| Date and venue | Title |
|---|---|
| 9-May-2013 Bridgewater Hall | The Rite of Spring with the BBC Philharmonic and Juanjo Mena |
 Juanjo Mena concluded his season-long exploration of Stravinsky ballets with a sharp account of the most famous, The Rite of Spring, as part of a programme of unusually grand proportions.
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| 24-Apr-2013 Bridgewater Hall | Budapest Festival Orchestra and Iván Fischer play Beethoven and Brahms in Manchester |
 Iván Fischer conducted the Budapest Festival Orchestra in impassioned performances of Dohnányi, Beethoven and Brahms to an appreciative, if criminally small, audience in Manchester.
More than any other Music Director one could think of, Fischer has a large claim to the BFO being his orchestra. Since founding the orchestra in 1983, he has been its only chief and has guided it to wide acclaim. Many would question the value of orchestra league tables, but it must say something that such a youthful enterprise made its way to ninth in the world in one such table a couple of years ago.
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| 20-Apr-2013 Royal Northern College of Music | Manchester Camerata at the RNCM |
.jpg) Manchester Camerata’s series of Mozart concertos, an ongoing theme in their 40th anniversary season, came to a close with pianist Ferenc Rados joining fellow Hungarian Gábor Takács-Nagy for a superb account of the Piano Concerto no. 15 at the Royal Northern College of Music.
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| 13-Apr-2013 Bridgewater Hall | The Hallé and Sir Mark Elder: Mahler and the Military Symphony |
 At the end of a successful week in which the orchestra’s recording of The Apostles won BBC Music Magazine’s Disc of the Year award, Sir Mark Elder conducted the Hallé in a joyfully youthful account of Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn, followed by graphic Janáček and Hadyn.
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| 28-Mar-2013 Bridgewater Hall | Hunting music in Manchester with the Hallé |
 Sir Mark Elder conducted the Hallé in an unusual programme of music themed around hunting. There were many excellent performances, most memorably in Britten's Our Hunting Fathers, which added substantial depth to the evening.
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| 26-Mar-2013 Birmingham Symphony Hall | An exuberant Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester in Birmingham with Andsnes and Blomstedt |
 Herbert Blomstedt brought the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester to Birmingham for the ninth of their eleven-concert, two-week Easter tour. Their magisterial account of Bruckner’s Romantic Symphony, and a fine performance of Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto by Leif Ove Andsnes, earned them a vociferous reception. A detour to Birmingham between Interlaken and Aix-en-Provence may not seem entirely logical, but the orchestra, made up of European conservatoire students aged 18–26, very visibly enjoyed themselves.Read full review... | |
| 21-Mar-2013 Bridgewater Hall | A 4th and a 104th symphony with the Hallé and Sir Mark Elder |
 Sir Mark Elder conducted the Hallé in fine performances of Haydn’s final symphony, no. 104, and Mahler’s most humble, no. 4.
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| 20-Mar-2013 Birmingham Symphony Hall | Heart-on-sleeve Beethoven from Andris Nelsons and the CBSO |
 Andris Nelsons continued his Beethoven cycle with deeply personal and thrilling accounts of the Sixth and Seventh Symphonies to a sold-out Symphony Hall.
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| 16-Mar-2013 Birmingham Symphony Hall | CBSO and Andris Nelsons: The Flying Dutchman in concert |
 Andris Nelsons followed up his 2012 Tristan und Isolde with a stirring performance of Wagner’s breakthrough work, Der fliegende Holländer, with a fine array of soloists and the CBSO in Birmingham.
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| 15-Feb-2013 Bridgewater Hall | Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert from the BBC Philharmonic |
 Chief conductor Juanjo Mena conducted a programme of energetic Beethoven and Schubert alongside an original reading of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall.
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| 10-Feb-2013 Bridgewater Hall | A glowing Meistersinger in Manchester |
 Few things could unite such a large group of people as the Hallé’s Meistersinger did tonight. Some 515 performers, drawn from three orchestras and five choirs, gathered to present highlights from the first two acts of Wagner’s opera and the third act in full. The whole evening was carried off with great warmth, and the roar that answered the last notes was more suggestive of a football match than an opera.
