Concert Reviews

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Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Vasily Petrenko in West Palm Beach – Nielsen’s Helios Overture & Sibelius 2 – Ray Chen plays Tchaikovsky
The concert began with Carl Nielsen’s Helios Overture, named for the charioteer of Greek myth who transports the sun across the sky each day. Nielsen described it as depicting “the sun...
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The New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players – H.M.S. Pinafore
The New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players’ winter ‘mini season’   opened with a thoroughly charming performance of H.M.S. Pinafore, the fourth of the duo’s fourteen collaborations and their first breakthrough hit. This...
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New York Philharmonic – For a screening of Home Alone Constantine Kitsopoulos conducts John Williams’s score
The Philharmonic marked this Yuletide season with a screening of Chris Columbus’s 1990 comedy, Home Alone, accompanied by John Williams’s Oscar-nominated score telling the story of eight-year-old Kevin McCallister, who...
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The Nutcracker
English National Ballet takes up its annual Christmas residency at the London Coliseum with Aaron S. Watkin and Arielle Smith's production of Nutcracker which premiered last year to great acclaim....
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Daniil Trifonov at Carnegie Hall – Taneyev, Prokofiev, Myaskovsky & Robert Schumann
This thoughtfully planned, totally captivating recital opened with a dreamy rendition of the melancholic Taneyev Prelude, Daniil Trifonov then tearing headlong into the fiendish, frenetic Fugue. As he leaned low...
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A century of British music with Sir Antonio Pappano and the London Symphony Orchestra
One of the things Sir Antonio Pappano set out to do when he became Chief Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra was to explore the rich panoply of British music,...
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Handel’s Messiah – The Glyndebourne Chorus & Sinfonia at the Royal Albert Hall
Glyndebourne is no stranger to Handel, nor to the Royal Albert Hall, with the company’s annual visit to the Proms. But this is the first time, I think, that its...
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English National Opera – Handel’s Partenope – Nardus Williams, Hugh Cutting & Katie Bray; directed by Christopher Alden; conducted by William Cole
Although nominally an opera seria like most of Handel’s other London operas of the 1720s and '30s, English National Opera's description of Partenope (1730) as a 'rom com' is closer to the mark. It has...
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Many strings to his bow: The London Philharmonic Orchestra and Edward Gardner showcase Elgar
Remember all those sepia-coloured photographs previous generations had stuffed away at the back of drawers or enclosed in finely-edged silver frames? Listening to much of the music which Elgar wrote...
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Jean-Efflam Bavouzet at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center – Ravel’s Complete Works for Solo Piano
Marking the 150th anniversary of Maurice Ravel’s birth, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet is touring the composer’s piano music. Over the course of three hours with two intermissions this recital was ravishing. Bavouzet has...
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The Royal Ballet ‘Perspectives’
Sandwiched between a delightful revival of Frederick Ashton’s perfectly-conceived La Fille mal gardée and the Christmas sugar rush of The Nutcracker, a bizarrely formed triple bill from The Royal Ballet,...
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Simon Rattle at the Philharmonie de Paris in Schumann and Stravinsky
It’s surely not often we encounter Schumann and Stravinsky in the same concert. Strange bed fellows perhaps, but Sir Simon Rattle clearly believed in the pairing as the composers formed...
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Jakub Hruša at the Royal Festival Hall
It was with Mahler and the Philharmonia that the Royal Opera’s new music director first made a mark with London audiences. His Puccini may or may not be considered wholly...
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Guildhall School of Music & Drama – Opera Double Bill – Smyth’s Der Wald and Respighi’s Lucrezia
Two rare one-Act operas featuring stories of jealous, murderous lust, offer some fascinating juxtapositions – Der Wald (premiered 1902), Ethel Smyth’s second opera, but a late essay in Wagnerian Romanticism if more sensational...
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Glyndebourne Autumn Season 2025 – world premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s The Railway Children – directed by Stephen Langridge; conducted by Tim Anderson
It's been quite a year for Mark-Anthony Turnage, with the widely acclaimed premiere of Festen at the Royal Opera House, and now the premiere of another opera, The Railway Children, his first work...
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Ryan Bancroft debuts with the London Symphony Orchestra in Russian music
Sofia Gubaidulina, Russian-born but resident in Germany for the last decades of her life, died in March of this year, so it is entirely fitting that a good many recent...
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Himari makes her London debut with Kahchun Wong and the London Philharmonic Orchestra
When reviewing a debut concerto appearance by a young shooting-star there is always a complicating factor. These days technical proficiency can almost be taken for granted, given the rigorousness of...
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Vivaldi’s Serenata ‘Mio cor, povero cor’ – Modo Antiquo/Federico Maria Sardelli 
The Serenata by Vivaldi, named from its opening aria ‘Mio cor, povero cor’ for want of any other title on the manuscript, is one of three such works – effectively...
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New York Philharmonic – Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts Stravinsky, Bartók and Boulez
Since 2024, when Jaap van Zweden ended his tenure as music director, the New York Philharmonic has been in a transitional period and will remain so until 2026, when Gustavo...
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Two shades of sombreness – the London Symphony Orchestra – Jansen and Pappano in Britten and Shostakovich
Some works emerge after an explosion of creative intensity in a matter of weeks; others sit and brood for some time before seeing the light of day. In part, Britten’s...