| Date and venue | Title | Submitted by |
|---|---|---|
| 18-May-2013 Southbank Centre: Queen Elizabeth Hall | Bach, Schumann and Schubert with Borletti-Buitoni Trust artists at Southbank Centre | Jack Smith, www.jdsmusic.co.uk |
 A series of three concerts over the course of one weekend, designed to reflect upon and champion the work of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust, which has supported a significant number of worthy performers in its first ten years, was always going to present an interesting range of repertoire – if not something of a conundrum for those planning the programming of the concerts. Originally, Saturday’s concert was to have drawn together rather neatly the ensemble works of Mozart and Schubert, contrasted with interlinking sets of songs by Brahms and Mahler.Read full review... | ||
| 11-May-2013 92nd Street Y, Lexington Avenue at 92nd | The Tokyo String Quartet in musical farewells of Schubert, Haydn, and Bartók at 92Y | Evan Mitchell |
 The Tokyo String Quartet played a kind of “meta-goodbye” concert this Saturday evening at 92Y. The performance, their last at this venue before the quartet is disbanded, featured three great composers’ own farewells, the final works written for string chamber ensembles by Schubert, Haydn, and Bartók. The Tokyo Quartet’s personnel has changed since its inception in 1969 – its current members are violinists Martin Beaver and Kikuei Ikeda, violist Kazuhide Isomura, and cellist Clive Greensmith – and the group has existed in its current form since 2002.
Read full review... | ||
| 3-May-2013 Carnegie Hall: Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage | Joy and wonder at Evgeny Kissin's Carnegie Hall recital | Rebecca Lentjes |
_cropped.jpg) Evgeny Kissin is more than a collection of bones and flesh and crazy hair: he is a sensation. Every May for the past several years, the pianist has performed a recital on the Perelman stage at Carnegie Hall, and every year the tickets have sold out by mid-October, seven or eight months in advance. These recitals are the pinnacle of any concert-goer’s season. They are the Super Bowl of classical music, or the release of a new Harry Potter book, or Easter Sunday, when suddenly church congregations surge to twice their usual attendance.Read full review... | ||
| 2-May-2013 Auckland Town Hall | Auckland Philharmonia's Last Songs a mixed bag | Simon Holden |
 The Auckland Philharmonia and conductor Jun Märkl presented “Last Songs”, a programme of late works by Schubert, Richard Strauss and Zemlinsky. We opened with Zemlinsky’s Sinfonietta, a work much admired by Schoenberg and Berg. There is a spiky quality to the music that is reminiscent of Hindemith and Stravinsky, though notably less acerbic than either. One can perceive the influences of both Neoclassicism and jazz and the romantic lushness that is a characteristic of Zemlinsky’s earlier work emerges only briefly here.Read full review... | ||
| 28-Apr-2013 Chicago Symphony Center | Kissin, the Viennese, at Symphony Hall in Chicago | Dan Wang |
 Let me first describe the sound of the applause: taut, front-heavy, explosive. This was before Evgeny Kissin played his first note at Symphony Hall this past Sunday. It was a packed house, with an audience that spilled out of the choir loft and onto several rows of chairs wrapped around the piano. And as he finished – during his fourth encore, a prelude by Chopin – a middle-aged couple stood by the door on stage, holding hands, listening intently, needing to leave, not wanting to go.
Read full review... | ||
| 17-Apr-2013 Barbican Centre: Hall | Murray Perahia at the Barbican in Haydn, Bach, Beethoven, Schubert and Chopin | Chris Garlick |
 Driving home after Murray Perahia’s stunning recital at the Barbican last night I found myself thinking: why is he such an extraordinary pianist? Some pianists have an incredible rhythmic sense, some technical wizardry, others a delicate musical sensibility, but rarely are all these and many others qualities combined in one artist. But this was how I was left feeling on that drive home. In addition, one senses a perceptive and generous personality in the man, seeking out the meaning in his composers’ works, and not imposing his own ideas.
