| 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... | ||
| 25-Apr-2013 La Maison Symphonique de Montréal | A celebration of youth with L'Orchestre Métropolitain | Andrew Crust |
 Tonight’s concert by L’Orchestre Métropolitain was a celebration of youth which featured a great number of young musicians, including guest conductor Jean-Michaël Lavoie, 21-year-old pianist Marika Bournaki, 13-year-old violinist Kerson Leong, a children’s choir, and even a few child composers.
Read full review... | ||
| 20-Apr-2013 Hong Kong Cultural Centre: Concert Hall | Karen Gomyo and Andreas Delfs with the Hong Kong Philharmonic | Alan Yu, alanayu.wordpress.com |
 Ferdinand David, the concertmaster of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra when Mendelssohn was conductor, must have been quite a virtuoso for the composer to have written his Violin Concerto in E minor for him. In this wildly popular work, soloist Karen Gomyo with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra under Andreas Delfs on Saturday was up against stiff competition, Anne-Sophie Mutter having performed it with the same orchestra last year.Read full review... | ||
| 6-Apr-2013 Carnegie Hall: Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage | Elina Garanča's NYC recital debut is calm, cool and collected | Zerbinetta |
 Elina Garanča can always be counted on for a coolly polished performance. Her silvery mezzo is beautiful, even throughout her range, and impeccably on pitch. She is musically tasteful, and her sound has grown in recent years. But something often seems to be missing. While she’s too accomplished to call bland, her performances rarely show evidence of a beating heart. On Saturday night, her Carnegie Hall recital debut kept in character, showing an excellent singer rather than an effective communicator.
Read full review... | ||
| 6-Mar-2013 Southbank Centre: Royal Festival Hall | Magical Mitsuko: Bach, Schoenberg and Schumann at the Royal Festival Hall | Frances Wilson |
 As part of this year’s International Piano Series at the Southbank Centre, Japanese pianist Mitsuko Uchida gave a highly absorbing and exquisitely presented performance of works by Bach, Schoenberg and Schumann.Read full review... | ||
| 5-Mar-2013 Birmingham Town Hall | A bright and brilliant lunchtime in Birmingham with Jayson Gillham | Katherine Dixson, katherinedixson.co.uk |
 No wonder Jayson Gillham looked pleased to be back on stage at Birmingham Town Hall. It must have brought back some happy memories, as it was here that he won first prize in the 2011 Brant International Piano Competition. In the intervening couple of years, he’s built up an inspiring CV. He played Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto with the Hallé as a finalist in the 2012 Leeds International Piano Competition, was named Commonwealth Musician of the Year, 2012, and has accumulated concert credits throughout London, across Europe and back home in Australia.Read full review... | ||
| 15-Feb-2013 Sage: Hall One | Northern Sinfonia in love with Zehetmair, Brahms and Schumann | Jane Shuttleworth |
 The day after Valentine’s Day, and Hall One at The Sage Gateshead was filled with love – the love between an orchestra and their conductor, and the love that all the musicians on the stage felt for the composers they were playing, in this their third concert of a Brahms and Schumann double symphony cycle with conductor Thomas Zehetmair.
Read full review... | ||
| 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... | ||
| 9-Feb-2013 Kapelle Gstaad | Cello fireworks from Edgar Moreau in Gstaad | David Karlin |
 One always comes to a young musicians' concert with a slight hope that this will be that special day when you hear a performer who you are absolutely sure will be a star of the future. That hope only comes to fruition on a small number of occasions: this concert was one of them. I'm willing to take bets that nineteen year old Parisian cellist Edgar Moreau is going to have a glittering career.
Read full review... | ||
| 8-Feb-2013 Kapelle Gstaad | Some memorable moments in a mixed cello concert | David Karlin |
 Reviewing concerts by young performers can be a tricky business, particularly when the material is highly varied and the way it is played even more so. Whenever I formed an opinion about the cello playing of Pablo Ferrández in today’s concert in Gstaad Chapel, I found myself contradicting it in the following piece. So here are some of the highlights of a concert by a young performer who has great promise but is some way off the finished article.