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| 17-Jan-2013 Bridgewater Hall | The Hallé and André de Ridder: Beethoven, Ligeti and Brahms |
 Having previously been Assistant Conductor at The Hallé, André de Ridder returned to a bitterly cold Manchester to conduct a fascinating programme, culminating a beautifully autumnal account of Brahms’ Symphony no.4.
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| 9-Jan-2013 Birmingham Symphony Hall | CBSO and Andris Nelsons: Beethoven 4 and 5 |
 Andris Nelsons passed the halfway stage of his Birmingham Beethoven cycle with brilliantly muscular accounts of the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies and a glossy performance of the concert aria Ah! Perfido.
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| 13-Dec-2012 Birmingham Symphony Hall | CBSO and Andris Nelsons: Beethoven 3 and Triple Concerto |
 Andris Nelsons marked the second instalment in the Birmingham Beethoven cycle with two works of the earliest years of the 19th century, featuring a solid account of the Eroica and a superb performance of the Triple Concerto.
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| 5-Dec-2012 Philharmonic Hall | Mixed Russian music from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Pablo Gonzalez |
 Spaniard Pablo Gonzalez made his second appearance with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic in an all-Russian programme of mixed success, pairing a slightly routine Rachmaninov Second Piano Concerto with a thrilling account of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade.
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| 25-Nov-2012 Barbican Centre: Hall | LSO with Semyon Bychkov and Leonidas Kavakos play Berg and Mahler |
 Last season Semyon Bychkov conducted the LSO in an “outstanding” performance of Mahler’s Third Symphony. This year he returned to conduct the First, the “Titan”, achieving similar success in a magnificent performance which radiated youthful zeal.
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| 16-Nov-2012 Bridgewater Hall | BBC Philharmonic and Juanjo Mena: Bach and Bruckner 9 |
 Few concert programmes can feature such different works based on the same inspiration, but the BBC Philharmonic managed the intricacies of Bach and the grandeur of Bruckner with great success. The biggest tragedy of the evening was the audience: the whole top tier of seating was closed, and the stalls were barely half full.
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| 2-Nov-2012 Bridgewater Hall | Harry Christophers and The Sixteen: Brahms in Manchester |
 Harry Christophers brought his Sixteen to Manchester for a night of deeply romantic choral music at The Bridgewater Hall. Brahms’ Deutsches Requiem was a foreseeable success, but the seldom-heard Vocal Quartets, settings of Sternau, Schiller, Daumer and Goethe, were a delightful addition to the programme.
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| 25-Oct-2012 Birmingham Symphony Hall | Shostakovich and Rachmaninov with Chailly and the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig |
 Arguably the highest-profile visiting orchestra of the season, Riccardo Chailly brought his Leipzig orchestra to Birmingham for a duo of 20th-century Russian works. The large audience was not disappointed, Rachmaninov’s second symphony in particular shining in a magnificent performance.
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| 24-Oct-2012 Bridgewater Hall | The Hallé and Markus Stenz: Dvořák and Beethoven |
 Markus Stenz conducted a lean and crisp performance of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony which remained unsentimental and lively throughout, prefaced by a nostalgically sunny Dvořák Cello Concerto with soloist Miklós Perényi.
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| 23-Oct-2012 Bridgewater Hall | Michael Sanderling and the Dresden Philharmonic in Manchester |
 The Dresden Philharmonic brought classy Brahms, Barber and Dvořák to Manchester as part of their UK tour in a forward-looking programme of musical new beginnings. If incisive thrust was occasionally lacking, they more than compensated with elegance all evening.
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| 18-Oct-2012 Bridgewater Hall | The Hallé and Markus Stenz with Wagner and Bruckner |
 Principal Guest Conductor Markus Stenz joined the Hallé for a programme of richly romantic music in nature and name, from the impassioned chromaticism of Tristan and Isolde to the peaks and valleys of Bruckner. Stenz seemed to shirk away from easy heroism all evening, opting instead for softer and harder-won resolution.
