Concert Reviews

Philharmonia Orchestra/Lazarev Nikolai Lugansky – Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov & Shostakovich
Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings is one of his most beguiling works, and when given, as here, with a full string body the sound is sumptuous and very warming. Alexander Lazarev...
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After Life [Michel van der Aa]
The Dutch composer/polymath Michel van der Aa (born 1970) based his opera “After Life” on the film of the same name by the Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda, which has become...
Lee Lessack at Pizza on the Park – Chanteur
What is the difference between the Great American Songbook and the Great French Songbook? The answer is probably the difference between the singer and the chanteur. French chanteurs are not...
Gerald Finley & Julius Drake at Wigmore Hall
Wigmore Hall has been experimenting with various strategic approaches to the problem of how to position Schubert’s six powerful Heine settings, published after his death as part of “Schwanengesang”, in...
New York Philharmonic/Masur – Beethoven & Bruckner
The New York Philharmonic’s Music Director Emeritus, Kurt Masur, who served as its Music Director from 1991 to 2002, returned to lead the orchestra in symphonies by Beethoven and Bruckner....
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Philharmonia Orchestra/Wolff Gil Shaham – Walton & Holst [Portsmouth Point … The Planets]
Concerts devoted to British music are not that common, so although The Planets is a staple, William Walton’s music has perhaps fallen from a view a little – wholly unjustifiably...
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LSO/Gergiev – Lutosławski & Messiaen
This was the first of two performances of Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphony (the second is on 20 May) to be performed by Valery Gergiev and the LSO in the Barbican Hall....
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The Metropolitan Opera – Lulu
The very first time I went to the Met, it was for Berg’s “Lulu”. That was in 1988. Catherine Malfitano sang the title role, with James Levine conducting. I was...
LSO/Gergiev Vadim Repin – MacMillan Violin Concerto
This typically ambitious programme from Valery Gergiev had, as centrepiece, a new Violin Concerto by James MacMillan. This LSO season has offered no mean conspectus over his output, and this...
Takács Quartet – Beethoven
Years ago there was a loopy old hippy called Roop who haunted the South Bank and would regale anyone unlucky enough to stray too close with his insights into music....
Sweet Charity
The basis of “Sweet Charity”, which opened on Broadway in 1966, lies in a 1957 Federico Fellini film, “Le Notte di Cabiria” (The Nights of Cabiria), a comic drama about...
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The Royal Opera – La traviata
This, the first night of the twelfth revival (a run of five performances) of Sir Richard Eyre’s 1994 “La traviata” felt tired. When new, Angela Gheorghiu was made a star,...
Ensemble ACJW/John Adams
Take twenty of the world's finest young classical musicians. Bring them together as a virtuoso chamber ensemble led by world-class talent. Give them access to superb teachers, coaches, and mentors....
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Christian Poltéra & Shai Wosner at Wigmore Hall
For this BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert, Christian Poltéra and Shai Wosner chose two sonatas placing cello and piano on an equal footing.Their Beethoven was robust, particularly in the faster...
Kensington Symphony Orchestra – Schubert & Bruckner
The penultimate concert of the Kensington Symphony Orchestra’s current season looked, when compared to the rest of the 2009-10 fare, to be a rather safe affair, but it proved to...
American Symphony Orchestra/Leon Botstein – Bliss, Dallapiccola, Henze, Bantock, Roussel
For its final concert of the season, the American Symphony Orchestra and Leon Botstein searched through rarely-heard repertoire to come up with five works that relate to Apollo and Dionysus....
LSO/Colin Davis Mitsuko Uchida – Haydn, Mozart and Nielsen [The Inextinguishable]
It would be surprising were this concert not to go down as one of the best from the current London season. Certainly it made real sense as a balanced and...
Mahler and the Bernstein Project [Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony/Marin Alsop]
People still speak in reverential terms of Marin Alsop’s revelatory Mahler 2 at the Lighthouse in Poole during her much-praised tenure of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. She, the symphony and...
BBC Symphony Orchestra – Jiří Bělohlávek, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Martinů Symphony Cycle
Perhaps a peculiar programme on first consideration, but one that had been very carefully thought out, the term 'Fantasia' connecting works by three composers who may seem light-years away from...
Philharmonia Orchestra/Ashkenazy Sunwook Kim – Beethoven & Schumann
Sunwook Kim won the Leeds International Pianoforte Competition in 2006, the youngest winner (aged 18) in 40 years. Schumann’s Piano Concerto (also being performed on this night by the BBC...