GRAMOPHONE Review: Natalie Dessay – Pictures of America Paris Mozart Orchestra/Gibault
Anyone who has ever seen Natalie Dessay on the stage will know what an accomplished actress she is. It is that which has put flesh on her singing and enriched her operatic career. And now a new…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Tchaikovsky Symphonies 4, 5 & 6 – Arctic Philharmonic/Lindberg
In a forward to the liner notes for this new BIS release superstar trombonist and composer turned conductor Christian Lindberg writes of his childhood obsession with the Tchaikovsky symphonies and in particular his fascination with the disparity…
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Chailly, Barbican
There’s an old conductor’s adage which suggests that the only way safe to start Strauss’ Don Juan is to start before the applause has died – that way no one hears any imperfections in the upward rush…
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Jurowski, Royal Festival Hall
Mahler’s supersonic Seventh – a grand experiment in sensory colouration if ever there was one – needs no special pleading: it is what it is, a one-off, an oddity, a new departure of no fixed destination. But…
Philadelphia Orchestra, Nézet-Séguin, Royal Festival Hall
The venerable and venerated Philadelphia Orchestra swept into London bearing gifts and mixed messages from Nico Muhly. Actually that was the title of his crowd-pleasing opener for the orchestra – Mixed Messages (UK Premiere) – and for…
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Simon Rattle, Barbican
Simon Rattle’s Sibelian journey has been long and fruitful and has taken him all the way from Birmingham to Berlin and more particularly the revered Philharmonic where the spaces between the notes now resonate in extraordinary ways…
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Nézet-Séguin, Royal Festival Hall
Music lovers invariably divide into two faction over the Brahms piano concertos: those who thrill to the elemental D minor and those who prefer to bask in the more reflective charms of the sumptuous B-flat Second Concerto.…
BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Singers, Litton, Barbican Hall
The problem with programming Charles Ives’ Fourth Symphony – and only the very bold and resourceful and/or the BBC are ever likely to do so – is that it eclipses everything, and I mean everything, in its…
Prom 64, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Rattle, Royal Albert Hall
They were, of course, applauded on to the platform – all of them – and when at the close Simon Rattle turned to us and said “I think you know this already but there is no audience…
Prom 59, “Elektra”, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Bychkov, Royal Albert Hall
How much familial dysfunction and lust – whether for sexual gratification or revenge – can one take in a single weekend? Salome and Elektra back-to back may on paper seem like a feast of divine decadence but…