December 2012

Brahms Symphony No 4/Szymanowski Violin Concerto No 2/Szymanowski Symphony No 4 - Valery Gergiev/Denis Matsuev/Leonidas Kavakos

Wed 19 Dec 2012, Barbican

The Independent, 20 Dec 2012
Matsuev made something bright and brilliant of the symphony’s remarkably Bartokian first movement, and brought a coltish energy to the tumultuous finale; Kavakos’s performance was typically commanding in the concerto, which emerged as an eloquent and noble work.
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Brahms Symphony No 3/Brahms Variations on a Theme of Haydn/Szymanowski Symphony No 3 - Valery Gergiev/Toby Spence

Tue 18 Dec 2012, Barbican

Arts Desk, 19 Dec 2012
Both Gergiev’s and the orchestra’s key build-ups were simply superb in the Brahms St Anthony (Haydn) Variations, not least because Gergiev often held them back, so you felt the crescendo beginning, or ached for it to do so, before it actually began. That was really superb team management. 
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The Independent, 20 Dec 2012
The great world-sleep hymned by the Rumi poem which Spence intoned was bodied forth in swirling orchestral and choral lines, but it all owed rather too large a debt to Strauss and Skryabin. 
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Financial Times, 19 Dec 2012
The LSO’s big sound saw the Third Symphony despatched confidently enough
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Brahms Symphony No 3/Brahms Variations on a Theme of Haydn/Szymanowski Symphony No 3 - Valery Gergiev/Toby Spence

Sat 15 Dec 2012, Salle Pleyel, Paris

Bachtrack, 18 Dec 2012
From the command and power of the Brahms symphony, the wit and playfulness of the Variations to the striking and mysterious world of Szymanowski, it is clear to see how the LSO maintain their position as one of the world’s top orchestras. If there was ever a way to best discover Szymanowski, this was undoubtedly it.
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Brahms Symphony No 4/Szymanowski Violin Concerto No 2/Szymanowski Symphony No 4 - Valery Gergiev/Denis Matsuev/Leonidas Kavakos

Wed 12 Dec 2012, Barbican Hall

Bachtrack, 17 Dec 2012
it is all credit to Valery Gergiev that he is also championing this miraculous, if still peripheral, composer [Szymnowski]. To hear this music so luxuriously played by the London Symphony Orchestra seemed like the perfect way to experience it. This music has a surface richness and virtuosity that cries out for a first-rate orchestra and a conductor in tune with the toughness at its core – certainly delivered in spades, in this most memorable concert.
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Classical Source, 13 Dec 2012
An impressive end to an absorbing series that, if it did not suggest deeper connections between the symphonies of two dissimilar composers, at least brought those by Szymanowski (the first two in particular) to a wider audience and also reinforced why those by Brahms remain a paradigm of abstract thinking rarely equalled and arguably never surpassed.
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The Guardian, 13 Dec 2012
Bolstered by Denis Matsuev's brilliant account of the concertante piano part in the symphony, and Leonidas Kavakos's superbly expressive realisation of the violin concerto, these performances achieved a distinction that left the Brahms interpretations languishing in the shade.
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Daily Telegraph, 13 Dec 2012
[Kavakos] has such a nobility of sound and unshowy expressivity that he made the piece seem better than it really was.
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Brahms Symphony No 3/Brahms Variations on a Theme of Haydn/Szymanowski Symphony No 3 - Valery Gergiev/Toby Spence

Tue 11 Dec 2012, Barbican Hall

Independent on Sunday, 16 Dec 2012
Turning expectations upside down, they invested in [Szymanowski's transcendental Third Symphony the passion often found in the German Romantic [Brahms].
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The Guardian, 13 Dec 2012
The teeming, ultra-glamorous surface of Szymanowski's opulent Third Symphony, The Song of the Night, maintained a sheeny iridescence that never felt overbright, even at the score's hedonistic climaxes, while a structure that can seem aimless took flight and held to its airborne course. Toby Spence floated his clean-edged tenor over the gorgeous textures conjured by the orchestra and the London Symphony Chorus.
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Evening Standard, 12 Dec 2012
... in the Variations on a Theme of Haydn [Gergiev] struck gold in a superbly handled sequence of variations. The feather-light Mendelssohnian scherzo of the fifth was followed by a jaunty windband in the sixth, a gracefully lilting seventh and a spookily muted eighth before the St Anthony chorale emerged with dignity in a finale that exhibited all the vitality that had been lacking in the Third Symphony.
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The Times, 12 Dec 2012
I felt as if I was soaking in a perfumed bath, soothed by diaphanous musical textures, washed by the purple soap of 13th-century Sufi verses celebrating universal peace
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Classical Source, 12 Dec 2012
Gergiev expertly managed the music’s surges of emotion without reining-in its dynamic power.
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All-Sibelius - Osmo Vänksä/Leonidas Kavakos

Sun 9 Dec 2012, Barbican Hall

The Times, 12 Dec 2012
I can’t remember when I last heard such a soaring roar of applause in the Barbican Hall. And then slowly, one by one, the audience rose to its feet. This was no diva: this was Leonidas Kavakos at the end of his performance of Sibelius’s Violin Concerto.
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The Guardian, 11 Dec 2012
The way the unfolding of the Seventh was controlled was an object lesson in how to navigate this most original of all 20th-century symphonies, while the support [Vänskä] and the LSO provided to Kavakos's wonderfully secure playing in the concerto was faultless.
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The Independent, 10 Dec 2012
The final Allegro saw orchestra and soloist achieving an ideal synergy, with Kavakos’s sound shining brightly against the bass-heavy backdrop; one could not have wished for a clearer demonstration that this work stands in the grand tradition of Brahms and Tchaikovsky.
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Classical Source, 10 Dec 2012
[Kavakos'] guru-like overview of the concerto’s rhapsody and drama dovetailed completely with Vänskä’s interactive blend of symphonic assertion and veiled retreat, with the LSO surpassing itself.
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Queen's Medal for Music Gala Concert

Wed 5 Dec 2012, Barbican Hall

The Guardian, 6 Dec 2012
It is good to have [Vengerov] back. Immediately, that velvety, generous, big-hearted tone reminded us of what we have been missing.
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Financial Times, 6 Dec 2012
Ticciati rounded off the evening with a remarkably affectionate and soulful performance of Elgar’s Enigma Variations.
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Classical Source, 7 Dec 2012
the real delights arose from the playing of the orchestra, which moved as one through the extreme dynamic fluctuations of ‘Troyte’ and flowed effortlessly through ‘Nimrod’. There were also beautifully turned cameos from principal viola Edward Vanderspar and Rebecca Guilliver on cello; and, from Andrew Marriner, some of the most remarkable whispered clarinet-playing I have ever heard.
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The Times, 7 Dec 2012
Maxim Vengerov, not long returned after his prolonged shoulder injury, played the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in a way that suggested his mercurial virtuosity is still there if (as the sports writers might say) he gets himself fully match-fit.
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The Independent, 6 Dec 2012
with Robin Ticciati and the LSO strings providing the gentlest of pizzicato accompaniments [Vengerov] created a ravishing sound-world in soft shades of grey.
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Arts Desk, 6 Dec 2012
Ticciati and an LSO on supremely supple form left us in no doubt that it captures the span of a great symphonic Adagio in a matter of minutes, landing on each reiteration of its familiar variation-tune as the movement builds with a miraculous sense of space.
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