Bachtrack Young Reviewer - List of reviews

The concert I went to was the London Philharmonic Orchestra playing Schubert’s Rosamunde Overture, Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto, and Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony at Brighton Dome, conducted by Danail Rachev, with pianist Sofya Gulyak as the soloist for the Rachmaninov. The concert started with a brilliantly sinister C minor opening to the Schubert, soon followed by the contrasting, playful C major section, both conducted with wonderful passion from Rachev. Woodwind and violins marvellously commandeered the slower melodies in the beginning of the overture, before transforming into the jokey C major melodies, with the cellos creating and equally playful counter melody in the following bars. This brilliant energy in the orchestra was magnificently maintained all the way through, all the way up to the overture’s brilliant finale!

This was my first visit to Kings Place, a new building near King’s Cross Station (which also includes the offices of the Guardian and Observer newspapers), so I was fairly excited! I arrived wondering what it would be like and was pleasantly surprised.

Saturday’s concert with the Cleveland Orchestra and Jun Märkl at Severance hall consisted of Mussorgsky’s Prelude to Khovanschina, Sibelius’s Violin Concerto in D Minor, Debussy’s Printemps and Rondes de Printemps, and rounding off the program, Liszt’s Les Preludes.

I love the cello. Ever since starting to learn the violin I’ve loved the cello! And the first piece of the night, Richard Strauss’ “Dreaming by the Fireside” started with a gorgeous cello tune. It was a perfect celebration of all things stringy. A beautiful opener which set the scene for the rest of the concert; It was short and pretty. You could feel the audience lapping the romantic chords and sweeping strings as the piece rose and rose to an emotional climax. However, you could also feel the tension as people waited for the true star of the evening to stride onstage, and despite being a lovely piece of music, the Strauss was very much outshone by the magnificence of the rest of the concert.

This was my first visit to a percussion only concert and even though I play percussion in a youth orchestra I was a little apprehensive. I need not have been, O Duo were brilliant from start to finish, I even found myself on stage playing with them, twice during the performance!

Rimsky-Korsakov, Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky.. all provide us with the brass-busting frills and drama of the Russian composer. It therefore came as a surprise to me that Shostakovich’s 2nd Violin Concerto should hold such inwardly lyrical passages, subtle delicacies and softness that seem to ignore the genre of the Russian Violin Concerto entirely. But with the strong army of the London Symphony Orchestra behind him, Sergey Khachatryan proved he did not need the showman’s tricks to prove his talent.

This quote being almost the sum total of my prior knowledge of Romeo and Juliet, I was a surprised to learn the night before the performance of Prokofiev's famous ballet that, being a ballet, there would be absolutely no dialogue between the players on stage - the only sound would be the orchestra playing what many will be most familiar with as the theme music from The Apprentice.

First of all, when I heard the play was called Faeries, I had a picture in my mind of elegant ballerinas prancing around. When I heard it was going to take place in the Royal Opera house, those ballerinas were rewarded with a bunch of booming yet graceful opera singers. But no. This was different (not that that wouldn’t be good, don’t get me wrong, it just wouldn’t be my cup of tea).

Ligeti’s Concert Romanesc opened the concert, promising a night exhibiting energetic musicianship and a full display of techniques from every player. Modal inflections, reminiscent of the Renaissance period, vibrantly mixed with a daring use of harmonics and changing tempos in a furious dance. The players seemed to love the piece as much as audience members, emitting enough energy to lift them off their seats. Horn harmonics resounded from both on stage and behind the scenes, whilst Antonio Pappano displayed some fancy footwork on his podium, clearly relishing the modern twist to the folk themes.

“Behold the greatest trumpeter on earth!” The quote from The Times in 2006, was running through my head as Håkan Hardenberger walked out onto the stage of the Royal Festival Hall, with his long blue silk coat, open necked shirt and dark glasses. He casually strolled on as the rightful king of the trumpet world. His piece this evening was the Haydn Trumpet Concerto and for a trumpeter of his calibre, it was “a walk in the park.” This work is one ingrained in most trumpeters’ memory and Hardenberger is no exception. Due to the number of times he has performed Haydn’s magical concerto, no performance is the same. He can chop and change between the many interpretations of the great composition, meaning every recital is a special one.