Read full review... | ||
| 8-Apr-2013 Kennedy Center: Eisenhower Theater | The devotee of music: Diana Damrau in Washington DC | Raisa Massuda, mandolinvision.blogspot.com |
 On Monday night the Eisenhower Theater at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts hosted a debut recital of internationally acclaimed German soprano Diana Damrau and her concert accompanist, French harpist Xavier de Maistre. The final concert of this season’s Celebrity Series from Washington National Opera, this event had been much anticipated by DC opera fans, especially after the soprano withdrew from her WNO 2010 gig as Ophélie in Ambroise Thomas’ Hamlet.
Read full review... | ||
| 6-Apr-2013 Konzerthaus: Großer Saal | Jonas Kaufmann's Die Winterreise at the Wiener Konzerthaus | Snapdragon |
 Those who attended Jonas Kaufmann’s Vienna Wagner debut and were wondering why his Parsifal was beautiful but rather underwhelming in volume, were given the answer on the stage of the Konzerthaus two days later, when he announced himself as “still ill after a severe cold”.Read full review... | ||
| 2-Apr-2013 İş Sanat | Martin Fröst plays Mozart's Clarinet Concerto with Bavarian Radio Chamber Orchestra in Istanbul | Alain Matalon |
 Even if the joke is good, it’s all in the telling, as they say. Mozart’s Ein musikalischer Spaß (“A Musical Joke”) is good, but it probably meant more to its contemporaries than it does to us today. It is Mozart’s satire of the incompetent composers, musicians and copyists of his time. It’s an inside joke, for all practical purposes. We still like listening to it; it’s whimsical, it puts a smile on our faces – but probably not every time.Read full review... | ||
| 16-Mar-2013 Musée des Beaux-Arts: Salle Bourgie | The power of communication: Piano duets from Nézet-Séguin and Jennifer Bourdages in Montreal | Richard Turp |
 Montreal’s favourite musical son has become something of a world favourite in recent years. The Music Director of both the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Yannick Nézet-Séguin is also Principal Guest Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Principal Conductor of his native city’s Orchestre Métropolitain. With a calendar that also includes a horde of guest appearances with opera companies and other orchestras, he rarely has time to return home.Read full review... | ||
| 14-Mar-2013 Birmingham Town Hall | Stephen Kovacevich plays the "three Bs" in Birmingham | Peter Marks |
 Though born in America, Stephen Kovacevich has lived in London since moving there to study with the great Dame Myra Hess at the age of eighteen. He clearly has a special rapport with British audiences, as his amiable manner in discussing his encores demonstrated. In fact, one of his “encores” was given at the start of the second half of the programme (“why do encores have to be at the end?” he joked).
Read full review... | ||
| 11-Mar-2013 SMU: Caruth Auditorium | Dallas Chamber Music presents the Artemis Quartet: Mendelssohn, Ginastera, and Schubert | Evan Mitchell |
 Caught completely unawares – hearing a group I wasn’t familiar with, and on a Monday evening at that – I ended up seeing the Artemis Quartet give the best performance of any kind that I’ve experienced in quite a while. The Berlin-based group, in the middle of a ten-day US tour that concludes on Sunday at Carnegie Hall, played Mendelssohn, Ginastera, and Schubert on a presentation of the Dallas Chamber Music series.
