by The summer season is the festival season, and among them is the proms that run for almost two months from July 18.
But there are also other joys, including a numinous beauty, with the kind permission of the late John Tavener, at the Edinburgh International Festival. Later in the year we will have Grandes of the Classical Music World Tribute – the American John Adams (who wrote Nixon in China) and the great Arvo Pärt, who turns 90 this year.
Here our main classic selects the rest of the most promising shows of the year.
July
BBC -Proms
The biggest classic music festivals in the world feels more tempting this year, with a solid list of foreign orchestras, including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra from Amsterdam and the Leipzig-Keiband-Orchestra, and literally hundreds of fine solsists, which are enough for bankruptcy stars such as Simon-Rassel-Ratta, as with cut and coming musicians.
There are important romantic symphonies alongside bubbling Viennese Walzes and Knotty Modernist Works by Pierre Boulez and Luciano Berio and the Arvo Pärt, who is 90 years old this year, plus 19 premiere. And let’s not forget the prom for the shipping forecast, proof of the permanent, lovable eccentricity of the degree.
Royal Albert Hall, London SW7 (bbc.co.uk/proms), July 18. September 13
August
Edinburgh International Festival
The EIF director and famous violinist Nicola Benedetti tells us that it is this year’s festival, a topic that musically expresses from the opening concert in which John Taven’s veil of the temple develops the truths of the Christian faith over eight magic lessons. The freedom that was for or refused is considered in Shostakovich’s Symphonies 5 and 10 and Beethoven’s 5.
In addition to the regular Queen’s Hall Chamber series, the National Youth Orchestra 2, based in New York, will make its European debut, and a modern revision by Glucks Orpheus and Eurydice with Circus Company Circa will receive its European premiere.
Various venues, Edinburgh (Eif.co.uk), August 1st to August 24th
Presteige Festival
There are larger, shabier classic music festivals than prestigne’s, but no more original things. Most of the festivals buy some “off-the-the-the-the-peg” tour events that they find elsewhere, but there are none at Prestigne. Another plus is that it takes place in a pretty city in the warmest Welsh borders. The fact that this year’s composer is in Jamaican Eleanor Alberga, and there is a musical adaptation of the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas under Milchwood by Schottian composer Ninfea Cuttwell-Leade, and a “festival bat” complements all, although it is sufficiently serious.
Various venues, prestigne, powys (Prestignefestival.com), 21.-25. August
September
Philharmonia Orchestra
Each orchestra likes to cause a sensation with its opening concert of the season and the Philharmonia has more reason than most that this is the 80th anniversary year. Together with Víkingur ólafsson, the Icelandic pianist, which is known with glasses made of steel and yet softly addressed, everyone wants a piece that they will play with Beethoven’s most powerful piano concerto, the 3RD. Also on the bill is there a brand new piece from the Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz, Si El Oxígeno Fuera Verde (if oxygen) inspired by folk-and-jazz, and finally the orchestra with a not yet mentioned organ to bring the house with Saint-Saëns ‘Symphony, with Saint-Saëns’ Symphony ‘Symphony’ Symphony ‘Symphony’ Symphony ‘Symphony’ Saëns’ ” ‘Symphony, which brings’ Sains” ” ‘with the’ Symphony ‘,’ Sains’ ” ” ” ” Bring to Saint-Saëns’ ” ” ‘,’ Symphony, at 3, at 3 years.
Royal Festival Hall, London SE1 (Southbankcentre.co.uk), September 25th
October
Arvo Pärt at 90
The Estonian composer Arvo Pärt is the benign way of contemporary music that resisted the atheism of the old Soviet Union in order to create its deep religious beliefs. His music is getting more and more naive and smiling on the surface, while under mysterious self -made composition systems tease the ear with memories of bells. In this concert to celebrate Pärts 90th birthday of the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, you hear two of the pieces that made him famous in the 1970s, Fratres and Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten, together with the herald of Adam and the secretly evanescent deum.
Barbican Hall, London EC2 (Barbican.org.uk), October 7th
London piano festival
The idea that the ubiquitous, defining instrument of classical music needs its own festival may seem implausible, but every year the festival knows Kings Place something tempting. For the 10 of the festival 10TH Anniversary season The directors Katya Apekisheva and Charles Owen (fine pianists who take part) offer a particularly wasteful program. There will be premieres of three brand new works, Renaissance keyboard music by Mishka Rushdie Momen, an evening with a young jazz talent, led by Julian Joseph and Zoe Rahman, a master class of Stephen Hough, and a music festival for two pianos with eight wonderful pianists, including Argentinian Ingrid Fliter.
Kings Place, London N1 (kingplace.co.uk), 10.-12. October
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Thanks to the Japanese chief conductor Kazuki Yamada, the CBSO has a new romantic glow in its sound and colorful wealth in its programming. In this concert it is made by the almost too blonde and pretty Jussen brothers, a piano duo from Holland, which plays two works: the concert for two pianos from Francis Poulenc, which has an amazing mix of French: the concert for two pianos Tableau Charm and Javanian gong-and-vibraphone exototics as well as the Turkish composer pianist Fazil Says threatening and glamorous night. All Plus Prokofiev’s ‘Classic’ Symphony and Schubert’s great, spacious 9th Symphony should lead to a whole night.
Symphony Hall, Birmingham (cbso.co.uk), October 23rd
John Adams Festival
Manchester’s Hallé Orchestra likes to intervene the largest composers with whom you can work, and you don’t get bigger than John Adams, the American composer, who took over the hard minimal style of Steve Reich and Philip Glass and filled it with smart historical references and expressive traces. Almost 30 years ago, Adams wrote the entertaining show-off orchestra piece Slonimsky’s ear box to celebrate the opening of the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester. He will perform this piece during the three -day festival of his music of the Hallé as well as numerous other pieces, including his last orchestral piece The Rock, on which you stand.
Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, (Hall.co.uk), October 30th to November
November
Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Once in sight in December, the concerts for advent and Christmas motifs become fat and fast. You can hardly move for Strauss Waltz and passed down, harmonized Christmas carols, and the performances of Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s Santa Clario are almost as plentiful. The Scottish chamber orchestra avoids all of this. They carry out the comparatively rare Berlioz ‘L’Enfance du Christian (Childhood of Christ), an unusually sweet work for this violent dramatic composer, although there is a dervish-like “procession of rest”, which is just as strange as everything in his music. For these performances, the SCO is accompanied by its excellent choir and four fine soloists, including Roderick Williams as Joseph.
Usher Hall, