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.

• 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.

• Alexander 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: Alexander 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).