Find out what the critics thought of the London Philharmonic Orchestra's concerts.
The latest reviews with links to the online originals are posted immediately after each concert onto the London Philharmonic Orchestra blog.
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Below are selected review extracts from the last 12 months.
2011/12 Season >
2010/11 Season >
22 September 2010
Vladimir Jurowski conducts Zemlinsky’s Six Maeterlinck Songs and Mahler’s Symphony No. 3
… a simply tremendous performance of Mahler’s 3rd Symphony … Jurowski and his players plunged us into a winter of discontent so profoundly expectant that even the inveterate coughers were silenced.
Edwards Seckerson, The Independent, 23 September 2010
The performance was everything we’ve come to expect from the LPO and Jurowski: precise gestures, judiciously paced movement and wonderfully balanced sound … The brass were spot-on and the woodwind, though so often the apparent butt of Mahler’s jokes, excellent.
Guy Dammann, The Guardian, 23 September 2010
A startling reassessment of this work, delivered with demonic intensity and radiant playing.
Anna Picard, The Observer, 26 September 2010
The interpretation itself, though, was the glory. Jurowski made the immense first movement spacious and airy in the most compelling way … The rubato Jurowski brought to the extended minuet second movement and scherzo third was delectable …And the strings’ hushed inception of the slow finale was all one could want in the way of blissful, hard-earned affirmation.
Paul Driver, The Sunday Times, 10 October 2010
23 October 2010
Maurizio Benini conducts Rossini’s Aureliano in Pamira
Over three hours the conductor Maurizio Benini kept the London Philharmonic Orchestra sparkling.
Geoff Brown, The Times, 27 October 2010
27 October 2010
Vladimir Jurowski conducts Mendelssohn, Mahler and Brahms
Mendelssohn's spring-green Symphony No 5, begun at the age of 20, and Brahms's late-summer Symphony No 3 drew wonderful solo playing from the orchestra, but also from the double basses. What a remarkable section this is, the heartbeat of the orchestra, vital, astonishing, and worth its considerable weight in gold.
Claudia Pritchard, The Independent on Sunday, 31 October 2010
30 October 2010
Vladimir Jurowski conducts Brahms and Beethoven/Mahler
The control in the Norwegian’s playing was as striking as the tautness of the reading. And the LPO’s accompaniment, superbly marshalled by Vladimir Jurowski, was as fine. Kristina Blaumane’s ravishing cello solo almost eclipsed the main attraction.
Richard Morrison, The Times, 30 October 2010
Jurowski and his orchestra revelled in the high-voltage drama, and had provided an equally charged accompaniment to Leif Ove Andsnes’s performance of Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto.
Andrew Clements, The Guardian, 2 November 2010
Still, whatever one might think of Mahler’s tamperings, this was a powerful performance of the “Eroica” and very well played … How brilliantly every orchestral detail comes across whenever Jurowski is in charge.
Richard Fairman, Financial Times, 2 November 2010
17 November 2010
Kazushi Ono conducts Richard Strauss, Mahler and Ravel
Dynamics were scrupulously controlled. The woodwind were on blissfully winsome form. And the whole thing [Richard Strauss’s Death and Transfiguration] unspooled with warmth and tenderness … The LPO played it [Daphnis and Chloe] with punch and bounce (Jaime Martin’s flute was a constant delight) but what it lacked was the sweat and greasepaint of theatre.
Neil Fisher, The Times, 19 November 2010
1 December 2010
Jurowski conducts Debussy, Britten and Mahler
Jurowski’s Mahler – immaculately paced, shorn of extraneous sentiment and full of exquisite, bright detail – really came into its own in this almost chamber-like symphony. … But it was the inner movements, flecked by penetrating woodwind playing (Ian Hardwick’s oboe on particularly majestic form), that really prised away the symphony’s gemütlich veneer … the Debussy – three of the piano Préludes scintillatingly orchestrated by Colin Matthews – came off brilliantly …
Neil Fisher, The Times, 3 December 2010
There is no denying Vladimir Jurowski, the LPO’s principal conductor, is an electrifying phenomenon. On Wednesday, he conducted two concerts back-to-back, the first with ten young players of the LPO’s mentoring scheme ‘Foyle Future Firsts’, the second with the full orchestra. In both Jurowski was a model of graceful but steely control … Nothing escaped his attention; even the exits of the players were directed with an elegant and somewhat imperious hand.
