GRAMOPHONE: From Where I Sit – Awards Issue 2018
I recently spent two blissful hours at my local Curzon cinema watching a brilliant documentary entitled The Opera House. No prizes for guessing which opera house might regard itself as indomitably singular or indeed which might have…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Bernstein Symphony No. 2 The Age of Anxiety – Berlin Philharmonic/Zimerman Rattle
A few words of introduction from the man himself (Bernstein in conversation with Humphrey Burton) preface this performance of perhaps his finest concert work – and in case we were in any doubt of the inspiration behind…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Carousel – 2018 Broadway Cast Recording/Rodgers & Hammerstein
Carousel is arguably the most beautiful of all Broadway’s ‘Golden Age’ scores; Rodgers’ finest hour. Of that I, personally, am in no doubt. But like all the great Rodgers and Hammerstein shows it’s a totally integrated, cohesive,…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Shostakovich Symphonies 4 & 11 – Boston Symphony Orchestra/Nelsons
This Nelsons cycle started with a bang – namely the most electrifying recording of the Tenth Symphony we’ve had in almost half a century. The excellence continues. In dramatic contrast to Mikhail Pletnev’s intriguing but decidedly odd…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Shostakovich Symphonies 4 & 10 – Russian National Orchestra/Pletnev
You would expect Pletnev – a complicated and elusive character at the best of times – to offer a radical re-think of the renegade Fourth Symphony. And he does. Whether it works or not is another matter…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Richard Rodney Bennett Orchestral Works Vol. 2 – BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Wilson
Volume Two of John Wilson’s “celebration” (for that’s what this series surely is) of Richard Rodney Bennett’s manifold gifts as a composer – and once more the choices rejoice in his creative shape shifting. The accomplished jazzer…
GRAMOPHONE: From Where I Sit – September 2018
Reflecting back over my years in journalism my thoughts turned recently to interviews (that key component of a journalist’s armoury) and the sheer volume of opportunities that had come my way over the years both in print…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Mahler Symphony No. 4 – Julia Kleitner, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/Gatti
After his disappointingly urbane account of the Second Symphony “Resurrection” the twilit, child-like, world of the Fourth would, on paper, seem far better suited to the cultured Royal Concertgebouw sound as favoured and actively encouraged by Daniele…
GRAMOPHONE Review: A Certain Slant of Light – Lisa Delan, Marseille Philharmonic Orchestra/Foster
As this collection and its accompanying notes reminds us, the music came first and the poetry followed for Emily Dickinson. Like all respectable young American women of a certain social standing she studied piano and voice. And…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Elgar Symphony No. 2, Serenade For Strings – BBC Symphony Orchestra/Gardiner
The opening movement of Elgar’s Second Symphony has brought great diversity of approach over the decades. How to interpret that tempo marking “Allegro vivace e nobilmente”? Exuberance, pace, and nobility. Gardner steers the middle path between expansive…