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Lebrecht Weekly – DG Trout Quintet Lacking

By Norman Lebrecht on 7 December 2017 CD and Book Reviews, Lebrecht Weekly, Romantic, Strings

Schubert: Trout quintet (DG) Anne-Sophie Mutter (violin), Daniel Trifonov (piano). Hwayoon Lee (viola), Maximilian Hornung (cello) and Roman Patkolo (bass). There are five trouts on the cover of DG’s new release and it’s clear from the photo that some are more pouty than others. Anne-Sophie Mutter (violin) takes up the most space, reclining on a divan. Sitting on the bare floor is Daniel Trifonov (piano). In the dark background are Hwayoon Lee (viola), Maximilian Hornung (cello) and Roman Patkolo (bass). If this were just a ranking of record industry hierarchies it would hardly be worth a mention, but the recording…

Yannick and the Orchestre Métropolitain: A Grand Finale in Paris

By Arthur Kaptainis on 4 December 2017 Art Song, Concert Reviews, Contemporary, Orchestral, Piano, Romantic, Strings

PARIS – Ever seen a conductor cry on stage? I mean, other than Leonard Bernstein? We can add to this exclusive list the name of Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who was seen wiping his eyes discreetly on Sunday after Elgar’s Enigma Variations, a performance that marked the official conclusion of a six-city, seven-concert European tour by the Orchestre Métropolitain. There would be an encore: Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante défunte, done in the supplest tones imaginable. We must resist the temptation to deem the last thing heard as the best. But goodness, what a sound. And what an ovation from the Parisians, who packed…

OM Concert at the Elbphilharmonie was Hamburg Heaven

By Arthur Kaptainis on 2 December 2017 Art Song, Canadian Music, Concert Reviews, Contemporary, Orchestral, Romantic, Strings

HAMBURG – “Suche Karte.” Seeking ticket. This is always a good sign, quite literally, in German-speaking lands, where it is common to advertise your unhappy condition with two words writ large on a piece of cardboard. Sure enough, a visit to the box office of the Elbphilharmonie confirmed that the fifth installment of the Orchestre Métropolitain’s tour of Europe was quite sold out. Eight thousand requests, 2,100 seats. Suche Karte. The huge demand cannot be reconciled with the usual explanations. Soloists Marie-Nicole Lemieux and Jean-Guihen Queyras are reputable enough, but hardly the stuff of a sellout. Yannick Nézet-Séguin is recognized everywhere.…

Kings College Choir Delivers Uplifting English Brahms Requiem

By Norman Lebrecht on 24 November 2017 Choral, Lebrecht Weekly, Piano, Romantic

Brahms: An English Requiem (Delphian) Mary Bevan, soprano Marcus Farnsworth, baritone James Baillieu and Richard Uttley, piano Choir of Kings College London, conductor Joseph Fort This has to be the least expected record of the year – a performance of Ein deutsches Requiem in the original English, at least in the texts of the original English Bible. The work was so popular on reception, at a time when Bismarck was planting German boots all over Denmark, Austria and France, that London impresarios felt it might be prudent to produce it in a less contentious language. Since Victorian concertgoers knew their…

Lebrecht Weekly – Krystian Zimerman’s Schubert Sonatas on DG

By Norman Lebrecht on 10 November 2017 CD and Book Reviews, Lebrecht Weekly, Piano, Romantic

Schubert: Sonatas D959, D960 (DG) Some records grab you by the ears, others take longer to impress. It is in no sense to Krystian Zimerman’s discredit that his first attempt at late Schubert took three spins on my deck before I grasped the originality of his interpretation. Rather, it is a mark of Zimerman’s thoughtfulness that the heart of the music is revealed layer by layer in a manner that makes you want to listen again and again. Winner of the 1975 Chopin competition, the Polish pianist has been playing these pieces for half his life before he was ready…

Lebrecht Weekly: Daniil Trifonov: Chopin Evocations (DG)

By Norman Lebrecht on 13 October 2017 CD and Book Reviews, Lebrecht Weekly, Piano, Romantic

