This post is one in a sequence which lists (mostly) live music I have heard, as best as memory allows. I write to have a record of my musical experiences and so these entries are intended as postcards from me to my future self. All opinions are personal.

Other posts in this collection can be found here. The most recent prior post in this sequence is here.

• Fiddler on the Roof, Barbican Theatre, London, Wednesday 4 June 2025. This was an outstanding performance to a full house. Wonderful sets, music, singing, acting, choreography, and dancing. The band was at the back of the stage, on a raised platform. The lead violinist wove in and around the actors, as did the clarinettist. This was a production and performance to warm the heart!
• Jan Lieberman in an Organ Recital at The Ordinariate and Parish Roman Catholic Church of the Most Precious Blood, Borough, London, on Monday 26 May 2025. The programme:
  • Henry Willan: Introduction, Passacaglia and Fugue, Op. 149
  • JS Bach (arr. Sigfrid Karg-Elert): Orchestral Suite in D BWV 1068, II Air
  • Alfred Hollins: Concert Overture in F minor
  • Petr Eben: Musica dominicalis: III: Moto ostinato
  • Maurice Durufle: Suite Op. 5

  This was a very good recital to a mid-day, bank holiday audience of about 60 people. This Church is very austerely decorated, with no stained-glass windows or art. The altar lies under a strange structure, a mix of mock-Greek Temple and mock-Egyptian Pyramid, under a ceiling painted blue with white stars, looking for all the world like some Masonic temple. Is this due to the influence of Anglican clergy in the Catholic Church, I wonder.

  This was the second live recital I have heard from Mr Lieberman in London and he was again very good. He again played a Concert Overture by Alfred Hollins (1865-1942), but I liked this one less than the one in C minor I heard last year. It was nice to hear more music by Petr Eben, having heard organist Richard Hall and trumpeter Robert Landen play his Okna Windows at St-Mary-le-Bow in Cheapside back in 2012.

• Aleksandr Doronin in a piano recital in Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall, the Royal College of Music, London, on Sunday 25 May 2025. The programme comprised:
  • Beethoven: Sonata #16, Op. 31 #1
  • Prokofiev: Sonata #8, Op. 84

  This was an outstanding recital from memory on a Steinway piano to an audience of about 40 people, including Mr Doronin’s teacher, Professor Dmitri Alexeev. The two sonatas were written 140 years apart (1802 and 1939-1944) and were a great contrast in style.

  The first movement of the Beethoven repeatedly has the hands out of sync, with the right hand entering before the left. It was standard in the 19th Century for the left hand (or the bass parts) to enter just before the right (or treble), so this feature is a Beethovian joke. According to pianist Andras Schiff, following Alfred Brendel, the second movement is also a joke, being a parody of Italian opera, which was popular in Vienna at the time. In Mr Doronin’s hands, however, this movement sounded more profound than any parody, presenting something deeper in the music. The final movement has another joke, a series of false endings and a fast coda with even more endings. This was the second time in recent weeks that I was fortunate to hear this Sonata performed, the earlier performance being by Mr Vadym Kholodenko at the Bechstein Hall in London.

  I did not know the Prokofiev Sonata, so I prepared for the concert by listening beforehand to versions of it online and reading the score. I understand that the musical ideas of the first two movements had been developed by the composer earlier for some theatre works that did not reach fruition, which Prokofiev had written for the centenary in 1937 of Pushkin’s death. The music of the second movement had been intended to be incidental music for the ball scene from Eugene Onegin. Some commentators have considered the third movement to include a demonic dance, but that is not my impression of this music, which teems with energy. The first public performance of this Sonata was by Emil Gilels in Moscow on 30 December 1944.

  I don’t think musically the way Prokofiev does. His melodic lines I still find spiky and surprising, even after repeated listening. His music does not seem to develop in a way that is obvious to me, although I find, as I listen to more of Prokofiev’s music, that I increasingly recognize some of his rhythmic patterns and harmonic progressions.

