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Gianandrea Noseda's Shostakovich symphony cycle with the London Symphony Orchestra took us right back to the composer's student days, with the punchy First. 

Most music Festivals only have to deal with demanding divas, mercurial maestros or bad weather. In Istanbul there is a lot more at stake.

Recitals of Russian song don't have to be suffocated with doom and gloom. Neither do they have to be built upon the works of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov.

Behzod Abduraimov brought his intense and brilliant pianism for his first recital on the main stage of Carnegie Hall

Violinist Keren Gomyo and conductor Cristian Măcelaru team up to provide a superb Tchaikovsly concerto. 

On day release from the Covent Garden pit for their annual evening in the limelight, the ROH Orchestra took a quick spin through works by Russia's Mighty Handful. 

“A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma”. That description could apply to Shostakovich’s Fifteenth Symphony. It would also describe Valery Gergiev’s conducting.

This evening’s programme could have been designed to play to Valery Gergiev's strengths in Russian repertoire… yet also displayed characteristic flaws.

Fluttering fingers and jabbing a toothpick baton, it’s difficult see how an orchestra can follow the beat – any beat – indicated by Valery Gergiev. 

For once, the musical menu was a good deal more sultry than the temperatures in the Royal Albert Hall as the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic made a notable debut in a programme full of what Rudyard Kipling may well have described as “more-than-oriental splendour”.

Rare Russian repertoire fails to catch fire, despite the best efforts of Osmo Vänskä and the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Bach's Brandenburg concerto No. 3 (BWV 1048) doesn't have a slow movement. In the place where you would normally expect to find one, what's written out is just two chords. And in most modern performances, those chords get a perfunctory embellishment, a quick bit of a cadenza, and on we go. That's the shape in which the piece now sits in the classical canon, so nobody expects more than that.

Retour sur un dimanche au Festival de la Grange de Meslay, avec deux jeunes pianistes (Marie-Ange Nguci et Masaya Kamei) qui ont laissé une impression mitigée.

Le pianiste ne donne jamais l'impression d'être dans la réitération d'une interprétation mise au point dans le secret de son studio. Il recrée sans cesse et remporte un triomphe mérité.

Partagé entre une première partie classique et une seconde partie très « théâtre musical », le récital de Simon Ghraichy au Théâtre des Champs-Élysées partait sur une idée loin d'être mauvaise. Retour sur une soirée pas ordinaire.

Le jeune pianiste russe Alexandre Malofeev en récital à la fondation Vuitton. Retour sur un concert décevant, ou l'effet virtuose prend l'ascendant sur l'expression.

Tout ce que la musique russe peut évoquer de force et de fermeté, de passion sourde et d’intensité, Danny Driver l’a livré mercredi soir à la Salle Bourgie. Dans le cadre de la série « Complètement piano » de la Fondation Arte Musica, durant laquelle les compositeurs russes sont mis à l’honneur, le pianiste proposait un récital autour de Bach, Schumann, Balakirev, Rachmaninov et Prokofiev.

Etude-Tableau Nr. 9 von Rachmaninov ist ein trotz seiner Kürze nahezu monströses Stück mit technisch gewaltigen Anforderungen – hinreißend gemeistert: Gratulation dem Künstler!