| Date and venue | Title |
|---|---|
| 19-Apr-2013 Carnegie Hall: Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage | An unconvincing Bruckner 8 from Christian Thielemann and the Staatskapelle Dresden |
 Christian Thielemann’s repertoire is broader than is often made out, but not that much broader. At its heart are the four composers most associated with late Austro-Germanic Romanticism: Johannes Brahms, Richard Wagner, Richard Strauss, and Anton Bruckner. It’s a satisfying if rather glutinous diet, one steeped in canonical tradition, and one that on any extended basis can nowadays only really work with certain Central European orchestras.
Read full review... | |
| 23-Mar-2013 St Barnabas Church, Ealing | West London Sinfonia's refreshing take on Bruckner 8 |
| Amateur orchestras attract loyal audiences who turn up whatever is on the programme, and this may account for the fact that both Adrian Brown of the Bromley Symphony Orchestra last week, and Philip Hesketh tonight, felt the need to provide an introductory talk. Indeed, the first half of this concert consisted of an extended introduction to Bruckner and his Eighth Symphony. Read full review... | |
| 16-Mar-2013 Langley Park Boys School: Centre for the Performing Arts | Bromley Symphony Orchestra make Bruckner 8 big in Beckenham |
| Conductor Adrian Brown began his introduction telling us of how he’d loved Bruckner since he was a teenager, and then went on to say that Bruckner’s symphonies were like “cathedrals in sound”. I confess to closing my eyes in jaded exasperation. Those of us who are privileged to have attended many performances of Bruckner symphonies, read many a programme note and heard quite a number of introductions, long for an appraisal of the works that might enlighten us without recourse to this overworked cliché. Read full review... | |
| 18-Oct-2012 Southbank Centre: Royal Festival Hall | Helmchen is life-affirming in late Mozart; Dohnányi's Bruckner rather refined |
 Mozart finished the Piano Concerto no. 27 in January 1791, the year he was to die. His music had fallen out of favour in Vienna, he was very short of funds, and he and his wife had been repeatedly unwell over the previous years. These uncomfortable circumstances and his imminent death prompt some performers to see the wistful lyricism, the restraint – there are neither trumpets nor drums – and the tendency to slip into minor keys in the concerto as redolent of personal suffering and a valedictory relationship to the material world.Read full review... | |