  Mr Doronin’s performance of the Prokofiev Sonata was truly commanding. I was impressed at just how powerful his playing was, at times filling the hall completely. He clearly has the technical abilities, the intelligence and the personality to play this music of great percussive energy and forceful intellectual intent. This was serious music played seriously, and not to be trifled with. Mr Doronin’s performance reminded me of the words of writer Émile Zola:

  If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud.”

• The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under Sir Andras Schiff (also as soloist) at the Royal Festival Hall, London, on Thursday 22 May 2025, in a programme comprisingg:
  • Schumann: Konzertstuck for Piano and Orchestra
  • Mendelssohn: Overture and selected incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream

  INTERVAL

  • Schumann: Piano Concerto

  This performance to a packed RF Hall was excellent. It is a shame about the concert experience, though, which was far from excellent.

  Because all the music played in this concert was written before modern concert grands, the music was played on period instruments. Sir Andras played a period piano, the Bluthner #726, built around 1859. This is a piano with all the strings arranged alongside one another in parallel, unlike a modern concert grand which lays the bass strings against the others at an angle. It is much quieter than a modern grand. Period instruments were not built with large modern concert halls in mind. We could barely hear the piano in the 2700-seat RFH. I was sitting in almost the same seat in the rear stalls (about 40 rows from the stage) where I heard pianist Vikingur Olafsson play the first Brahms concerto late last year, in which his second movement was played incredibly softly. Yet, I was able to clearly hear Olafsson much better than I could hear Schiff, even in his loudest passages. What a pity.

  I conclude, not for the first time, that the so-called authentic music movement is an affectation, since only some aspects of performances are authentic. Performers may be challenged by period instruments, but they play, it seems, at the expense of the audience. A piano such as this does not belong in a large hall.

• Innova Orchestra and Chorus under Christopher Knox Oakey at St. James’s Church, Sussex Gardens, London on Saturday 10 May 2025. The programme:
  • Perotin (arr. Knox Oakey): Viderunt Omnes
  • Ravel: Trios Chansons (Nicolette, Trois beaux oiseaux du Paradis, Ronde)
  • Josquin: Motets (Mille regret, Douleur me bat, Nymphes des bois)
  • Debussy: Prelude a l’apres-midi d’un faune

  INTERVAL

  • Debussy: Syrinx
  • Machaut (arr. Knox Oakey): Messe de Nostre Dame (Kyrie)
  • Debussy: Nocturnes (Nuages, Fetes, Sirenes)

  Innova Orchestra is a newly-founded London orchestra comprised of music students from London colleges. The Church has a fine acoustic and the concert attracted about 75 people. What superb playing we heard in this novel programme of French music running from the 13th through to the 20th Centuries. Mr Knox Oakey and the orchestra members and singers are to be congratulated for their enterprise, their courage, and for their professional performances.

• Carducci Quartet and friends in the latest episode of their journey through the String Quartets of Shostakovich, in the Milton Court Concert Hall, Tuesday 29 April 2025. The others also playing in this concert were the Elmore Quartet, the Kyan Quartet, and the Oculus Quartet. The programme:
  • Shostakovich: Quartet #4 (Carducci Quartet)
  • Shostakovich: Quartet #13 (Elmore Quartet)

  INTERVAL

  • Elena Firsova: Quartet #4 (Elmore Quartet)
  • Shostakovich: Quartet #8 (All players)

  Very fine performances to a hall about half full. I was unable to stay past the interval.

• Mr Bryce Morrison in a public lecture on Pianists of the Wigmore, at Wigmore Hall, London, 17 April 2025. This was a mid-day talk to a hall about one-quarter full by a pianist and writer about 12 pianists who had performed at the Wigmore Hall. The pianists mentioned were (in order):
  

  Arthur Rubinstein, Arkady Volodos, Eileen Joyce, Radu Lupu, Yevgeny Kissin, Myra Hess, Cecile Ousset, Beatrice Rana, Martha Argerich, Marc-Andre Hamelin, Moura Lympany and Shura Cherkassky.

  Mr Morrison said something about each pianist before we heard a recording of each one playing. The event was very interesting and I hope the Wigmore offers more of these talks. If they do, can I please humbly suggest to Mr Morrison and to the Wigmore Hall:

  • That the speaker sit down in an armchair, rather than speaking at us standing at a lecturn. The vibe of a friendly fireside chat would be much more appropriate and engaging than that of a public lecture.
  • That some efforts be made to clean up the recordings played beforehand. Surely digital signal processing has advanced to the point where high-pitched static can be removed from an old recording without noticeable impact on the musical sound. There is no benefit to be gained by a general audience in listening to historically authentic recordings.
  • That programme notes be provided to the audience.

  Mr Morrison told us that many past performers at the Wigmore were now honoured with a photo displayed in the Green Room, a gallery which would add to the intimidation felt by any young performer before they walk on stage.

  There were two interesting discussions in the Q&A session which followed this talk, the first about mistakes made by great pianists. I was reminded of the remark often made by pure mathematicians that you can tell a great mathematician by how many true theorems he or she publishes that have mistakes in the proof. In other words, great mathematicians (and great musicians) have superior intuitions, even if their mastery of the details is not always perfect. We should value intuition over technical perfection.

  The second interesting discussion was about musical transcendence, with one member of the audience talking about the recent performance at the Wigmore of the Goldberg Variations by Yunchan Lim, where the music seemed to be coming, the audience member said, not from the piano, but directly from the arms and body of Mr Lim.

• Vadym Kholodenko in a recital at the Bechstein Hall, London, on Thursday 10 April 2025. This was a superb performance to about 40 people under the artificial stars of the new Bechstein Hall on Wigmore Street. The acoustics of the hall are very good, even with the hall being only about 2/3 full. The programme was:
  • Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 16 in G Major, Op. 31 No. 1
  • Liszt: Trois Études de Concert, S.144
  • Liszt: Quatre Valses oubliées, S.215
  • Liszt: Valse-Impromptu, S.213
  • Liszt: Scherzo and March, S.177

  I am not generally a fan of the music of Liszt, since it strikes me as all show and no substance (all hat, and no cattle, as Texans say). Mr Kholodenko played it very expertly and without any apparent effort. The recital was most enjoyable, even if the music (apart from Beethoven) was not profound.

• Aleksandr Doronin with the Sampson Orchestra of Cambridge under Darrell Davison at the West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge, on Saturday 5 April 2025. The programme:
  • Beethoven: Egmont Overture
  • Brahms: Piano Concerto No.1 in D Minor
  • Beethoven: Symphony No. 3

  This was a fine performance to a hall about 75% full. As I have remarked before, the acoustics of this modern concert hall are very good, and the orchestra filled the room wonderfully. The programme was as under the same conductor with the Sevenoaks Symphony Orchestra in May 2024, and the Sampson Orchestra also played with similarly strong enthusiasm.

  In the Brahms, Mr Doronin played superbly from memory, and was in strong command of the material throughout. Although I would not place myself in any fanclub of Brahms’ music, this concerto has grown on me having heard it performed now three times (twice by Mr Doronin and once by Vikungur Ólafsson). Mr Doronin plays it dexterously and most artfully, with great emotional expressiveness, and it is hard to imagine it being played any better than this.

• Bach’s St Matthew Passion performed by the Choir and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under Jonathan Cohen in the Royal Festival Hall, London, on Thursday 3 April 2025.
  