Read full review... | ||
| 7-Mar-2013 Queen's Hall, Edinburgh | SCO with Matthias Goerne in orchestrated Schubert Lieder | Alan Coady |
 Size mattered in this programme, whether in the form of piano originals filled out to orchestral proportions, or Romantic reach reined in by Classical sensibility. The evening’s opening gesture was down to one man, Ian White, whose muted trombone ushered in Webern’s orchestration of the Ricercar from Bach’s 1747 Musical Offering. This zany and delicate treatment says all that can be said about the colour that orchestration can bring to a keyboard original.Read full review... | ||
| 21-Feb-2013 Queen's Hall, Edinburgh | Piotr Anderszewski and Alexander Janiczek with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra | Alan Coady |
 This creative SCO programme offered two works in either half, performed in reverse chronological order. Virtuoso violinist Alexander Janiczek directed the first of each pair, beginning with Schubert’s 1817 Overture in D major “In the Italian Style”, D.590. Conrad Wilson, whose supplied fine programme notes for the entire concert, described the work as Schubert’s response to a “Rossini frenzy that swept Vienna in 1816”. Taking this as a test case, the Italianising of Teutonic works seems to amount to a lightening of touch.Read full review... | ||
| 17-Feb-2013 Wigmore Hall | Markus Schäfer sings Lieder at Wigmore Hall | Edward Whitney |
 The intimacy of Schubert’s Lieder almost guarantees that no words can be missed. In comparison to say, a 100-strong choir competing with a full orchestra, the poetic element of Lieder is unmissable, and thus it occupies a larger part of the concertgoer’s attention. Schubert of course recognised this, and selected his wordsmiths carefully. Had he had the ability to to hand-pick tenors to sing those words in generations to come, he may well have chosen Markus Schäfer.Read full review... | ||
| 15-Feb-2013 Bridgewater Hall | Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert from the BBC Philharmonic | Rohan Shotton |
 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 UC Berkeley: Hertz Hall | Pathos and power: Eric Owens recital in Berkeley | Jeffery S McMillan |
 Bass-baritone Eric Owens is no stranger to Bay Area voice aficionados. After making his local debut as Lodovico in Otello with San Francisco Opera in 2002, Owens memorably created the diet-regiment-reciting General Leslie Groves there in the world première of John Adams’ Doctor Atomic in 2005. Most recently he did yeoman's work with a smaller role in Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi in October.Read full review... | ||
| 6-Feb-2013 Église de Rougemont | Alexei Volodin at Sommets Musicaux de Gstaad | David Karlin |
 The fact that Schubert’s four D.899 piano pieces are called “Impromptus” can seem incongruous: after all, they are formally structured pieces which are carefully scored with great subtlety, and performing them has little to do with spur-of-the-moment improvisation. Still, they are less architectural constructions than many, seeming more to start with a theme and then take it for a walk to see where it goes, always being careful, after various highways and byways, to come back to the beginning.
Read full review... | ||
| 3-Feb-2013 The Royal Conservatory of Music, TELUS Centre, Koerner Hall | Louis Lortie and Hélène Mercier in Toronto | Patrick P.L. Lam |
 When French-Canadian pianists Louis Lortie and Hélène Mercier entered the stage of the Koerner Hall on Sunday, the 800-plus audience participated with an unprecedented level of attention. An episode also occurred to enforce this attention. When an anonymous concert-goer repeatedly started coughing during the recital, Lortie, feeling irritated, signalled a halt during the performance before commencing again. From then on, an aura surrounded these two pianists and the music they produced.Read full review... | ||
| 27-Jan-2013 Schumannhaus | Young artists of exceptional talent play Mozart, Schumann and Schubert at Schumannhaus Bonn | Jane Mcintosh |
| Two young musicians studying and performing in Germany presented an interesting programme of piano and violin music at the Schumannhaus in Bonn on Sunday afternoon choosing three pieces which combined piano and violin in interesting variations. All three gave the lead to the piano – with violin as accompaniment. So the usual assumption that the violin should play the major role was given an engaging challenge.
