Rachmaninov
Evgeny Kissin’s stand-in brings the house down
It was such an enticing programme, too. The Philharmonia had booked Evgeny Kissin, the last great piano prodigy of the…
Pure feelgood: ENO’s Cinderella reviewed
‘Goodness Triumphant’ is the alternative title of Rossini’s La Cenerentola, and you’d better believe he meant it. Possibly my reaction…
Liquid silk
That strain again… it’s the morning after the concert and one tune is still there, playing in the head upon…
Alive and kicking
Rachmaninov’s First Symphony begins with a snarl, and gets angrier. A menacing skirl from the woodwinds, a triple-fortissimo blast from…
Brendel the Dadaist
How many people are celebrating the fact that, last week, one of Europe’s most inspired writers about music, modern art…
Everything you always wanted to know about classical music but were afraid to ask
Novelist, essayist, painter, poet, composer. Oh yes, and pianist: Stephen Hough does all of these things very well — and…
Make mine a double
If two concert pianists are performing a work written for two grand pianos, there are two ways you can position…
Unforgettable fire
How much of a compromise does a fashionable choreographer loved by all have to make with his paymasters? When he’s…
Crime and punishment
In one of the more peculiar concerts that I have been to at the Royal Festival Hall, Vladimir Jurowski conducted…
Second coming
Earlier this month the Wigmore Hall was sold out for a Schubert recital by a concert pianist whose only solo…
What iff?
Would musical history have turned out differently if Alexander Glazunov hadn’t been smashed out of his wits when he conducted…