Read full review... | ||
| 7-Feb-2013 Kapelle Gstaad | Cello music romantic and modern in Gstaad | David Karlin |
| One of the more attractive features of the Sommets Musicaux festival is the series of concerts in Gstaad chapel, each given by a young musician who has been spending the week attending classes, with a mentor – in this case, Mario Brunello – and each including a world première written by the festival’s composer in residence – this year, it’s the turn of Nicolas Bacri.
This year focuses on the cello, and today’s concert featured Swiss cellist Sayaka Selina playing a mixed programme of Romantic and modern works, accompanied by German pianist Mathis Bereuter.
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... | ||
| 26-Jan-2013 Queen's Hall, Edinburgh | SCO: The Romantic Century – Mendelssohn, Schumann, Martinsson, Beethoven | Alan Coady |
 What better start to a near capacity crowd concert than Mendelssohn's rousing Overture in C Major, Op101. It contains everything required to suggest a promising evening's music: pace, sparkling orchestration, energising counterpoint, dramatic dynamics and panache. The SCO used Christopher Hogwood's modern Urtext edition of this piece which, written in 1826 and revised in 1833, remained unpublished at the composer's death. The orchestration struck me particularly when, about two thirds of the way through, there is short and punchy section highlighting the woodwind section.Read full review... | ||
| 25-Jan-2013 Usher Hall | RSNO: Borisova-Ollas, Schumann & Dvořák | Alan Coady |
 RSNO cellist Peter Hunt's pre-concert talk began with a reading from Salman Rushhdie's novel, The Ground Beneath Her Feet. This reworking of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, was the inspiration for Open Ground by Russian-born (now Sweden-based) composer Victoria Borisova-Ollas. The novel's principal character, Vina Aspara, is caught up in an earthquake in Mexico. The complete work, a staged performance for orchestra, singers and narrator, also contains rock trio and harp. The 2006 première featured a film directed by Mike Figgis.
Read full review... | ||
| 19-Jan-2013 Barbican Centre: Hall | Stephen Hough explores Brahms and Schumann at the Barbican | Madelaine Jones |
 There are very few musicians who could lay claim to a MacArthur Fellowship, and even fewer pianists, but then it seems that Stephen Hough is no ordinary pianist: writer, composer and recognised polymath, Mr Hough’s phenomenal playing skills still find time to shine alongside his many other extraordinary talents, and his performance at this recital was no exception.Read full review... | ||
| 13-Jan-2013 Dorothy Chandler Pavilion: Fifth floor | Bach, Schumann and Scharwenka at Le Salon de Musiques | Ted Ayala |
 An entire century. Actually, it’s been 101 years and some months if we want to be specific. That’s how long it took for US audiences to hear the magisterial Piano Quintet in B minor, Op. 118 by German composer Philipp Scharwenka. Through no fault of the music, I should add.
Read full review... | ||
| 14-Dec-2012 Lincoln Center: Avery Fisher Hall | Sensitive interpretations of Sibelius and Schumann from the New York Philharmonic and David Zinman | Rebecca Lentjes |
 On Friday morning here in the United States, 27 individuals lost their lives in a tragic mass shooting. I would like to preface this review by expressing my sincere condolences for all affected by the tragedy.
Read full review... | ||
| 8-Dec-2012 Salle Pleyel | German Romanticism with Emmanuel Krivine and the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg | Leopold Tobisch |
 It is said that whilst developing a successful career as a violinist, the young Emmanuel Krivine was advised by the distinguished conductor Karl Böhm to further pursue his passion for conducting. Thankfully, Krivine took heed of such advice, or we would not today have what is undoubtedly one of Europe’s finest conductors. Renowned for his musical expertise in the symphonic and French repertoire, it is refreshing however to hear such a conductor tackle something beyond his field: an evening of German Romanticism.
Read full review... | ||
| 7-Dec-2012 Walt Disney Concert Hall | Lutosławski centenary: The shadows of the night with the LA Phil | Ted Ayala |
 The haze of the surreal, somnambulistic nightscape of Witold Lutosławski’s Les espaces du sommeil cast its strange pall over the expanse of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s December 7 concert at Walt Disney Hall with Esa-Pekka Salonen at the podium. It was appropriate – this was the second concert celebrating the centenary of the Polish composer’s birth – but it also seemed to react in unexpected ways that could be jarring, though no less absorbing.
