September 2012

Sir Colin Davis 85th birthday concert - Martyn Brabbins/Sally Matthews

Thu 27 Sep 2012, Barbican

Classical Source, 28 Sep 2012
...as performances of anything go, Martyn Brabbins and the LSO here served up something truly great, an altogether special and epic ‘Elgar 3’ (just short of an hour) that found the original composer on the brink, maybe beyond it, and his latter-day representative on Earth quite inspired in his elaboration and completion. Deeply compelling and moving, rapture connected all those in the Hall.
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Brahms Tragic Overture/Szymanowski Symphony No 2/Brahms Symphony No 2 - Valery Gergiev

Sun 23 Sep 2012, Barbican

The Times, 24 Sep 2012
[Szymanowski's] Second Symphony sounds rather like Strauss and Schoenberg refracted and swivelled in a kaleidoscope of heady chromaticism and dizzying climaxes. The solo violin opening is indicative of future ecstasy (watch out for the Third Symphony’s Song of the Night in December), and a bold beginning Roman Simovic, leading, made of it.
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Financial Times, 24 Sep 2012
Valery Gergiev, the LSO’s principal conductor, is the mastermind behind the series and his command of scintillating textures, learnt in the fantasy operas and ballets of his native Russian composers, was put to good use.
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Classical Source, 24 Sep 2012
The LSO and Gergiev did the work proud, its pithy and memorable pay-off ideally incisive and affirmative.
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Szymanowski Violin Concerto No 1 & Symphony No 1/Brahms Symphony No 1 - Valery Gergiev/Janine Jansen

Sat 22 Sep 2012, Barbican

Daily Telegraph, 25 Sep 2012
Finally we came to Brahms’s symphony, and a performance that had the hallmarks of real care and love. True, it was an eccentric kind of love in its surprising swings of tempo, but no less moving and impressive for that. 
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Evening Standard, 24 Sep 2012
[Szymanowski] music is late Romantic, richly textured, voluptuous — all qualities to which Gergiev and his admirable forces did exemplary justice in the First Violin Concerto.
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Seen and Heard, 24 Sep 2012
the collaboration of Jensen and Gergiev seemed well-nigh perfect. Only very occasionally did the richly colourful and rather full orchestration threaten to drown the soloist, and the LSO’s contributions were always supremely musical and enjoyable.
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MusicOMH, 24 Sep 2012
Soloist Janine Jansen did full justice to the score, teasing out the poignant melodies and forming a close-knit partnership with conductor and orchestra.
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The Arts Desk, 23 Sep 2012
Gergiev was a confidant hand on the tiller. The last movement, which can meander confusingly between its many moods, progressed from mystery to majesty to festivity with glorious conviction.
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Classical Source, 23 Sep 2012
... here was the LSO in persuasive form doing full justice to hot-house music that owes most to Max Reger and breathes similar and contemporaneous air to Richard Strauss’s Elektra and Salome and to Scriabin’s Poem of Ecstasy.
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