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Post from The Arts Desk: This Week’s Classical Music Round-Up
This week’s classical music coverage on The Arts Desk includes a
disastrous dance piece, a concert that runs hot and cold and the top pick of
the latest CDs.
picture credit Sadler's Wells |
While over the weekend Graham Rickson
gave his weekly appraisal of the latest classical CD
releases. First up was the Ulster Orchestra under George Vass. An unpublished
1902 piece by Vaughan Williams was recognisable Vaughan Williams fare, but it
was the first two piano concertos by Welsh composer William Matthias that
Rickson deemed the more enjoyable. There are more challenging pieces out there,
certainly, but these works still had a thrilling bite to them. Next was the
London Philharmonic Orchestra’s latest release with conductor Jukka-Pekka
Saraste, bringing together Sibelius and Lutoslawki. Another Sibelius’s Fifth
was perhaps unnecessary, Rickson thought, and Lutoslawksi’s Concerto for
Orchestra was a sleazier, more forbidding performance than he’s ever heard
before, but it was Sibelius’s tone poem ‘Pohjola’s Daughter’ that stood out, in a thrilling live
performance that brings out every dark narrative twist of this tragic Finnish
folk tale. The final recommendation was ‘Five Pieces’, superbly played by the Italian Gazzana sisters on
piano and violin. The disc includes works by Hindemith, Janáček and Silvestrov
but the real revelation was the delicate yet angular piece ‘Distance de fée’ by Takemitsu
which had Rickson grinning helplessly and hitting the repeat button.
picture credit Greg Helgeso |
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