Fall 2016 seems to be the season of Franco-Russian concerts… This time in the Auditorium de Lyon, with the great conductor Yuri Temirkanov and his Saint Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra. In a world of permanent change, it is noteworthy that Temirkanov has been the Orchestra Music Director and Chief Conductor since 1988!
Category Archives: Classical concert
Gilbert Amy’s 80th Birthday celebrations: the Hermès Quartet concert
Radio France had the good idea to dedicate a series of concerts to the composer, conductor and pedagogue Gilbert Amy for his 80th birthday.
Having entered his musical world via his excellent 2nd Quartet, Brèves, played by the Pražák Quartet, I favoured the concert given by the young and gifted Hermès Quartet, in the composer’s presence.
Ludmila Berlinskaya, Salle Cortot
Salle Cortot, Ludmila Berlinskaya gave a concert of extremely demanding French and Russian works.
The Russian pianist, who was a privileged partner of the great Sviatoslav Richter, has all technical skills to play this kind of programme, but is also an amazing musician.
Jean-Claude Casadesus conducting the ONF at Radio France
Unusual French & Russian programme at Radio France, with the ONF conducted by Maestro Jean-Claude Casadesus, and the impeccable violinist Sarah Nemtanu as soloist.
Beatrice Rana, Goldberg Variations at the TCE
The “Concerts du Dimanche Matin” at the TCE invited the young Italian pianist Beatrice Rana to play the Goldberg Variations, one of the highest masterpieces of Bach keyboard music.
Vladimir Spivakov and his Moscow Virtuosi at the FLV
The FLV hosted, outside the exhibition Icons of modern art – The Shchoukin collection, a concert with Russian conductor and violinist Vladimir Spivakov and his Moscow Virtuosi.
They played first Antonio Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto in E minor, then a piece added to the programme, Tomaso Albinoni’s Prayer in A minor (Preghiera), dedicated to the victims of terror attacks by Spivakov.
Back to the programme with Gioachino Rossini’s Sonata for strings No. 3, followed by Luigi Boccherini’s Symphony in D minor from op. 12, whose rendition was impeccable. D minor is a scale considered at the minimum as “serious” (cf. Bach’s Art of Fugue), if not dark and tragic (Mozart’s Requiem, Schubert’s Death and the Maiden Quartet). And Boccherini is a composer too often neglected, who wrote many excellent symphonic or chamber music pieces.
The Hagen Quartet playing Haydn at the Louvre
The Hagen Quartet had been invited by the Auditorium du Louvre and played a programme dedicated to Franz Josef Haydn.
The Austrian quartet was formed in 1981, with 4 brothers and sisters Hagen, coming from Salzburg. During its 35 years of activity they were few member changes, the excellent Rainer Schmidt taking the 2nd violin role in 1987.
Argerich, Kovacevich, Angelich, Capuçon and co
I doubt there ever was such a profusion of pianists on the Philharmonie de Paris stage before that evening: Martha Argerich, Stephen Kovacevich, Nicholas Angelich, the excellent Akane Sakai and Lilya Zilberstein and the Buniatishvili sisters. But pianists were not everything as they were joined by Renaud Capuçon (violin), Edgar Moreau, (cello), and percussionists Jean-Claude Gengembre and Camille Baslé, to play pieces of various format (piano solo, 4 hands, 2 pianos, chamber music…).
Tanja & Christian Tetzlaff, Lars Vogt, an October Sunday morning
The cellist Tanja Tetzlaff, her brother the violinist Christian Tetzlaff and their accomplice Lars Vogt at the piano, appeared at the TCE for a Sunday morning concert. The 3 musicians are great soloists but also accomplished chamber musicians.
Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Hélène Grimaud and the Rotterdams PO at the TCE
Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Hélène Grimaud and the Rotterdams Philharmonisch Orkest were at the TCE in October 2016 for a concert Bartók and Mahler.
The first part consisted of Béla Bartók’s 3rd Piano Concerto. Les artists offered a very good version of the work, which is more accessible than the 1st Concerto or even the 2nd, despite the fact that it shares with it an extraordinary slow movement. Sometimes still the neglected one of the 3, the piece is nevertheless abundant with wonderful sections, and has an almost Mozartian spirit, but with caracteristics proper to the Hungarian composer (modes and scales, links with folk music, counterpoint / fugue passages). If the 2 fast movements are full of drive, the Adagio religioso is clearly the summit of the concerto, with its choral which sends back to both Beethoven, Bach and Mozart, and its central night music, so typical of Bartók.