Farewell. This was an essential part of Sir Simon Rattle’s second Prom at the Royal Albert Hall. It was a final farewell to his tenure at the London Symphony Orchestra…
Tag: Sir Simon Rattle
Sir Simon Rattle and the LSO introduce Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri to the Proms
“It’s the great masterpiece you’ve never heard.” So declared Sir Simon Rattle when he introduced Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri to the London Symphony Orchestra in 2015, in a…
A triumphant final concert with the LSO from Simon Rattle at the Barbican
Sir Simon Rattle’s final Barbican concert with the London Symphony Orchestra as their Music Director ended his six-year tenure – perhaps one that was shorter than it might have been…
Katya Kabanova: orchestral drama from the LSO and Sir Simon Rattle
Perhaps the most perfectly proportioned of Janáček’s operas, certainly one of the most emotionally and dramaturgically correct—which, in Janáček’s case, is saying quite something—Katya Kabanova has not wanted for recent…
Sorrow and Serenity from Sir Simon Rattle and the LSO at the Barbican Hall
There seems to be much sorrow in the world at the moment, but little serenity. This concert by the London Symphony Orchestra thus offered a welcome balancing of affekts, the…
Rattle’s Stravinsky Journey with the LSO
Criticism of Simon Rattle as a conductor might be justified in several ways; as a creator and innovator of concert programs, however, such criticism would be very wide of the…
Brilliant Weill from Kožená, Rattle and the LSO at the Barbican
The Seven Deadly Sins is perhaps the most interesting of the collaborations between Kurt Weill and Berthold Brecht. Composed ‘post-rift’ in 1933, this ballet chanté is sophisticated both musically and…
Exile and Isolation: Julian Anderson’s Suite from Exiles, the LSO and Simon Rattle
Often you go to concerts and the programming isn’t especially obvious – why are these works being played besides each other? This is particularly the case with concertos and symphonies.…
Profound questions from Ondřej Adámek and the LSO, at the Barbican
An obvious risk, and frustration, in asking infinitely profound questions is that one knows they cannot be answered. The title of Ondřej Adámek’s orchestral song-cycle, Where Are You?, poses one such…