmore Hall and elsewhere. While those may yield a greater depth of field, more... Read more... |