GRAMOPHONE Review: Mahler Symphony No. 7 – Budapest Festival Orchestra/Fischer
I honestly can’t remember hearing a performance of this extraordinary symphony which was so plainly in love with its ethos, its originality, its sonority. Ivan Fischer reads ‘the small print’ of the score with such thoroughness that…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Shostakovich Symphonies Nos. 6 & 7, Etc. – Boston Symphony Orchestra/Nelsons
We’ve come to expect a clear-sighted brilliance and technical excellence from this series. It’s become something of a benchmark in that respect. The Tenth Symphony arrived like a whirlwind to kick things off and there have been…
GRAMOPHONE: From Where I Sit – March 2019
In preparation for a public encounter with the astute and ever-enquiring Vladimir Jurowski on the subject of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen my mind goes back to the first time I saw the film of Patrice Chereau’s…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Songplay – Joyce DiDonato
What we have here is the epitome of what we Brits call a ‘Marmite’ experience with elements to love and/or loathe whether or not you buy the concept in the first place. Joyce DiDonato’s fans will, of…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition & Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4 – London Symphony Orchestra/Noseda
You would surely expect an Italian to tap into the heat and ardour of Tchaikovsky’s fate-fuelled Fourth Symphony – but ‘heavy and unyielding’ is all that I took away from Noseda’s decidedly unremarkable performance. A sternness prevails…
GRAMOPHONE: From Where I Sit – February 2019
With last month’s focus on a new generation of pianists in mind I am prompted to think again about something that is not often discussed with regard to international concertising: namely, not just what these exceptional young…
GRAMOPHONE: From Where I Sit – January 2019
I have often been asked if I listen to music differently when reviewing or not reviewing. It’s an interesting question. There is, you could say, a heightened level of awareness when ‘in working mode’. One listens in…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Shostakovich Symphony No. 8 – London Symphony Orchestra/Noseda
I always think that the opening bars of this war-torn essay suggest the flip side, the oppressively dark side, of the Fifth Symphony. No more ‘A Soviet artist’s reply to just criticism’, simply a Soviet artist’s outrage.…
GRAMOPHONE: From Where I Sit – December 2018
The recent revival of The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess at English National Opera and the prospect of comparing all its available recordings in BBC Radio 3’s Record Review early next year has prompted me to look a…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Stravinsky Petrushka/Jeu de Cartes – Mariinsky Orchestra/Gergiev
Bold local colours are pretty much a given for Petrushka with this orchestra and this conductor in this location. But the vividness and ‘authenticity’ (not a word I generally use) of the characterisation took even me a…
