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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.
Visit the blog >
Below are selected review extracts from the last 12 months.
2011/12 Season >
2010/11 Season >
21 Sep 2011, Royal Festival Hall – Vladimir Jurowski / Sergei Leiferkus
Thanks, Jurowski, for another inimitable programme that few other conductors could get away with ...
David Nice, theartsdesk.com, 22 Sep 2011
The first half, however, was wonderful ... the feral, original version of Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain and Zimmermann's Stille und Umkehr, with its exquisite display of colours fluttering round a single note passed from instrument to instrument.
Tim Ashley, The Guardian, 23 Sep 2011
What we needed was something bold and strong, to remind us why the LPO exists in the first place. On that level, the concert was a resounding success.
Ivan Hewett, The Telegraph, 23 Sep 2011
Stille und Umkehr (Silence and Return) turned out to be the concert’s plum — a hypnotic, subtly shifting tapestry, lovingly woven by the LPO.
Geoff Brown, The Times, 23 Sep 2011
24 Sep 2011, Royal Festival Hall – Vladimir Jurowski / Julia Fischer / Igor Levit / LPC
Jurowski judged the trajectory of the piece [Prometheus, Poem of Fire] to the sublime exclamation of the entry of the wordless chorus and the organ, the lighting reaching a coup de théâtre in its white brilliance, the music orgasmic when arriving at its loud and long final chord. This was a sizzling and stunning performance.
Colin Anderson, Classicalsource.com, 26 Sep 2011
The composer intended [Prometheus] to be accompanied by a complex lighting scheme, here realised with bravura by Lucy Carter, while Igor Levit supplied an ideal blend of flamboyance and discretion in his extensive piano obbligato.
George Hall, The Guardian, 26 Sep 2011
Julia Fischer was the exemplary soloist and the audience sat paralysed into silence in order to hear. (4 stars)
Richard Fairman, Financial Times, 27 Sep 2011
7 Oct 2011, Royal Festival Hall – Vasily Sinaisky / Vadim Gluzman
This was a mesmerising performance, ably supported by Sinaisky and the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
Agnes Kory, Musicalcriticism.com, 11 Oct 2011
11 Oct 2011, Symphony Hall Birmingham – Yannick Nézet-Séguin / Lars Vogt
Stimulated by a packed house and the matchless ambience of Symphony Hall, and certainly responsive to conductor and soloist, the LPO delivered performances which came up sparkling and new. (5 stars)
Birmingham Post, Oct 11
12 Oct 2011, Royal Festival Hall – Yannick Nézet-Séguin / Aldo Ciccolini
From the off, this was a reading full of minor-key tension, LPO woodwinds especially chipper, Nézet-Séguin valuing his soloist. Ciccolini is pure music ... Ciccolini’s appearance was a humbling and inspiring experience. The LPO recorded it, as it did the Rachmaninov. What a distinguished coupling they would now make for the LPO's label.
Colin Anderson, Classicalsource.com, 12 Oct 2011
I have rarely heard the LPO play with such consistent excellence ... I came away with a sense of hearing a totally convincing and ‘musical’ realisation of this great symphony.
Geoff Diggines, Seen and Heard International, 23 Oct 2011
15 Oct 2011, Royal Festival Hall – Yannick Nézet-Séguin / Eri Nakamura / Ruxandra Donose / Ji-Min Park / Matthew Rose / LPC
The Beethoven was a blast of energy, and brilliantly played … The LPO searched out an incredible range of detail and variegation, which made the performance as a whole especially thrilling … Nézet-Séguin was completely at home with this [Stabat Mater], balancing the mixture of styles with flowing elegance, and drawing an authentic Rossinian sound from the LPO, with the London Philharmonic Choir delivering the thoroughly rehearsed goods in terms of dynamic range, precision and clarity.
