Mitsuko Uchida, Royal Festival Hall (Review)
The magic usually descends quickly in a Mitsuko Uchida recital but the opening Bach of this rescheduled Festival Hall concert – a pair of Preludes and Fugues from Book 2 of The Well-Tempered Klavier – took a…
Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Abbado, Royal Festival Hall
Precious few conductors bring an aura of their own into the concert hall, still fewer change our perceptions of music and the way we listen to it. Claudio Abbado is one. And the orchestra he hand-picked back…
Murray Perahia, Barbican Hall
How to describe Murray Perahia’s qualities? Elegance, fluency, modesty, clarity – and an abiding sense of the poetic. In the final piece of Schumann’s Kinderszenen “Der Dichter spricht” – “the poet speaks” – Perahia’s own inner voice…
Julia Fischer, Martin Helmchen, Queen Elizabeth Hall
With the truly great composers – and I count Schumann among them – there is that abiding sense of music being created in the playing of it. It is, in effect, like a stream of consciousness in…