At Home He Feels Like A Tourist

Category: Classical Music

• Classical Music Concert Culture London Symphony

  Prom 15, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra review *****

  Prom 15 – Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Yannick Nézet-Séguin (conductor)  Royal Albert Hall, 30th July 2019 Beethoven – Symphony No 2 Shostakovich – Symphony No 5  It always surprises just how few Proms concerts tick all the boxes for the Tourist. I can usually only manage 4 or 5 in…

  September 15, 2019
• Bible Classical Music Community Culture London Opera Performance Theatre

  Noye’s Fludde at the Theatre Royal Stratford East review ****

  Noye’s Fludde Theatre Royal Stratford East, 3rd July 2019 You might think it’s a bit sad really. A grown man in his 50s on his own at a children’s opera performed by a community that he cannot claim to be any part of. Unfortunately my kids never caught the Britten…

  August 31, 2019
• Baroque Classical Music Concert Concerto Culture Italy London Sonata

  Rachel Podger and Brecon Baroque: Vivaldi at the Wigmore Hall review *****

  Rachel Podger (violin), Brecon Baroque, Marcin Świątkiewicz (harpsichord), Daniele Caminiti (lute) Wigmore Hall, 1st July 2019 Antonio Vivaldi Sonata a4 al Santo Sepolcro RV130 Concerto in G minor for strings RV157 Sinfonia al Santo Sepolcro RV169 Concerto in D for lute and strings RV93 Concerto in D Op 3, No 9…

  August 24, 2019
• Amsterdam Architecture Classical Music Concert Concerto Culture Czech Suite Symphony

  Concertgebouw Orchestra at the Concertgebouw review ****

  Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Semyon Bychkov (conductor), Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider (violin)  Het Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest, 19th June 2019 Detlev Glanert – Weites Land Tchaikovsky – Violin Concerto in D major, Op 35 Bedrich Smetana – Vysehrad, De Moldau and Sárka from Má vlast  There’s a clue in the title. The Tourist finds himself…

  August 1, 2019
• Baroque Classical Music Concert Culture Germany London

  Collegium Vocale Gent at the Barbican review *****

  Collegium Vocale Gent, Philippe Herreweghe (conductor), Dorothee Mields (soprano), Hanna Blazikova (soprano), Alex Potter (countertenor), Thomas Hobbs (tenor), Krešimir Stražanac (bass) Barbican Hall, 14th June 2019 It’s Bach. It’s the B Minor Mass. So of course it is beautiful. But it can be a bit, well, “bitty”. After all the…

  August 1, 2019
• Classical Music Concert Contemporary Classical Culture London Minimalism

  Music of the Spheres: Aurora Orchestra at the Queen Elizabeth Hall review ****

  Aurora Orchestra, Nicholas Collon (conductor), Pekka Kuusisto (violin), Kate Wicks (production design), William Reynolds (lighting design)  Queen Elizabeth Hall, 5th June 2019 Max Richter – Journey (CP1919) Beethoven – Molto Adagio from String Quartet in E minor, Op.59 No.2 (Razumovsky) Thomas Adès – Concerto for violin & chamber orchestra (Concentric…

  June 28, 2019
• Chamber Music Classical Music Contemporary Classical Culture Electronics Germany London

  Stockhausen chamber music at the Queen Elizabeth Hall review ****

  Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano), Tamara Stefanovich (piano), Dirk Rothbrust (percussion), Marco Stroppa (sound design) Queen Elizabeth Hall, 2nd June 2019 Karlheinz Stockhausen Zyklus for percussion Mantra for 2 pianos with 12 antique cymbals, woodblock & 2 ring modulators (and shortwave radio/tape)  I confess. I was defeated by the performance of Donnerstag aus Licht by…

  June 25, 2019
• Classical Music Concert Culture Early Music London Poetry Renaissance

  Los Angeles Master Chorale at the Barbican review *****

  Los Angeles Master Chorale, Grant Gershon (conductor), Peter Sellars (director)  Barbican Hall, 23rd May 2019 Much taken with our last exposure to Peter Sellars distinctive way with dramatising the choral after the OAE St John Passion at the Festival Hall last month, BUD and I set off, fuelled as usual…

  June 15, 2019
• Chamber Music Classical Music Concert Concerto Contemporary Classical Culture Enlightenment Germany London Opera Symphony

  Britten Sinfonia Beethoven cycle at the Barbican Hall review *****

  Britten Sinfonia, Thomas Ades (conductor), Barbican Hall, 21st and 26th May 2019 Lawrence Power (viola) Eamonn Dougan (director) Jennifer France (soprano) Christianne Stotjin (alto) Ed Lyon (tenor) Matthew Rose (bass) Britten Sinfonia Voices Choir of Royal Holloway Beethoven – Symphony No 7 in A majpor, Op 92 Gerald Barry –…

  June 10, 2019
• Baroque Classical Music Concert Culture London Suite

  Bach Orchestral Suites: OAE at Queen Elizabeth Hall review ****

  Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Margaret Faultless (director/violin), Lisa Beznosiuk (flute) Queen Elizabeth Hall, 14th May 2019 Okey dokey pig in a pokey. There has been a grumpy tone in the last few posts that the workshy Tourist, courtesy of an imagined pep talk from Pauline, is resolved to…

  June 1, 2019
• Classical Music Concert Culture London Symphony

  Herbert Blomstedt and the Philharmonia Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall review *****

  Philharmonia Orchestra, Herbert Blomstedt (conductor)  Royal Festival Hall, 14th April 2019 Mozart – Symphony No 40 K550 Beethoven – Symphony No 3 “Eroica” Bernard Haitink is 90. Herbert Blomstedt is closing in on his 92nd birthday. Unsurprisingly perhaps neither of them is particularly animated on the conductor’s podium. Mind you…

  April 26, 2019
• Classical Music Culture Enlightenment Identity London Love Magic Opera Relationship

  The Magic Flute at the ENO review *****

  The Magic Flute English National Opera, 28th March 2019 I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. When opera works there is no other art form to touch. But when it doesn’t it can be mystifyingly dull. What’s more it can be the very same opera which is both…

  April 16, 2019