October 2011

Wagner/Schumann/Brahms - Nikolaj Znaider/Saleem Abboud Ashkar

Sun 30 Oct 2011, Barbican

classicalsource.com, 31 Oct 2011
Best of all was the Brahms. Perhaps the sheer richness of the string-writing – to wit that wonderfully affecting epilogue in the slow movement, here given with real depth of tone – had something to do with it, but it was notable too that Znaider hit on a conspicuously apt tempo for the first movement, expansive but maintaining an impressive forward momentum.
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Bachtrack.com, 2 Nov 2011
In general, [Znaider's] tempi were expansive and he gave the orchestra plenty of space to play, bringing out wonderful solo playing from the wind principals (including a poignant solo from flautist Gareth Davies in the final movement). The horns (the brilliant David Pyatt unusually playing third horn) and the trumpets sounded glorious too.
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The Film Music of Dimitri Tiomkin - Richard Kaufman et al

Thu 27 Oct 2011, Barbican

Bachtrack.com, 28 Oct 2011
The best examples last night were the procession from Land of the Pharaohs, absolutely your image of ancient grandeur, and the splendid John "Duke" Wayne March from Circus World, whose ponderous trombone glissandi put smiles on the faces of everyone in the audience.
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Seen and Heard, 28 Oct 2011
Tiomkin was a four-time Oscar winner and one of the highlights of this evening was the appearance of all of them, the first introduced when the conductor said “There is a famous saying ‘And the Oscar goes to …’ and I want you to meet Oscar”.
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BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert - Shai Wosner

Thu 27 Oct 2011, LSO St Luke's

classicalsource.com, 28 Oct 2011
Indeed it was this final sonata that outshone all before it, a tour de force of a performance, acutely aware both of Beethoven’s overall scheme...
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Britten War Requiem - Gianandrea Noseda et al

Sun 23 Oct 2011, Lincoln Center, New York

The Times, 25 Oct 2011
It was all so vivid: the opening choral whispers like the echoes of dead souls; the tolling bells and ominous fanfares; and the slow crescendo of mourning murmurs in the final moments — an overwhelming evocation of the grief, the waste and the pity of war.
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New York Times, 24 Oct 2011
The “War Requiem” is a bold, personal and modern work. It came through that way on Sunday in the gripping, nuanced performance that Mr. Noseda conducted, right from the start, when the hushed chorus sang, “Requiem aeternam,” asking the Lord to grant the deceased eternal rest, but in veiled, quietly intense music that suggests trepidation, as if the choristers were afraid to make this plea.
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New York Magazine, 30 Oct 2011
On the podium, Gianandrea Noseda plumbed its cool pathos without ever quite reaching Davis’s levels of exquisiteness. Give him another 40 years or so.
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Musical America, 27 Oct 2011
The audience held its collective breath until [Noseda] lowered his arms some 20 seconds later. In our day, when silence is intolerable, there is no higher compliment.
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ConcertoNet, 24 Oct 2011
The London Symphony Orchestra was at its best, from the brass fanfare of the Dies Irae (shades of Verdi and Berlioz!) to the crystal-clear orchestral fugue of the Offerotrium.
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Beethoven Missa Solemnis - Sir Colin Davis et al

Fri 21 Oct 2011, Lincoln Center, New York

The Times, 25 Oct 2011
Two months ago, at the Proms, the LSO’s performance of the Missa Solemnis, also directed by Colin Davis, simply didn’t gell. Here, by contrast, it sounded cogent, unanimous and imbued with a massive spirituality under a conductor who, as he unfolded this epic over nearly two hours, seemed to shed his years and physical frailty and rekindle the old fire.
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New York Times, 24 Oct 2011
Mr. Davis’s performance began splendidly with the Kyrie. The chorus (directed by Joseph Cullen) filled the resounding sustained harmonies with full-bodied but never forced sound. The music flowed in broad sweeps and spacious arcs.
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New York Magazine, 30 Oct 2011
the hand on the rudder belonged to Sir Colin Davis, who led a performance full of lightness and ferocity.
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Musical America, 27 Oct 2011
If I never hear another concert I will die a contented music lover, having heard the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus perform Beethoven’s Missa solemnis under Colin Davis and Britten’s War Requiem under Gianandrea Noseda last weekend.
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classicalcourse.com, 22 Oct 2011
This was one of the most moving performances of this magnificent work in recent memory, the strongest applause reserved for one of the finest conductors of our time, Colin Davis.
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ConcertoNet, 22 Oct 2011
It was Sir Colin Davis – so deserving of that special applause even before the first notes – which made the Missa Solemnis such a regal evening.
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Superconductor, 22 Oct 2011
In the final movement, the chorus were the real stars. Even as the orchestra thundered and brandished its brassy weapons upon Beethoven's apocalyptic landscape. the massed singers turned Dona nobis pacem into a cry for peace and a mighty shout of humanity.
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All-Sibelius programme - Sir Colin Davis/Nikolaj Znaider