  This was an excellent performance to a hall about 80% full. What a pity then that the forces were too thin for this venue. I know the authentic music police insist we perform with the small orchestra, harpsichord, and small choir that Bach had at his disposal. But Bach was not writing for a hall that seats 2700 people. Even with the electronic amplification used by the RFH to carry sound to the dark spots at the back of the hall (something one never hears the authentic music advocates complain about), the forces were too small for anyone away from the stage to hear adequately. Harpsichords don’t belong in large halls.

• Carducci Quartet and Kyan Quartet in the third in a sequence of concerts of all Shostakovich’s Quartets, at the Milton Court Concert Hall, the Guildhall, London on Thursday 27 March 2025. The programme:
  • Dmitri Shostakovich: String Quartet #14 (Carducci Quartet)
  • Dmitri Shostakovich: String Quartet #11 (Kyan Quartet)
  • Sofia Guibaidulina: String Quartet #2 (Kyan Quartet)
  • Dmitri Shostakovich: String Quartet #2 (Carducci Quartet)

  The hall was only about half full, and I was only able to stay for the first two quartets. As with the previous concerts in this sequence, the performances were all very good.

• Alexander Melnikov (piano) and Jeroen Berwaerts (trumpet) with the Australian Chamber Orchestra under Richard Tognetti in a concert of Bach, Shostakovich and Gubaidulina at The Barbican, London, Friday 21 March 2025.
  • Bach (arranged Tognetti): Ricercar a 6 from The Musical Offering
  • Bach: Brandenburg Concerto #3 in G Major (with Harpsichord, played by Melnikov)
  • Shostakovich: Piano Concerto No. 1 (Melnikov and Berwaerts)

  Interval

  • Gubaidulina: Reflections on the Theme B-A-C-H
  • Bach (arranged Mozart): Fugue in E-flat Major (WTC2)
  • Shostakovich (arranged Rudolf Barshai): Chamber Symphony in C minor

  The Barbican Hall was perhaps 75% full. As usual, the perfomers of the ACO (apart from the cellists) played while standing. I have criticized this practice before because it is ableist and ageist. Some ensembles have responded to my criticism that their players choose freely to stand, but I still think the practice is unacceptable. What musician could feel they could freely choose to sit down in this commercial environment for professional musicians? In addition, not everyone is the same height, so here we saw the absurdity of one performer having to stand on a raised platform so that they would be closer in height to their colleagues.

  The Brandenburg was well-played, but I am not a fan of harpsichords in this music. The sound is metallic, and does not resonate at all in such a large hall. The performance of the Shostakovich first concerto was also played well, although having only a very small orchestra meant the orchestral sound was thin. Both soloists played with music, and Mr Berwaerts used a different trumpet for the muted second movement. His tone was not as haunting as that of Sergei Nakariakov, whom I heard play this concerto with Olli Mustonen in the same hall in 2013.

  The tempi of the first and third movements were a little slower than what I am used to. In addition, the two soloists, despite facing each other, appeared to lack engagement with one another, perhaps because neither was playing from memory. This performance of this Concerto was not the one I admired the most, which was that by Aleksandr Doronin and Volodymyr Bykhun with the London Orlando Orchestra under Claudia Jablonski in London last year.

  The two soloists played one encore together, a work with long held notes on trumpet, accompanied by a sequence of pairs of notes on the piano, each comprising an anacrusis and a long held note. The work began softly rose in volume and then descended to softness again, in a style similar to Arvo Part. I could not stay for the second half.

• Igor Levitt and the Budapest Festival Orchestra under Ivan Fischer at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank, London on Tuesday 11 March 2025. The programme was:
  • Prokofiev: Overture on Hebrew Themes (arranged for orchestra), Op. 34a
  • Prokofiev: Piano Concerto #2 in G minor, Op. 16
  • Prokofiev: Selection from Cinderella Suites

  This was a fine performance to a hall that looked to be only about 60% full. The performance of the Concerto was very good, although a little slower than I am used to (especially in the first and last movements). Mr Levit played one encore, “Der Dichter spricht” (The Poet speaks), the very subdued last piece from Schumann’s Kinderszenen (Scenes from Childhood), Op. 15. I did not stay for the final work.

