Rechercher des critiques de musique classique, opéra et ballet | Thomas Hobbs

Expressivité et justesse de propos font exulter le public dans une interprétation qui fait référence.

Jadis un projet dont les inspirateurs se demandaient s’ils réussiraient à toucher un large public, la Bach Académie est aujourd’hui un événement annuel dans le calendrier de concerts en Belgique. Le Collegium Vocale a refermé cette Bach Académie avec une série de cantates d’une qualité évidente.

Le Collegium Vocale Gent dirigé par Philippe Herreweghe érige des monuments de lumière avec les cantates de Noël de Johann Sebastian Bach

Gli Angeli Genève ont illuminé les voûtes de la Cathédrale de Genève d’un Thomas Tallis radieux quoi qu’un brin soporifique, servi par un plateau de solistes assez inégal malheureusement. 

« Le Combat de Saint Michel » par l'ensemble Pygmalion : un fil conducteur inédit, déroulé d’une main de maître par un Raphaël Pichon toujours aussi excellent dans ce répertoire.

En ouverture de cette deuxième semaine du festival de musique d’Edimbourg, Philippe Herreweghe dirigeait le Collegium Vocale Gent et ses solistes d’exception dans la Messe en si mineur de Bach, tout en maîtrise mais sans transcender.

L’Ensemble Pygmalion dirigé par Raphaël Pichon proposait mardi 13 mai, à la Chapelle Royale de Versailles, un concert intitulé « la Passion révélée ». Au programme : la Musique funèbre pour le Prince de Cöthen de Bach, formée d'emprunts à sa musique sacrée. Une reconstitution passionnante, servie par 4 solistes d’exception.

There are multiple ways of approaching Bach's Mass in B minor, from the one-to-a-part advocated by Joshua Rifkin to a more conventional large choral approach, and everything in between.

El Collegium Vocale Gent con Philippe Herreweghe en la dirección aportaron toda su excelencia y rigor para ofrecer una sobresaliente versión de la Misa en si menor de Bach.

Bachs Hohe Messe mit Philippe Herreweghe und dem Collegium Vocale Gent hinterlässt in Salzburgs weiträumiger Felsenreitschule vor allem durch die dramatischen Arien und Duette Eindruck.   

Superlative musicianship and extravagant detailing from the force-of-nature that is Richard Egarr and the Academy of Ancient Music 

Sublime orchestral playing and stellar soloists don't quite make up for a lacklustre performance by the Academy's choir in Monteverdi's moving work

Three concerts over one day at the opening weekend of Bachfest Leipzig combined Bach’s music with that of composers from Rachmaninov to Sibelius, but nothing matches the unrivalled bliss of Bach’s own music performed with total conviction.

Herreweghe consiguió un todo coherente a través de un discurso muy bien hilado donde las pausas, lejos de propiciar un punto de reposo para los músicos o para el oyente, se presentaron como recursos declamatorios para propiciar la asimilación del material musical y la reflexión sobre el contenido narrativo.

At 82, Sir Roger Norrington may have slowed down his conducting career but I’m very pleased to report that he still loves stirring things up at his concerts.

Trotz minimalster Unstimmigkeiten allein wegen der flüssigen, dramatischen Ausgestaltung mit hervorragendem Chor und Solistenglanzlichtern summa cum laude für das Opus Summum.

Bach: Sacred and Secular became the focus for a creative partnership between Bach scholar John Butt and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

A stunning performance of virtuosic ensemble singing by Collegium Vocale Gent to open the 16th Oslo International Church Music Festival

Raphael Pichon, seine Solisten und sein Ensemble kratzten mit kleineren solistischen und orchestralen Einschränkungen vor allem aufgrund der hervorragenden Chorleistung knapp an der Höchstwertung.

The Collegium Vocale Gent, in the hands of Philippe Herreweghe, came and conquered Madrid with a memorable performance of Bach's St John Passion.

John Butt and Dunedin Consort delight Dunbar Parish Church with Acis and Galatea

Richard Egarr leads the Academy of Ancient Music and a stellar team of vocal soloists in an unapologetically lush and dramatic St Matthew Passion.

Philip Herreweghe directs Schütz' Psalmen Davids with Collegium Vocale Gent at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, in a performance of sustained power and feeling.

Billed as a “concert hall staging”, the Academy of Ancient Music’s season-opening performance of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo was brilliantly staged at the Barbican by the director Orpha Phelan and designer Caroline Hughes – as close as one could get to a full production in a concert hall without a pit.

Since reading Stravinsky’s assertion (in Poetics of Music) that “The more constraint one imposes, the more one frees oneself from the chains that shackle the spirit”, this paradox has fascinated me.

The Christmas Oratorio is an odd work to perform in concert, but it makes a welcome change from the obligatory annual Messiah. Bach’s piece contains six separate cantatas that tell the traditional Nativity narrative, all subsumed under the broader theme.

Handel’s Messiah is a challenge to any conductor, particularly in the English-speaking world. It’s probably the best-loved piece in the classical repertoire, guaranteed to bring people out in great crowds. You can’t mess with Messiah, but at the same time, there’s a danger of sinking into tired tradition.

On Saturday, Philippe Herreweghe conducted the season’s most solemn yet spectacular oratorio concert in New York – a performance of J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion in Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center. Scored for two choirs, two orchestras, and soloists, this almost operatic depiction of Christ’s Passion was performed by Herreweghe’s Collegium Vocale Gent Choir and Orchestra.

Ian Page and the Classical Opera Company have made a specialty of performing early Mozart operas and at the weekend, they gave two performances of his two-act serenata, Il re pastore as part of the series “Mozart Unwrapped” at Kings Place.

ENO's latest première matches a young theatre director with a reputation for cutting-edge drama to one of the earliest operas in the repertoire, in the less-than-conventionally-operatic surroundings of London's Young Vic. It's an improbable combination, and I wasn't at all sure what to expect.