In Zurich’s new and provisional Tonhalle Maag, Omer Meir Wellber recently conducted a triple bill of works from the Baroque, Romantic and modern periods.
Isabelle Faust and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment find steely freshness in Mozart, with brooding intensity and accentuated twists and turns in Haydn and CPE Bach.
Barbara Hannigan stars both as singer and conductor with ensemble Ludwig at the Concertgebouw. This is a difficult double act and one that doesn't entirely succeed.
Spot the odd one out: a symphony by Haydn, another by Mozart, a violin concerto by Mozart, and Electric Preludes by Brett Dean (2012). The bill of fare offered by the Australian Chamber Orchestra on Sunday cannot be called typical for them, since their programs evade any easy categorisation, but the gesture of mixing old and new is certainly a familiar gambit.
Those happy to brand the British Isles as the "land without music" for the time between Purcell and Britten might have cause to rethink if they audited the vintage of London of the late 1760s. Johann Christian Bach, the youngest of Johann Sebastian's sons, moved to England in 1765, helped along by the expatriated Carl Friedrich Abel, with whom he shared a house on Meard Street in Soho.
Les Grands Interprètes paraient à ce phénomène, pour leur second concert de la saison, en invitant l’ensemble du Giardino Armonico, cofondé et dirigé depuis 1989 par Giovanni Antonini, pour un programme entièrement classique.