• The Rite of Spring, original 4-hands version, played by 14 pianists in relay as part of the Royal College of Music Keyboard Festival, Rituals and Dances, Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall, RCM, London, Sunday 2 March 2025.
  The performers were:
  • Part 1: Adoration of the Earth
  • I Introduction: Knox Oakey and Markus Sadler
  • II Augurs of Spring and III Ritual of Abduction: Ho Ming So and Ruiqi Fang
  • IV Spring Rounds: Jack Wong and Steven Yeung
  • V Ritual of the Rival Tribes – Procession of the Sage and VI The Sage – Dance of the Earth: Sofia Berdnik and Alicja Kojder
  • Part 2: The Sacrifice
  • I Introduction: Teodora Stanković and Claire Dowdell
  • II Mystic Circles of the Young Girls and III Glorification of the Chosen One: Josh Milton and Nico Varela
  • IV Evocation of the Ancestors – Ritual Action of the Ancestors and V Sacrificial Dance: Aleksandr Doronin and Jiaxin Min

  Two Steinway pianos were deployed, as if we were to hear a 2-piano version, to an audience of about 50 people. Each pair of pianists sat at one piano, with the two pianos alternating through the seven sections. As one pair of pianists played, the next pair would seat themselves at the other piano. These were all very good performances and tightly co-ordinated between the seven pairs of pianists. What a great experience it was to witness this event! Bravo to all 14 players!

  I was fortunate to hear the same 140 fingers play this work again at RCM on Friday 7 March 2025, to an audience of about 25 people. This concert was a live “Spiriocast” arranged with the Steinway Piano company. This time, the players played one piano, a Steinway Model D fitted with sensors recording every action. The data collected was then broadcast to Steinway Spirio player pianos around the world, and recreated locally. In a standard videocast or podcast, it is the external aural and visual effects of the musicians’ actions which are transmitted over the Internet to remote listeners, eg, the sound that emerges from the piano when a finger depresses a particular key. Here it was the effects of the actions inside the piano which were transmitted and these actions were replicated at the remote pianos. In other words, a finger depressing a key leads to a hammer inside the piano hitting a particular group of strings, and this hammer was recorded and re-executed at the remote player piano keyboard. The sound of the hammer hitting the strings was therefore generated locally by each remote player piano, rather than the sound itself being transmitted over the Internet from the source location.

  The performers’ initiating actions of touching the keys only occurred once, centrally, at RCM in London. The consequential actions inside the piano, however, happened both centrally and remotely, and each and every player piano connected to the signal feed. There may have been delays in transmission between the centre and peripheral locations, so these local actions may not have been strictly simultaneous. But they were happening in parallel threads. I wonder if there was any synchronization after the initial set up.

• Carducci Quartet in Concert #2 of their Shostakovich Quartet Cycle, Milton Court Concert Hall, Guildhall School of Music, London, Friday 28 February 2025.
  • Shostakovich: String Quartet No 12
  • Shostakovich: String Quartet No 6
  • Sofia Guibaidulina: Reflections on the Theme B-A-C-H
  • Shostakovich: String Quartet No 3

  I was only able to stay for the first two works. This was a very good performance. Despite the programme note and the words of the first violinist to the audience as the players took their seats, I don’t think Quartet No 6 is at all “light”. The music is moving and profound.

• Kasparas Mikužis in a recital at St George’s Church, Hanover Square, London on Friday 14 February 2025. The program was:
  • Beethoven: “Moonlight” Sonata, op. 27, no. 2
  • Chopin: Nocturne op. 55 no. 2
  • Chopin: Ballade no. 3, op. 47
  • Chopin: Preludes op. 28, no. 17-24
  • Interval
  • Rachmaninoff: Sonata op. 28, no. 1

  This concert was promoted as an event for Valentine’s Day, and many of the 250 or so people present seemed to be tourists or people who did not normally attend classical music concerts, or even visit churches very often. Consequently, there was a lot of movement and noise, phones ringing, talking, etc, especially at the start of each half of the evening. Perhaps one-third of the audience had left before the end.

