Korngold's Violin Concerto from Simone Lamsma is delivered with extraordinary deftness and depth, while Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances thrill under Yan Pascal Tortelier and the Pittsburgh Symphony.
On reaching the second instalment of his Brahms cycle, Vasily Petrenko brings a fresh breath of alpine air to Liverpool, while George Li impresses in Rachmaninov’s ever popular Second Piano Concerto.
Musiktheater im Revier Gelsenkirchen's new production of Hindemith's meditation on art and politics, Mathis der Maler, draws upon the Ruhr's modern art legacy.
A sombre programme of four substantial works, part of the LPOs series of concert Belief and Beyond Belief nevertheless had something of showbusiness about it, thanks to the charismatic presence of John Mauceri.
On the second leg of its current European tour, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Riccardo Muti fail to scale the heights in an acoustically problematic venue.
A firecracker performance by Vladimir Jurowski and the Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin giving urgency to music composed at a time that echoes our own.
On Friday evening, the first snow cast its veil over my hometown. Despite the frost, Olli Mustonen’s concert at the Turku Concert Hall got people on the move.
Barry Humphries’ Weimar Cabaret – a witty, urbane valentine to the musical culture of Germany in the 1920s and 30s, from the opera house to the concert hall to Berlin’s revues and cabarets.
Miriam Miller is the latest ballerina to stand out from the crowded field at City Ballet and she may well be the best at such a young age since Sara Mearns.
Spanish conductor Jesús López Cobos’ debut appearance with the BBC Philharmonic produced some wonderful results with a thoughtful and widely-varying programme of twentieth century music.
An exciting rendition of Brahms Second Piano Concerto in the first half was offset by a less than engaging rendition of Hindemith's Symphony: Mathias der Maler in the second.
Baritone Jaakko Koretkangas and pianist Nino Gvetadze prove the stars of an evening of great variety ending with a thrilling scene from an obscure Hindemith opera.
Cardillac has a spooky, sinister fascination that both intrigues and horrifies and which is quite successfully expressed in this striking production by Sven-Eric Bechtolf.
At the Estonian National Opera, Vilppu Kiljunen's staging of Hindemith's crime opera Cardillac is wonderfully eerie. Unfortunately, conductor Vello Pähn's reading of the score doesn't do it justice.
A short one-hour concert of chamber wind instrument music placed itself neatly tucked away in The Lantern at the Colston Hall as part of the returned Tuesday Lunchtime Concert Series.
A truly revolutionary music director, Leon Botstein programmed Hindemith's opera The Long Christmas Dinner alongside a full, staged version of Thorton Wilder's one-act play.
Lively performances Beethoven’s First and Second Symphonies demonstrating that composer’s compositional development, plus Hindemith’s colorful Symphonic Metamorphosis, made for an enjoyable evening at Severance Hall.
Sixty years after his debut with the Swedish Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, 87 year old Herbert Blomstedt conducted the orchestra in the very same programme in a sold out Stockholm Concert Hall.
How lucky I am to live in a city where I can head over to Lincoln Center and catch an entire evening’s worth of Balanchine ballets, performed by the stellar artists that make up New York City Ballet. This gift is not lost on me; I may be becoming a jaded New Yorker, occasionally cynical and impressed by little, but I feel quite a thrill attending the ballet.
When one sees the word “Erotica” in connection with classical music, one is usually safe in assuming that it’s a misprint in the title of Beethoven’s Third Symphony.
You might not think that a conductor nearing his 80th birthday and leading an orchestra from a swivel chair would be as effective as a conductor in full health, but you would be wrong.
The string nonet Collectif 9 offers its public something truly as valuable as it is rare: classical repertoire “revisited with passion and fearlessness”. They are a group of very young and fiercely talented string players, many of whom play in the city’s professional orchestras.
It was an auspicious debut; a collaboration that, in time, would propel both orchestra and conductor to the very summit of the classical music world. On the stage of the old Philharmonic Hall in Downtown stepped a 24-year-old conductor at the very beginning of his world career.
Although Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique was the headline work for the September 27th Cleveland Orchestra concert at Severance Hall, the big news was principal oboist Frank Rosenwein’s personal triumph as soloist in Richard Strauss’ 1946 Oboe Concerto, with music director Franz Welser-Möst conducting.
It was a night that didn't augur well for those Hollywood Bowl patrons seeking the usual symphonic serenade under starlight. Los Angeles, on Thursday night, was seized by a sudden heat wave that was accompanied with stifling humidity more fitting for Manila or Saigon than the Hollywood Hills.
This season New York City Ballet unveiled two entirely new ballets by choreographers Peter Martins and Benjamin Millepied. Both world premieres took place during the NYCB’s spring gala earlier this month and were reprised Tuesday night for an eager, if not as impressively dressed, audience.Martins’ Mes oiseaux (“My Birds”), first of the night, included some interesting choices.
It must be heart-warming for a young composer, sharing the bill with Beethoven and Stravinsky, to know that the programme has been named after her piece. The clear, confident writing in Helen Grime's A Cold Spring (2009) effectively conveyed the visual contrast offered by sharp-edged, bright days at this time of year.
A Celebration of Bob Lockyer was less a celebration of the man than of his work. Lockyer has had a full career ranging from producer of award-winning dance programmes at the BBC, to chair of Dance UK and South-East Dance. His lengthy career has earned him the accolade of “one of the great heroes of British dance”.
Bringing with them the exuberance of youthful passion and prodigious energy, the students of the International Musicians Seminar Prussia Cove in Cornwall transformed a starkly unaccommodating town hall into one which thrilled to the talents of classical music's heirs.
A happy few: that was how Gabriel Kahane referred to his cohorts on stage at the Galapagos Art Space. But there was more than met the eye to Sunday night’s performance.The curtain opened to reveal the stage at the Galapagos Art Space, and there sat the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, without a conductor. Truthfully, the effect was strange at first. But all reservations were immediately rescinded with the very first movement from Paul Hindemith’s Kammermusik no. 1, Op.24 no.1.
Après sa tournée européenne, l’Orchestre national de Lyon fait son retour auprès de son public avec un programme mettant à l’honneur le majestueux orgue de l’Auditorium Maurice Ravel.
Proposition étonnante, la programmation des deux oeuvres dans une même soirée fait le pari des contrastes, mais parvient difficilement à se tenir à distance d'un traitement narratif très vertical et moralisateur.