Peter Reed, Classicalsource.com, 18 October 2011
19 Oct 2011, Royal Festival Hall – Markus Stenz / Lawrence Power
the LPO were on fine form, and delivered a performance that was as good as any in recent memory ... The results were passionate and turbulent.The orchestra was just magnificent; every section has a moment in the spotlight and each made the most of it.
Gavin Dixon, Orpheus Complex (blog), 20 October 2011
There was grandeur without portentous solemnity, sensuality without self-indulgence, and it was admirably lucid in its exploration of texture and harmony. The LPO sounded good, too, playing with understated virtuosity throughout.
Tim Ashley, The Guardian, 20 October 2011
21 Oct 2011, Royal Festival Hall – Jukka-Pekka Saraste / Thomas Zehetmair
Here, after teasing out countless felicitous timbres that made you wonder whether you’d heard Brahms quite like this before, [Saraste] unleashed the ultimate coda with an extraordinary whiplash of energy that took the breath away. It was a shame the LPO’s microphones weren’t there to capture the excitement.
Nick Breckenfield, Classicalsource.com, 24 October 2011
26 Oct 2011, Royal Festival Hall – Jaap van Zweden / Rafal Blechacz
The finale was best of all, Blechacz giving the dance rhythms an irresistible swing. If this was a public, formal dance, then his mazurka encore was a private one, nonchalant and breezy but silky smooth.
Erica Jeal, The Guardian, 28 October 2011
This was music-making that gripped from the start, with Jaap van Zweden guiding us through the seething orchestral detail with an unfailingly accurate, imaginative ear, the LPO delivering this burden of anguish with playing of unflinching intensity.
Peter Reed, Classicalsource.com, 28 October 2011
28 October 2011, Royal Festival Hall – James Gaffigan / Jonathan Biss
A few rough edges in the playing aside, this was a primed and propelling account of Richard Strauss’s Don Juan, a vivid narrative played out through musical wellbeing.
Colin Anderson, Classicalsource.com, 28 October 2011
2 November 2011, Royal Festival Hall – Christoph Eschenbach / Nicola Benedetti / Leonard Elschenbroich
[Eschenbach] amply redeemed himself with Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony, letting this majestic work unfold organically, and delineating its vast contours with assurance.
Michael Church, The Independent, 7 November 2011
[The Bruckner] was lovely, faultlessly played by the LPO, every moment glorious to listen to ... The Adagio was absolutely wonderful, music of immense depth and tragic nobility. Especially fine was the alternating second subject, for all the world like another love song strayed from the Brahms. Eschenbach’s control of the layering of sound and crescendo in the climaxes of the main theme was as good as it comes.
Ken Ward, Bachtrack.com, 3 November 2011
It is good to hear that Eschenbach’s Bruckner 6 recording with the LPO was not a fluke. He is clearly a Brucknerian to be reckoned with. This is one of a series of Bruckner symphonies that the LPO are performing under different conductors in the coming months. If the rest are up to this standard we are in for a real treat.
Gavin Dixon, Orpheus Complex (blog), 8 November 2011
Flautist Jaime Martín’s many exposed lines were captivating, and the balance between strings and brass (especially trombones) was ideal. Secure trumpeting was a feature of the scherzo (its reprise forceful), the trio soothing. Eschenbach took a broad view of the Finale: comforting in parts, awesome elsewhere, and he weaved the movement’s many lines to a glorious coda.
Kevin Rogers, Classicalsource.com, 7 November 2011
16 November 2011, Royal Festival Hall – Osmo Vänskä / Janine Jansen
Along the way through the symphony’s peaks and valleys, the LPO’s playing achieved exceptional refinement. We’ll forget the odd fluff in the brass; what counted much more were the horn calls’ pristine beauty; or the loving, unapologetic treatment of the humble melody during what Bruckner called the Scherzo’s ‘lunch break’; or the cellos’ velvet glow, specifically emphasised by Vänskä within the orchestral textures.
Geoff Brown, Theartsdesk.com, 17 November 2011
Jansen's playing was full of personality – and, under Osmo Vänskä's meticulous direction, the orchestra matched her at every step, from the soft-grained string opening, through the whispered slow-movement accompaniments, to the colourful wind solos in the finale.
