OAE, Podger, Queen Elizabeth Hall
The OAE billed this one 1700s London & the Fab Four which I guess left it to us, the audience, to decide who might be the Lennon and McCartney of the evening. JC Bach and Carl Friedrich…
I, Culture Orchestra, Kotla, Marriner, Royal Festival Hall
Sounding for all the world like the latest App for a certain smartphone, the I, Culture Orchestra is the youngest orchestra on the planet – just seven concerts old. In essence it’s the official orchestra of the…
Philharmonia Orchestra, Salonen, Royal Festival Hall
Sometimes the most disturbing images exist only in our imaginations – and so the questions posed in the preface to Bartok’s operatic masterpiece Duke Bluebeard’s Castle become especially pertinent: “Where did this happen – outside or within?…
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Chailly, Barbican Hall
The venerable and venerated Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra gave the first ever complete cycle of Beethoven symphonies and Riccardo Chailly, their 19th Kapellmeister, was impatient to renew that sense of revelation and surprise in an age when each…
Jonas Kaufmann, Royal Festival Hall
Jonas Kaufmann has re-written the Rule Book on tenors. A lyric voice that darkens to embrace the heroic repertoire, an occasional heldentenor who can also sing Lehár with supreme elegance, a German who is utterly, completely, and…
Wagner “Die Fliegender Holländer”, Royal Opera House
We actually don’t need the billowing front cloth, the torrential rain, or strafing searchlights – from the moment Wagner lays bare those sizzling open fifths in the strings he does the tempest-tossed thing for us. Indeed that…
Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Abbado, Royal Festival Hall
Precious few conductors bring an aura of their own into the concert hall, still fewer change our perceptions of music and the way we listen to it. Claudio Abbado is one. And the orchestra he hand-picked back…
Mozart “The Marriage of Figaro”, English National Opera
As the orchestra belatedly tunes up, a blind Don Basilio taps his way to the harpsichord at the side of the stage. His clothes are recognisably 18th century, as is his instrument. But the labyrinthine set beyond…
Philharmonia Orchestra, Maazel, Royal Festival Hall
Lorin Maazel may well have set some kind of record here for two of the most protracted and incoherent performances in Mahler history. Even before solo violas had finished tracing out the searching opening line of the…
Weinberg “The Passenger”, English National Opera
The railway tracks to Auschwitz hit the buffers just above the orchestra pit – the fount of so much heavenly music. Now there’s an irony. There’s a front cloth suggesting Auschwitz sacking and once that has risen,…