Classical Source Reviews

Advance publicity promised not only ‘Sibelius in the raw’ but also ‘one of modern Finland’s most original young voices’. One wonders whether Lotta Wennäkoski was flattered or put out by that description. An established figure […]

This statement opera, playing for 2 hours 40 minutes including a single intermission in its present incarnation, grew out of a more modest Mahagonny-Songspiel lasting little longer than tonight’s interval. The bigger stage work is by no means […]

A short homily from the conductor, required to explain that the interval had moved from that advertised in the printed programme, served also to introduce the music of Vítězslava Kaprálová (1915‑40). A Martinů student (and […]

A clever if geographically suspect marketing conceit unites two concerts in the LPO’s ongoing season. This was the first: four 20th-century pieces from central and eastern Europe which, to continue the pop analogy, have made […]

The RPO is going from strength to strength these days and there was no mistaking the enthusiasm of players and audience despite the customary noises off: bronchial intrusions, mobile phone calls, the occasional whir of […]

Mostly with Mahler the old problem is stood on its ahead. Performances, even those of the unfinished Tenth, have become so frequent than it can be difficult to recapture the excitement they once engendered. Tweaked […]

The New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players’ winter ‘mini season’   opened with a thoroughly charming performance of H.M.S. Pinafore, the fourth of the duo’s fourteen collaborations and their first breakthrough hit. This is the first Pinafore staged under Artistic […]

The Philharmonic marked this Yuletide season with a screening of Chris Columbus’s 1990 comedy, Home Alone, accompanied by John Williams’s Oscar-nominated score telling the story of eight-year-old Kevin McCallister, who defends himself and his home […]

This thoughtfully planned, totally captivating recital opened with a dreamy rendition of the melancholic Taneyev Prelude, Daniil Trifonov then tearing headlong into the fiendish, frenetic Fugue. As he leaned low over the keyboard, his dramatic […]

Glyndebourne is no stranger to Handel, nor to the Royal Albert Hall, with the company’s annual visit to the Proms. But this is the first time, I think, that its autumn season has seen an […]