Daniil Trifonov: Chopin Evocations (DG) FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 2 (Arr. By Mikhail Pletnev), Variations on “Là ci darem la mano” Works by Barber, Grieg, Mompou, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Daniil Trifonov, piano; Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Mikhail Pletnev, conductor 2 CDs, 0289 479 7518 2 The 2011 Tchaikovsky winner has lost none of his capacity to surprise. Daniil Trifonov thinks nothing of coming on stage with one wrist in a bandage, no explanation offered, or of asking the audience not to applaud at any time through a 90-minute recital. His powers of concentration are phenomenal and he expects no less from his listeners.…

Musica Camerata Kicks Off 48th Season

By Ian Cochrane on 18 September 2017 Chamber Music, Classical Music, Concert Reviews, Newswire, Piano, Romantic, Strings, Violin

Musica Camerata kicked off its 48th season with an evening of quartets for piano, violin, viola, and cello. Respected as a premiere Canadian chamber ensemble, Musica Camerata is justifiably proud of its longevity. The concert was held in the resplendent Chapelle historique du Bon-Pasteur where the parterre seating area is usually hydraulically raised to provide theatre style seating. The roughly 100 attendees filled this venue. From this reviewer’s vantage point in the balcony, the acoustics were a little dry for a chamber string ensemble. The instrumentalists on this program were Luis Grinhauz (violin), Victor Fournelle-Blain (viola), Bruno Tobon (cello), and…

Clay Hilley (Dimitrij), Nora Sourouzian (Marfa), Photo: Cory Weaver

Moscow on the Hudson – Antonín Dvorák’s Dimitrij at Bard SummerScape 2017

By Charles Geyer on 4 September 2017 Concert Reviews, Opera, Romantic

RETROSPECTIVE: of the Bard SummerScape 2017 production of Antonín Dvořák’s 1882 opera Dimitrij (July 28 and 30 and August 2, 4 and 6) at the Sosnoff Theater of Bard College’s Fisher Center for the Arts, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. The Tsar is dead! Long live … who? That is the question. Doubts about just who it is who’s marched his army through the gates of Moscow and assumed the imperial Russian throne throng thick in Antonín Dvořák’s grandest of grand operas, Dimitrij – a work that was given handsome and full-throated new life by the recent Bard College SummerScape production in Annandale-on-Hudson,…

Brahms: Clarinet Quintet in B minor, String Quartet No. 3 in B flat major

By Paul E. Robinson on 1 September 2017 CD and Book Reviews, Chamber Music, Romantic

James Campbell, clarinet; New Zealand String Quartet Naxos 8.573454, 76 min 36 s. For many Canadian music-lovers clarinetist James Campbell will be the main attraction on this new Naxos CD. Campbell was born in Leduc, Alberta and at the age of 22 won the CBC Talent Competition. During the 1970s through the 1990s he was a ubiquitous figure in concert circles in Toronto. Campbell has had a long association with the New Zealand String Quartet and he has often invited them to appear at the Festival of the Sound. At the age of 65, when this recording was made, Campbell…

Fabio Luisi (photo: BALU Photography)

Fabio Luisi Conducts Mahler 8, Nielsen and Schmidt with Danish National Symphony, Two New Productions at Zurich Opera, World Premiere of His Saint Bonaventure Mass in 2017-18

By Newswire on 31 August 2017 Arts Industry, Classical, Classical Music, Orchestral, Romantic

This fall, Grammy and ECHO Klassik Award-winning conductor Fabio Luisi launches his second season as the new Principal Conductor of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra (DNSO), and his sixth as General Director of Zurich Opera, which was named Best Opera Company at the 2014 International Opera Awards. In Copenhagen he opens the season with Mahler’s Eighth Symphony, and subsequent concerts throughout the season include Nielsen’s Fifth Symphony paired with Hans Werner Henze’s Second Violin Concerto; Franz Schmidt’s oratorio Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln; and concerts featuring Beethoven’s Fifth and Seventh Symphonies. He also acts as Jury Chairman for the DNSO’s Malko Competition for Young Conductors. At Zurich…

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