City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra/Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla
3 February 2020
Unsuk Chin’s Spira is subtitled Concerto for Orchestra, and this teeming 25-minute soundscape certainly put the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra through its virtuosic paces. What the title fails to point out is that this is an Olympic-level workout for the listener too. It was just as well that Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla began by summoning our concentration. Raising her arms as if to start conducting, she then paused until the audience’s momentary silence transformed into an expectant stillness.
Full review: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/city-of-birmingham-symphony-orchestra-mirga-grazinyte-tyla-review-the-more-closely-you-listened-the-more-there-was-to-discover-lvqqtb7xx
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment/Iván Fischer
10 February 2020
What if Mozart’s three final symphonies were not individual pieces but one huge extended work? That was the “firm belief” of the late Nikolaus Harnoncourt, explained the evening’s conductor, Ivan Fischer. The evidence: all three were written in one creative burst in 1788, and, unusually, were without commission. So how about listening to them, Fischer suggested, as 12 individual movements.
Full review: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/orchestra-of-the-age-of-enlightenment-fischer-review-a-disjointed-take-on-mozart-kdh07g5bc
Saturday 15 February 2020
January 2020 reviews for The Times
National Youth Orchestra/Jaime Martin
7 January 2020
This was a concert of powerful voices. Quite literally, to start with. Before the 164 instrumentalists of the National Youth Orchestra (NYO) played a note, they stood and sang a workers’ protest, Auf den Strassen zu Singen, by Hanns Eisler. An unexpected opening, but, sung in English, its message of truth and justice rang out.
Full Review: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/national-youth-orchestra-jaime-martin-review-few-performances-of-shostakovich-will-top-this-tctq30rpk
London Symphony Orchestra/Simon Rattle
20 January 2020
We’re going to be hearing a lot of Beethoven this year, that’s for sure. As orchestras embark on extensive celebrations for his 250th anniversary, there are bound to be the naysayers who moan that his music has enough airtime already, thank you very much. The London Symphony Orchestra’s opening Beethoven 250 programme was a reminder, however, of what it means to look afresh at music we think we know, and the power of truly paying attention.
Full Review: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lso-rattle-review-energetic-beethoven-but-berg-was-revelatory-s2rqh6g6m
Andreas Scholl, Tamar Halperin
27 January 2020
Ancient melody, distant song and soft laments. Lullabies, soliloquies and farewells. Skilfully constructed and exquisitely performed, this “Twilight People” recital charted ambiguous moods, half-states of remembrance and forgetting, places of neither here nor there. The mesmerising beauty of Andreas Scholl’s voice sounded as if from some other world; the pianist Tamar Halperin’s contemplative approach paved the way to it
Full Review: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/andreas-scholl-review-languid-tempos-allowed-us-to-luxuriate-in-the-sound-h5xqxkptq
7 January 2020
This was a concert of powerful voices. Quite literally, to start with. Before the 164 instrumentalists of the National Youth Orchestra (NYO) played a note, they stood and sang a workers’ protest, Auf den Strassen zu Singen, by Hanns Eisler. An unexpected opening, but, sung in English, its message of truth and justice rang out.
Full Review: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/national-youth-orchestra-jaime-martin-review-few-performances-of-shostakovich-will-top-this-tctq30rpk
London Symphony Orchestra/Simon Rattle
20 January 2020
We’re going to be hearing a lot of Beethoven this year, that’s for sure. As orchestras embark on extensive celebrations for his 250th anniversary, there are bound to be the naysayers who moan that his music has enough airtime already, thank you very much. The London Symphony Orchestra’s opening Beethoven 250 programme was a reminder, however, of what it means to look afresh at music we think we know, and the power of truly paying attention.
Full Review: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lso-rattle-review-energetic-beethoven-but-berg-was-revelatory-s2rqh6g6m
Andreas Scholl, Tamar Halperin
27 January 2020
Ancient melody, distant song and soft laments. Lullabies, soliloquies and farewells. Skilfully constructed and exquisitely performed, this “Twilight People” recital charted ambiguous moods, half-states of remembrance and forgetting, places of neither here nor there. The mesmerising beauty of Andreas Scholl’s voice sounded as if from some other world; the pianist Tamar Halperin’s contemplative approach paved the way to it
Full Review: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/andreas-scholl-review-languid-tempos-allowed-us-to-luxuriate-in-the-sound-h5xqxkptq
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