Venue: L'Auditori, Barcelona

Mozart's Clarinet Concerto started out naively impetuous, quick, breathless as if on the way to an assignation

It's a game of two halves in Barcelona from Kazushi Ono and the Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya.

This season, the Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya (OBC) is turning its eyes towards Bach, whilst at the same time programming the usual great symphonic repertoire, as well as contemporary composers. Here, Kazushi Ono gathered a Bach concerto (transcribed for violin), a rarely-performed work by Schumann and Richard Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra.

The bonds between Kazushi Ono and the OBC musicians are slowly improving.

Clemens Flick (harpsichord) and Christoph Huntgeburth (flute) gave an impressive performance as soloists, while the orchestra wasn’t able to play as well as expected.

Bach presented in various orchestral transcriptions made for a powerful, entertaining evening in Barcelona. 

An outstanding concert, with impressive performers that love to play together and had lots of time to rehearse

Gergiev and the Mariinsky excel in Act III of Tristan und Isolde with the help of star singing from Vekua, Westbroek and Nikitin; George Li shows promise in Liszt.