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| 14-Oct-2012 Birmingham Symphony Hall | Academy of St Martin in the Fields and Joshua Bell in Birmingham |
 Though often played with far greater forces, the Beethoven and Mendelssohn played in this concert were well suited to the small size and immediacy of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. Directed energetically from the leader’s chair by Joshua Bell, they gave crisp and clear performances which highlighted the chamber-style aspects of these works.
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| 12-Oct-2012 Bridgewater Hall | BBC Philharmonic and Juanjo Mena: Mozart and Mahler |
 It must be a strange feeling, sitting down to play a short work while surrounded by empty chairs waiting for a big second half symphony. Tonight Steven Osborne and the modest proportions of Mozart’s orchestra were given the task of invigorating the Piano Concerto no. 19 and avoiding an almost inevitable feeling of it being a pre-Mahler apéritif.
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| 11-Oct-2012 Stavanger Concert Hall | Opening night at Stavanger's new Concert Hall |
 While several of the world’s orchestras are struggling to pay their players, never mind expand, Stavanger has just built a new £100 million concert hall, its interior a triumph of acoustic engineering and its public side with airy atriums and bars looking across attractive bays. This celebratory concert to mark the Konserthus’ opening was heavily packed and warmly received.
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| 29-Sep-2012 Bridgewater Hall | BBC Philharmonic and Juanjo Mena: Wagner Evening |
 Juanjo Mena launched the BBC Philharmonic’s season with an all-Wagner programme which, despite some small faults, featured some excellent playing.
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| 27-Sep-2012 Bridgewater Hall | The Hallé and Mark Elder: Stravinsky, Shostakovich and Holst |
 A packed hall, including several primary schools and a handful of mayors, attended for a 20th-century triptych. One suspected that most were there for Holst’s The Planets, but it was the first half’s Stravinsky and Shostakovich which were most revelatory tonight.
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| 19-Sep-2012 Bridgewater Hall | The Hallé's season opener: Introverted Brahms and Sibelius |
 Sir Mark Elder opened The Hallé’s 2012-13 season with two large works whose darker and more introverted aspects were highlighted very effectively. A disappointingly small audience turned out (the hall was perhaps half full) but the music was very much full and energised.
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| 15-Sep-2012 Birmingham Symphony Hall | CBSO and Andris Nelsons: Metamorphosen and Mahler 2 |
| Pairing Richard Strauss’ Metamorphosen with Mahler’s mighty Resurrection Symphony made for an emotionally exhausting season opener in Birmingham, taking a packed Symphony Hall from anguished lamentation to fist-clenched fury and, ultimately, shattering resolution.
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| 2-Sep-2012 Royal Albert Hall | Prom 69: Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and Riccardo Chailly play Messiaen and Mahler |
 Two fine concerts from Riccardo Chailly’s Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra filled part of the space between end-of-season Proms from the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics. They brought Mendelssohn of refinement and poise to Prom 67 and dark, fateful thrust in Messiaen and Mahler for Prom 69.
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| 27-Jul-2012 Royal Albert Hall | Prom 18: Beethoven's Ninth |
 Few conductors could hold an audience's applause whilst shaking hands with every member of the orchestra and then speaking extensively about politics. Daniel Barenboim, though, on completion of a week-long Beethoven cycle, did so and then dashed to the Olympic opening ceremony to bear the Olympic flag alongside Ban Ki-Moon, among others. Some critics have written in the last week that no amount of sociopolitical benevolence can paper over minor technical flaws in the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra's playing.Read full review... | |
| 21-Jul-2012 Royal Albert Hall | Prom 10: Barenboim, Beethoven and Boulez, part two |
 Programming works by Pierre Boulez alongside a high-profile Beethoven symphony cycle is an easy way to give exposure to the strikingly modern works of the Frenchman, but on seeing a substantial chunk of the audience disappear for an early drink before tonight's Boulez, I wondered if the Beethoven was perhaps too reliable a foil, leaving people little incentive to stay. This was a great pity, as Dialogue de l'ombre double created an amazing atmosphere in the hall and was an excellent inclusion in the programme.
