Tag Archives: Shostakovich

White-hot intensity from the Emerson Quartet at Milton Court

Emerson Quartet **** Milton Court, 8th November 2018 Benjamin Britten’s String Quartet no. 3 in G major – with its closing farewell-to-life passacaglia inspired by music from his opera Death in Venice – was composed in 1976, during the composer’s final illness. That same … Continue reading

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Wrath, hellfire and Soviet shadows from Orozco-Estrada and the LPO

LPO/ Andrés Orozco-Estrada *** Royal Festival Hall, 25th October 2017 Here’s a lethal Rachmaninov drinking game: down a finger of vodka at each quotation of the Dies irae. By the end of his Symphonic Dances, you’d be under the table. Rachmaninov had a strange … Continue reading

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Prom 68: Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky keep the Red Flag flying

Mariinsky Orchestra/ Gergiev **** Prom 68, Royal Albert Hall, 3rd September 2017 “Our business is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing.” In the Soviet Union, composers quickly learnt when to toe the Party line. After his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk was condemned … Continue reading

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Prom 60: Petrenko and the Oslo Philharmonic wind up the decibel meter in Shostakovich

Oslo Philharmonic/ Vasily Petrenko **** Prom 60, Royal Albert Hall, 29th August 2017 There could hardly be a noisier way to commemorate the centenary of the Russian Revolution than a performance of Dmitri Shostakovich’s mighty Twelfth Symphony. The composer had planned … Continue reading

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Belcea Quartet excels in Britten and Shostakovich at Aldeburgh Festival

Britten, Shostakovich, Mozart, Widmann **** Belcea Quartet, Jörg Widmann, Piotr Anderszewski, Snape Maltings Benjamin Britten’s spirit haunts Snape Maltings just as the ghosts of his final opera Death in Venice haunt his Third String Quartet. Resignation and isolation are etched into its … Continue reading

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