Read full review... | ||
| 29-Nov-2012 Roy Thomson Hall | Sir Andrew Davis and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in Schumann and Strauss | Patrick P.L. Lam |
_SMALL.jpg) Canada has been taking an active role to build concert programs featuring its own musical talents. One proponent organization of this is the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Led by a team of dedicated administrative individuals, volunteers and musicians, the TSO provides an indispensable platform to showcase our Canadian talents to the community at large.Read full review... | ||
| 26-Nov-2012 La Maison Symphonique de Montréal | Taiwan National Choir shines in Montreal | Robert Markow |
 Taiwan is barely on the radar as far as most Western classical music aficionados are concerned. A recent visit, however, by the 40-member Taiwan National Choir certainly alerted those who heard it that something extraordinary must be going on over there. Their concert in Montreal, last stop on a six-city tour of Ontario and Quebec, provided one of the most outstanding and satisfying musical experiences I’ve had this year.Read full review... | ||
| 19-Nov-2012 Hong Kong Cultural Centre: Concert Hall | The soundworld of Bach and Schumann according to Piotr Anderszewski in Hong Kong | Patrick P.L. Lam |
.jpg) At age 43, Polish pianist Piotr Anderszewski is known for his sensitive touch, technical versatility and probing musicianship, with a wide repertory that spans the works of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Janáček, Schumann and Szymanowski, among others. As part of the Leisure and Culture Services Department’s “Encore” series, Anderszewski made an important return to Hong Kong in a solo recital last month, devoted to the works of Bach and Schumann.
Read full review... | ||
| 18-Nov-2012 Trinity Church, Wimbledon | Benedict Cumberbatch joins the Britten Oboe Quartet in Wimbledon | Paul Kilbey |
 How do you get more people interested in classical music? It’s a difficult question, but I’d never have guessed it was difficult enough to give to Sherlock Holmes. But sure enough, last Sunday night saw the crowds flock to an oboe quartet recital in a small Wimbledon church, and while they may mostly have been there to see Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch read some poetry, they also gradually became one of the most genuinely engaged and enthusiastic audiences I’ve ever been a part of at a classical concert.
Read full review... | ||
| 18-Nov-2012 Westminster Cathedral Hall | Eugen Indjic has Schumann steal Chopin's thunder at Westminster Cathedral Hall | Evan Dickerson |
 The past two seasons have seen the Chopin Society UK celebrate the composer’s bicentenary and its own 40th anniversary. The programme of monthly concerts that it puts on continues to feature a roster of well-known artists alongside those that deserve to be better known. The Yugoslav-born French-American pianist Eugen Indjic falls into the latter category. This is despite an impressive international career begun in the 1960s that has seen him collaborate with artists of calibre such as Giuseppe Sinopoli, Valery Gergiev, Rafael Kubelik and Erich Leinsdorf.Read full review... | ||
| 15-Nov-2012 Oslo Opera House, Main Stage | A celebration of sound: The Berlin Philharmonic in the Oslo Opera House | Aksel Tollåli |
 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.
Read full review... | ||
| 15-Nov-2012 Carnegie Hall: Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage | Pierre-Laurent Aimard honors Debussy and Elliott Carter at Carnegie Hall | Rebecca Lentjes |
 When I first settled into my red velvet seat at Carnegie Hall, my excitement was overtaken by a grim foreboding. The hall’s internationally celebrated acoustics were offering an all-too-dazzling earful of sneezes and sniffles – a fact I observed in a germaphobic panic. Flu season has arrived in New York, but that didn’t deter anyone from attending Pierre-Laurent Aimard’s solo piano recital last Thursday. In fact, the hall was packed full of diverse (if sickly) listeners anticipating this incredibly versatile performer’s concert.
Read full review... | ||
| 5-Nov-2012 Gresham's School: Auden Theatre | Freddy Kempf creates a sizzling spectacular for Bonfire Night in Holt | Nathan Waring |
 An altogether warmer experience on Bonfire Night was enjoyed at Holt’s Auden Theatre, for a performance by one of today’s most successful and busy concert pianists, Freddy Kempf. Perhaps most famous for not coming first in the Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in Moscow in 1998, Kempf has since enjoyed a busy international concert and recording schedule, playing with many of the world’s great orchestras in the world’s greatest venues.
