Maurizio Pollini obituary
The Guardian » Classical Music
by Barry Millington
3d ago
Pianist who won the Chopin competition at 19 and who had an intellectual approach to art and life The Italian pianist Maurizio Pollini, who has died aged 82, was one of the giants of the keyboard in the second half of the 20th century, and yet for all the respect he commanded, his playing was criticised throughout his career for being excessively cool and cerebral. When he took first prize at the 1960 Chopin competition in Warsaw, the chairman of the jury, Artur Rubinstein, declared: “That boy plays better than any of us jurors.” But that success proved to be only the prelude to the first cont ..read more
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The Sixteen review – alchemically distilled choral beauty
The Guardian » Classical Music
by Flora Willson
3d ago
St Martin-in-the-Fields, London The group’s unequivocally world-class quality rang out, albeit intermittently, in this lucid performance of Duruflé’s Requiem and other 20th-century French-language works The Sixteen turn 45 this year, marking nearly half a century of bar-raisingly good choral singing under their founder and conductor Harry Christophers. They’re a group to banish memories of hymns mumbled at school assemblies, massed wobbling in parish halls and the megawattage of a professional operatic chorus with a single exquisitely shaped phrase. Their brand of choral sound is lean (the clu ..read more
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Classical home listening: Elisabeth Lutyens Piano Works; Tchaikovsky and Korngold string sextets and more
The Guardian » Classical Music
by Fiona Maddocks
5d ago
Martin Jones makes a persuasive case for an unfashionable British composer; Antonio Oyarzabal continues to champion forgotten female composers; and the Nash Ensemble hit 60 in style • One of a kind, the composer Elisabeth Lutyens (1906-83) eludes fashion for several reasons. So many aspects of her life now look dated: she was a British aristocrat (daughter of the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens) who moved in elite social circles, cared little about the opinions of others, embraced European modernism ahead of her time, smoked and drank heavily and had a reputation for being fierce musically, and ve ..read more
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Duke Bluebeard’s Castle review – erotic, unsettling and beautifully staged
The Guardian » Classical Music
by Tim Ashley
5d ago
Coliseum, LondonA last-minute cast substitution added a remarkable gender twist to Bartók’s opera about marital disintegration The first night of English National Opera’s Bluebeard’s Castle (billed as a “concert semi-staging”, though there is considerably more to it than that) turned out to be unique, startling and completely unforgettable, thanks in no small measure to the unusual circumstances that surrounded it. Allison Cook, cast as Judith, withdrew from the performance late in the day because of illness. With only two hours’ rehearsal, Jennifer Johnston sang, not from the side of the stag ..read more
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Our Mother review – reimagination of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater has a timeless directness and simplicity
The Guardian » Classical Music
by Tim Ashley
5d ago
Stone Nest, LondonHistorical ensemble Figure and an excellent cast explore grief, compassion and hope through five women representing multiple generations Performed by Figure, and the brainchild of the ensemble’s founder and musical director Frederick Waxman, Our Mother in some ways resists classification, though in essence it is a music theatre piece that takes Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater as its starting point for an exploration of the nature of grief. It’s not for purists. Pergolesi’s 1736 masterpiece is frequently considered contemplative and serene, and indeed some of it is. But in depicting ..read more
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Bach: Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 album review – robust and muscular
The Guardian » Classical Music
by Andrew Clements
1w ago
Masato Suzuki (BIS, two SACDs) While some generous expressive effects are occasionally overdone, the fugues are projected with verve and crispness, and show Suzuki at his best This month BIS is releasing two discs of JS Bach’s keyboard works, both of them from members of the Suzuki family. One is a harpsichord version of The Art of Fugue, played by Masaaki Suzuki, founder of the Bach Collegium Japan and doyen of present-day Bach interpreters, while the other is this survey of the first volume of Bach’s 48 Preludes and Fugues, The Well-tempered Clavier, performed by Masaaki’s son, Masato. It’s ..read more
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Paul Lewis review – Schubert’s last works given a masterful treatment
The Guardian » Classical Music
by Andrew Clements
1w ago
Turner Sims, Southampton Pianist is a wonderfully unfussy and straightforwardly lucid interpreter of sonatas completed months before composer’s death Over the last two years Paul Lewis has been working his way through Schubert’s piano sonatas, and he has now reached the fourth and last programme in his series. Logically enough it is devoted to the final three sonatas, in C minor, D958, A major D959, and in B flat, D960, a triptych that Schubert completed in September 1828, two months before his death. Lewis is a wonderfully unfussy and straightforwardly lucid interpreter of these great works ..read more
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Lost in music: why piano competitions must address the gender gap
The Guardian » Classical Music
by Fiona Sinclair
1w ago
All five finalists at the last Leeds piano competition were male – a far from unique competition scenario. Now, the event’s CEO explains how they are dismantling barriers for female musicians Just over a month ago a hard-hitting report about misogyny in music was published by the UK parliamentary women and equalities committee. The report contained personal accounts that showed not only that inequality is still pervasive in the world of classical music, but that women are enduring an unacceptable level of sexual abuse and harassment, often being silenced with non-disclosure agreements to prote ..read more
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Let There Be Light review – MacMillan’s monumental work needs a monumental space
The Guardian » Classical Music
by Erica Jeal
1w ago
Barbican, LondonThe centrepiece of a thoughtfully curated programme examining light and loss, James MacMillan conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in the UK premiere of his 2020 choral work Fiat Lux When it was completed in 1981, what is now Christ Cathedral in Garden Grove, California, was reportedly the largest glass building in the world. This was the venue for which James MacMillan wrote his 2020 choral work Fiat Lux. Its UK premiere, with MacMillan himself conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, was in the very different, subterranean setting of the Barbican Hall. It ..read more
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In the name of anti-elitism, Arts Council England has declared war on opera and excellence | Catherine Bennett
The Guardian » Classical Music
by Catherine Bennett
1w ago
‘Good’ singers performing great music by dead people. Who’d listen to that? For an organisation so full of surprises – one day on funding, another on restricting free speech – Arts Council England remains remarkably consistent on one point: like many people, it just can’t be doing with opera. Or not, anyway, with most of what’s on offer, what with its unlikely heroics and seducers and obsession with “good” singing. Can you believe, ACE offers in a new report about opera in England (“Let’s Create: Opera and Music Theatre Analysis”), which follows on from its opening assault on opera in 202 ..read more
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