As for the orchestra [LPO] itself, it was on terrific form. The string players seized the dangerous changeable quality of Britten’s song cycle Les Illuminations … [Mahler 4] it was the orchestra that carried the day. They conjured a beautifully transparent (but sometimes uncanny) sound, exactly right for Mahler’s child-like view of heaven.
Ivan Hewett, Daily Telegraph, 3 December 2010
14 January 2011
Johannes Wildner conducts Szymanowski and Mahler
‘… some heroic playing from the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s trumpets and horns.’
Edward Seckerson, The Independent, 15 January 2011
19 January 2011
Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts Beethoven and Mahler
‘… Nézet-Séguin and the LPO have built an exceptional rapport …’
Andrew Clark, Financial Times, 21 January 2011
‘… Nézet-Séguin is an accomplished exponent of this music, and the players responded keenly to his unflagging energy and focused attack … the latter part of the finale achieving a sense of elation – founded on some world-class playing from the orchestra, especially the brass section – that was truly triumphant.’
George Hall, The Guardian, 24 January 2011
‘… it’s wonderful to experience a performance whose abiding memory is not primarily of this love song to Alma Mahler but of the sheer exuberance of life. Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the London Philharmonic gave such a performance, propelling the audience through the music with huge physical dynamism – on, on, through the fever and the fret to final blazing affirmation.’
Hilary Finch, The Times, 21 January 2011
‘The scherzo [of Mahler’s Symphony No. 5] was splendidly sustained, and the occasion for some sumptuous horn-playing by John Ryan.’
Paul Driver, The Sunday Times, 30 January 2011
22 January 2011
Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts Franck and Fauré
‘… in this glowing performance it all cohered, and the joy of the final movement felt absolutely right and unforced.’
Ivan Hewett, Daily Telegraph, 24 January 2011
‘The symphony [Franck’s Symphony in D minor], already a tour de force of thematic unity, came over as if played on a single instrument, and even in a single breath. The sound was ample without being overplush, the tonal colouring a wonderful burnished brown. He had made the LPO anew.’
Paul Driver, The Sunday Times, 30 January 2011
‘Once into the biting allegro [of Franck’s Symphony in D minor], conductor and orchestra found the striving spirit of the piece, making something very memorable of the big, yearning theme. The slow movement’s cor anglais solos were beautifully shaped, leading to the delicately scored outpouring at the heart of this work and contrasting with the thicker textures of the finale, which Nézet-Séguin drove towards a thrilling close. As the LPO’s principal guest conductor, he has surely done nothing finer.’
John Allison, The Sunday Telegraph, 30 January 2011
‘On the South Bank, the charismatic young conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the London Philharmonic set a packed Royal Festival Hall in a roar with spell-binding performances of Franck’s D minor Symphony and Fauré’s Requiem.
Geoffrey Smith, Country Life, 7 February 2011
26 January 2011
Vladimir Jurowski conducts Eotvos, Liszt and Zemlinsky
‘Jurowski was wonderfully alert to its [Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony] sensuality, the fierce workings of its internal drama and its patterns of convulsion and stasis. The orchestral sound glowed, glittered and swooned …’
Tim Ashley, The Guardian, 27 January 2011
4 February 2011
Kurt Masur conducts Brahms
Where the performance scored highly, especially in Brahms’s First Symphony in the second half, was in tone colour and balance. The warmth and richness of the playing was exceptional, with every department contributing its share of complex timbres and holding them together in a finely achieved sound picture.
George Hall, The Guardian, 8 February 2011
9 February 2011
Osmo Vänskä conducts Rachmaninov, Liszt and Dvorak
Yet it was mostly superbly played. Should I ever decide to place myself at the tender mercy of Dignitas, I shall certainly request Osmo Vänskä, the London Philharmonic and the German pianist Bernd Glemser to enliven my last hours.
Richard Morrison, The Times, 10 February 2011
26 March 2011
Edward Gardner conducts Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius
This was one of the occasions when that chemistry was exactly right – as good as any live account of the work I’ve heard in years. The singing of the London Philharmonic Choir, with the Choir of Clare College Cambrige forming the semi-chorus, was full-blooded and intense, the playing of the London Philharmonic Orchestra utterly secure.