Erica Jeal, The Guardian, 18 November 2011
Osmo Vänskä is now well on the way to becoming a distinguished Brucknerian. Or so it seemed on the evidence of his recent visit to the London Philharmonic, when he put the orchestra through its paces in a buoyant and searching performance of Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony.
Hilary Finch, The Times, 18 November 2011
It was a performance that raised interesting and provoking questions about how you might perform a Bruckner symphony with a light classical touch, rather than the heavy, monumental and deeply emotional romanticism that is characteristic of most performances, and as such it was a considered and thoughtful approach.
Ken Ward (Editor, The Bruckner Journal), Bachtrack.com, 18 November 2011
Jansen rode this bucking bronco with remarkable aplomb, turning every one of Vänskä’s extremes into a golden opportunity for virtuoso playing that was unbearably tender at one moment, bracingly athletic the next.
Richard Fairman, Financial Times, 21 November 2011
Her mix of poise and, when she plays, slight girlish ungainliness, made for a compelling, occasionally wayward performance, at once fierce and lyrical in its intensity.
Fiona Maddocks, The Guardian, 21 November 2011
19 November 2011, Brighton Dome – Eduardo Portal / Javier Perianes
Here the able young conductor had little more to do than inspire the LPO to feats of virtuosity and to marshal all his forces ...
Richard Wilby, The Argus, 5 December 2011
25 November 2011, Royal Festival Hall – Eduardo Portal / Craig Ogden
Portal and the LPO gave José’s lovely and exhilarating music with sympathy and panache; and in Falla’s Three-Cornered Hat suites the conductor brought fastidious attention to orchestral detail and dynamics to leave in no doubt as to there being a narrative behind the notes. With nifty speeds that never seemed rushed, and with some malleability, the score was brilliantly brought off, the LPO incisive, deft and expressive.
Colin Anderson, Classicalsource.com, 28 November 2011
30 November 2011, Royal Festival Hall – Vladimir Jurowski / Lars Vogt
The excitement never flagged. Jurowski was in his element here, too: imperious and tense, favouring swift speeds, and propelling Vogt through the work with uncommon urgency.
Tim Ashley, The Guardian, 2 December 2011
The players’ concentration never flagged, and the way Jurowski shaped the work’s confusing narrative was totally compelling, even if the piece itself remained a mystery.
Ivan Hewett, The Telegraph, 2 December 2011
The Adagio [of the Bruckner] was lyrical and elegant, thanks in no small part to the LPO’s fine string section. Their precise ensemble and sophisticated tone allowed the music to sound far more mature than it actually is. And then in the Scherzo, Jurowski really went to town with the punchy rhythms and drama from every corner of the orchestra. Special mention should go to the trombone section, whose throaty tones and incisive accents brilliantly underpinned the tuttis here.
Gavin Dixon, Orpheus Complex (blog), 1 December 2011
One of Bruckner’s most rarely performed works could not have received better advocacy. The LPO were on top form … Jurowski’s approach to this music had complete conviction and, very importantly, an overriding sense of direction. The LPO played it all with great vitality, colour and imagination.
Ken Ward, The Bruckner Journal on Bachtrack.com, 2 December 2011
As far as I can tell, this was Jurowski’s first performance of a Bruckner symphony, but the results were superb ... It is difficult to envisage Bruckner’s First Symphony ever receiving a more carefully prepared and beautifully presented interpretation than this.
Christian Hoskins, MusicOMH.com, 5 December 2011
3 December 2011, Royal Festival Hall – Vladimir Jurowski / Janine Jansen
For this compelling LPO performance [of the Manfred Symphony], Jurowski now sported antiphonal violins and ten double basses added appropriate weight. Jurowski seems to have added greater rhetoric to previously, finding affecting expressive depth – not least in the third movement ‘Pastorale’ (very convincingly Adagio rather than the marked Andante con moto, and oboist Ian Hardwick was eloquence personified) – and unleashing a music-serving virtuosity that brought off the very tricky, off-the-beat ‘Alpine Fairy’ scherzo with quicksilver deftness at a very nifty tempo.’
