Concert Reviews

Glyndebourne Festival Opera
Amid the abundance and supreme heroic confidence of Beethoven’s oeuvre, his solitary excursion into opera is isolated and equivocal. Beethoven, prolific and masterly, was not unattracted to the theatre -...
ECO at the Barbican – 17 May
Some of Colin Davis’s earliest successes were with the ECO and Stravinsky; it was encouraging at this concert to find him returning to a composer who he’s not featured too...
New to London II – Concert 16th May
The second of this season’s ’New to London’ concerts featured a disparate triptych of works by composers who, for varying reasons, are not as well enough known here as they...
Academy of St Martin in the Fields Concert – 15th May
Is there a new-model Murray Perahia? A Perahia who, after recovering from a career-threatening injury, plays in a more masculine, muscular way, more openly heroic, but with fewer moments of...
LSO – Kent Nagano Concert – 13 May
Not exactly an apposite pairing, but effective all the same. Mainprizewinner at the 1995 Queen Elizabeth Competition in Brussels, Markus Groh will be a new pianist to many and, on...
BBC Symphony Orchestra Concert – 12th May
Leopold Stokowski only conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra on eight occasions, but someone obviously thought that this was a good enough reason to hang a concert around his name. The...
Queen of Spades – ROH – 12 May 2001
Pushkin’s ironic yet chilling novella, The Queen of Spades, is an exemplar of clarity and conciseness, an almost ideal basis for an opera. Tchaikovsky, having already successfully set scenes from...
Gramophone 25 Concert – 8th May
A programme suggesting buses – those that arrive one after the other. Only a few days before this concert - which celebrated 25 years of Gramophone Awards, the participants all...
Antarctic Symphony Premiere
There was an element of symmetry to this premiere. Almost 25 years ago, Simon Rattle conducted the Philharmonia Orchestra in the first performance of Peter Maxwell Davies’s (First) Symphony, a...
RFH Gala 50 Concert – 3rd May 2001
The Royal Festival Hall itself – opened 3 May 1951 – was the star of the show. Like most parties this celebratory concert was bright and noisy.The Philharmonia Orchestra –...
Elliott Carter: What Next? – 1st May 2001
It was beginning to seem as though the UK premiere of What Next? would take as long to happen as it took Elliott Carter to write it. Devising a suitable...
LPO – Perlman Concert – 28th April 2001
One cannot fail to be moved by Itzhak Perlman’s determination and dignity as he makes his crutch-aided entrance. Much less regard though for audience members not turning off mobile phones...
David Sawer’s From Morning to Midnight – World Premiere
No one could accuse ENO of repetition in its annual commissions. The intense realism of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s The Silver Tassie last year could not be in greater contrast with the...
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Concert – 23rd April 2001
If you’re reading this on or after April 29, Zubin Mehta will have turned 65. No age for a conductor, a pension probably his last concern – his for-life commitment...
Bohemian Spring – 22nd April
This concert closed the LSO’s Bohemian Spring series, one bringing some fine concerts in terms of the quality of the music-making, but one that missed a chance to highlight more...
Philharmonia Concert – 22nd April
Concertos have run unobtrusively through the output of Colin Matthews since the subtle and understated First Cello Concerto of 1984. Practicalities aside, it is surprising that a Horn Concerto should...
LPO Metzmacher Concert – 21st April 2001
The more I hear of Ingo Metzmacher’s work, the more I admire it. He’s not on the podium for self-display; he’s there to focus on the music, to clarify and...
Barbican Great Performers
Founded in 1986 by Claudio Abbado, who remains as music director, the GMJO, despite its Austro-German basis, is "open to all musicians under the age of 26 from every country...
Bohemian Spring Series – 10th April
Despite there being further concerts, this offering from the National Youth Orchestra felt like a natural culmination to the LSO’s Bohemian Spring series, featuring pieces from two related but temperamentally...
Bohemian Spring Series – 8th April
As an adjunct to the LSO’s Bohemian Spring series, this recital by the London Symphony Chorus was a valuable reminder of the wealth and range of Czech choral music. Chronologically...
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