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| 23-Jun-2012 Southbank Centre: Royal Festival Hall | Dudamel and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela in London |
 Three separate standing ovations answered the first concert of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra's London residency, in which they played Beethoven and Britten with all of their trademark joie de vivre and panache. There was more, though; they played at times with a remarkable delicacy considering their uncommonly large forces, and the Britten in particular showed the individual quality of various players.
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| 16-Jun-2012 Birmingham Symphony Hall | Simon Rattle and the Vienna Philharmonic: Brahms, Webern and Schumann |
 Simon Rattle returned to Birmingham's Symphony Hall, a construction of his own initiation and the home of his successes with the CBSO, to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in a concert as part of the hall's 21st birthday celebrations. He arrived on stage to the kind of reception usually reserved for the end of a concert and masterfully led a rich and intriguing programme of Brahms, Webern and Schumann.
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| 15-Jun-2012 St David's Hall | BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Thierry Fischer: Strauss' Alpine Symphony |
 A lengthy standing ovation followed Thierry Fischer’s final St David’s Hall concert with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, concluding his sixth season with Richard Strauss’ monumental Alpine Symphony after a refined performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto no. 22 with pianist Angela Hewitt.
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| 24-May-2012 Bridgewater Hall | The Hallé and Nikolaj Znaider: Ninth Symphonies of Beethoven and Shostakovich |
 Nikolaj Znaider concluded the Hallé Beethoven cycle in emphatic fashion, preceding the Choral Symphony with another ninth symphony, that of Shostakovich. The football-style roar from the sell-out audience at the end of the evening was a good indicator of the quality of the concert.
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| 1-Apr-2012 Bridgewater Hall | Yuri Temirkanov and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic in Manchester |
 Manchester was very fortunate this week to host three fine orchestras: the Orchestre Nationale du Capitole de Toulouse did a wonderful job of Berlioz on Tuesday and the CBSO gave a towering Sibelius 2 on Thursday. Tonight, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic played a breathtaking concert to a packed hall in the final performance of their UK tour.
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| 15-Mar-2012 Bridgewater Hall | The Hallé Perform Strauss, Holst and Elgar |
 This was a moving evening of relatively underrated, large-scale late romantic music, moving from Strauss’ youthful charm to the wistful eloquence of the mature Elgar.
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| 8-Mar-2012 Bridgewater Hall | Leipzig Gewandhaus & St Thomas Choir: St Matthew Passion |
 Part of the St Thomas Choir Leipzig’s 800th anniversary celebrations, this Manchester concert was a deeply moving evening in which superb musicianship all round seemed almost to bring Bach himself, a Thomaskantor (choir director) in his day, to the Bridgewater Hall.
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| 1-Mar-2012 Bridgewater Hall | The Hallé and Edward Gardner: Beethoven 8 |
 By far the smallest audience yet for the Hallé’s Beethoven Symphonies cycle gathered for this eighth instalment, conducted by Edward Gardner, and the absentees missed an evening of supreme charm and playfulness.
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| 9-Feb-2012 Bridgewater Hall | The Hallé and Sir Mark Elder: Beethoven 7 |
 Mark Elder finished his part in the Hallé’s Beethoven cycle with a rambunctious performance of the seventh symphony, with works by Sibelius and Bartók adding to a dynamic evening of music.
Before conducting Sibelius’ tone poem The Bard, Elder paid tribute to the late Paavo Berglund, the great Finnish conductor and champion of all things Sibelian, who died last month.Read full review... | |
| 19-Jan-2012 Bridgewater Hall | The Hallé and Sir Mark Elder: Beethoven 6 |
 The Pastoral Symphony is perhaps an optimistic choice for January in Manchester, but for a short while all memory of the deluge outside evaporated in the Bridgewater Hall.
