Sensitive Schreker and energetic Rachmaninov from the BBC SO

By Jason Weir, 18 February 2017

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Reviewed at Barbican Hall, London on 17 February 2017

Schreker, Der Ferne Klang (The Distant Sound): Nachtstück

LeFanu, The Crimson Bird

Rachmaninov, Symphony no. 3 in A minor, Op.44

Rachel Nicholls, Soprano

Ilan Volkov, Conductor

BBC Symphony Orchestra

Sakari Oramo, Yeol Eum Son and the BBC Symphony in Seoul

SangKwon Lee, 26th March

Yeol Eum Son’s Britten Piano Concerto formed the evening’s centre of gravity, played with lucid line, structural command and sudden fire. In Brahms’ Second Symphony, Sakari Oramo found conviction, proportion and a warmth that felt earned rather than applied.

****1

Sakari Oramo and Yeol Eum Son summon up vivid landscapes

Christopher Woodley, 13th March

Yeol Eum Son's superb performances of Bartók and Finzi are matched by intense and heady readings of Stravinsky and Weir by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sakari Oramo.

****1

From snow to sludge: Icelandic music at the Barbican Centre

Marat Ingeldeev, 22nd February

A bewildering evening at the Barbican, where ambitious Icelandic programming collapses under its lofty ambition of defying genres and making music more appealing to a wide variety of audiences.

**111

Fine Lindberg and Stravinsky double bill from the BBC Symphony

Roy Westbrook, 6th February

After a performance of Magnus Lindberg’s First Violin Concerto by Lisa Batiashvili at the Barbican, Stravinsky’s Perséphone stands the test of time.

****1

UK premiere of Julia Wolfe’s unEarth impresses on scale, not substance

Susannah Moody, 23rd January

Wolfe's climate-change oratorio, performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, already feels out of date.

**111

Sir James MacMillan delights with his Christmas Oratorio

David Karlin, 19th December

MacMillan's large scale choral work offers a rich variety of texts and musical ideas, the composer conducts the BBC Symphony with unerring precision.

*****

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Jason Weir

Jason completed a PhD in music history at Oxford University in 2023. His research focused on the development of suburban folk and popular music in late 19th-century Vienna alongside a social and political history of noise. Jason gained his MMus degree from King’s College London, supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. He has taught and written about the history of the symphony in the 19th and 20th centuries, musical modernism in Vienna, and broader cultural trends in Europe around 1900. Jason is currently lead violinist for Sinfonia Tamesa and guest led Kensington Symphony Orchestra in their 2015-16 season.