Kelemen Quartet brings Hungarian fire to Auckland

By Simon Holden, 20 March 2014

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Reviewed at Auckland Town Hall: Great Hall, Auckland on 19 March 2014

Mozart, String Quartet no. 19 in C major "Dissonance", K465

Kodály, Serenade for two violins and viola, Op.12

Haydn, String Quartet no. 27 in D major, Op.20 no.4, Hob III:34

Bartók, String Quartet no. 4 in C major, Sz.91

Beethoven, String Quartet no. 9 in C major, "Razumovsky", Op.59 no.3 (Final movement only)

Kelemen Quartet

Newly-minted Festival Academy Budapest

Alexandra Ivanoff, 24th July

Playing repeatedly in my mind as I walked home on 24 July was the spine-chilling orchestral performance of the "Dance of the Knights" from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet in the Franz Liszt Academy’s superb Solti Hall.

***11

Beethoven, Schubert und eine Gänsemutter an der Festival Academy Budapest

Rolf Kyburz, 11th June

Das Kelemen-Quartett überzeugte mit leichter Artikulation, einem weichen Ton und ausgezeichneter, sprechender Agogik und Dynamik, perfekter Koordination. Es agierte aus einem Geist, mit einer Seele.

****1

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

Intimate colossus: Daniil Trifonov with the Rotterdam Philharmonic

Max Lima, 21st May

Late Brahms, early Schoenberg: under Lahav Shani and the Rotterdam Philharmonic draw tenderness from two monumental scores.

****1

The ears have it: Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas on the Cutty Sark

Mark Valencia, 21st May

Come away fellow sailors, your anchors be weighing! All board the Cutty Sark for a semi-staging of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas with the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists.

****1

Heavenly Mahler – and Strauss – from Lucy Crowe and the LSO

Roy Westbrook, 21st May

Songs and symphonies from Sir Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra, concluding with a vision of “heavenly life” from Gustav Mahler.

****1

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Simon Holden

Simon is an operaphile based in Auckland, New Zealand. He wrote his dissertation on Japanese popular music. With a background in piano and classical music retail, he spends his time attending as much opera or vocal concert as he can and blogs at irishenceaway.blogspot.com.