Read full review... | ||
| 24-Jan-2013 Carnegie Hall: Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage | Frozen haze from Radu Lupu in a wintry New York | David Allen, unpredictableinevitability.com |
 Any solo recital from Radu Lupu comes with the baggage of a cult, and this Carnegie Hall concert was no exception. Lavish praise from the weeklies aside, there really is something to the aura that surrounds this exquisite pianist. He has a unique sound, seeming to breathe with the concert hall's very air. He no longer records, and what he plays live is rarely a repeat of what he has recorded in the past.Read full review... | ||
| 24-Jan-2013 St George's Bristol | Having fun raising funds: Chamber music in aid of St George's Bristol | David Fay |
| St George’s Bristol is an extraordinary venue. Renowned for its unbeatable acoustic amongst performers and listeners alike, there is something unique about it that cannot be attributed to its sonic qualities alone. It’s difficult to put your finger on it: the intimacy? The wonderful abundance of wood? The creaky floor? The comfy chairs? The slightly funky smelling toilets? Read full review... | ||
| 23-Jan-2013 Roy Thomson Hall | An evening of Mahler brings bitter-sweetness to heightened grounds at the Roy Thomson Hall | Patrick P.L. Lam |
.jpg) “What makes Mahler’s music like opium,” I once got asked. If you enjoy listening to lush melodies and pompous brass calls in fine Wagnerian traditions, or get stimulated sonically by a large orchestra, you have got a foot in the door. To be a full Mahler convert, if you belong to a cohort of listeners curious in the forces of life or the wonders of nature decoded in music, and can tolerate long durations of musical materials in the form of contrasts and repetition, then welcome to the world of Gustav Mahler. The musical challenges are as great to musicians as they are to listeners.Read full review... | ||
| 20-Jan-2013 La Maison Symphonique de Montréal | Jonas Kaufmann sings Die schöne Müllerin in Montréal | Andrew Crust |
 Outside Montréal’s Maison Symphonique thunder bellowed above a raging snowstorm, while inside the hall Jonas Kaufmann and Helmut Deutsch helped transport the audience to warmer climes. These two performers, with the aid of Franz Schubert’s music and Wilhelm Müller’s poetry, transformed the concert hall into idyllic and pastoral Germany, where a wanderer follows the whim of a lazy brooklet through heath, meadow and forest with only his lute for a companion.
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| 13-Dec-2012 Howard Assembly Room | Alice Coote and Julius Drake perform Winterreise in Leeds | Sam Wigglesworth |
 By adding Schubert’s Winterresie to her repertoire Alice Coote joins a long tradition of female interpreters including the likes of Christine Schäfer and her own mentor Brigitte Fassbaender. In this performance of Schubert’s great song cycle, however, it was the piano playing of Julius Drake, rather than Coote’s singing, which penetrated to the heart of the work.
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| 20-Nov-2012 Southbank Centre: Queen Elizabeth Hall | Behzod Abduraimov plays Schubert, Beethoven and Liszt in London | Paul Kilbey |
 Despite an abundance of virtuosic Liszt pieces and such force in the Appassionata that he almost fell off his chair at the end, what was most impressive about Behzod Abduraimov in the Queen Elizabeth Hall on Tuesday was the way he handled the softer parts. While his impulsive, coruscating virtuoso playing was that of a brilliant young pianist enjoying himself, the simple, direct tone he brought to the Schubert sonata (and the occasional moment elsewhere) was simply that of a gifted musician.
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| 15-Nov-2012 Vredenburg Leeuwenbergh | The Brodsky Quartet show their true musical colors at Utrecht's Vredenburg | Kristen Huebner |
 A pseudo-cinematic turn of events forced the world renowned Brodsky Quartet to pull out all the stops for their concert in Utrecht last Thursday evening. Continually in demand as interpreters of the standard string quartet repertoire as well as proponents of new music commissioned by living composers, the quartet has accumulated a wealth of original manuscripts for their personal catalogue. Prepared to showcase their range, the group created a “Wheel of 4Tunes”, a musical “Wheel of Fortune” which presents a program of four works with the possibility of 10 works per space.Read full review... | ||
| 13-Nov-2012 St George's Bristol | Birds, books and plays: The Callino Quartet play Haydn, Janáček and Schubert at St George's Bristol | David Fay |
 Aren’t nicknames interesting! I’m sure there’ll have been hundreds of studies into the development, designation, and deployment of nicknames and the historical and sociological conclusions we can draw from the Daves, D-Diddies and Dangerous Dans alike. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if the nickname formed the basis of an entire field of academic enquiry. If so, there’s bound to be a musical contribution, for nicknames abound in music, and their connection with the pieces they signify are, if not always justified, mostly insightful.Read full review... | ||
| 10-Nov-2012 The Royal Conservatory of Music, TELUS Centre, Koerner Hall | Excellent rapport: The Takács Quartet and Marc-André Hamelin at Koerner Hall | Stanley Fefferman |
 Each time I hear the Takács Quartet in concert a new excellence comes through: this time it is their gentleness. Schubert’s String Quartet in A minor, “Rosamunde” is allowed to unfold gently, as the petals of a rose open themselves. Edward Dusinberre’s first violin sings the wistful theme – a reference to the composer’s heavy-hearted song “Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel”, whose lyric sets the mood: “My peace is gone, my heart is heavy, I’ll find it never, never again”.Read full review... | ||
| 2-Nov-2012 Lincoln Center: Avery Fisher Hall | Restraint pays off for Murray Perahia in New York | David Allen, unpredictableinevitability.com |
 A broken crane dangles precariously over 57th Street near Carnegie Hall at the moment. Thankfully for the hall it seems the danger has passed, but rather than cancel this concert along with so many others in New York over the past week, Carnegie delayed the recital from Friday to Sunday and moved it to Avery Fisher Hall. It’s a less satisfactory space for solo work, but it’s a space nonetheless, and I’m sure this Bronx native was pleased to perform as the city gets back on its feet.