  The performance by Mr Mikužis in Handel’s church was wonderful, as his performances always are, and he played with great ease and confidence. As he said in introduction to the Rachmaninoff, this Sonata is deeply about the meaning of life and love, and so perhaps was fitting for Valentine’s Day. Its representation of a demonic struggle gave the feeling of a hellfire-and-brimstone sermon when played in this famous Church.

• Carducci Quartet and Sonoro Quartet and Guildhall School musicians in the first in a sequence of concerts of all Shostakovich’s Quartets, at the Milton Court Concert Hall, the Guildhall, London on 29 January 2025. The programme:
  • Dmitri Shostakovich: String Quartet #1 (Carducci Quartet)
  • Dmitri Shostakovich: String Quartet #5 (Sonoro Quartet)
  • Galina Ustvolskaya: Trio for violin, clarinet and piano (Matteo Cimatti (v), Kathryn Titcomb (cl), David Parlmer (p))
  • Dmitri Shostakovich: String Quartet #9 (Carducci Quartet)

  The hall was close to full and the performances were intense and powerful. In his 5th Quartet, Shostakovich quoted from the clarinet trio of his student Galina Ustvolskaya (1919-2006), so the inclusion of her trio alongside the 5th was a very nice idea. These were all exceptional performances. I have often heard the Carduccis, but the Sonoros were new to me. They are definitely an ensemble I will try to hear again.

  Strangely, the website of the Sonoro Quartet nowhere appears to give the names of its members. That is an odd oversight. For the historical record, the names recorded in the programme booklet are: Marley Erickson (v), Jeroen de Beer (v), Seamus Hickey (va), and Isaac Lottman (c).

• The London Orlando Orchestra under Claudia Jablonski with soloist
  Ugnė Liepa Žuklytė (violin) in a concert in St Cyprian’s Church, Clarence Gate, London on Sunday 19 January 2025. The programme:
  • Sibelius: Concerto for Violin
  • Prokofiev: Symphony No. 1 “Classical”

  About 35 people attended this free concert in St Cyprian’s Anglican church. The Orlando Orchestra comprises mostly student musicians and was founded by Ms Jablonski in 2023. As with their second performance in June last year, this performance was again outstanding. The acoustics of the church are excellent, and the orchestra filled the space completely. Ms Žuklytė played the Sibelius superbly, and the third movement, with its dark, northern winter energy, was sublime.

  I heard the Southbank Sinfonia play Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony last February. I still find Prokofiev’s melodic and harmonic spikiness mostly alien to my musical thinking, but the work is growing on me, as I hear it again. Ms Jablonski’s interpretation was lighter and more humorous than I recall the Sinfonia version being. More power to her elbow!

• Kasparas Mikužis in a recital at St Mary’s Perivale, London, on Tuesday 14 January 2025. The program was the same as Mr Mikužis’s recent Wigmore recital:
  • Rameau: Suite in G
  • Rachmaninoff: Sonata No 1 in D minor, Op. 28

  The recital was live-streamed, and is available to view here.

• Jan Liebermann in a streamed performance of Marcel Dupré’s Trois Préludes et Fugues Op. 7 & Op. 36 on the modern two-part organ of the Evangelische Stadtkirche St Reinoldi in Dortmund, Germany on Friday 10th January 2025. This was an outstanding performance from memory of two superb sets of three preludes and fugues. A video recording of the recital is here.
  

  And here is Mr Liebermann’s virtuoso performance of Tchaikovsky’s Dance of the Little Swans from Swan Lake, in Mr Liebermann’s own thrilling arrangement (influenced by the piano arrangement of Earl Wild).