Andrew Clements, The Guardian, 28 March 2011
20 April 2011
Vladmiri Jurowski conducts Bach (arr. Mahler), Shostakovich, Webern and Beethoven (arr. Mahler)
Of all the Mahler cycles that have proliferated for this and last year’s anniversaries, the London Philharmonic’s has been, by a long way, the most intelligent and revealing.
Andrew Clements, The Guardian, 24 April 2011
… the London Philharmonic is nearing the end of its inventive programmes featuring the song cycles and Mahler’s rarely heard editions of other composers’ music … The “arrangement” consists of little more than some pizzicato effects and the addition of double basses, but how incandescent the music sounded with the LPO strings in full cry. London concert-goers are lucky to have concerts as creative as this.
Richard Fairman, Financial Times, 24 April 2011
This was a typical Jurowski concert. It was cleverly programmed; performed with spit and polish and hauled up some curious musical artefacts … Bach’s material came dressed in revised dynamics, pizzicato effects and a free-wheeling continuo line mostly handed to a piano modified with metal tacks. The result was neither Bach nor Mahler, but a weird cross-breed. Jurowski made it delightful, revelling in the unusual and diverse textures, stretching from regal trumpets to the piano’s fairy clatter.
Geoff Brown, The Times, 22 April 2011
4 May 2011
Vladimir Jurowski conducts Wagner, Strauss and Tchaikovsky
… Jurowski’s music-making is a breath of fresh air. To a programme of Romantic staples he brought a swashbuckling energy and rhythmic tautness that revealed all in a new light.
Barry Millington, Evening Standard, 5 May 2011
From where I sat, the LPO’s brass were fleet-footed giants, the strings and woodwind miraculously gifted pygmies.
Anna Picard, The Independent, 9 May 2011
After that Jurowski returned to familiar territory with a razor-sharp performance of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, where the conductor defiantly held sentiment at bay. There may not be much warmth of heart in Jurowski’s Tchaikovsky, but its intensity is white-hot.
Richard Fairman, Financial Times, 6 May 2011
28 May 2011
Vladimir Jurowski conducts Haydn, Mahler and Brahms
… Jurowkski dug hard into the largo’s [Brahms’s Symphony 4] sombre textures, helped by the LPO’s peerlessly eloquent brass and winds and singing strings … Running alongside [Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn], Jurowski and the LPO supplied plenty of instrumental finesse.
Geoff Brown, The Times, 31 May 2011
The orchestra was on superb form, especially in the closing Revelge, in which Jurowski seemed able to turn the volume of the martial wind and brass up and down as precisely as with a remote control. … Brahms’s Fourth was a triumph. Opening with a melody that seemed to ride the surface of a huge ocean swell teeming with undercurrents, Jurowski aimed for, and achieved, a performance of colossal proportions.
Erica Jean, The Guardian, 30 May 2011
26 July 2011
BBC Proms: Jurowski conducts Liszt, Bartók and Kodály
This performance was a reminder that under Jurowski the LPO has become a fabulously refined instrument.
Ivan Hewett, The Telegraph, 27 July 2011
The closing Chorus Mysticus - with tenor Marco Jentzsch hymning ‘the eternal feminine’ over the combined male voices of the London Philharmonic Choir and London Symphony Chorus – was wonderfully rapt and ecstatic.
Tim Ashley,The Guardian, 27 July 2011
The selection of orchestral colour is breathtaking, brilliantly delivered last night by the LPO.
Ismene Brown, The Artsdesk, 27 July 2011
This is not a conductor who views himself as being superior to the mere mortals of the orchestra – he is one of them, and they respond to this attitude in a hugely positive way ... And then there’s that indefinable ‘something’ that great conductors have – his ability, even while communing with his players on a most human level, to transcend technique and occasion to tap into something spiritual, kinetic, profoundly moving.
Gramophone, 27 July 2011
[Jurowski] launched Kodály's Dances of Galánta as if intent on doing the dancing himself. The orchestra responded, catching the set's jaunty insouciance as well as its sinewy vigour.
Nick Kimberley, The Evening Standard, 27 July 2011
The LPO was on triumphant form, and the strings especially played with precision and attack.
Fiona Maddocks, The Guardian, 31 July 2011
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