Boyd Tonkin
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Polyphony/OAE, Layton, St John's Smith Square review
Prior to their Messiah, due this evening, Stephen Layton’s choir Polyphony brought a version of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio to the seasonal festival at St John’s Smith Square. You can of course slice and serve Bach’s majestic 1730s combination of musical leftovers (both sacred and secular) and fresh dishes in a variety of ways. But Layton’s choice spun a special mood of its own. → Read More
Christmas Oratorio, Polyphony/OAE, Layton, St John's Smith Square review – truncated triumph
Prior to their Messiah, due this evening, Stephen Layton’s choir Polyphony brought a version of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio to the seasonal festival at St John’s Smith Square. You can of course slice and serve Bach’s majestic 1730s combination of musical leftovers (both sacred and secular) and fresh dishes in a variety of ways. But Layton’s choice spun a special mood of its own. → Read More
London Handel Players, Butterfield, Wigmore Hall review – Bach with bite for Christmas
We think of the Wigmore Hall as a venue for intimate revelations, but in the right hands it can feel like a stadium. Last night’s all-Bach programme of festive music from the London Handel Players managed to embrace both moods. On a bill that began with three Advent or Christmas cantatas and finished with a Magnificat that sounded, well, magnificent, characterful solo parts for singers and… → Read More
London Handel Players, Butterfield, Wigmore Hall review
We think of the Wigmore Hall as a venue for intimate revelations, but in the right hands it can feel like a stadium. Last night’s all-Bach programme of festive music from the London Handel Players managed to embrace both moods. On a bill that began with three Advent or Christmas cantatas and finished with a Magnificat that sounded, well, magnificent, characterful solo parts for singers and… → Read More
Mariam Batsashvili, Wigmore Hall review – spectacular pianism, with a sense of fun
For a small nation, with a population not quite comparable to Scotland’s, Georgia has for long packed a mighty musical punch. Any visitor will know the soul-wrenching power of its choral polyphony, but a post-Soviet generation of classical soloists now walks proudly across the world stage. Pianist Mariam Batsashvili, only just 30, won the Franz Liszt international competition in 2014 and has… → Read More
Mariam Batsashvili, Wigmore Hall review
For a small nation, with a population not quite comparable to Scotland’s, Georgia has for long packed a mighty musical punch. Any visitor will know the soul-wrenching power of its choral polyphony, but a post-Soviet generation of classical soloists now walks proudly across the world stage. Pianist Mariam Batsashvili, only just 30, won the Franz Liszt international competition in 2014 and has… → Read More
I Fagiolini, Hollingworth, St Martin-in-the-Fields review
“Nobody likes a Messiah…”, deadpanned Robert Hollingworth, with the timing of a practised stand-up. After a pause, “…more than I do.” At St Martin-in-the-Fields on Friday evening, however, the seasonal blockbuster did not, just for once, feature on the festive menu. Instead, Hollingworth’s ever-enterprising ensemble I Fagiolini served up a savoury and well-spiced alternative to Handel’s… → Read More
I Fagiolini, Hollingworth, St Martin-in-the-Fields review – it's not the Messiah...
