Yuja Wang Royal Festival Hall, London Impoverished by Brexit, shunned by a Philistine government, and shockingly undermined by the Arts Council, classical music in Britain is going through unprecedent...Read More
Bach Choir/OAE/David Hill, Royal Festival Hall, London The Southbank Centre may no longer be London’s principal haven for classical music – years of wayward leadership have taken their toll R...Read More
Orchestra and Choir of the Age of Enlightenment/Rattle, Royal Festival Hall Should Bach’s Passions be staged? They increasingly are, and there are good supporting arguments, particularly in the ca...Read More
Recital round-up No 53 for International Piano Magazine – April 2019 Wigmore Hall: Kirill Gerstein, Feb 24; Garrick Ohlsson, Feb 27 Royal Festival Hall: Angela Hewitt, Feb 26 Barbican: Arcadi Volodo...Read More
Mitsuko Uchida, Royal Festival Hall ‘Schubert’s music is between life and death; he dreams, with his eyes on the far horizon.’ With these words emblazoned over her programme, this is...Read More
Paul Lewis, Royal Festival Hall, London The British pianist Paul Lewis doesn’t have a wide repertoire, but he focuses on his chosen composers with white-hot intensity. For a while this meant wall-to...Read More
Chineke! Queen Elizabeth Hall Over the last half-century the outbuildings of the Royal Festival Hall have been threatened with one grandiose makeover after another: people have always been ambi...Read More
Anne Page, Royal Festival Hall, 21.11.17 JS Bach’s Die Kunst der Fuge – The Art of Fugue – is one of music’s most teasing mysteries. As the culmination of his lifelong experiment in cou...Read More
Semele, Royal Festival Hall, 18.10.17 I’ve seen quite a few stage productions of Handel’s Semele, but I can’t remember one as dramatic as the one I’ve just heard by the Orchestra of the Age of...Read More
Yuja Wang, Royal Festival Hall The elfin Yuja Wang has now reached thirty, so must be judged by grown-up standards. A shame that she ducked out of the ‘Hammerklavier’ Sonata originally billed for ...Read More