Colin Anderson, Classicalsource.com, 5 December 2011
Janine Jansen and a slimmed-down LPO produced a performance of the Mozart concerto that was in every respect like a visitation from another musical world. From her very first entry, a magically reflective tiny adagio amid the surrounding opening movement allegro, the refinement of Jansen's silvery tone drew the audience into a reading characterised by great intimacy, with Jurowski now reinvented as a most sensitive accompanist.
Martin Kettle, The Guardian, 5 December 2011
A white-hot performance – not emotionally indulgent, as Rostropovich used to be in Tchaikovsky, but concentrated to a gripping level of intensity.
Richard Fairman, Financial Times, 6 December 2011
6 December 2011, Ann Arbor, USA – Vladimir Jurowski / Janine Jansen
It’s all magnificent, and so were the LPO players, making the most of [Manfred’s] colors and the hero’s pain and passion. Jurowski raised them, soloist by soloist, section by section (brass and winds justly first), for our applause. Jurowski’s pacing within the movements was superb; but the work’s grand architecture was as satisfying as the rooms he created.
Susan Isaacs Nisbett, annarbor.com, 7 December 2011
7 December 2011, Carnegie Hall, New York – Vladimir Jurowski / Janine Jansen
The magnet was the LPO itself. The strings in the Brahms symphony glowed from beginning to end. The brass (especially the horns in the second movement) made one want to tally-ho into a fox-hunt. The winds could have been tootled by Raphael cherubs ... Mr. Jurowski is certainly a great conductor, and the LPO is perhaps the most beautiful orchestra in the world.
Harry Rolnick, Concertonet.com, 9 December 2011
Apart from a few jarring turns of phrase, the Mozart was gorgeous ... Jansen has a singing tone and pure intonation that remind us how closely 18th-century instrumental practice depends on bel canto vocal technique. The “Turkish” music in the concerto’s last movement gave Jurowski an opportunity to be himself and make a lot of noise; this time, however, in keeping with Mozart’s comic intent.
David P. Goldman, The Tablet, 9 December 2011
The orchestra brought dusky, rich and full-bodied sound to a spacious, majestic account of the piece [Brahms 4] ... The orchestra played brilliantly.
Anthony Tommasini, New York Times, 9 December 2011
Jurowski managed his resources, and the symphony's pacing, masterfully and to tremendous effect ... The audience ate it up in big gulping spoonfuls, standing and creating a commotion for several extended bows.
Brad Hill, Huffington Post, 9 December 2011
8 December 2011, Carnegie Hall, New York – Vladimir Jurowski / Emanuel Ax
Mr. Jurowski obviously is a great fan of the rarely-played piece [Manfred Symphony]. He took the orchestra through its paces, never exaggerating or letting down the guard even in some of the filling ... Mr. Jurowski always knows what he is doing.
Harry Rolnick, Concertonet.com, 12 December 2011
Under Mr. Jurowski's baton, the LPO gathered itself for the leap into the finale. Again, Mr. Ax proved his mastery of every technical challenge thrown at the soloist. This was a technical, yet thrilling performance of Beethoven's mightiest concerto.
Paul Pelkonen, Superconductor blog, 12 December 2011
In Vladimir Jurowski’s hands, the orchestra was energetic and refined, with every phrase meticulously shaped and a well-blended sound overall.
Amanda Keil, Bachtrack.com, 14 December 2011
9 December 2011, NJPAC Prudential Hall, Newark – Vladimir Jurowski / Emanuel Ax (Beethoven, Brahms)
The orchestra responded ardently [in the Beethoven] and as though in the role of cavalry, with a sense of adventure and ruggedness. They imparted radiant tone to the poignantly played second movement, which maintained a gratifying sense of forward motion. The piece was not without its bumps—the third movement in particular hastily tumbled forward—but it was genuinely fun to hear.
