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REVEALED: 2 | Vintage Vibes

Classical music: Fiona Maddocks’s 10 best concerts and operas of 2024

A last-minute stand-in saves the day; an unusual artistic double act dazzles; plus, electrifying Strauss, Finnish firepower and high-flying Britten…

The Guardian - UK

A moment that changed me: I was loving life as a cellist – then something snapped in my arm

As a teenager with a scholarship to a prestigious music school, I was looking forward to a future playing Dvořák, Shostakovich and Elgar. Then came the injury that shattered my dreams

The Guardian - UK

LPO/Kremer/Roslavets/Boreyko review – an evening of raw and uncompromising music

The darkness of Shostakovich’s Symphony No 13 and Schoenberg’s A Survivor From Warsaw had a haunting modern resonance

The Guardian - UK

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Yo-Yo Ma and Kathryn Stott review – an exuberant final hurrah

With Stott announcing her retirement as a concert pianist, there was some sadness at the ending of a 40-year-old musical partnership. But their playing was exquisite

The Guardian - UK

Shostakovich: String Quartets Nos 1-5 album review – complete survey opens with bite and promise

The Spanish quartet are recording all 15 of Shostakovich’s string quartets, this opening volume features the first five, all given refined performances

The Guardian - UK

Prom 67: BBCSO/Peltokoski/Kopatchinskaja review – conducting sensation reveals what the fuss is about

The 24-year-old Tarmo Peltokoski showed there’s substance to the hype with thoughtful Schoenberg – Kopatchinskaja playing with elfin grace – and an ambitious and moving account of Shostakovich’s fifth

The Guardian - UK

Shostakovich: Symphonies 4, 5 and 6 album review – Klaus Mäkelä takes on history

The Finnish conductor exerts control over these musically very different but culturally significant works, revelling in wildness, perfection and joyful intensity

The Guardian - UK

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Prom 16: BBC Philharmonic/Storgårds review – Shostakovich’s impact is blunted

Lawrence Power was the spellbinding soloist in Cassandra Miller’s intimate viola concerto, and the BBC Philharmonic played superbly in a somewhat muted reading of Shostakovich’s fourth

The Guardian - UK

Yuja Wang review – from delicate finesse to fierce intensity

The virtuoso pianist balanced edgy 20th-century works with the pastoral calm of Chopin, bringing out the subtleties of each piece with superb control

The Guardian - UK

Expressionists at Tate Modern: a wonderful exhibition about an extraordinary art movement

This is about The Blue Rider art movement set up by a comsmopolitan group of friends including Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc and Gabriele Münter

Evening Standard

BBCSO/Kahchun Wong review – hints of musical adventure to come

The Singaporean conductor, soon to head the Hallé, chose a Shostakovich symphony for his London debut, along with two Japanese pieces forming a timely tribute to the late Seiji Ozawa

The Guardian - UK

The week in classical: how a charity is changing lives through music in ‘poor door’ Battersea

A sparkling solo show by the British percussionist in a community venue next to the US Embassy is doubly inspiring. And the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra fire on all cylinders in Kirill Karabits’s final season

The Guardian - UK

LPO/Canellakis review – poetic Beethoven and a clear, if careful, take on Shostakovich’s wartorn masterpiece

Karina Canellakis gave the Soviet-era symphony an eerie resonance, while soloist Jonathan Biss was at his poetic best in Beethoven’s second piano concerto

The Guardian - UK

Shostakovich: Symphonies 2, 3, 12 and 13 album review – Nelsons ends his cycle as convincingly as it began

Although for some of these performances revolutionary zeal is replaced by routine, the 13th stands apart

The Guardian - UK

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The Guardian - UK

National Youth Orchestra of Wales/Rizzi review – drama, history and humanity

The NYOW’s four-concert tour culminated in this evocative performance, which found the players in peak performance mode and revelling in it

The Independent UK

How Tate Britain overhauled 500 years of art history with its first rehang in a decade

The most comprehensive collection of British art in the world is having a reshuffle. Tate Britain director Alex Farquharson tells Eloise Hendy about how the gallery’s ‘interventions’ will expand and diversify the canon

The Guardian - UK

Bournemouth SO review – I’ve not heard Karabits and his orchestra do anything better

The Ukrainian conductor led his orchestra through a programme of Ukrainian and Russian music, culminating in a near perfect performance of Shostakovich’s Fourth

The Guardian - UK

Aurora Orchestra/Collon review – Shostakovich of rage and precision

There was nowhere to hide in this compelling reading of the Russian composer’s 14th symphony, the centrepiece of a programme that also featured Mahler and Britten

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The Guardian - UK

Cherry Town, Moscow review – Shostakovich’s operetta becomes a zany romp but outstays its welcome

Welsh National Youth Opera attack the subversive satire with verve and enthusiasm, maximising the theatricality and cheerfully taking the Mikhail out of it all

The Guardian - UK

Prom 25: BBCPhil/Storgårds/Eyck review – Aho’s theremin casts a spell

Carolina Eyck was mesmerising in Kalevi Aho’s theremin concerto, while Kaija Saariaho’s Vista and Shostakovich’s 15th symphony were superbly played by the BBC Philharmonic

Evening Standard

BBC Proms: Aurora Orchestra/Nicholas Collon at the Royal Albert Hall review: Impressive

The orchestra’s celebrated from-memory performance filled the Albert Hall to near capacity

The Independent UK

PM says UK will ‘continue to intensify’ efforts to assist Ukraine

Boris Johnson insists Russian president Vladimir Putin will ‘never break’ the spirit of the Ukrainian people.

The Guardian - UK

The week in classical: Igor Levit; Sean Shibe – review

The star pianist goes to the far side with Shostakovich and Ronald Stevenson, while the Scots guitarist reins it in

The Guardian - UK

The week in classical: Peter Grimes; Emerson Quartet; RPO/Petrenko

An all-star production of Britten’s opera thrilled; Soviet-era melancholy flowed through Shostakovich’s quartets; and the RPO rose to their game-changing new conductor

The Guardian - UK

Emerson String Quartet review – Shostakovich offers consolation and equilibrium

The first of a trio of concerts focusing on Shostakovich’s string quartets saw the Emersons bring a persuasive intensity to the Russian dissident composer’s music

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