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Paavo Järvi's mighty Bruckner 8 at the Elbphilharmonie

By Alexander Hall, 11 November 2022

Bruckner's Eighth Symphony should never leave you cold. It is almost impossible for any interpreter to satisfy all expectations in such a multi-faceted work, but Paavo Järvi came pretty close.

*****

*****

Hamburg

12 Nov 2022

Paavo Järvi's mighty Bruckner 8 at the Elbphilharmonie

By Alexander Hall

Zurich

Buchbinder's Beethoven leads the way with the Tonhalle in Zurich

By Sarah Batschelet, 26 October 2022

In the city’s sonorous Tonhalle, and under Parvo Järvi’s dynamic baton, works by Arvo Pärt, Ludwig von Beethoven, and Anton Bruckner make for a multi-coloured programme.

****1

****1

Zurich

28 Oct 2022

Buchbinder's Beethoven leads the way with the Tonhalle in Zurich

By Sarah Batschelet

Washington

Young and Lamsma bring levity to National Symphony Orchestra

By Sydney Boyd, 20 November 2021

A dark trio of works focused around Benjamin Britten's Violin Concerto made for a compelling concert in Washington DC.

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Washington

21 Nov 2021

Young and Lamsma bring levity to National Symphony Orchestra

By Sydney Boyd

New York City

An Arvo Pärt premiere stops time in a 2,000-year-old temple

By Kurt Gottschalk, 31 October 2021

O Holy Father Nicholas receives its moving premiere in the The Temple of Dendur gallery in New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

*****

*****

New York City

02 Nov 2021

An Arvo Pärt premiere stops time in a 2,000-year-old temple

By Kurt Gottschalk

Manchester

Tears for transience: Roderick Williams sings Butterworth with The Hallé

By Roy Westbrook, 11 December 2020

Its theme of the passing of everything from cherry blossom to opera houses made this a programme for the artistic perils of our time.

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Manchester

11 Dec 2020

Tears for transience: Roderick Williams sings Butterworth

By Roy Westbrook

Pärnu

Two “Firsts” as Beethoven opens the Pärnu Music Festival

By Mark Pullinger, 16 July 2020

While Kalle Randalu proves an amiable soloist in the First Piano Concerto, it is Beethoven the firebrand who startles in Paavo Järvi's account of the First Symphony with the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra.

***11

***11

Pärnu

16 Jul 2020

Two “Firsts” as Beethoven opens the Pärnu Music Festival

By Mark Pullinger

Bergen

Inspired by Elizabethan music: Edward Gardner and the Bergen Philharmonic

By David Karlin, 18 June 2020

The Bergen Phil and the Edvard Grieg Choir trace music from Elizabethan themes to 20th century works on them, culminating in Pärt's Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten.

***11

***11

Bergen

19 Jun 2020

Inspired by Elizabethan music: Gardner and the Bergen Phil

By David Karlin

Hamburg

Into silence: Arvo Pärt's distinctive soundworld casts a spell

By Matthew Rye, 03 February 2020

A portrait concert of music by Arvo Pärt, while single-mindedly contemplative in tone, proves surprisingly absorbing in the hands of his most authoritative interpreters.

****1

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Hamburg

04 Feb 2020

Into silence: Arvo Pärt's distinctive soundworld casts a spell

By Matthew Rye

London

World premiere of Josephine Stephenson's Une Saison en Enfer lights up Aurora at Wigmore Hall

By David Karlin, 04 December 2019

Aurora Orchestra prove too muscular for accompanying voices in Wigmore Hall, but Stephenson's setting of Rimbaud's poetry is impressive.

***11

***11

London

05 Dec 2019

Stephenson's Une Saison en Enfer lights up Aurora Orchestra

By David Karlin

Glasgow

Sir James MacMillan’s 60th Astonishing Birthday Concert with SCO and Chorus.

By David Smythe, 22 February 2019

Sir James MacMillan’s 60th Birthday Concert with SCO and Chorus rediscovers two major seminal works: the dramatic Veni, Veni, Emannuel with Colin Currie and the intense Seven Last Words from the Cross.

*****

*****

Glasgow

24 Feb 2019

Sir James MacMillan’s 60th Astonishing Birthday Concert

By David Smythe

Zurich

Tension and release: Paavo Järvi brings the Estonian Festival Orchestra to Zurich

By Sarah Batschelet, 20 January 2018

Paavo Järvi conducted the Estonian Festival Orchestra that he founded in select works by Northern composers.

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Zurich

23 Jan 2018

Paavo Järvi brings the Estonian Festival Orchestra to Zurich

By Sarah Batschelet

Turku

Maximum: Slavic Night with Maxim Rysanov and Risto Joost in Turku

By Olli Lehtonen, 08 September 2016

The Turku Philharmonic showcases some of the finest work from 20th-century Slavic composers.

Turku

14 Sep 2016

Maximum: Slavic Night in Turku

By Olli Lehtonen

Gateshead

Pärt and Tavener: simple complexity from the Royal Northern Sinfonia

By Jane Shuttleworth, 13 April 2016

Great musicality from Royal Northern Sinfonia in deceptively simple Pärt and a fearsomely demanding piece by John Tavener.

***11

***11

Gateshead

14 Apr 2016

Pärt and Tavener: simple complexity from the Royal Northern Sinfonia

By Jane Shuttleworth

Amsterdam

Dutch tintinnabulation: Sunday bells resound in the Concertgebouw

By Olga de Kort, 20 September 2015

The bells of Mussorgsky, Rachmaninov and Pärt resound and reverberate in The Main Hall of the Concertgebouw.

****1

****1

Amsterdam

22 Sep 2015

Sunday bells resound in the Concertgebouw

By Olga de Kort

Cleveland

Alisa Weilerstein in an introspective Elgar Cello Concerto with Cleveland Orchestra

By Timothy Robson, 08 November 2014

Cleveland Orchestra Miami principal conductor Giancarlo Guerrero led a moving reading of Pärt's Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten and a blazing John Adams Harmonielehre.

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Cleveland

11 Nov 2014

Alisa Weilerstein in an introspective Elgar Cello Concerto

By Timothy Robson

London

Britten Sinfonia's voyage to Britten at Milton Court

By Renée Reitsma, 24 November 2013

Violinist Pekka Kuusisto and Britten Sinfonia succeeded in creating a dynamic and captivating programme at Milton Court, with a series of works conceived as a whole and leading up to Britten's Serenade.

****1

****1

London

28 Nov 2013

Britten Sinfonia at Milton Court

By Renée Reitsma

London

Gubaidulina and Pärt with Kaljuste and the LPO at The Rest is Noise

By Penny Homer, 06 November 2013

It is pleasing to see concerts of music by living composers well attended, and such was the case at “A Timeless Beauty”, part of the Southbank Centre’s year-long celebration of contemporary music The Rest is Noise. This concert’s theme was “Politics and Spirituality”, and looked to the former Soviet Union for inspiration.Two composers on the programme provided contrasting examples.

***11

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London

08 Nov 2013

Gubaidulina and Pärt with Kaljuste and the LPO at The Rest is Noise

By Penny Homer

London

St Paul's Cathedral a moving location for Blitz Requiem première

By Jonathan Russell, 26 September 2013

On the night of 29 December, 1940, after a brief respite over Christmas, German bombers roared back over Britain. They dropped numerous incendiary bombs on the City of London, causing massive destruction, loss of life, and uncontrollable fires that raged for days. Miraculously, St Paul’s Cathedral survived the onslaught intact, even as much of the surrounding neighbourhood was reduced to rubble.

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London

30 Sep 2013

St Paul's Cathedral a moving location for Blitz Requiem première

By Jonathan Russell

Bristol

Late-night Pärt(ying) with the Choir of Royal Holloway and Bristol Ensemble at St George's

By David Fay, 20 September 2013

Embarrassing puns aside, the music of Arvo Pärt is hardly the staple fare of late-night revellers on Bristol’s Park Street, especially on a Friday. Tucked just around the corner, though, St George’s was celebrating the end of the long summer drought of live classical music courtesy of the Choir of Royal Holloway – fresh from their tour of the Balkan states – and the Bristol Ensemble.

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Bristol

23 Sep 2013

Late-night Pärt(ying) with the Choir of Royal Holloway and Bristol Ensemble at St George's

By David Fay

London

Prom 67: Introspection and exuberance from Järvi, Jansen and Orchestre de Paris

By Carla Finesilver, 01 September 2013

Tonight’s Orchestre de Paris Prom was very much a concert of two halves, in the first of which they got to show their sensitive, introspective side, reflecting on the nature of life and lamenting too-early death, then becoming considerably more extrovert in the second for some free-spirited buccaneering, and what the programme notes describe as “vivid, prolonged and grand noise”.