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... | ||
| 2-Nov-2012 Bridgewater Hall | Harry Christophers and The Sixteen: Brahms in Manchester | Rohan Shotton |
 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.
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... | ||
| 22-Oct-2012 Caird Hall | Illuminations: New innovations from the Scottish Ensemble in Dundee | David Smythe |
 The Scottish Ensemble has been resident in Dundee for four days, really getting under the skin of the city. Amongst a whole raft of activities, including pop-up concerts, performing a film score live at a screening at Dundee Contemporary Arts, the Ensemble has been working with string players from Dundee Schools Orchestra and Dundee Symphony Orchestra.
Read full review... | ||
| 14-Oct-2012 University of Leeds: Clothworkers Centenary Concert Hall | Leeds Lieder+ From Europe to America – A Day of Song | Richard Wilcocks |
 The sharp linguistic and enunciative abilities of Romanian mezzo Adriana Festeu are as impressive as her singing. Accompanied by Nico de Villiers, she launched “Leeds Lieder+ From Europe to America – A Day of Song” in the morning at Leeds University’s Clothworkers Hall with “Songs My Mother Taught Me”. She dealt very convincingly with Dvořák’s Gypsy Songs in Czech, followed by 5 Lieder, Op. 38 by Korngold in English, and George Enescu’s Sept Chansons de Clément Marot in French.
Read full review... | ||
| 1-Oct-2012 St John's Smith Square | Ignatz Waghalter: A lost Romantic worth rediscovering? | Evan Dickerson |
 In terms of programming this recital at St John’s Smith Square offered something out of the ordinary. There are not that many concerts these days where the audience is faced with an item of core repertoire, followed by some semi-neglected repertoire by a mainstream composer, a work by a totally neglected composer, and then a final flurry of instrumental fireworks.
Read full review... | ||
| 29-Sep-2012 Sage: Hall Two | The private life of the composer: Chamber music by Brahms and Schumann in Gateshead | Jane Shuttleworth |
| Northern Sinfonia’s season of music by Brahms and Schumann opened on Friday night with the very public statements of their first symphonies, and the following night members of Northern Sinfonia turned inwards to the introspective and private world of their chamber music.
Read full review... | ||
| 28-Sep-2012 Sage: Hall One | The Romantic Symphony with Northern Sinfonia, Part 1: Happiness | Jane Shuttleworth |
 Schumann and Brahms are linked together by their great friendship, their musical influences on each other, and, of course, by Schumann’s wife, Clara, who was one of the most important people in Brahms’ life. Between them, their lives span the entire Romantic period, and in their music, we hear its development from the wistful dreaming and nature-worship of the early years, through to the expressive maturity and emphasis on the past that came with late Romanticism.
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... | ||
| 19-Sep-2012 Historisches Kaufhaus | Tobias Berndt sings Dichterliebe in Freiburg | Nicholas Reed |
 In a programme entitled “Ein Jüngling liebt ein Mädchen” (“A Young Man Loves a Girl”), the young baritone Tobias Berndt performed a selection of Romantic German Lieder in Freiburg’s Historisches Kaufhaus, culminating in Robert Schumann’s (1810-56) much-loved song cycle Dichterliebe.
Read full review... | ||
| 15-Sep-2012 Meyerson Symphony Center | Dallas Symphony Orchestra season opens with van Zweden and Joaquín Achúcarro | Evan Mitchell |
 The fifth year of the Jaap van Zweden era at the Dallas Symphony Orchestra began this weekend with a program comprising audience favorites both flashy and serene. According to the printed program notes Mr. van Zweden, Music Director since 2008, selected “a program that demonstrates the superb technical and musical heights our orchestra has reached under his baton.” Modest, perhaps not, but warranted, definitely.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... | ||
| 12-Sep-2012 Theater an der Wien | Vienna Philharmonic disappoints in Manfred concert | Zwölftöner |
 The risen Christ and a dramatic figure who resists the Christian promise of redemption make for odd conceptual bedfellows, not least of all in a Vienna Philharmonic programme which here saw Messiaen’s L’Ascension sandwiched between the Schumann and Tchaikovsky treatments of Byron’s Manfred.Read full review... | ||
| 10-Sep-2012 Wigmore Hall | Helena Juntunen makes an impressive Wigmore Hall debut | Evan Dickerson |
 My first encounter with the Finnish partnership of Helena Juntunen and her accompanist Eveliina Kytömäki was as participants in the 2007 Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. Back then, I noted how accomplished Helena Juntunen was as a recitalist, whilst Eveliina Kytömäki was an idiomatic and sympathetic pianist who brought out the feeling in all she played. Since then both artists have had flourishing international careers with Juntunen in particular being a frequent visitor to London, which no doubt contributed to my surprise that this concert was their Wigmore Hall debut.
