Category: Concert
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Catching up (Part 5)
May 2021 La Clemenza di Tito – Royal Opera House – 18th May – *** First live event out of the block in 2021. A visit to the socially distanced ROH with BUD to see La Clemenza di Tito, Mozart.s late opera, from 1791, with libretto from by Caterino Mazzolà, after Pietro…
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Catching up (Part 4)
January 2021 to April 2021 The novelty of digital entertainment by now very much worn off but, fortunately, there were plenty of other worthwhile distractions (the return of birdwatching after four decades perhaps the most surprising) for the Tourist to mask the lack of live cultural stimulation. (And travel, which…
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Catching up (Part 3)
April 2020 to December 2020 In which the Tourist condenses down 2020, in and out of lockdown, mostly watching stuff on a screen. Don’t worry he also took walks, saw punters when permitted and growled at the state of his disappointing nation, but it is only now he is back…
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Catching up (Part 2)
March 2020 First week of March 2020. I see that I was still out and about but I also see that I avoided a few entertainments before the cancellations started in earnest and the first lockdown kicked in. I remember feeling a little nervous but obviously no precautions taken apart…
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Catching up (Part 1)
February 2020 Yep. You read that right. February 2020. Just before you know what kicked off and the stages went dark. You would have thought that the last 18 months would have given the Tourist plenty of time and inclination to continue reporting on his cultural journey. But no. Despite…
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Beethoven Choral Symphony: LSO at the Barbican review *****
London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Simon Rattle (conductor), London Symphony Chorus, Simon Halsey (chorus director), Iwona Sobotka (soprano), Anna Stéphany (mezzo-soprano), Robert Murray (tenor), Florian Boesch (baritone) Barbican Hall, 12th February 2010 Not quite the Tourist’s last Beethoven fix before lockdown. A very dramatic take on various of the piano sonatas from Boris Giltburg was to follow…
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Noseda and the LSO at the Barbican review ****
London Symphony Orchestra, Gianandrea Noseda (conductor), Roman Simovic (violin) Barbican Hall, 9th February 2020 Prokofiev – Symphony No 1 in D major Op 25 “Classical” Prokofiev – Violin Concerto No 1 Op 19 Mussorgsky arr Rimsky-Korsakov – Prelude to “Khovanshchina” Shostakovich – Symphony No 9 in E flat major Op 70 The latest all Russian instalment in…
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Evgeny Kissin, Beethoven piano sonatas at the Barbican Hall review ***
Evgeny Kissin Barbican Hall, 6th February 2020 Ludwig van Beethoven Piano Sonata No 8, Op 13 Pathétique 15 Variations and a Fugue, Op 35 Piano Sonata No 17, Op 31 No 2 Tempest Piano Sonata No 21, Op 53 Waldstein Encore: various Bagatelles Op 126, Op 33, Variations Op 76 and Ecossaise WoO…
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Mozart’s Final Flourish: Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment at the Royal Festival Hall review ***
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Ivan Fischer (conductor) Royal Festival Hall, 7th February 2020 Mozart Symphonies Nos 39, 40 and 41 The OAE, like so many of its orchestral peers, is doing a remarkable job in bringing music to us in this troubling times. All with a solidly educational…
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Beethoven Weekender at the Barbican review
Beethoven Weekender “This could be the closest thing to heaven …. “. No not the Tears for Fears dirge from 2004 but one of the many fine singles from the vastly under-rated, and alas short-lived, Kane Gang from 1984. The KG, along with the magnificent Prefab Sprout, and the rather…
At Home He Feels Like A Tourist 