Ronni Reich, The Star-Ledger, 13 December 2011
14 December 2011, Royal Festival Hall – Christoph Eschenbach / Renée Fleming
Christoph Eschenbach shadowed and accommodated Fleming's every nuance adoringly and the London Philharmonic Orchestra played most beautifully.
Edward Seckerson, The Independent, 15 December 2011
There was some superlative playing glowing away in the LPO, with leader Pieter Schoeman breaking all hearts with his ravishing violin solo in ‘Beim Schlafengehn’ ... the LPO was playing at the top of its form.
Peter Reed, Classicalsource.com, 16 December 2011
Nitpicking cannot take away from singing that floats on such an effortless stream of warm and beautiful tone. Fleming was made for these Strauss songs, and they for her.
Richard Fairman, Financial Times, 18 December 2011
The LPO, on superb form, produced some blisteringly good playing.
Tim Ashley, The Guardian, 16 December 2011
13 January 2012, Royal Festival Hall – Alexander Vedernikov / Danjulo Ishizaka
Vedernikov was very laid-back with Kijé, a more genial, throw-away approach than we sometimes hear with bass drum thwacks and discordant raspberries from the brass like cartoonish exclamations and the earthy colourations realised with an air of total “normality”.
Edward Seckerson, The Independent, 14 January 2012
If music "of the people" should be tuneful, evocative and colourful, this fitted the bill. Throw in genial and acerbic, and you get the measure of Vedernikov's reading, full of pungent solos delivered with insouciant sparkle.
Nick Kimberley, The Evening Standard, 16 January 2012
Danjulo Ishizaka's performance was an exceptional feat of virtuosity, stamina and memory.
Tim Ashley, The Guardian, 17 January 2012
Danjulo Ishizaka played it with iron fingers and enviable strength, but even his stalwart efforts failed to give this rather aimless concerto a sure sense of direction.
Richard Fairman, Financial Times, 17 January 2012
18 January 2012, Royal Festival Hall – Vladimir Jurowski / Steven Osborne
[Prokofiev] wrote nothing more disturbing or more emotive and Jurowski and the LPO packed a massive punch in realising it. Long before the jolly peasant dance turns to ominous goose-stepping in the finale, comes a slow movement so mired in oppression that its lyricism can barely break free of the surface. Stunning.
Edward Seckerson, The Independent, 19 January 2012
The orchestra were on top form, with the brass and percussion putting in particularly visceral performances. Jurowski articulated the shape and drama of the work with efficiency and passion.
Gavin Dixon, Orpheus Complex blog, 19 January 2012
Pianist Steven Osborne seized these rare moments and made them eloquent, such as the strange passage where his delicate overlapping ribbons of scales at the top of the piano were pitted against sad bassoons. Later, when the flute unwound a tender melody, Osborne’s accompaniment inched in magically from silence.
Ivan Hewett, The Telegraph, 19 January 2012
Saturday 21 January 2012, Royal College of Music – Vladimir Jurowski / Kristina Blaumane & RCM Orchestra & Chorus
Under his resolute beat, Jurowski's student forces showed tremendous stamina and, when needed, finesse. Gargoyle or not, this was still a worthwhile revival.
Geoff Brown, The Arts Desk, 22 January 2012
[The Second Symphony] is still not an easy work. But you can’t fault this performance. Jurowski conducted with his typical incisive beat and expressive left hand. He got playing from the RCM Orchestra that the London Philharmonic may not have bettered, coping with the sheer force and loudness of the music and its complexity. It was a shattering performance.
Colin Anderson, Classicalsource.com, 22 January 2012
Wednesday 25 January 2012, Royal Festival Hall – Vladimir Jurowski / Leon Fleisher
There can be little doubt of the supremacy of Jurowski and the LPO in this repertoire.
