Roy Westbrook

Oxford

Contributor at Bachtrack

Senior Tutor

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Articles

Three card trick: compelling new Queen of Spades at Garsington

1 week ago | bachtrack.com | Roy Westbrook

The orchestral prelude is playing. Herman is wandering St Petersburg alone. A set of giant tarnished mirrors parts to reveal a hectic gambling scene, then a young woman, Lisa. They become Herman’s twin obsessions; the former will destroy the latter, and then Herman himself. No one has sung a note, but a tragedy has been foretold. It is typical of Garsington’s intelligent and insightful new production of Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades.
Howell, Howells and Elgar at the English Music Festival

1 week ago | bachtrack.com | Roy Westbrook

The English Music Festival always occupies the splendid spaces of Dorchester Abbey in the second May Bank Holiday weekend, and this was the 18th edition. JB McEwen’s Nugae; Seven Bagatelles for String Quartetmade an intriguing curtain-raiser, coming from this distinguished Scottish music academic and administrator. He seems to have held his own compositions in less regard than those of his colleagues, but these short pieces have an appeal of their own.
Mockery and mock-heroism from the LSO and Pappano in Richard Strauss

1 week ago | bachtrack.com | Roy Westbrook

The Till of Till Eulenspeigel (1895) was a legendary prankster in the Middle Ages with an inclination to mockery, including of religion. That eventually saw him hanged, but not before an eventful career had run its riotous course, as depicted in Richard Strauss’s dazzling and colourful score. The London Symphony Orchestra relished the demands the composer presents to every section – this is a concerto for orchestra in all but name, such are the opportunities for display.
Made in America: Mälkki, Josefowicz and the LSO in a fine showcase

2 weeks ago | bachtrack.com | Roy Westbrook

This London Symphony Orchestra programme featured two Europeans who were both exiles, although while Bartók wrote his work in the USA, of which he was then a citizen, Stravinsky wrote his concerto in Nice and did not settle in the USA until 1939. Julia Perry (1924-1979) was born in the USA, and was yet another American to study in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. Her A Short Piece for Orchestraof 1952 is much more inventive than its title.
Essential Early Romantics from the English Chamber Orchestra at Cadogan Hall

3 weeks ago | bachtrack.com | Roy Westbrook

The three leading Early Romantics featured in this English Chamber Orchestra matinee programme, Mendelssohn, Chopin and Schumann, were close contemporaries (b.1809 and 1810), dying in 1847, 1849 and 1856, friends and colleagues, yet rarely combine to fill an orchestral concert. Chopin wrote little for orchestra, but their scarcity is more because the High and Late Romantics now dominate the repertoire and have made the essential spirit of their predecessors elusive.
Strong team for a Good Friday St John Passion

1 month ago | bachtrack.com | Roy Westbrook

The opening chorus of Bach’s St John Passion is the greatest music of the 18th century. No arguments, except perhaps a plea for Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro. But while Mozart depicts the events of a single crazy day, Bach speaks of eternal matters. Even before the chorus enters, the 18 bars of instrumental prelude tell of impending revelation. A steady thudding bass line supports driving semiquaver motion, while the pain of dissonant clashes from flutes and oboes presages tragedy.
Budapest Festival Orchestra, Igor Levit and Iván Fischer sprinkle fairydust over London

2 months ago | bachtrack.com | Roy Westbrook

Bachtrack’s English Editor recently opened a review with the observation, “Another Friday night, another Shostakovich symphony at the Barbican.” The great Dmitri Dmitryevich is indeed a frequent presence on London concert programmes, to a degree that his senior contemporary, Sergei Prokofiev, has seemed relatively neglected. His presence in concerts is often confined to three or four of his eight concertos, mostly the two for violin.
Torn silk: Lozakovich's Prokofiev impresses with the Philharmonia

Feb 21, 2025 | bachtrack.com | Roy Westbrook

Prokofiev’s Second Violin Concerto begins with the soloist alone. Daniel Lozakovich made an immediate impression with his first pair of six-note phrases, enough to hint at what was to come in terms of warmth of tone (his very first note G is the lowest on the instrument) and his very quiet playing. The Philharmonia players seemed chamber partners at times (the concerto is modestly scored).
In Pursuit of Love: Piatti Quartet plays Borodin and Tchaikovsky

Feb 13, 2025 | bachtrack.com | Roy Westbrook

It is nearly ten years since the Piatti Quartet were prize winners at the 2015 Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition, and they are now long established internationally. They are currently Resident Quartet at Kings Place, London, and play a wide range of repertoire with many previously neglected works and new commissions. But here they offered Romantic – and romantic – music, certainly a programme suitable for the eve of St Valentine’s day, and entitled “The Pursuit of Love”.
Poetic refinement in Daniil Trifonov's Schumann with the London Symphony Orchestra

Feb 3, 2025 | bachtrack.com | Roy Westbrook

“How rich in invention, how interesting from beginning to end, how fresh and what a beautifully connected whole,” wrote Clara Schumann in her diary about her husband’s Piano Concerto. No-one today would disagree with that but the work’s qualities were hard won. It began as a single movement “Phantasie” in 1841, and only four years later did Schumann add the Intermezzo and Finale. But it was not much played in his lifetime, despite Clara’s early advocacy.