Wed 19 Oct 2011, Lincoln Center, New York

New York Times, 20 Oct 2011
... on Wednesday night at Avery Fisher Hall, Mr. Davis put those words into practice by drawing organic and stunningly fresh accounts of two familiar Sibelius works from the empowered players of the London Symphony Orchestra, opening Lincoln Center’s Great Performers season.
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The Times, 25 Oct 2011
... here the Second Symphony had something else: an intensity close to anger in the craggy brass outbursts; audacious rubato; and blazing exhilaration from a superbly galvanised orchestra in that hard-won finale.
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Bachtrack.com, 24 Oct 2011
This performance of Sibelius’s Violin Concerto and Second Symphony with the London Symphony Orchestra had everything you could ask for – sonority so vivid you could touch it, yet a clarity that brought out nuances that are sometimes lost.
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classicalsource.com, 22 Oct 2011
The light and lithe scherzo highlighted the virtuosity of the strings, while in the finale the orchestra reveled in lush sound.
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Steve Reich at 75 - Kristjan Järvi/Synergy Vocals

Sat 15 Oct 2011, Barbican

The Guardian, 16 Oct 2011
the playing was of a high order, precise in the detailed definition individual musicians brought to its realisation.
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Daily Telegraph, 17 Oct 2011
It was the great achievement of this concert to make Reich’s orchestral idiom seem an enrichment of his music rather than an aberration.
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Evening Standard, 17 Oct 2011
At times the orchestra sounded like a single mighty organ, at others it divided into endless fragments, each unfurling its own rhythms. The players have to count, watch and listen at every moment; the LSO handled the challenge well, and Reich was there at the end to take the standing ovation.
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The Times, 17 Oct 2011
We expected to be clapping Steve Reich when he appeared for his 75th-birthday concert with the London Symphony Orchestra. It was a delicious surprise when he put his hands together for the audience and began this concert with his own Clapping Music, alongside the LSO’s percussionist Neil Percy.
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Seen and Heard, 16 Oct 2011
The performance was terrific. Kristjan Järvi conducted with a firm beat and the LSO responded with the right degree of energy and with ever-sensitive dynamics.
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Bachtrack.com, 17 Oct 2011
As a hearty standing ovation showed, Reich’s sonic landscapes continue to fascinate his loyal audiences with their rhythmic colour, harmonic story-telling and enticing restlessness. The LSO ably embodied those characteristics.
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BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert - Nicholas Angelich

Thu 13 Oct 2011, LSO St Luke's

Classicalsource.com, 14 Oct 2011
[Angelich's] playing was full of colour and expression, and he had a clear idea of the identities of these three very different sonatas.
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UBS Soundscapes: Eclectica - Different Trains

Wed 12 Oct 2011, LSO St Luke's

Bachtrack.com, 17 Oct 2011
The performance, by a chamber group of string, percussion and keyboard players from the London Symphony Orchestra, was infused with warm affection for the music. Their enthusiasm and desire to communicate was unfaltering, and their playing was full of sensitive expression.
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Britten War Requiem - Gianandrea Noseda et al

Sun 9 & Tue 11 Oct 2001, Barbican

The Guardian, 11 Oct 2011
Noseda stage-manages musical drama quite wonderfully, and with the London Symphony Chorus on secure and clear form, the unleashing of the Dies Irae, the brassy triumphalism of the Hosannas in the Sanctus, and the sense of panic at the mention of the Last Judgment in the Libera Me were all perfectly judged
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Daily Telegraph, 12 Oct 2011
The orchestral playing was also hugely impressive. The brass players of the LSO caught the menacing military undertow of the music without exaggerating it, and the chamber sonorities of the Owen settings were beautifully delicate.
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Backtrack.com, 12 Oct 2011
Noseda and the LSO have set a very high benchmark indeed with this daring performance.
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Opera Today, 12 Oct 2011
The players of the London Symphony Orchestra were on tremendous form, guided skilfully by Noseda who illuminated all the details of the score. Noseda’s control of the musico-dramatic form was exemplary and his galvanising of his forces in the big moments superb: thus the chilling distant fanfares which herald the outbreak of violent combat at the start of the ‘Dies Irae’ built to an explosive force.
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The Arts Desk, 10 Oct 2011
With Remembrance Sunday approaching, it would be hard to imagine a more vivid act of commemoration and testimony than the performance the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus delivered at the Barbican last night.   
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classicalsource.com, 10 Oct 2011
This one was undoubtedly one of the finest accounts it has ever received.
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Haydn/Beethoven/Nielsen - Sir Colin Davis/Mitsuko Uchida

Sun 2 & Thu 4 Oct 2011, Barbican

Financial Times, 5 Oct 2011
It oozed authority and gravitas, thanks partly to the LSO’s ideally meaty tone, but it also had Beethovenian dynamism, blazing impressively throughout the opening movement.
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The Guardian, 5 Oct 2011
It was the highlight of another mesmerising performance from a pianist who always seems entirely on Beethoven's wavelength.
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The Daily Telegraph, 6 Oct 2011
Davis struck that balance magnificently, while the bright, forthright sound of the LSO, given extra steel by the Barbican’s unyielding acoustic, gave the performance a yet fiercer sense of purpose.
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classicalsource.com, 3 Oct 2011
The opening movement was powerfully dispatched, Davis heightening tension in the repeated exposition such that it became a springboard into a development of kinetic energy.
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Bachtrack.com, 5 Oct 2011
... it was Colin Davis' enthusiasm and charisma that projected through the work [Nielsen Symphony No 1], orchestra, and audience, selling it apparently effortlessly.
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