***11

***11

London

02 Sep 2013

Prom 67: Introspection and exuberance from Järvi, Jansen and Orchestre de Paris

By Carla Finesilver

London

Tenebrae and the LSO fill St Paul's Cathedral at the City of London Festival

By Paul Kilbey, 08 July 2013

The City of London Festival this year is ambitiously programmed, with a number of common themes running through the events.

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London

11 Jul 2013

Tenebrae and the LSO fill St Paul's Cathedral at the City of London Festival

By Paul Kilbey

Edinburgh

Scottish Chamber Orchestra celebrate Britten with Purcell

By Alan Coady, 18 April 2013

Endeavouring to travel lightly through the world, I tend not to collect programme notes. However, such was the quality of Jo Kirkbride’s notes for this SCO Britten centenary celebration that scanning them for e-posterity is tempting. They prompted a consideration of the whole idea of programming.

****1

****1

Edinburgh

22 Apr 2013

Scottish Chamber Orchestra celebrate Britten with Purcell

By Alan Coady

Los Angeles

LAPO and John Adams perform West coast premiere of Philip Glass’ Symphony No. 9

By Ted Ayala, 05 April 2012

As Philip Glass’ Symphony No. 9 ground to a halt last Thursday night, cellos and basses trailing off into silence, a few things came into focus. First, there was no missing the irony that Philip Glass, once among the outsiders of the musical world, should nearly a half century later find himself one of the American school of composition's most revered composers; perhaps its dean.

*****

*****

Los Angeles

09 Apr 2012

LAPO and John Adams perform West coast premiere of Philip Glass’ Symphony No. 9

By Ted Ayala

Reading

20th Century Masters

By Andrew Benson-Wilson, 25 February 2011

Imagine the first meeting between two young lovers, a couple who will eventually marry. As they walk through a forest in the moonlight, the girl reveals to her new friend that she is pregnant by another man.

*****

*****

Reading

28 Feb 2011

20th Century Masters

By Andrew Benson-Wilson

London

Prom 42: Gardner conducts Shostakovich 5th Symphony

By David Karlin, 17 August 2010

Shostakovich's 5th symphony is a work of great power, great variety and uncertain meaning. Written in 1937 when the composer was in fear for his life after Stalin's violent reaction to his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, there is no way of knowing for sure the extent to which the music is infused by irony or pain. If there was irony, Stalin didn't spot it.

London

31 Aug 2010

Prom 42: Gardner conducts Shostakovich 5th Symphony

By David Karlin

Boulogne-Billancourt

Du magique au banal : Daniel Lozakovich, l’Orchestre national d’Estonie et Olari Elts à La Seine Musicale

By Jean-Pierre Rousseau, 02 December 2022

Si le jeune violoniste suédois fait fort belle impression dans le Concerto de Tchaïkovski, Olari Elts déçoit à la tête de la phalange estonienne dans un programme étrangement pensé.

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Boulogne-Billancourt

04 Dec 2022

Du magique au banal : Lozakovich et l’Orchestre national d’Estonie

By Jean-Pierre Rousseau

Quebec

Amours tragiques et moments magiques aux Violons du Roy

By Emmanuel Bernier, 28 November 2019

Les Violons du Roy ont permis aux mélomanes de Québec de découvrir la mezzo-soprano britannique Christine Rice, qui a ébloui dans un répertoire allant de Purcell à Britten.

****1

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Quebec

29 Nov 2019

Amours tragiques et moments magiques aux Violons du Roy

By Emmanuel Bernier

Paris

Arvo Pärt ou la modestie et l'humanité consacrées

By Manuel Gaulhiac, 20 October 2018

Arvo Pärt a fait le déplacement à la Philharmonie pour cette soirée entièrement consacrée à sa musique, avec l'Orchestre de chambre de Tallinn et le Chœur philharmonique de chambre d'Estonie.

****1

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Paris

24 Oct 2018

Arvo Pärt ou la modestie et l'humanité consacrées

By Manuel Gaulhiac

Lyon

Instants de grâce avec Viktoria Mullova et l'ONL

By Camille Grimaud, 03 November 2016

Triomphe conjoint de Viktoria Mullova et Alain Atinlogu, réunis pour une soirée chatoyante avec Pärt, Sibelius et Brahms.

*****

*****

Lyon

06 Nov 2016

Instants de grâce avec Viktoria Mullova et l'ONL

By Camille Grimaud