What was your last concert?

[Nick Armstrong]

Glad it wasnt toop bad a concert Calki! Worth it just for Andreas Scholl and the Choir!!??

Yes! (and some lovely rich continuo playing from the AAM).

.... but solo singers... What can you do?!?!

[BBMmk2]

i know but cant say it here!(have a pint of Spitfire!!)

[Flosshilde]

I am very glad not to have missed the sublime bits - but one had to sit through probably 90 minutes-worth of less good stuff (and it wasn't warm in King's Chapel !! )

That's a pity, especially after trecking 'up north' for it. Still, probably worth it for Andreas Scholl.

he didn't resemble in any way any of the photos in the programme

I find that's often the case anyway - the pictures have usually been taken 20 years before, and/or heavily retouched to remove wrinkles.

[MrGongGong]

Ryoji ikeda at the barbican this evening
Loud , visually overwhelming and totally extraordinary

[Nick Armstrong]

i know but cant say it here!(have a pint of Spitfire!!)

[Mahler's3rd]

Bach's Goldberg Variations at Bristol St Georges, Last Night with Mahan Esfahani

[Richard Tarleton]

Bach's Goldberg Variations at Bristol St Georges, Last Night with Mahan Esfahani

Review please! See my query here

[Mahler's3rd]

Hi Richard, It was an excellent evening, part of the Bristol Baroque festival that's tied in nicely with the Baroque spring on Radio 3, the Variations we're played by Mahan Esfahani. What a dazzling virtuoso he is. I tried to get a ticket to see him at the Proms a year or so ago in Cadogan Hall, alas they we're all gone. Wednesday night he held us spellbound for just over an hour, He played on a two manual harpsichord, and the speed with which he played some of the variations was breathtaking, a real edge of the seat performance

[Richard Tarleton]

Thanks! That's very much how it came across on the radio. Sounds like a rare evening.

[Mahler's3rd]

Haydn: Symphony No 85, Brahms Violin Concerto (Lisa Batiashvili) & Sibelius Symphony No 1, Philharmonia/Paavo Jarvi Last week at Bristol's Colston Hall

[DracoM]

Castalia Str Qt / Westwood Books / Yorkshire Dales: Beethoven op 18, Moeran, Elgar

[HighlandDougie]

A minorly Schoenbergian theme:

(i) Sunday

Schreker: Fantastic Overture
Hindemith: Violin Concerto
Schoenberg: Survivor from Warsaw
Weill: Symphony No 2

Frank-Peter Zimmerman/Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo/Lawrence Foster

F-P Z was excellent in the Hindemith, which is a bit of a curate's egg but was well worth hearing. The Schreker seemed anything but fantastic but was compensated for by the Schoenberg which packed its usual punch. The Weill was played with great gusto by the orchestra who responded better to Lawrence Foster (a former chief conductor) than to others I've heard in Monte-Carlo. The evening slightly marred by the awful French habit of clapping rhythmically (think a faster slow hand clap) until they get an encore from the soloist - Bach in this case - to which they respond by clapping even more until they get another and so on. F-P Z responded after his one encore - which was sublimely played and in that sense was unfollowable - by whispering to the leader of the orchestra something like, "err, that's it from me, guv - I'm off. Fancy coming with me?" so the orchestra followed him off the stage, thereby stopping the clapping.

(ii) Last night, RFH

Schoenberg: Theme and Variations, Op 43b
Brahms: Piano Concerto No 2
Brahms (orch. Schoenberg): Piano Quartet No 1

Yefim Bronfman/Vienna Philharmonic/Michael Tilson Thomas

Never again will I think of him as "Basher" Bronfman - the Brahms PC performance was absolutely sublime, both from the soloist and the orchestra. The best performance of the concerto I've ever heard with a slow movement which would have melted stone/thawed the coldest hearts etc. The interplay of the cellist, pianist and others in the orchestra in the slow movement was like listening to chamber music played by 70 people. The Brahms/Schoenberg seems to be something of an MTT speciality - I thought that he conducted it exceptionally well, keeping a grip on its rather OTT romantic moments while allowing Schoenberg's imaginative use of the orchestra (that xylophone!) to shine through. Orchestral playing of a quality that one dreams about - the depth of the sound is almost visceral in its quality. And the Brahms Hungarian dance as an encore was, as one might expect from this orchestra, played as to the manner born. One of the most enjoyable concerts I've attended - I was going to say this year but actually ever would be more like it.

Once again, I assume that it was too complicated/expensive/whatever for the BBC - not a microphone in sight, alas.

[gurnemanz]

Pleasant Lunchtime Concert in Swindon today - Joy Farrell (clarinet) & Paul Turner (piano)

Bagatelles by Finzi,
Brahms' first clarinet sonata.
Milhaud's 'Scaramouche'.

[Richard Tarleton]

A chance to hear the marvellous Czech Philharmonic under Jiří Bělohlávek in Cardiff last nigh in a programme of Dvořák Slavonic Dances and Smetana excerpts from Má Vlast, with the Mendelssohn violin concerto beautifully played by their co-principal Josef Špaček.

(Špaček also has a career as a soloist, and was signing copies of his 2 CDs in the interval - I snapped them both up, Ysaÿe sonatas and pieces by Max Ernst - I played his eye-watering account of Ernst's Last Rose of Summer when we got home at midnight. I asked him about his violin, which had a gorgeous tone - it was a 19th century French instrument).

What an orchestra - brilliant woodwind and brass, the strings brought tears to the eyes in the quiet central section of Vltava. The timpanist during Sárka was a joy to behold. They gave us Dance skočná from Bartered Bride as an encore.

Very few women in the orchestra - a maximum of 10 on stage for the Smetana in an orchestra of over 100. The men all wore the same sort of shoes - very dark brown patent leather with those long toes that are fashionable these days.

[amateur51]

A chance to hear the marvellous Czech Philharmonic under Jiří Bělohlávek in Cardiff last nigh in a programme of Dvořák Slavonic Dances and Smetana excerpts from Má Vlast, with the Mendelssohn violin concerto beautifully played by their co-principal Josef Špaček.

(Špaček also has a career as a soloist, and was signing copies of his 2 CDs in the interval - I snapped them both up, Ysaÿe sonatas and pieces by Max Ernst - I played his eye-watering account of Ernst's Last Rose of Summer when we got home at midnight. I asked him about his violin, which had a gorgeous tone - it was a 19th century French instrument).

What an orchestra - brilliant woodwind and brass, the strings brought tears to the eyes in the quiet central section of Vltava. The timpanist during Sárka was a joy to behold. They gave us Dance skočná from Bartered Bride as an encore.

Very few women in the orchestra - a maximum of 10 on stage for the Smetana in an orchestra of over 100. The men all wore the same sort of shoes - very dark brown patent leather with those long toes that are fashionable these days.

An excellent account RT, many thanks - and that sartorial note re shoes is just the sort of detail that you get in a live concert visit but not on the radio