Reviews
Quintessence is defined as the exemplar of a quality or class. In the context of the second day of Beethovenfest, the Russian National Orchestra (RNO), under the accomplished baton of director and conductor Mikhail Pletnev, presented three works from three different composers, which are regarded as the quintessence of the
Reviews
It was with great applause that the audience welcomed the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra from Amsterdam to the Lucerne Festival. The works for their two concerts were by the great Austrian masters of the late 19th century Bruckner and Mahler. Also framing these works were masterpieces by Alban Berg of the
Reviews
Home to major symphony orchestras from all over the world the Lucerne Festival is very special for this reason alone. It is the only city in Europe that boasts an array of the best symphony orchestras, conductors and soloists! I attended the second of two concerts given by the Munich
Reviews
Legendary pianist and conductor now in his late seventies joined hands with two young string players in two concerts covering the six important piano trios of Beethoven. Violinist, his son Michael Barenboim and young Persian-Austrian cellist Kian Soltani joined the veteran pianist whose playing remain youthful, vigorous and highly communicative.
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Not many festivals in the world can pride themselves on hosting the Berlin Philharmonic on two successive nights. Needless to say there was a buzz in the air as the capacity audience anticipated the two very different programmes. As the current music director of the Bavarian State Opera, the young
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Georges Bizet’s most famous work is the opera Carmen a contemporary tale of French verismo replete with on-stage cigarette- girls, Spanish dances, bull fights and on-stage stabbing. Its popularity has far out stripped that of its ten year’s previous story set in ancient times on the island of
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A magnificent show of Tchaikovsky’s dramatic tragedy was performed for the sixth time on 25th August to an appreciative audience. The opera by Tchaikovsky has a libretto by his brother Modest based on a novel by Alexander Puchkin. The premiere took place in 1890 in St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky
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Last night I attended the first performance of my week in Salzburg during the conclusion of the Summer Festival. It was the sixth performance of Mozart’s last opera the Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte). Billed initially by Mozart as a “German opera” it was also described as “grand opera”. Its
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I made it my business to explore the music of my contemporary George Benjamin in recent months, and was wondrously struck by the wealth and richness of his creative output, most especially in the outpouring of recent works. He is without question one of the most successful and accomplished composer
Reviews
Scottish Chamber Orchestra/Robin Ticciati Johannes Brahms: Symphonies 1-4 18 and 19 August 2018 Usher Hall, Edinburgh Edinburgh International Festival Listening to Brahms’ complete symphony cycle is a tremendous emotional journey, and there could have been nobody better than Robin Ticciati and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra at the Edinburgh International
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London Symphony Orchestra/Simon Rattle Leonard Bernstein: Symphony No. 2 ‘The Age of Anxiety’ Antonin Dvořák: Slavonic Dances op. 72 Leoš Janáček: Sinfonietta Krystian Zimerman, Piano 10 August 2018 Usher Hall, Edinburgh Edinburgh International Festival When I first heard three years ago that Simon Rattle was to take over the
Reviews
Those of us present at Mumbai’s century-old Opera House between 1-3 August were lucky enough to be treated to a really delightful evening. The opera house, built in the early 20th century in Indo-European Neo-Baroque architecture, lay unused for twenty three years from 1993 to 2016. It was formally