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.
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.
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.
Alexander Hall divides his time between London and Hamburg, where he had a career in academic administration and teaching. He reviews for Bachtrack and Opera Today, and has also reviewed for Classical Source. A connoisseur of the great orchestras of the world, his musical memories stretch back to Karajan/Berlin Phil, Mravinsky/Leningrad Phil, Bernstein/Vienna Phil, and he has seen most of the great conductors from the past, including Böhm, Klemperer, Kubelik, Ormandy and Szell.
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