Read full review... | ||
| 24-Oct-2012 La Maison Symphonique de Montréal | Murray Perahia in concert at the Maison Symphonique | Andrew Crust |
 Murray Perahia is nothing short of a legend in the piano world. Though his programming is markedly less broad than someone like, say, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, he makes up for it with absolute dedication to the music he loves and believes has the most artistic merit. This was a rather strange program – not because of the composers selected (this was pretty much standard Perahia stock), but because of the abundance of small character pieces and lack of standard “concert works” such as sonatas.Read full review... | ||
| 20-Oct-2012 Lincoln Center: Alice Tully Hall | Turbulence to triumph in Schubert's final sonatas from Paul Lewis | David Allen, unpredictableinevitability.com |
 Paul Lewis’ current tour constitutes the final instalment of his Schubert cycle. As is the fashion, largely following Artur Schnabel and more recently Alfred Brendel, Lewis plays the last three sonatas as a trilogy, with the D.958 and D.959 played before the interval and the D.960 afterwards. In lesser hands such programming could be a bit of a slog, but Lewis’ subtle pianism invited comparison and connection, he eschewed the pity some pianists ladle over these works, preferring psychodrama writ large, and he mercifully omitted repeats in the D.960.
Read full review... | ||
| 5-Oct-2012 Birmingham Town Hall | Viennese whirl in Birmingham: Sweet treats from the Vienna Boys' Choir | Katherine Dixson, katherinedixson.co.uk |
 Here’s a choir that need never worry about attracting younger members. It runs its own school, with around 300 children, and from the age of ten the most musically gifted boys are channelled into the choir. The present membership of around 100 are in good company, as the 500-year history of the choir in its various guises is littered with illustrious names, either as choristers or directors: Mozart, Bruckner, Schubert, Haydn. Historically, the boys sang at the imperial court, then after the Habsburg Empire collapsed the choir became a private enterprise.Read full review... | ||
| 28-Sep-2012 St George's Bristol | Paul Lewis' Schubert Sonata Schwanengesang at St George's Bristol | David Fay |
 If your ears happen to frequent the frequencies of the BBC’s classical music radio station, it’s highly possible that you’ll have been swamped by piano music this monsoon season. Piano notes have poured down upon us, flooding the airwaves with this extraordinary instrument’s capacity to evoke everything from orchestras to ocarinas, from tempestuousness to tranquillity, from Moonlight to Raindrops.
