Concert Reviews

BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime Concerts – Beethoven Piano Sonatas – 11: Elisabeth Leonskaja [Opp.49/2, 109 & 111]
It is rather amazing to think that the second Opus 49 Piano Sonata almost didn’t make it into the canon of 32, thus denying many a beginner pianist one of...
Brunetti & Haydn [Beethoven Chamber Orchestra]
We have a penchant for rediscovering composers who have often languished in well-deserved obscurity. However just occasionally one will be unearthed who deserves such attention. Enter Italian composer Gaetano Brunetti...
London Jazz Festival – Richard Galliano, John Surman & Dave Douglas: A Tribute to Nino Rota
Film scores played on accordion? That’s what we got for the entire first set of this tribute to Nino Rota, the Italian composer best known for his iconic scores for...
New York Philharmonic/Haitink – Haydn 96 & Bruckner 7
There were a couple of moments of less-than-pristine string ensemble in the opening movement of the Haydn's, but otherwise Bernard Haitink and the New York Philharmonic gave a lively though...
Paul Lewis plays Schubert at Wigmore Hall
For the second time of asking this week, Paul Lewis graced Wigmore Hall with this Schubert programme of pieces that are ostensibly on a smaller-scale than the movements that occupy...
John Eliot Gardiner & Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique at Carnegie Hall – Two Beethoven Concerts
I arrived at Carnegie Hall for the first of two Beethoven evenings by Sir John Eliot Gardiner and his Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique thinking I knew pretty much what to...
Britten Sinfonia at Lunch at Wigmore Hall – Max Bruch, Richard Strauss & Charlie Piper
This attractive Britten Sinfonia recital had surprises around each corner. Here the inspiration behind the instrumentation of Charlie Piper’s work was Beethoven’s Septet, and there was also a posthumous publication...
C’mon and Hear: Steve Ross Plays and Sings Irving Berlin at The Pheasantry
It is always good to welcome Steve Ross back to London. His brand of sophisticated singing and playing of great songs is too rare a commodity. His current show, devoted...
London Philharmonic/Vänskä – Bruckner’s Romantic Symphony 1888 – Janine Jansen plays Tchaikovsky
A déjà-vu programme – already been there at the Proms – for it was only on 8 September that Janine Jansen last played Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in London, and just...
Emerson String Quartet at Wigmore Hall – Bach, Mozart & Beethoven
An intriguing examination of the ‘art of fugue’ was at the core of this BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert from the Emerson String Quartet, now in its 35th-season with personnel...
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Joshua Bell & Sam Haywood at Carnegie Hall
Mendelssohn composed his F major Violin Sonata in 1838, the year he conceived the evergreen E minor Violin Concerto. Although he was unhappy with the Sonata, leading him to abandon...
Vienna Symphony Orchestra/Luisi in New York II – Brahms 2 – Eroica Trio plays Beethoven
Concerned with image as much as artistry, the Eroica Trio's biography extolled the group’s "technical virtuosity, irresistible enthusiasm, and sensual elegance". Regarding the latter, the glittery, clingy gowns missed on...
London Jazz Festival – Andrew McCormack & Jason Yarde / Michel Portal
The rarity of saxophone and piano jazz duos is a mystery, considering the possibilities they offer for empathetic dialogue. Some of the finest (Art Pepper and George Gables, and Stan...
Emerson String Quartet at Wigmore Hall – Mozart’s Prussian Quartets
The three string quartets that Mozart composed in 1789 – his last such music – were commissioned by the King of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm II, an enthusiastic cellist. These ‘Prussian’...
Vienna Symphony Orchestra/Luisi in New York I – Beethoven 7 – Lise de la Salle plays Rachmaninov
The venerable Vienna Philharmonic has some serious hometown competition: world-class serious. Fabio Luisi is no stranger to New York thanks to his appointment as Principal Conductor of the Metropolitan Opera....
London Jazz Festival – Blues and the Abstract Truth Revisited / McCoy Tyner, José James & Chris Potter
To celebrate fifty years of Impulse! Records, James Pearson (house pianist at Ronnie Scott’s) assembled a septet to play Oliver Nelson’s Blues and the Abstract Truth in its entirety. Quite...
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English National Opera – Eugene Onegin [Audun Iversen, Toby Spence, Amanda Echalaz; directed by Deborah Warner, conducted by Edward Gardner]
Deborah Warner’s new production (with Metropolitan Opera, New York) for English National Opera of Eugene Onegin is every bit as traditional and faithful to its early-nineteenth-century period as the one...
London Jazz Festival – Zakir Hussain: Masters of Percussion
The opening night of a jazz festival and the performance in the biggest venue is … Indian classical music? Cheeky programming, perhaps, even considering Zakir Hussain’s past collaborations with jazz...
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RSNO/Hanus at Usher Hall – The Hebrides & Dvořák 6 – Vadim Gluzman plays Mendelssohn
How wonderful once more to see a packed Usher Hall. Whether it was the combination of two of Mendelssohn’s most-popular works with one of Dvořák’s finest if less frequently played...
Classical Opera Company at Kings Place – Mozart’s Il rè pastore
In March 1775 the nineteen-year-old Mozart was commissioned to write a celebratory work to mark the passage of Archduke Maximilian through Salzburg, and to do so in short order. Within...