Read full review... | ||
| 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... | ||
| 5-Aug-2012 Menlo-Atherton Performing Arts Center | Music@Menlo: An impassioned chamber performance | Brenden Guy |
 The seventh of the Concert Programs at the annual Music@Menlo summer chamber music festival was entitled “Impassioned.” The beautifully comprehensive and informative program books offered an accompanying image of the Eiffel Tower during an electrical storm, forks of lightning breaking over the ominous Parisian skyline, alluding to the “visceral emotions” that were to come from tonight’s performance. With a strong lineup of works by Schumann, Fauré and Dvořák in store, I left the calming sunny skies of Atherton outside and prepared myself for the storm of music to come.
Read full review... | ||
| 4-Aug-2012 Haus für Mozart | Moving Mahler at Hampson's Salzburg Recital | Nahoko Gotoh |
 The baritone Thomas Hampson is a popular figure at the Salzburg Festival, having appeared there regularly since 1988, and at his Lieder recital with pianist Wolfram Rieger at the Haus der Mozart, one sensed a warm rapport between him and the audience. His programme consisted of Schumann’s Liederkreis, Op. 39, Dvořák’s Zigeunermelodien and Mahler’s songs based on the text of Des Knaben Wunderhorn.
Read full review... | ||
| 24-Jul-2012 Shirehall | Clarinet contrasts with Emma Johnson at the Three Choirs Festival | Katherine Dixson, katherinedixson.co.uk |
 This was a fine demonstration of the fact that the Three Choirs Festival is not just about singing. Nor is it confined to the cathedral, as this morning’s recital took place in the elegance of Hereford’s Shirehall. There was a capacity audience of around 400 in the bright and airy room, restful in pale blue and white, with few adornments apart from a frieze of gilded instruments in the corners above the stage.Read full review... | ||
| 17-Jul-2012 Église de St-Paul-de-Joliette | Melnikov the Magnificent: Schumann, Scriabin and Shostakovich at the Festival de Lanaudière | Robert Markow |
 An extraordinary event took place on Tuesday evening in Saint-Paul-de Joliette, Quebec, a pleasant little farming community located about an hour’s drive northeast of Montreal. There, as part of Canada’s largest classical music summer music festival (the Festival de Lanaudière, centered in nearby Joliette), pianist Alexander Melnikov gave a weighty, exhausting recital that taxed performer and audience to the hilt, one that will surely be remembered for years to come.
Read full review... | ||
| 14-Jul-2012 Sage: Hall Two | Northern Sinfonia in miniature: Brahms and Schumann chamber works | Jane Shuttleworth |
 Early Romantic symphonies lie at the core of Northern Sinfonia’s orchestral repertoire, and so to hear different groups of their players getting together with pianist John Reid to perform chamber music by Schumann and Brahms seemed like the most natural thing in the world, an intimate, scaled-down version of one of their regular concerts.
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.
Read full review... | ||
| 21-Jun-2012 Konzerthaus: Mozart Saal | Transcendental Song: Mark Padmore and Christianne Stotijn at Vienna's Konzerthaus | Zwölftöner |
 Dichterliebe is a Lieder programme staple but performances of Schumann’s anti-song cycle, the Op. 39 Liederkreis, are much harder to come by. The latter work fascinates me more, with its themes, in the twelve Eichendorff poems carefully selected by Schumann, of broken, alienated subjects longing for that from which they are cut off, namely love, nature, and some guarantee of existential wellbeing.Read full review... | ||