Read full review... | ||
| 20-Sep-2012 Wigmore Hall | A moving tribute to Kathleen Ferrier at the Wigmore Hall | Evan Dickerson |
 Marian Anderson, the famed African-American contralto, once remarked of Kathleen Ferrier, “My God, what a voice – and what a face!” This concert was a Centenary Celebration of Ferrier’s art at the Wigmore Hall, and I reflected (not for the first time) how aptly Anderson’s words could also apply to Alice Coote, the evening’s distinguished soloist. Several approaches with regard to programming could have been taken to recall Ferrier’s repertoire, from a focus on English song and traditionals to German Lieder, or mixing the two.Read full review... | ||
| 12-Sep-2012 Wigmore Hall | Songs of Travel at the Wigmore Hall with Roderick Williams and Gary Matthewman | Emily Owen |
 _Roderick Williams_credit Benjamin Ealovega.jpg) Those few seconds of breathless silence at the end of a recital before thunderous applause are a rare thing, and a sure sign that the evening has been a success. Such was the case at the Wigmore Hall on Wednesday night after Roderick Williams and Gary Matthewman were called back to the stage for a second encore. We had been treated to an evening of Lieder and English song centred around Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Songs of Travel and the theme of wandering. Roderick Williams made the perfect vagabond, filling the stage with a confident presence that captivated the entire room.Read full review... | ||
| 8-Sep-2012 Oslo Opera House, Main Stage | The Oslo Philharmonic and Jukka-Pekka Saraste play Schubert and Mahler | Aksel Tollåli |
 What do Schubert’s Third Symphony and Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde have in common? Not a whole lot, which is why it came across as rather puzzling that the two pieces should be programmed together. Yet, in the Oslo Philharmonic’s September 6 and 8 concerts, they were. The result was a mixed bag of two wildly different works, written almost a century apart.
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| 1-Sep-2012 Cadogan Hall | Passion and transfiguration from the Australian Chamber Orchestra | David Karlin |
.jpg) Previously, for me, the term “Chamber Orchestra” has meant an ordinary orchestra, only smaller: apart from the sound being somewhat thinned out and consequently cleaner, I don't expect a fundamentally different experience. Or, didn't, that is, until last night at Cadogan Hall, where I saw the Australian Chamber Orchestra for the first time.Read full review... | ||
| 13-Aug-2012 Queen's Hall, Edinburgh | Trio Zimmermann at the Edinburgh Festival: Three voices equal one vision | Jeremy Morris |
 While there is a rich and varied literature for piano trio, works of quality that are composed purely for string trio (violin, viola and cello) are thin on the ground. Trio Zimmermann gave us a rare opportunity to hear some of the absolute gems from the repertoire this morning in a packed Queen's Hall in Edinburgh. The concert was so popular that not only was it broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, but even the standing areas in the upper galleries were partly occupied.
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| 8-Aug-2012 Royal Albert Hall | Prom 34: The BBC SO with Bychkov and the Labèques | Matthew Lynch |
 We can never really know why Schubert left his Eighth Symphony unfinished, but that shouldn't stop us from playing such a wonderful piece of music. With its deathly still opening, turbulent central section and gentle slow movement, this symphony is one of Schubert's finest and most frequently performed works.
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| 17-Jul-2012 City Recital Hall Angel Place | Australian Chamber Orchestra soloists play music by Schubert and Messiaen | Oliver Brett |
 Pairing together Schubert and Messiaen at first glance may appear slightly far-fetched. However, there are more similarities between the two composers, and indeed the two pieces in this evening’s program, than one might at first realise. Schubert and Messiaen were in many ways both experimental composers, especially the latter. Olivier Messiaen was heavily influenced by birdsong and his Roman Catholic faith and pushed the boundaries of tonal possibilities.Read full review... | ||
| 4-Jul-2012 Wigmore Hall | Joyce DiDonato and David Zobel at the Wigmore Hall: Recital on a theme of Venice | Julia Savage |
 Venexia, Venise, Venedig: city of singing gondoliers, loved-up couples and pigeons. That was the picture painted last night at the sold-out recital by Joyce DiDonato and her accompanist David Zobel at the Wigmore Hall.Read full review... | ||
| 29-Jun-2012 Wigmore Hall | Susan Graham and Malcolm Martineau at the Wigmore Hall | Capriccio, capricciomusic.blogspot.com |
 Susan Graham is the mezzo representative of the generation of American singers, including Barbara Bonney, Renée Fleming, Dawn Upshaw and Sylvia McNair, who rose to prominence in the mid to late 1980s and distinguished themselves internationally with their superlative techniques, gorgeous lyric instruments, and impeccable professionalism. In this recital, Graham not only reminded us why she belonged to this set of artists, but also delivered a very interesting programme of material of particular personal resonance, occasionally sharing something very special indeed.
