A disparate set of pieces are connected to an intriguing theme in mostly successful performances, including Shostakovich from cellist Alisa Weilerstein.
Rachmaninov had a strange fascination with the Dies irae chant. For last night’s concert, Andrés Orozco-Estrada prefaced the Symphonic Dances with a rendition of this Gregorian Chant.
Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, joined by cellist Gautier Capuçon, presented modern, post-war masterworks in their first of two nights in Stern Auditorium.
Petrenko and the RLPO produced a Rachmaninov symphony that ticked all the boxes, a scintillating world première from Emily Howard and a Shostakovich concerto with an impressive replacement soloist.
The BBC’s biennial Young Musician competition reached its thrilling climax in an absorbing, nail-biting and inspirational final concert at London’s Barbican yesterday afternoon.
The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra returned once again to the Colston Hall to perform three very different works. Steven Isserlis headlined the evening with a fantastic rendition of Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto no. 1.
Though impressively performed by the Moscow players, conductor Yuri Simonov's interpretative choices did not always convince in Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony.
There were high peaks and low valleys in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's performance of Berlioz' Symphonie fantastique, Shostakovich's Cello Concert no. 1, and Weber's Ruler of the Spirits overture, with conductor Stéphane Denève.
There can be few openings which get as briskly down to business as Britten’s 1946 The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. Peter Oundjian and the RSNO exploded into the minor-key Rondeau, which Britten had borrowed from Purcell’s 1695 Abdelazer Z. 750.
For the second of their two Sydney programs, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra pretty much replicated the layout of the first: a short modernist work, a concerto featuring a string instrument, and, in the second half, a big romantic symphony.
A Russian orchestra playing big, soul-searching pieces of Russian music is always going to be a crowd-puller, and a full symphony orchestra visiting the North East is a rare treat, so it was no surprise that the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra had the cavernous Town Hall in Middlesbrough pretty much filled, with a very enthusiastic audience.
Everyone tells me that Russians play Russian music better than anyone else, but no-one seems to be able to put their fingers on the mysterious quality of Russianness Russians are meant to produce when playing Russian.
“From Russia with love” might have been an apt title for this evening’s performance from the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra on the Irish leg of their tour, for this was a concert designed to showcase all that is best in Russian music both in interpretation and in composition.
Sometimes an eagerly awaited performance starts out brilliantly, more or less how you thought it would, but then it kind of fizzles out towards the middle, only to return with a vengeance at the end. This was more or less the case with Vasily Petrenko and the Oslo Philharmonic this Thursday.
A packed hall, including several primary schools and a handful of mayors, attended for a 20th-century triptych. One suspected that most were there for Holst’s The Planets, but it was the first half’s Stravinsky and Shostakovich which were most revelatory tonight.
It’s hard to say who was more excited about Prom 19: Thomas Dausgaard, who conducted the whole thing with lashings of arm-waving vigour, or the Proms audience, who enjoyed the performance so much that they deliberately (and justifiably) clapped between the movements.
The Mahler Chamber Orchestra presented a Russian program with a twist; “A Russian Flirt with Haydn”. All four works and three composers that graced the stage were influenced by Haydn, most obviously Schnittke and his Moz-Art à la Haydn. The music worked well together, though I would suspect that this is more due to the Russian background than Haydn’s influence.
Stravinsky’s Scherzo Fantastique, Op. 3 is one of his earliest works, as its opus number would suggest. There are very few composers who can truly create a fairytale atmosphere in their music, but Stravinsky was one of the best at it.
Pari à demi réussi pour un concert Chostakovich/Britten à la Philharmonie. Xavier Phillips met Chostakovich à l'honneur, Shi-Yeon Sung échoue à s'approprier Britten.
Der Cellist präsentiert eine bemerkenswert eigenständige Interpretation Schostakowitschs, und auch Tjeknavorian beweist bei Brahms hervorragendes technisches Können.
Concert de l’ONF en faveur du Sidaction sous la baguette de Kirill Karabits, remplaçant Semyon Bychkov. Un résultat à l’expressivité rare, aussi animé que savamment nuancé.
Concert de musique russe qui marque les débuts du jeune chef israélien Lahav Shani avec l’Orchestre de Paris. On retiendra la Symphonie Pathétique de Tchaïkovski, plus que le Concerto pour violoncelle n°1 de Chostakovitch sous les doigts d'Edgar Moreau.
Le Russian National Orchestra était à la Philharmonie de Paris le lundi 15 mai 2017, sous la direction de Mikhail Pletnev. C’est un compositeur polonais peu connu qui ouvrait le programme – à savoir Mieczyslaw Karlowicz ; la suite de la soirée, elle, était bel et bien russe, avec un concerto de Chostakovitch et une symphonie de Tchaïkovski.
Le concert donné par l’Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France mettait côte-à-côte deux chef-d’oeuvres aux dimensions prométhéennes : le fascinant premier Concerto pour Violoncelle de Chostakovitch, et la colossale Symphonie Héroïque. Un programme monumental, exigeant de la part des interprètes des parti-pris d’interprétation sans concessions, et un art des contrastes qui l’est tout autant.
El programa nos paseó por las cumbres de los diferentes estilos de los s. XIX y XX y puso de manifiesto los efectos que la música puede producir en quien la interpreta y en quien la escucha.
