Concert Reviews

CBSO/Oramo – Julian Anderson Premiere (4 December)
Putting the word ’symphony’ at the head of a composition has not generally been the preferred option among composers in recent decades. And yet, leaving aside the weight of precedent...
LSO/Colin Davis
Almost two concerts. The first juxtaposing the visionary journey of Schubert’s unfinished if strangely complete two-movement symphony with Beethoven’s compact four-movement, rather nostalgic work. Stravinsky’s Firebird, epic in Sir Colin’s...
London Sinfonietta – Theseus Game (2 December)
Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s association with the London Sinfonietta has been a long and fruitful one – beginning with the Varèsian abrasiveness of Verses for Ensembles (1968), almost the Sinfonietta’s first...
LSO/Gardiner – Walton (30 November)
Amongst William Walton’s many gifts was the ability to ’tap in’ to the national conscience and provide stirring – but never condescending – music for great state occasions. The two...
Chelsea Opera Pearl Fishers
When people give their time and talents to bring pleasure to others, one is grateful. Those who join together under the banner of the Chelsea Opera Group have been making...
Carry On Up the Bospherus – Handel’s Xerxes (Barbican Great Performers, 28 November)
Les Arts Florissants’ flourishing relationship with the Barbican Centre (pun completely intended) blossoms further next October with a fully staged opera in the Theatre, Rameau’s Les Paladins, in celebration of...
Xenakis – Composer Portrait (28 November)
After the London Sinfonietta’s recent high-impact Xenakis concert, this wide-ranging programme of less familiar fare was particularly welcome for including works from his years of study in Paris (1949-53), only...
Philharmonia Orchestra, Pletnev and Lazarev (27 November)
During the Sleeping Beauty excerpts, Alexander Lazarev tried to impose himself physically and narcissistically on the performance. He did a workout on the podium, turning himself into a hip-hopping windmill....
AAM @ 30 – 27 November
At the excellent pre-concert talk, "Mendelssohn and Friends", Christopher Hogwood portrayed the music of Mendelssohn and his circle as some kind of last frontier or taboo to be broken, rather...
New York Philharmonic/Robertson – 26 November
Since becoming Music Director of the New York Philharmonic in September 2002, Lorin Maazel has done a good job of getting promising younger conductors onto the orchestra’s roster. Robert Spano,...
Matthew Jones – Viola Recital (25 November)
Matthew Jones, winner of the prize for the most promising British player at this year’s Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition, opened his recital with the Kodaly’s arrangement of Bach’s Chromatic...
ENO’s English Ring – The Twilight of the Gods (Barbican, 25 November)
ENO reaches the culmination of its semi-staged concert presentation of Wagner’s massive four-part music-drama, before commencing a fully staged production, directed by Phyllida Lloyd. The first instalment, The Rhinegold, will...
Philharmonia Orchestra, Pletnev and Lazarev (25 November)
In the third of his four concerts with the Philharmonia Orchestra covering Rachmaninov’s concertos, Mikhail Pletnev alighted on the final, least popular yet arguably the greatest of Rachmaninov’s four, which...
Kiri Te Kanawa – 24 November
Kiri Te Kanawa reaches her 60th birthday next year and no doubt there will be appropriate celebrations, along with CD re-issues, to mark that milestone.On the direct evidence of this...
Il mondo della luna – RAM (21 November)
The resurgence of interest in opera between Monteverdi and Mozart over the last three decades has enabled a much truer perspective on Haydn’s contribution than previously possible. True, his sizeable...
Philharmonia Orchestra – Pletnev & Sokhiev (20 November)
Rachmaninov wrote his Third Piano Concerto for an American tour, practising it on a dummy keyboard while crossing the Atlantic, to get his fingers round the fiendishly difficult solo part....
Musical Futures in Safe Hands – BBCSO/Brabbins (20 November)
In the week that the BBC announced the architects appointed to build the new music studios in West London – due to open in late 2006 or early 2007 and...
Dresden Staatskapelle/Haitink – 20 November
The culture and heritage of the Dresden Staatskapelle was amply demonstrated in this concert – part of a tour that missed out London but included Manchester – in a pairing...
New York Philharmonic/Noseda – 19 November
For his New York Philharmonic debut, conductor Gianandrea Noseda united three 20th-century Russian composers – Stravinsky, Shostakovich and Prokofiev – who struggled with the question: Should Russians should look inward...
Philharmonia Orchestra – Pletnev & Sokhiev (16 November)
For the next month at the Festival Hall, it’s a Rachmaninov piano-fest with the Philharmonia Orchestra. Mikhail Pletnev plays all four concertos – this was the first instalment – and...