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| 17-Jun-2012 Sutton House, Homerton High Street | Trotovšek and Misumi: A duo to watch out for | Madelaine Jones |
 ‘Schubert’s A minor’ is a prefix that rolls off the tongue of concertgoers everywhere with the comfortable familiarity of a home-cooked meal.Read full review... | ||
| 9-Jun-2012 City Recital Hall Angel Place | Danielle De Niese and Australian Chamber Orchestra unite in Sydney | David Larkin |
 The Australian Chamber Orchestra, known both for its innovative programming and for the tightness of the ensemble playing, displayed both qualities on Saturday night, the second stop in a five-city, nine-concert tour. In the first half, two works by contemporary Australian composers were sandwiched between pieces by Mozart, while the second half was given over to Schubert’s Death and the Maiden (both song and quartet in adaptations for string orchestra).Read full review... | ||
| 8-Jun-2012 St George's Bristol | Sensational Schubert: Paul Lewis and Mark Padmore in Bristol | Alexandra Hamilton-Ayres |
| A small audience had the honour of two big names on stage and enthusiasts of Schubert would agree that there were no two bigger names to have performed the evening's programme than Paul Lewis and Mark Padmore. They gave an intimate chamber performance of songs by Beethoven and Schubert, received with calls of “Bravo!” and whistles.
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| 30-May-2012 City Halls: Concert Hall | The New Century: BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in Schubert, Schoenberg and Berg | Alan Coady |
 Few quotations have surprised, delighted and saddened me as much as this remark by Schoenberg: "There is nothing I long for more intensely than to be taken for a better sort of Tchaikovsky. People should know my tunes and whistle them." This was one of several anecdotes offered by Discovering Music's Stephen Johnson in the pre-concert talk on "The New Century". In the first of two concerts, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra presented a programme of works by Schoenberg, Berg and Schubert. Schubert? In the new century?Read full review... | ||
| 21-May-2012 Lincoln Center: Avery Fisher Hall | Unfinished Business: The Bamberg Symphony at Lincoln Center, Part Two | Evan Mitchell |
 After an impressive Sunday afternoon of Webern, Schubert, and Brahms, the Bamberg Symphony outdid themselves Monday evening in repertoire by Beethoven and Ives, and another Schubert symphony. Christian Zacharias again joined Maestro Jonathan Nott, this time for Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no. 4. They then concluded their appearance in Lincoln Center’s Great Performers Season with The Unanswered Question by Charles Ives and Schubert’s Symphony in B minor, “Unfinished”.
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| 20-May-2012 Lincoln Center: Avery Fisher Hall | Vienna New and Old: The Bamberg Symphony at Lincoln Center | Evan Mitchell |
 The Bamberg Symphony played the first of their two concerts at Lincoln Center on Sunday. The program had something of a Viennese bent, with works by Anton Webern (of the Second Viennese School), Schubert (the first of the great Romantics to call the city home), and Brahms (who lived there most of his life). Jonathan Nott conducted and pianist Christian Zacharias performed on the concert’s second half. The Bambergers impressed with their warm sound, unified ensemble playing, and passionate engagement with the music.
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| 20-May-2012 Wigmore Hall | Good Morning, Marylebone! Chloë Hanslip and Charles Owen at Wigmore Hall | David Fay |
 Another lazy Sunday morning means another quality chamber concert for the Wigmore Hall cognoscenti. This week, their complimentary sherry was served with a cocktail of violin and piano duets, mixing the contrasting flavours of Pärt, Schubert and Richard Strauss, courtesy of child-prodigy-turned-twentysomething virtuoso Chloë Hanslip and established pianist Charles Owen.
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