Concert Reviews

Rhythm Attack
Percussion ensembles seem to rely more upon entertaining showmanship and stage presence than do other musicians, making up in vitality and enthusiasm what their instruments lack in harmony and melodic...
Eric Cutler & Bradley Moore
In a change from the so often heard German Lieder at Wigmore Hall, the young American tenor Eric Cutler and the pianist Bradley Moore presented French and Italian songs in...
BBCSO/Eötvös Hilary Hahn
Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Symphony for three seasons eighteen years ago, Peter Eötvös has made regular and welcome appearances with the orchestra ever since. Even before his activity...
RPO/Michalakis Eva Johansson
This splendid concert was a humbling reminder in our spin-obsessed age that celebrity is not everything. Although he has previously worked with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Nicholas Michalakis is hardly a...
The Sixteen – Tomás Luis de Victoria
The music of Tomás Luis de Victoria (c.1548-1611) stands at the high-water mark of religious art inspired by the rulings of the Council of Trent. Following an illustrious period in...
The Sound Source: A Harpsichord in a Club
The harpsichord has a tendency to be perceived as a dainty, jangly instrument of limited dynamic range, restricted to baroque repertoire and made obsolete by the piano – hence the...
Richard Rodney Bennett Song and Jazz
If you’re reading this on March 29, raise a glass to Sir Richard Rodney Bennett: he turns 70 on this day. Say “cheers” anyway to this most versatile of composers...
Album Leaves: Robert and Clara Schumann
The use of a narrator who speaks between every piece is potentially irritating and there will always be the danger that the music will be spuriously chosen to mirror the...
Freddy Kempf – Hammerklavier
Freddy Kempf’s (lunchtime) ‘Hammerklavier’ leapt out of the piano with an unremitting volume and a violent streak – here was an interpretation that seized you by the scruff of the...
Ordet – A New Passion
Finding myself in Stockholm and always up to the challenge of hearing a new work by an unfamiliar composer led me to this world premiere performance at the Berwald Hall...
Quatuor Mosaïques
Quatuor Mosaïques has forged something of a reputation in the field of period performance, and certainly on CD its complete Haydn quartets have, along with the Lindsays, become definitive. The...
Philharmonia/Philippe Jordan Viktoria Mullova
Currently conducting “Eugene Onegin” for Royal Opera, Philippe Jordan brought high-octane energy to this concert, a matinee that attracted a gratifyingly large number of children. Like Karajan, Jordan's career started...
The Players
This was the final concert in a national tour that saw the Australian Chamber Orchestra highlighting the soloistic talents of its members – hence “The Players”. Featuring a melange of...
Margaret Phillips – Bach’s Leipzig Organ Chorales
What might have appeared to have been a rather arid exercise in theory proved to be a very satisfying experience in actuality, forming a lunchtime recital of about an hour's...
Alice Coote & Julius Drake
"A gloomy programme" was how two people independently described Alice Coote’s recital. They were referring not to the singing and playing but to the content, for we had a dead...
A Night at the Chinese Opera
Judith Weir’s 1987 opera was critically acclaimed when given its premiere at that year’s Cheltenham Festival by Kent Opera. After seeing this splendid new production, it becomes even more difficult...
Sight and Sound at South London Gallery
Situated on the border between Peckham and Camberwell, South London Gallery is steadily emerging as a notable venue for contemporary art exhibitions and live performance. This event consisted of two...
Peter Donohoe
In a welcome return to the International Piano Series, Peter Donohoe tailored his recital to the South Bank Centre’s Shostakovich Focus, bringing together his two piano sonatas as a coda...
New York Philharmonic/Maazel Gabriela Montero
With Lorin Maazel on the podium and Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Montero making her debut appearances with the New York Philharmonic, the orchestra presented a programme that combined two romantic favourites...
Nash Inventions
Having often spread new and recent commissions out across a whole season, the Nash Ensemble here chose to concentrate them into a single concert: thus Nash Inventions, with its sequence...