A blazing tour through Russian Romanticism

By Matthew Rye, 25 October 2016

Loading, please wait...

See full listing

“BBC Symphony’s brass snarled and entrapped, and the fiery winds howled”

Reviewed at Barbican Hall, London on 24 October 2016

Tchaikovsky, Serenade for strings in C major, Op.48

Tchaikovsky, Piano Concerto no. 3 in E flat major, Op.75

Tchaikovsky, Méditation, Op.72 no.5

Taneyev, Oresteia, Op.6: Overture

Tchaikovsky, Francesca da Rimini, Op.32

BBC Symphony Orchestra

Semyon Bychkov, Conductor

Kirill Gerstein, Piano

More gold than corn: María Dueñas plays Korngold at the Barbican

Mark Pullinger, 22nd May

The young Spanish violinist proves an ardent advocate for a work originally dismissed as a “Hollywood Concerto” as the BBC Symphony Orchestra closes its Barbican season.

****1

Billy Childs' Saxophone Concerto sings a song of America

Eleanor Knight, 8th May

Billy Childs Diaspora receives its UK premiere at the Barbican, performed by saxophonist Steven Banks.

****1

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

More reviews...

Matthew Rye

Matthew read music at Oxford and worked in music journalism for 30 years as a writer, critic and editor. He wrote numerous programme and CD booklet notes, spent 13 years as a Daily Telegraph critic, worked at BBC Music Magazine and was reviews editor of The Strad. He also wrote for The Wagner Journal and Opera and blogged at ferneklang.blogspot.co.uk. He was general editor of 1001 Classical Recordings You Must Hear Before You Die (Cassell Illustrated, 2007) and was the author of a new series of eBooks, Masterpieces of Music (Erudition).

Towering inferno: a blazing tour through Russian Romanticism