Alexandra Coghlan, The Arts Desk, 26 January 2012
This was an authoritative account of the Prokofiev [Fourth Piano Concerto] as one could hope to hear. The opening and closing movements were fierily dispatched with aplomb, but it was in the middle two that [Fleisher] was most effective, bringing finesse and refinement; the Andante was particularly eloquent. Throughout, the LPO and Jurowski were on-the-money partners.
Colin Anderson, Classicalsource.com, 27 January 2012
Saturday 28 January 2012, Royal Festival Hall – Vladimir Jurowski / LPC etc.
Andrey Breus ... every bit the rabble-rouser Fyodor Basmanov, and dark-toned Ewa Podleš were superb soloists, and the London Philharmonic Choir sang the Russian with commendable fervour. Jurowski conducted with all the commitment and whip-lash baton action we have come to expect.
Nick Breckenfield, Classicalsource.com, 1 February 2012
Blazingly conducted, played and sung, [Ivan The Terrible] was astounding.
Tim Ashley, The Guardian, 30 January 2012
Wednesday 1 February 2012, Royal Festival Hall – Yannick Nézet-Séguin / Janine Jansen
Nézet-Séguin found balletic grace, lively dynamic contrasts, sharp instrumental colours, elegant wit, unfiltered sunshine ... The LPO played deliciously: thumbs up especially to the silken strings and the two bassoons.
Geoff Brown, The Arts Desk, 2 February 2012
Nézet-Séguin produced a first movement [of the Classical Symphony] of poise and elegance, rhythmic mechanisms running like clockwork. With the Larghetto eloquently expressive, the brief ‘Gavotte’ standing to attention, and a finale of eager interplay and pert rhythms, natty strings and frisky woodwinds standing out, this was a performance to treasure.
Colin Anderson, Classicalsource.com, 2 February 2012
Saturday 4 February 2012, Royal Festival Hall – Yannick Nézet-Séguin / LPC etc.
5 stars:
‘Nézet-Séguin’s Bruckner, and especially this Bruckner, is hugely - some would say controversially - expansive. His fantastic sense of its inevitability and inexorability requires great courage and patience and above all belief from his LPO players. Listening to the string phrasing in the second subject of the first movement one was struck by how personal and intimate it sounded and more than that how it felt illuminated from within ... I’ve not heard Bruckner quite like this before.’
Edward Seckerson, The Independent
As a programme this was an extraordinary event, and very powerful indeed, bringing a standing ovation from much of the audience who had sat mostly silently for nearly two hours without a break ... The LPO’s playing was first-class, the choir tremendous, the four soloists superb ... What a courageous and thoroughly admirable venture on the part of the LPO and Nézet-Séguin: a concert devoted entirely to Bruckner, a long concert without an interval, a very serious concert - but it paid off handsomely!
Ken Ward, Editor, The Bruckner Journal, Bachtrack.com
Nézet-Séguin proved once more that he is an outstanding Bruckner conductor, pacing the symphony in large bold paragraphs and often with thrilling authority. The LPO and the London Philharmonic Chorus rose to almost every challenge, and the luxury quartet of Christine Brewer, Mihoko Fujimura, Toby Spence and Franz-Josef Selig ensured a white hot performance of the Te Deum.
Martin Kettle, The Guardian
Nézet-Séguin is a Bruckner natural, with a seemingly complete grasp of how the music’s underlying pulse moves independently of tempo, giving its momentum an unassailable inevitability; the compelling physicality of his conducting makes the orchestral detail sing and releases a degree of connectivity in the music that you are rarely aware of.
Peter Reed, Classicalsource.com
To hear these three pieces in one uninterrupted 90-minute sweep was a tremendous experience. It was a tremendous feat on the part of the performers, too, especially Nezet-Seguin ... I’d always thought Nezet-Seguin was too driven and exuberant a personality to be a natural Bruckner conductor, but this concert showed I was completely wrong on that score. The opening often has a stony grandeur, but by moulding its final phrase Nezet-Seguin gave the whole utterance a human intimacy.
