The Long Count – review
This bizarre, semi-operatic production was greated with tentative, baffled but warm applause, which seems about right, writes John Lewis
Tim Whitehead: Colour Beginnings – review
Whitehead's tribute to Turner takes him and pianist Liam Noble through twisting, soft, speculative territory, writes John Fordham
The Miners’ Hymn
Durham CathedralIt took an outsider's eye to put the miners' strike in perspective – part of the audio-visual collaboration that was the centrepiece at the Durham Miners' Gala, writes Alfred Hickling
Bill Fontana
Sage, GatesheadJazz musicians Tim Garland and Asaf Sirkis relished the opportunity to jam with a bridge and a lighthouse in Bill Fontana's experimental sound creation, writes Alfred Hickling
Piotr Anderszewski/Zaha Hadid
Classical review:If Hadid were to create a new space for the reinterpretation of Bach, she should have designed a dance-floor, says Alfred Hickling
Glenn Branca
Roundhouse, London
Tchaikovsky: Francesca da Rimini; Romeo and Juliet; 1812 Overture; Waltz and Polonaise from Eugene Onegin, Chorus and Orchestra of the Academia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia/ Pappano
Antonio Pappano’s new Tchaikovsky disc is a disappointment. The various items were recorded live in Rome during a retrospective of the composer’s work at the Academia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, and though you get a strong sense of the combination … Continue reading
Vivaldi: ‘Heroes’, Jaroussky/ Ensemble Matheus/ Spinosi
(Virgin Classics)
Respighi: Preludio, Corale e Fuga, Burlesca, Rossiniana etc, BBC Philharmonic/Noseda
Ottorino Respighi was notoriously obsessed with other composers’ works, and well over half the music on this disc consists of adaptations or orchestrations. In Rossiniana (1926), Respighi pays homage to one of his great heroes with dazzling, if dark-hued paraphrases … Continue reading
Britten: Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes/ Elgar: Enigma Variations
On the surface, Paavo Jarvi’s decision to place Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra alongside Elgar’s Enigma Variations seems idiosyncratic. In some respects, however, the coupling makes perfect sense: so much has been made of the educational intentions of … Continue reading
Beethoven: Symphonies 5 & 7, Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela/ Dudamel
(Deutsche Grammophon)
Anna Netrebko: Russian Album, Netrebko/ Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra/ Gergiev
Anna Netrebko and Renée Fleming recorded their latest albums in close proximity at the Mariinsky theatre in St Petersburg last year. In each case, the conductor is Valery Gergiev, whose presence signifies an uncommon seriousness of purpose beneath a format … Continue reading
Mozart: Arias, Kozena/ OAE/ Rattle
The simultaneous release of this pair of discs effectively allows us to hear two of today’s more glamorous divas going head to head in similar programmes. Their reputations in the UK are, however, unequal: Magdalena Kozena, much hyped, is, of … Continue reading
Hindemith: Ludus Tonalis; Suite ’1922′, Berezovsky
Ludus Tonalis, Hindemith’s most substantial piano work, has such a reputation for intellectual aridity that the very mention of it is guaranteed to have some running for cover. Written in 1942 and conceived as a kind of 20th-century riposte to … Continue reading
Mozart: Arias/ Haydn: Scena di Berenice, Harteros/ Vienna Symphony/ Steinberg
The simultaneous release of this pair of discs effectively allows us to hear two of today’s more glamorous divas going head to head in similar programmes. Their reputations in the UK are, however, unequal: Magdalena Kozena, much hyped, is, of … Continue reading
Strauss: Four Last Songs; Tod und Verklärung; Wagner: Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, Brewer/ Atlanta Symphony/ Runnicles
Christine Brewer’s many admirers have been waiting for ages for her to commit her famous interpretation of Strauss’s Four Last Songs to disc. Now that we finally have it, it turns out to be problematic on a number of counts. … Continue reading
Mahler: Symphony No 2, ‘Resurrection’, Milne/ Remmert/ Hungarian Radio Choir/ Budapest Festival O/ Fischer
(Channel Classics, two CDs)
Liszt: Sonata in B minor; Grandes Études de Paganini, Lazaridis
George-Emmanuel Lazaridis’s recording of Liszt’s Sonata in B minor is a riveting if divided affair. Its strengths and weaknesses derive from a ruminative quality in the Greek pianist’s interpretation, which frequently gives the impression that the entire performance is an … Continue reading
Janacek: String Quartet No 2; Haas: String Quartet No 2, Pavel Haas Quartet/ Currie
The Pavel Haas Quartet takes its name from the eponymous Czech-Jewish composer and pupil of Janacek, who became a prominent interwar modernist before being murdered by the Nazis in 1944. That Haas’s compressed style owed much to his teacher’s is … Continue reading
Respighi: Il Tramonto; String Quartet in D Minor; Quartetto Dorico, Doufexis/ New Hellenic Quartet
This disc gathers together Ottorino Respighi’s main works for string quartet, a medium with which he was reputedly uncomfortable, though his achievement in the genre was by no means negligible. The structurally conventional Quartet in D Minor (1909) is a … Continue reading
Waxman: Joshua, Hallenberg/ Gilfry/ Schell/ Prague Philharmonic Choir/ Prague Phil/ Sedares
Franz Waxman’s reputation as Hollywood’s greatest composer has always deflected attention from the works he wrote for the concert hall, of which Joshua, dating from 1959, is among the most important. The trigger was the death of Waxman’s wife two … Continue reading
Malher, Berg, Zemlinsky, Wolf, Strauss: Lieder, Damrau/ Lademann
German soprano Diana Damrau is best known for her flamboyant performances of opera’s most exacting coloratura roles. This disc, however, a recital of post-Romantic songs recorded live in Salzburg last year, proves to be a more meditative affair than her … Continue reading
Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Nos 8 ‘Pathétique’, 29 ‘Hammerklavier’ and 19, Guy
The centrepiece of François-Frédéric Guy’s new Beethoven disc is the monumental Hammerklavier Sonata, a work with which Guy, like many pianists, is seemingly obsessed – “The centre of gravity round which my career is structured,” is how he describes it. … Continue reading