This concert was inevitably the sum of far more than its parts, and not for nothing are the Monteverdi Choir and the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantiquem, regarded as among the best in the world
Prom 20 proved an exhilarating journey, featuring Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette as one of the key works of this year’s BBC Proms' Shakespeare 400 celebrations.
A Franco-German alliance of trailblazing symphonies from the early 19th century performed with style by Sir John Eliot Gardiner's own Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique band of musicians.
A sensational finale to Beethoven's Fifth concludes the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique's 25th birthday concert, following a fine display of vocal excellence by Anna Caterina Antonacci.
Sir John Eliot Gardiner conducts the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique and the Monteverdi Choir in a late night performance of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis at the BBC Proms.
Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis is an odd piece. Despite having a rich recorded legacy, it is not a piece that one encounters often in the concert hall. The technical challenges of this music are up there with virtually any other piece of combined music for choir and orchestra.
As I walked to this concert by the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique and the Monteverdi Choir, I wondered what might have changed in Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s Beethoven in the two decades since he first recorded these symphonies.
Opera at the 2012 Proms began with a performance of Debussy’s only completed opera, Pelléas et Mélisande. Conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, the production celebrated the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth, and marked the 24 years since Gardiner first brought the work to the Royal Albert Hall with the Opéra de Lyon.
The overture to Der Freischütz is a familiar concert warm-up, but the opera itself is a rarer find these days. It wasn't always so. With over fifty performances in the eighteen months following its 1821 Berlin debut, Weber's spooky tale of souls traded for magic bullets was an instant hit.
Bezuidenhout hat sich nicht nur intensiv mit der Partitur befasst, sondern auch mit deren Realisierung auf dem Hammerflügel, und seine Interpretation war alles andere als üblich.
L’approche de Sir John Eliot Gardiner est-elle historiquement (in)acceptable ? C’est une question que le mélomane peut tranquillement confier au musicologue. Et en effet, qu’importe ? La tradition c’est, pour reprendre les mots de Mahler, transmettre le feu, et non vénérer les cendres.
Très excitante était la perspective d’entendre ce chef légendaire donner le Concerto pour piano en sol majeur de Beethoven avec l’un des meilleurs piano-fortiste actuels, un peu frustrante en fut l’issue.
