Some composers, like Dvořák for instance, seemed at home in whichever genre they chose to write. Mahler, by contrast, though he repeatedly wrote for the human voice, never attempted an…
Category: Recitals/Concerts
A choral and orchestral extravaganza from The Lighthouse, Poole
Hats off to David Hill for overseeing the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra’s last hurrah of the season with three career-defining works that changed the musical landscape in both Britain and the…
Gustavo Dudamel conducts the London Symphony Orchestra in Strauss and Ravel
We often get reminded that a review is just one person’s opinion. In this particular instance, I am going to be shamelessly subjective rather than assume some kind of position…
On a nature trail with Cyrille Dubois and Tristan Raës
Artfully arranged white lilies flanked Wigmore Hall’s stage, but roses were the flower of choice in the perfumed texts of the romances and mélodies performed by Cyrille Dubois and Tristan…
Handel’s Jephtha at the Barbican
Handel’s last oratorio presents, as amongst the composer’s catalogue of undeniable masterpieces, a masterwork of stunning stature. Not a note is misplaced in Jephtha: long though it is (more of…
Multitudes: Mahler – Symphony Nr.8 with the LPO
Any Mahler Eighth Symphony is an occasion. It is an unwieldy, but nevertheless impressive behemoth of a piece. Interestingly enough, my most recent encounter with the symphony was also with…
Dance, then, wherever you may be: Edward Gardner and the LPO sign up to that
Sydney Carter’s Lord of the Dance might well act as the individual watchword for this concert given by the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Edward Gardner which inaugurated a short Southbank…
Bach’s St John Passion with the AAM at the Barbican
How to approach the St John Passion? Certainly, I feel lucky to have experienced two proportions of epic power in recent years: Masaaki Suzuki and the Collegium Musicum Japan in…
Sparkling performances from Hurn Court Opera’s La Cenerentola
Bitter-sweet comedy of manners, happy-ever-after romance, or a serious moral tale, Rossini’s 1817 stage work is open to various interpretative slants, some even sinisterly dark. But, however you pigeon-hole this…
A curious combination of Schnittke, Shostakovich and Brahms: Lisa Batiashvili, Gianadrea Noseda and the LSO
In German there is only one word (Schicksal) to cover the twin ideas of Providence watching over you in pursuit of higher things (destiny) and the workings of malign supernatural…