Like the city itself, this Marseille Requiem reveled in expansive personality. It was a performance that can only be described as exuberant. Taking over from the aged Lawrence Foster as…
Category: Recitals/Concerts
A memorable Mahler 3 from The Simón Bolívar and Gustavo Dudamel in London
The Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela has certainly been in the news of late, with pianist Gabriela Montero particularly vocal in the wake of the recent election. But they…
The Nash Ensemble celebrate 60 years in and with style
There are few composers with an innate ability to write so captivatingly for the human voice as Richard Strauss. Towards the very end of his career, in 1947, he offered…
A rare outing for Francesco Scarlatti’s Il Daniele nel lago de’ Leon at Wigmore Hall
The rarest of the rare, perhaps, here: an oratorio by Francesco Scarlatti. And you thought Alessandro’s output was elusive. Francesco Scarlatti (1656-1721) was Alessandro’s brother (and uncle, therefore, of Domenico). …
Boulez at 100 and a George Benjamin premiere: Rattle and the LSO in London
Boulez 100, Rattle 70: both nice and buzzy, both true for this season. The two collided in this concert, and how: Boulez’s Éclat (note, not Éclat-Multiples), with Sir Simon at…
Gesualdo Six captivate a full house at St. Cross, Winchester
You can count on the fingers of one hand those a cappella vocal groups within the UK that come close to the finesse of The Gesualdo Six. In terms of…
Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius in memory of Andrew Davis
This was to have been something entirely different: Berlioz’s L’Enfance du Christ, conducted by Andrew Davis. The death of the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s former chief conductor led not only to…
Antonio Pappano reveals Puccini’s La rondine in all its sunlit splendour
“A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.” This opening line from chapter three of Charles…
The BBCSO explore the relationship with God and Man in works by Haydn, Moussa and Strauss
On the face of it music criticism has often seemed to me a very unimaginative profession. Take this BBCSO concert, for example, the programming of which has largely appeared to…
Of human suffering: the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s powerful Shostakovich Babi Yar
You’d have to be a strange kind of human being not to smell death in Shostakovich’s Thirteenth Symphony. Icy, spooky and deeply unsettling orchestral sounds at the outset give way…