Two groups of Japanese musicians have opened their Western counterparts’ eyes to new things about Western classical music: one is Masaaki Suzuki with his Bach Collegium Japan, the other is the Tokyo String Quartet, whose recordings of the classical canon are surpassingly fine. And when you’re told before the first of the Tokyo’s two Wigmore concerts that two players are about to retire, you listen intently, because a 42-year run is coming to a close.
Richard Goode, Royal Festival Hall
Monday 13 February 2012
The American pianist Richard Goode doesn’t give many recitals, but his uniquely personal vision ensures that each one is special.
Park Lane Group, Purcell Room, London
National Youth Orchestra, Barbican Hall, London
Sunday 15 January 2012
Emerging musicians get a welcome platform, but please change the record
Brahms piano work found in visitors' book 160 years on
Friday 13 January 2012
An unknown work by the composer Johannes Brahms has come to light after almost 160 years following its chance discovery in a visitor's book, and will be played for the first time next week.
Album: Copland / Hillborg / Lutoslawski etc, Dances to a Black Pipe (BIS)
Sunday 08 January 2012
Dance is the dominant theme in clarinettist Martin Fröst's eclectic recital with the Australian Chamber Orchestra.
Antonio Meneses/Maria Joao Pires, Wigmore Hall
Wednesday 04 January 2012
Great pianists often gravitate to chamber music in their maturity, as though the satisfactions of communal music-making finally outweigh the thrills of solo achievement.
Benedetti / Elschenbroich / Eschenbach / LPO, Royal Festival Hall, London
Monday 07 November 2011
Brahms's Double Concerto in A minor for Violin and Cello was in its day a very unfashionable form, since concertos were expected to pit a lone soloist against the massed forces of an orchestra. But its intimate dialogue had a suitably intimate inspiration.
Listen to This, By Alex Ross
Friday 07 October 2011
From John Dowland to Led Zeppelin, JS Bach to Robert Johnson, critic Alex Ross spans many octaves without any sign of strain.
Proms 45/46, Mullova/Barley/BBCSO/Volkov/Joseph, Royal Albert Hall (5/5, 4/5)
Wednesday 24 August 2011
The hall was packed for the coming-together of Bernard Haitink and Emanuel Ax, two of the most seasoned maestri in the business, to deliver Brahms. But before ‘Piano Concerto No 1’, the great Dutch conductor and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe gave us Brahms’s ‘Symphony No 3’, prefaced by an illuminating programme-interview.
Chamber Prom 2,Prom 14, Elias Quartet/Bliss/Stuttgart Symphony/Norrington (5/5, 4/5)
Tuesday 26 July 2011
Can it really be true that Purcell’s ‘Fantasia No 6 in F major’ has never before been played at a Prom?
Early Music: A Very Short Introduction, By Thomas Forrest Kelly
Monday 18 July 2011
First Night of the Proms, Royal Albert Hall, London
Sunday 17 July 2011
Rambert, Sadler's Wells, London<br/>Bern Ballett, Linbury Studio, London
Sunday 29 May 2011
Pinchas Zukerman/Royal Philharmonic, Royal Festival Hall
Thursday 12 May 2011
Pinchas Zukerman is a musician through whom history is stamped as through a stick of Brighton rock.
Alexander Melnikov, Wigmore Hall, London<br/>Robert Holl, Wigmore Hall, London
Sunday 01 May 2011