Olivier Messiaen’s suite L’Ascension opened the concert with serene, otherworldly modality in a masterfully sculpted brass chorale. The horn section, unusually, played the first half of the concert seated with the rest of the brass section stage left, which made for tight ensemble and a pure, focused sound, always well intoned and led by brilliant trumpet playing. The dissonances of Messiaen’s distinctive idiom were embraced throughout; never grotesque, but elusive and ethereal, well judged in balance and pacing by conductor Sir Mark Elder.Read full review... | |
| 11-Jan-2012 Birmingham Symphony Hall | Pappano's triumphant Royal Opera House Meistersinger in Birmingham |
 The classical world came off lightly in the recent New Year Honours list, with the Royal Opera House’s knighted Antonio Pappano the only winner. He has much to celebrate, more so after directing last night’s concert performance of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg with authoritative ease and good cheer, supported by a fine array of soloists.
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| 1-Dec-2011 Bridgewater Hall | The Hallé and Lothar Koenigs: Beethoven 5 |
 Continuing their season-long Beethoven cycle, the Hallé programmed the Fifth Symphony with a neo-romantic piano concerto by Samuel Barber and Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll, forming an eclectic mix of works to which orchestra and conductor responded very well.
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| 17-Nov-2011 Bridgewater Hall | The Hallé and Sir Mark Elder: Beethoven Symphony no.4 |
| Continuing the Hallé’s project of juxtaposing Beethoven symphonies with modern works, the underrated fourth symphony was flanked by works by Helen Grime and Igor Stravinsky, with an intriguingly placed Bach Suite closing the concert.
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| 9-Nov-2011 Bridgewater Hall | The Hallé, Elder and Gourlay perform Vaughan Williams, Dvořák and Elgar |
 In an unusual piece of programming by today’s standards, this evening’s symphony, Vaughan Williams’ fifth, was played before the interval, with the lighter works, Dvořák’s Wind Serenade and Elgar’s Cockaigne, later in the evening. Perhaps this brought freshness to the music, for there was a supple versatility in the Hallé’s symphony, darting between the heroic, pastoral and folky elements of the piece with exquisite sensitivity to each.
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| 5-Nov-2011 Bridgewater Hall | The Hallé and Sir Mark Elder: Beethoven 3 |
 John Adams’s Harmonium accompanied the third instalment in the Hallé Beethoven cycle to form an exciting programme of music united by being very radical in its time.
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| 29-Oct-2011 Bridgewater Hall | BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and Pablo Heras-Casado: First Symphonies |
 The performance of four symphonies in one evening is a rare occurrence, and an interesting feat of programming. The BBC Philharmonic explored the development of the symphonic form from the succint, formal classicism of Haydn and Mozart to the broad romanticism of Brahms, via Prokofiev’s witty take on the classical form.
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| 27-Oct-2011 Bridgewater Hall | Hallé and Marcus Stenz: Beethoven 2 |
 The second instalment in The Hallé Beethoven cycle was led by Principal Guest Conductor Marcus Stenz, and also featured the striking Nordic colours of Jean Sibelius and Magnus Lindberg.
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| 18-Oct-2011 Bridgewater Hall | Moscow Philharmonic and Yuri Simonov: Mussorgsky and Rachmaninov in Manchester |
 The Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra enjoyed an evening of youthful exuberance in the Bridgewater Hall with an all-Russian programme, conducted with grace and refinement by Yuri Simonov.
Modest Mussorgsky’s Night on the Bare Mountain explicitly paints what the composer called “Spirits of darkness...and the Black Mass” in a progressively wild orgy before the bells of dawn break the scene. Simonov opted for a generally slow but quite variable tempo through the majority of the piece, in contrast to the common tendency to push for a firmly brisk pace in many readings. This was an interesting adjustment, removing any risk of seeming formulaic with such a popular piece, but added little to the sense of untamed nature. It did make some of the themes suggest folk music, particularly in the oboe/bassoon duet passages. The orchestral playing was as passionate as could be expected: plenty of brassy bite and roars from the percussion section. The dawn passage gave the string section its first opportunity of the evening to display its wonderful sound; rich and full in tone, filling the large hall without straining.
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