This was a superbly assured performance in which Esa-Pekka Salonen marshalled his forces with a clear-sighted vision to carve out an account brimming with intensity, energy and commitment.
Composers from Purcell to Pierre Boulez have written incidental music. In many cases it proves far from incidental, retaining a place in the concert hall long after the play has faded into oblivion.
The conductor favours measured tempi and unfussy direction, allowing the work to stand mountain-like as an expression of its own intrinsic magnificence.
In a time when death and mourning lack any public or communal aspect, where the funeral procession has ceased to exist save for royalty and the occasional head of state, what relevance does the traditional dirge have?
Great opera at the Los Angeles Philharmonic as Esa-Pekka Salonen conducted Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande as part of the City of Light, a retrospective that examines works seen in Paris during the first half of the 20th century.
Le nozze di Figaro is called Figaro’s Bröllop in Swedish, which sounds quite funny to ‘non-Svensks’. With Marcellina behaving like a total trollop, all that is needed to complete the rhyming triplet are the Wallops at Glyndebourne.
The Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, in collaboration with Peter Sellars, brings their superb dramatic performance of Bach's St Matthew Passion to New York.
Bernard Haitink and the London Symphony Orchestra explore musical perspectives on youthfulness and memory with a programme of Schubert's Fifth and the songs of innocence and experience woven into Mahler's Fourth.
David McVicar's production of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro returns for its sixth revival at the Royal Opera House, the refinement of the production matched, almost at all times, by the performances.
Can two composers have so much, yet so little in common? Or be such accommodating, yet such uncomfortable bedfellows? The SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg with their principal conductor François-Xavier Roth addressed these questions in exhilarating style, in a “turn-of-the-century time capsule” which thrilled and enchanted upon its opening.
Christmas may have inspired much of the greatest holiday-related popular music, but in the Classical tradition, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion (to say nothing of his St. John Passion and Easter Oratorio) points toward the influence of Easter.
À l'Auditorium, David Zinman était invité à diriger l'Orchestre National de Lyon dans le Requiem allemand de Johannes Brahms, précédé de la rare Sinfonia da Requiem de Benjamin Britten.
2016 schrieb ich anlässlich Hengelbrocks Elias-Aufführung: „Bitte mehr davon!“. Das Balthasar-Neumann-Ensemble und das Konzerthaus Dortmund hielten mit Haydns Schöpfung Wort.
Camilla Tilling eröffnete mit einer maßstabsetzenden Interpretation von Dutilleux' Correspondances, danach überzeugte das Tonhalle-Orchester unter Pablo Heras-Casado mit einer orchestralen Spitzenleistung.
Die Wiener Singakademie und die Wiener Symphoniker setzten den geistlichen Höhepunkt des diesjährigen OsterKlang Wien mit einer Aufführung von Bachs h-moll Messe im Wiener Konzerthaus.
Le mercredi 7 janvier 2015 avait lieu le premier concert de l’année pour l’Orchestre National de France, avec à la baguette Robin Ticciati. Une soirée très étrange, où la musique a permis de lutter contre la tristesse quelques heures après l'attentat.