“Nobody likes a Messiah…”, deadpanned Robert Hollingworth, with the timing of a practised stand-up. After a pause, “…more than I do.” At St Martin-in-the-Fields on Friday evening, however, the seasonal blockbuster did not, just for once, feature on the festive menu. Instead, Hollingworth’s ever-enterprising ensemble I Fagiolini served up a savoury and well-spiced alternative to Handel’s… → Read More
Morison, Immler, BBCSO, Bychkov, Barbican review – a Kafka journey and a mighty landmark
The German composer Detlev Glanert, taught by Hans Werner Henze and a past collaborator with Oliver Knussen, received a Proms commission as far back as 1996. He remains, it might be fair to say, a shadowy presence here despite his prominence back home. Yesterday he came to the Barbican to hear Semyon Bychkov and the BBC Symphony Orchestra give the UK premiere of his Prague Symphony, commissioned… → Read More
Morison, Immler, BBCSO, Bychkov, Barbican review
The German composer Detlev Glanert, taught by Hans Werner Henze and a past collaborator with Oliver Knussen, received a Proms commission as far back as 1996. He remains, it might be fair to say, a shadowy presence here despite his prominence back home. Yesterday he came to the Barbican to hear Semyon Bychkov and the BBC Symphony Orchestra give the UK premiere of his Prague Symphony, commissioned… → Read More
West-Eastern Divan Ensemble, Michael Barenboim, QEH review – enchantment and conviviality
What a month, and what a day, for Michael Barenboim to bring the West-Eastern Divan Ensemble to London. Created in 1999 by Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said, the original West-Eastern Divan Orchestra has always impressed because it gathers Israeli, Arab and other regional musicians together not in some soppy, sentimental hope that music will miraculously heal the rifts and wounds of history – but… → Read More
West-Eastern Divan Ensemble, Michael Barenboim, QEH review
What a month, and what a day, for Michael Barenboim to bring the West-Eastern Divan Ensemble to London. Created in 1999 by Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said, the original West-Eastern Divan Orchestra has always impressed because it gathers Israeli, Arab and other regional musicians together not in some soppy, sentimental hope that music will miraculously heal the rifts and wounds of history – but… → Read More
Perfection of a Kind: Britten vs Auden, City of London Sinfonia, QEH review
“Underneath the abject willow/ Lover, sulk no more;/ Act from thought should quickly follow:/ What is thinking for?” In 1936, early in their tempestuous friendship, WH Auden wrote a poem for Benjamin Britten that urged the younger artist to pursue his passions – musical and erotic – and curb his fearful longing for comfort and safety. → Read More
Aimard, Concerto Budapest SO, Keller, Cadogan Hall review
The Zurich International series at Cadogan Hall has turned into a horizon-expanding stage on which to catch those visiting orchestras that don’t always claim top billing in bigger venues. The hall’s welcoming acoustic shows off the sound and style of its guests as the grander barns might never do. → Read More
Prom 65: Bruckner's Eighth, BBCSO, Bychkov review
Bruckner's behemoth has always had its fervent champions – and its muttering sceptics. The 85-odd minutes of his Eighth Symphony, finally performed after major revisions in 1892, build into a titanic testament. Advocates read into it enough apocalyptic doom and gloom to make Wagner sound like Offenbach. → Read More
Prom 49: Schumann, Das Paradies und die Peri, LSO, Rattle review
Have Proms audiences heard it all before? Not by the longest of chalks. Remarkably, last night saw the festival’s first outing for a major work by Robert Schumann. → Read More
Prom 37: Schiff, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Fischer 1 review
“Very traditional, but fun,” ran the verdict of one fellow-traveller as we waited for a bus outside the Royal Albert Hall on Saturday night. No one can gainsay the infectious fun that the Budapest Festival Orchestra bring to every gig. For all its musical accomplishment, Iván Fischer’s all-singing (yes, they did) if not quite all-dancing (yet) outfit never forget that they belong to a, rather… → Read More
Semele, Glyndebourne review
It never rains but it pours – and hails, snows or, above all, thunders. The presiding tone of Semele, in Adele Thomas’s new production for Glyndebourne, matches the current English summer with its grey skies, glowering clouds and stormy outbursts. Jove’s evidently in a rage, despite his rejuvenating lust for the Theban king’s daughter, Semele. He’s not the only one: the first of many… → Read More
Sinfonia of London, Wilson; Kolesnikov/Tsoy; Bozzini Quartet; Phantasm, Aldeburgh Festival review
You don’t expect to visit the Britten-Pears shrine in Suffolk and come back raving about Edward Elgar. Yes, Elgar. On Sunday evening, John Wilson and his Sinfonia of London brought the composer’s Second Symphony to Snape Maltings: that marshland temple to every anti-Elgarian current in post-war British music. → Read More
Turangalîla-Symphonie, LSO, Rattle, Barbican review – a farewell night to remember
Simon Rattle’s farewell season as music director of the London Symphony Orchestra has inscribed a sort of artistic memoir as he moves from one of his beloved blockbusters to another. Last night, he closed his account at the Barbican (though he will regularly return as “Conductor Emeritus”) with Messiaen’s mighty Turangalîla-Symphonie. Under the baton of Sir Charles Groves, it thrilled him as a… → Read More