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5 days ago | 
theartsdesk.com | David Nice
Never make your mind up too soon about any large-scale work by a genius. Back in 2010, I had my doubts about James MacMillan’s first Passion, hearing in the impact of Colin Davis’s Barbican performance a halfway house between the composer's shattering best and his more contrived side.
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1 week ago | 
theartsdesk.com | David Nice
When you’ve already come as close as possible to perfection in the greatest masterpiece, why risk a repeat performance with a difference? Because Bach’s St Matthew Passion needs to be an annual fixture without routine, and because inspirational IBO director Peter Whelan can be guaranteed not only to recapture the magic but to try a few new things, and to choose new soloists with fine judgement. Two replacements matched the impact of last year's Evangelist and alto 1.
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1 week ago | 
theartsdesk.com | David Nice
A lot hung upon the delivery last night of Henning Kraggerud, whom I last witnessed leading performances of Strauss’s Metamorphosen and some of his own music at the head of a mine in Svalbard: he was announced at the beginning of the concert as the Irish Chamber Orchestra’s new artistic partner, following on the heels of another instrumentalist-composer, Jörg Widmann. So did he triumph? Beyond wildest expectations.
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2 weeks ago | 
theartsdesk.com | David Nice
Tired after a hard day at the office? You might think you need a Classic FM-style warm bath, but the blast of Prokofiev’s Second Symphony, one of the noisiest in the repertoire, is the real ticket to recharging the batteries. Gianandrea Noseda, on the latest stage of his bracing journey through the composer’s symphonies and embracing the London Symphony Orchestra’s hugely popular Half Six Fix series, served it up with panache both in word and deed.
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2 weeks ago | 
theartsdesk.com | David Nice
When Vladimir Jurowski returns to what used to be “his” London Philharmonic Orchestra, you’d better jump. I would have done on Wednesday had I been able to get to his heady mix of Russian and Ukrainian rarities; luckily I could on Saturday night, because an outwardly standard programme of early 19th century works proved perfect, raising Schumann’s much-denigrated Violin Concerto to the level of Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture and Schubert’s “Great” C major Symphony.
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2 weeks ago | 
theartsdesk.com | David Nice
Igor Levit is a master of the unorthodox marathon, one he was happy to share last night with 24 year old Austrian Lukas Sternath, his student in Hanover. Not only did Sternath get the obvious stunner of two Prokofiev sonatas in the first half; he also had all the best tunes and phrases as the right-hand man, so to speak, in Shostakovich’s piano arrangement of his towering Tenth Symphony. The best, as in absolutely no holds barred, came at the very end.
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3 weeks ago | 
theartsdesk.com | David Nice
On paper, it was a standard programme with no stars to explain how this came to be a sellout concert. But packed it was, an audience of all ages which sat with concentrated awe through the spellbinding slow movement of Brahms’s First Piano Concerto and went wild at the end of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. Both works were groundbreaking at the time, sounding absolutely fresh here with the passion and precision awesomely well balanced by conductor Lio Kuokman.
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3 weeks ago | 
theartsdesk.com | David Nice
On paper, it was a standard programme with no big stars to explain how this came to be a sellout concert. But packed it was, an audience of all ages which sat with concentrated awe through the spellbinding slow movement of Brahms’s First Piano Concerto and went wild at the end of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. Both works were groundbreaking at the time and in performances where the passion and precision were awesomely well balanced by conductor Lio Kuokman, seemed absolutely fresh.
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1 month ago | 
theartsdesk.com | David Nice
So much looked promising for Irish National Opera’s first Wagner: the casting, certainly, the conductor - Music Director Fergus Sheil knows and loves this music – and the venue (the Libeskind-designed Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, proven ideal for Richard Strauss). How could a production go wrong with such a theatrical romantic tale, a pioneering music-drama for its time (1842)? All too easily, it seems, by either coming up with inappropriate business or letting the singers stand and deliver.
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1 month ago | 
theartsdesk.com | David Nice
Tamino in the operating theatre hallucinating serpents? Sarastro’s people wheeling lit-up plasma packs? From the central part of the Overture onwards – just when we thought we'd escape directorial intervention in Olivia Clarke’s racy conducting - it looks distinctly unpromising. But by Act Two, Jamie Manton’s production of Mozart's adult fairy-tale becomes one of the most moving Magic Flutes I’ve ever seen. Glorious singing and youthful energy help to make it so.
