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Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Edinburgh Festival Chorus

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Manchester

A shattering Gurre-Lieder from the Hallé, BBC Philharmonic and Sir Mark Elder

By Rohan Shotton, 04 June 2017
Sir Mark Elder's 70th birthday Gurre-Lieder threatens to dislodge the roof in Manchester with the combined forces of the Hallé and BBC Philharmonic
*****
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Edinburgh

Runnicles bids farewell to BBCSSO with a colossal Gurrelieder at the Edinburgh Festival

By David Smythe, 28 August 2016
Donald Runnicles ends the 2016 Edinburgh Festival with Gurrelieder. 
*****
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Edinburgh

An epic Shostakovich 5 as Marin Alsop introduces the São Paulo Symphony to the EIF

By David Smythe, 22 August 2016
Marin Alsop nods to her mentor in Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, challenges the Edinburgh Festival Chorus with Villa-Lobos' Chôros 10 and astonishes in a passionate enduring performance of Shostakovich's Fifth.
****1
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Edinburgh

Janáček's Glagolitic Mass crowns Edinburgh International Festival

By Alan Coady, 30 August 2014
The BBC SSO and Ilan Volkov close EIF 2014's contemplations on 'Conflict and Culture' with dark Mills and dramatic Janáček.
****1
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Edinburgh

Edinburgh International Festival: The Opening Concert

By Alan Coady, 08 August 2014
Oliver Knussen, the RSNO and Edinburgh Festival Chorus offer rarely heard titanic works in a packed Usher Hall.
****1
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Edinburgh

Edinburgh International Festival: World-class Mahler from Mariss Jansons and the BRSO

By David Smythe, 12 August 2013
It is on record that Mariss Jansons adores the Usher Hall in Edinburgh and wishes there was a concert hall with as good an acoustic in Munich. His quite astonishing performance of Mahler’s vast “Resurrection” Symphony, taking us as it does on a journey from darkness and despair to blazing light with orchestra and choir going flat out, demonstrated just what an exciting venue this is.
*****
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Edinburgh

Edinburgh International Festival: Opening concert with the RSNO, Gergiev and Daniil Trifonov

By Alan Coady, 09 August 2013
The opening concert of the 2013 Edinburgh International Festival was a Scottish-Russian collaboration. The RSNO, the home team on home turf, featured two Russian soloists, all under the baton (or, more accurately, the open hands) of Valery Gergiev at Usher Hall.
****1
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Edinburgh

Edinburgh International Festival: RSNO play Ives, Feldman and Walton with David Robertson

By Alan Coady, 01 September 2012
This, the final indoor concert of the 2012 Edinburgh International Festival (the closing Fireworks Concert takes place under the Castle Rock in Princes Street Gardens), was bookended by possibly the loudest and quietest sounds in the festival.Charles Ives' The Unanswered Question opens with a delicate mist of pianissimo strings.
*****
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Edinburgh

A time to dance

By Alan Coady, 02 September 2011
It's about time. Certainly Chronochromie is about the colour of time, but grasping the essence of much of Messiaen's music depends on being in synchrony with his take on time in music – specifically intimations of the eternal.
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London

Prom 26: Debussy, Dutilleux and Ravel

By Kay Kempin, 03 August 2011

An evening of French music, the notes from Debussy, Ravel and Dutilleux lingered in the sticky summer air long after the concert finished.

Making their BBC Proms debut, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (BBC SSO) and the Edinburgh Festival Chorus, conducted by Donald Runnicles with chorus-master Christopher Bell, took command of the stage. In the opening piece, Debussy's Prelude a L'après-midi d'un faune, the BBC SSO captured the pastoral, yet erotic nature of the piece. From the opening flute theme (played by Rosemary Eliot) to the last ringing chord, the Prelude was orgiastic throughout.

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London

Prom 24: The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra play Mahler 3

By Simon Birch, 04 August 2010
If there would be one piece to show someone asking “who is Mahler?” the third symphony would undoubtedly be my first choice. Though it does not perhaps reach the heights of expressionism of some of his later symphonies, it perfectly exemplifies everything Mahler’s music is about: contrast between emotional extremes, ingenuitive orchestration, and a juxtaposition of the sublime and trivial.
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