Ivan Hewett, The Telegraph
Nézet-Séguin, who has emerged as a major Bruckner conductor, laid down firm foundations in the Symphony’s ‘cathedral in sound’ and drew magnificently lofty, and even sensuous, orchestral playing.
John Allison, The Sunday Telegraph
Wednesday 8 February 2012, Royal Festival Hall – Marin Alsop / Stephen Hough
There was some lovely section playing from the first violins and the woodwind, especially in the delicate burbling in the Martinů. And the many solo contributions were extremely fine. Lead violin Lisa Schatzman made you sit up and listen every time she took control and chief flautist Jaime Martin was as winning as ever.
Igor Toronyi-Lalic, The Arts Desk
If performing Liszt's piano music were an Olympic event, Stephen Hough would be a gold medal contender ... He certainly has the power for the frenzied pounding that, especially in the First Concerto, Liszt throws down as a challenge to the soloist. Yet there was also brooding lyricism and moments of reflective calm that Hough imbued with his own highly personal poetry.
Nick Kimberley, Evening Standard
With spot-on accompaniments from Alsop and the LPO, and notable solos from wind and string principals, Hough was in debonair form – barnstorming, glittering and pliant.
Colin Anderson, Classicalsource.com
Hough managed to combine ... excitement and drama with a keyboard finesse and precision that were sometimes breathtakingly vivid.
Andrew Clements, The Guardian
Whether crashing down the keyboard in the thunderous octaves of the opening movement of the first, or scampering about in the delicate filigree of the single-movement second, Hough displays an awesome technique. The gradual acceleration of the final movement of the first was breathtaking to behold, and the closing presto positively explosive. Listen again on the BBC iPlayer. You won't be disappointed.
Stephen Pritchard, The Observer
Hough was assured of sterling support from the LPO and the evening’s conductor, Marin Alsop. Teamed with a soloist who is so light-fingered and agile, they were careful not be too loud or too heavy ... Martinu’s Symphony No 6, not often heard, made a welcome start, clothed in more subtle colours than usual, and, to end, Alsop drew very decent playing from the LPO in a performance of Dvorák’s Symphony No 8, which, like her Brahms symphonies, came with good sense and enough vitality.
Richard Fairman, Financial Times
Thursday 9 February, Nottingham – Marin Alsop / Stephen Hough
In Dvorak's Symphony the LPO managed the quick transitions from vitality to melancholy with aplomb and, in the Scherzo, seemed to have the rhythms of Czech folk dance, in their bloodstream. All in all, a concert that lived up to high expectations.
Nottingham Post
Friday 10 February, Royal Festival Hall – Marin Alsop / Lukáš Vondráček
Alsop whipped the LPO players into a frenzy, alert to every turn of tempo and Dvořák’s melodic profligacy. The horn solo in the second movement typified the quality of the whole (and mention must be made of top-notch contributions of the third and fourth horns too) ... As all good concerts should, this one sent me out into the night with a much-changed mood. And an impatience for Alsop’s programmes next year with the LPO – American-themed as part of “The Rest is Noise”.
Nick Breckenfield, Classicalsource.com
Tuesday 14 February, Royal Festival Hall – Neeme Järvi / Boris Giltburg
With great and characterful playing, the London Philharmonic followed Järvi’s direction in every surge of the music, seemingly effortlessly accommodating the exquisite slow movement [of the Second Symphony] with Robert Hill’s silky clarinet a high-spot as equally as the rumbustious scherzo and finale. It got a tremendous reception – deservedly so.
Nick Breckenfield, Classicalsource.com
Saturday 18 February, Brighton Dome – Neeme Järvi / Boris Giltburg
‘The LPO usually deliver the goods but this time they have surpassed even themselves. How lucky we are in this city to have such a great concert hall that attracts orchestras like the LPO to want to come and play here?’
Howard Young, Brighton.co.uk
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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