Inferno, after Dante's Divine Comedy, is a 46-minute ballet score rich in astounding, ingenious, sumptuous effects with a particular genius for unlikely combinations of instruments, and only a few obvious Lisztian references.
Gabriel Bebeşelea's debut with the RPO brought two composers from his native Romania – George Enescu and Ciprian Porumbescu – and paired them with Mozart and Saint-Saëns in an interesting, albeit patchy concert.
Herreweghe’s lifelong artistry of concentration, clarity and intimacy was nowhere better demonstrated than in an exalted account of Mozart's last symphony.
Francesco Piemontesi performed Brahms’ monumental second concerto with captivating results, followed by Andrew Manze’s carefully considered interpretation of Mozart’s Jupiter symphony in Liverpool’s Philharmonic Hall.
Last night in Sweden: Daniel Barenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra make a performance of Strauss' Don Quixote to remember at the Stockholm Concert Hall.
Christoph von Dohnányi conducted the CSO in a pair of Mozart symphonies along with a Beethoven piano concerto, the latter with Martin Helmchen in an impressive CSO debut.
Combining instruments and performing practices old and new, Richard Tognetti and the Australian Chamber Orchestra render Mozart symphonies with panache.
The celebratory, cerebral and contradictory elements inherent in this diverse programme of Haydn, Mozart, Poulenc and Stravinsky didn’t quite disguise some uneven performances in Søndergård’s third prom concert.
Bogotá has plenty of superb artists in its mammoth Mozart-fest, but there can be no finer exponents of Viennese style than the Vienna Chamber Orchestra.
His passing last August was no surprise. Anyone who had witnessed Frans Brüggen conduct in recent years knew that he was far from healthy and old for his years.
The pure joy that Mozart’s music can bring was emphasized in the Zurich Chamber Orchestra's concert at Cadogan Hall in London, featuring pianist Jonathan Biss and conducted by Sir Roger Norrington.
Young Russian soprano Julia Novikova performed twice at the Northern Lights Festival in Tromsø, the capital of northern Norway, this past week, treating the attentive and devoted audiences to a diverse set of songs.
The Camerata Salzburg’s evening of Mozart, Enescu and Vaughan Williams at Berlin’s Konzerthaus was a crisp and bubbling performance that stimulated the intellect as well as the emotions. Beginning the evening with George Enescu’s Two Intermezzi for String Orchestra, the Camerata swept audience members away into a world gone, but too lovely to be forgotten.
The billing looked intriguing enough: Kevin Griffiths – the young London-born conductor, celebrated for his dedication to contemporary music, coupled with his fellow countryman Paul Lewis – one of today’s prominent performers of Beethoven and particularly Schubert, in an evening dedicated to Mozart’s music.
Fifteen years ago I sat dutifully listening to the excellent Haringey Schools Orchestra nobly attempting to bring off the herculean musical feat of the Shostakovich Fifth Symphony. Many hours of coaching and rehearsal had clearly brought the youngsters to this point. Proud parents and friends fidgeted through the painful 55 minutes, and everyone clapped appreciatively when it ended.
The youthful, up-and-coming orchestral ensemble, Les Vents Atlantiques, presented a riveting program this weekend to an eager audience. Performing chamber and orchestral repertoire from the late eighteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries, the group was led by violinist Rebecca Huber.
Verdi and Wagner may be turning 200 in 2013, but certainly that doesn’t make their music any more or less worth celebrating than it was last year, or will be in five years’ time.
Bach, Brahms, Beethoven and Mozart: four insurmountable composers, each a titan of classical music in his own right. Every one of these composers would normally dominate a position of focus in a classical concert programme. It is rare, therefore, to see these composers side by side in a concert, simply due to a need for variety and not a heavy-handed evening filled with canonical works.
Why would the London Symphony Orchestra pair Mozart’s Symphony no. 41 in C major, “Jupiter” and Mahler’s songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn? There seemed to be no direct link between them other than that both demonstrate their composers’ fondness for mystery.
Good programming makes for a good concert. Chosen works must fit well together, providing enough musical contrast to keep things interesting, but they must not be so different as to jar listeners with alien soundworlds. All too often, organisers whip up concerts in which any link between pieces are entirely superficial and completely amusical.
Picture the scene: Dunbar Parish Church nearing the end of major renovation. Looking heavenward, one sees two RSJ-type structures which appear to have facilitated the removal of all impediments to vision and light, the latter refracted through stained glass windows. In one corner of of the resulting square, facing the opposite corner, sit the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.
The Violons du Roy along with conductor Bernard Labadie offered a concert of Mozart’s last three symphonies tonight in the Maison Symphonique de Montréal. An apt program, these three symphonies were written by Mozart in rapid succession in the summer of 1788. Mozart’s fabled swiftness as a composer, and the relative ease with which he wrote, did not lead to mediocrity in any of his works.
The Toronto Symphony Orchestra kicked off their new year with the Mozart@256 Festival. Thursday night’s concert warmly welcomed guest conductor and pianist Leon Fleisher, as well as pianists Stewart Goodyear and Katherine Jacobson Fleisher.
If only Mozart could’ve been there! Had he only one concert to attend from beyond the grave, Wolfgang could have done worse than head to Coventry Cathedral and its sumptuous acoustic on Saturday night. Here he would have been treated to a performance of his final symphony, no.41 ‘Jupiter’ – never heard in his lifetime – alongside his 'Great' Mass in C minor – which he never completed.
The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra clearly wore its heart on its sleeves in naming the opening concert for the 2011/12 season “Heaven and Earth”. There could be no mistake in matching the works to the title. Saturday’s performance showcased the versatility and maturity of the orchestra in handling sharply divergent artistic intentions. When they wrote their Symphony No.
An element of conflict inhabits the combination of an evening out and a requiem mass. This thought ran through my mind as I approached Edinburgh's Usher Hall, the sunny foreground of which was populated by happy-looking concert-goers greeting friends.
Aplaudimos la presencia de una orquesta madrileña que se orienta hacia la interpretación historicista con instrumentos de época y que además propone la visibilidad del repertorio español.
Brillante Solisten in Konzerten von Copland und Martinů sind die symphonischen Erzähler eines abwechslungsreichen Konzertabends der Bamberger Symphoniker unter Leitung von Jakub Hrůša
La Orquesta Sinfónica Camera Musicae culmina su temporada de conciertos con dos obras de Mozart, el Concierto núm. 9 con la pianista Alba Ventura y la Sinfonía 41. Ros Marbà a la batuta dirigió una velada brilllante.
