| Date and venue | Title |
|---|---|
| 5-Apr-2013 Carnegie Hall: Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage | Waves of Wagner: Gatti and DeYoung with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall |
 The Wagner bicentennial marches on, bringing grand sounds from practically every corner of the musical earth. What appear most frequently on concert programs are various extracts from the operas, such as the collection of preludes, overture, and vocal and orchestral excerpts offered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Daniele Gatti at Carnegie Hall. This kind of programming runs the risk of coming across as a tasty but haphazard smorgasbord; composer and musicologist Sir Donald Francis Tovey denounced these “bleeding chunks of butcher’s meat chopped from Wagner’s operas”.Read full review... | |
| 15-Nov-2012 Oslo Opera House, Main Stage | A celebration of sound: The Berlin Philharmonic in the Oslo Opera House |
 How very fitting that the Berlin Philharmonic, an orchestra that claims to be made up of 128 soloists, should start Thursday’s concert and their European tour with perhaps one of the most soloistic orchestral pieces ever written: Ligeti’s Atmosphères.
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| 30-Aug-2012 Royal Albert Hall | Prom 63: Texture and atmosphere is all from the Berliner Philharmoniker |
 It was, truly, music from another world. Opening the concert with György Ligeti's 1961 Atmosphères, the Berliner Philharmoniker started with the gentlest of wafting string tones with clustered woodwind sounding almost organ-like, whereupon layer after layer piled in, an infinite variety of orchestral textures shifting and swirling. Mid way through this eight-minute piece, we jump from an ear-splitting, scary motif on the highest notes of a piccolo down to a thunderous passage on double basses, followed by the gentle swelling of strings, which morphs into a buzzing swarm.Read full review... | |
| 3-May-2012 Walt Disney Concert Hall | Welcome back, Sir Simon: Rattle leads LAPO in their first concert together in twelve years |
| Returning after an absence of twelve years, Sir Simon Rattle—in his apprentice years back in the 1980s the orchestra’s principal guest conductor, now arguably the most well known and respected conductor of our day—led the Los Angeles Philharmonic on Thursday night after an absence of twelve years. It was his first appearance with the orchestra at Disney Hall, his last directing a program of Ravel and Mahler during the orchestra’s final years at the old Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.
Read full review... | |
