What the classical world has been listening to this month
Charlie Siem Violinist
The first of the three albums I’ve been listening to most recently on Spotify features Evgeny Kissin playing Busoni’s piano transcription of JS Bach’s Chaconne. The Chaconne is like the Bible for a violinist. You spend your whole life constantly working on it. The Busoni is a brilliant enlargement of it, with Romantic harmonisation. Kissin is a virtuoso, and he has a masterful conception of the piece as a whole. This is a challenge as it’s a long set of variations, but when it’s done well, it’s transcendental.
I didn’t know Bruckner’s Symphonies Nos 1 and 5 that well, and the recording of them by Andris Nelsons and the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester was suggested to me. The Fifth Symphony, particularly, is Bruckner on a grand scale. The combination of the lyrical and an absolute sense of momentous majesty is a huge challenge to convey, so it takes a great conductor – which Nelsons definitely is – to weave it together. He has a Wagnerian sound in this music.
Conductor Carlos Kleiber is one of those enigmas who fascinates everyone. He didn’t record or perform that much, and he had quite a limited repertoire. I love listening to all of his recordings. The Fourth Symphony is Brahms
READER CHOICE
Helen Jarvis
Newport Pagnell
As a very early birthday present, I was taken (in style) to the last performance of the Royal Opera House’s production of Britten’s Peter Grimes in late March this year. I was in the chorus of a local amateur performance many years ago – and my son played the boy John, so it meant a huge amount for him to take me to this most recent performance. I was bowled over by every aspect of the production, and relished the sights and sounds of such an amazing performance. Thank you, all involved, and an especially big thank you to my son James.
at his best. It’s Mozartian in its perfection, with not one note out of place. Kleiber has this ability to fuse together an organic and fluid journey without any sense of stopping and starting. He paints the picture in such bright and vivid colours.
And also…
I’m just finishing Stefan Zweig’s memoir, The World of Yesterday, the last book he wrote before he died by suicide in Brazil. I’ve been haunted by it. His life begins in Vienna when arts and culture were at the forefront of society, and then he talks about their slow crumbling through the rise of fascism, being forced out of his country and losing his sense of identity, before he gives up completely
