August 2011

Mussorgsky/Beethoven - Maazel/Pape/BlackCreek Festival Chorus

Sat 27 Aug 2011 8pm, Rexall Centre, Toronto, Canada

National Post, 28 Aug 2011
Supporting this romantic outlook were the red-blooded strings and glowing brass of an orchestra as noted for film scores as for classics. Perhaps it is not nationalist bias that leads me to praise the powerful foundation of the LSO sound, with the Canadian Joel Quarrington at the head of the double basses.
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Prokofiev/Dutilleux - Valery Gergiev/Leonidas Kavakos, BBC Proms

Tue 23 Aug 7.30pm, Royal Albert Hall

The Guardian, 24 Aug 2011
Valery Gergiev conducted a gleeful, balletic account which more than usually brought out [Prokofiev's First] symphony's wit. And the impossibly fast tempo he set for the finale could almost have been a joke were it not for the virtuosity of the players, flutes especially, who looked chuffed and slightly surprised to have passed Gergiev's speed test so convincingly.
5*
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Evening Standard, 24 Aug 2011
This orchestra consistently turns out performances a cut above their rivals in terms of the sheer vibrancy of their playing - for which the charismatic direction of Valery Gergiev is no doubt largely responsible.
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The Independent, 24 Aug 2011
Gergiev’s instinctive feeling for those “inner rubatos”, the little fluctuations and animations that tantalise and excite, lent authenticity to the brew and from the shiny Cadillac tune in the trio of the scherzo and the shot-silk ravishments of the Romeo and Juliet inflected slow movement to the wacky wood-block driven coda of the finale this was, in a word, epic.
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Bachtrack.com, 24 Aug 2011
I very much doubt if one would, or indeed could, hear an orchestra deliver the transcendent quality which the LSO offered throughout last night's concert.
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The Times, 25 Aug 2011
they remained connoisseurs, fleet of foot, precise in ensemble, ready to provide velvet subtleties in the private sadness of the slow movement’s epilogue, or wherever else required.
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classicalsource.com, 25 Aug 2011
The players appeared to relish an exotic palette which takes in oboe d’amore, cimbalom, and a ‘ringing’ percussion contingent. Dutilleux’s gorgeous colours and harmonies came across as absolutely his own
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Seen and Heard, 25 Aug 2011
... the LSO rose to the occasion with superbly judged interplay between soloist and orchestra, and a particularly outstanding contribution from Christine Pendrill in the notoriously difficult oboe d’amore solos...
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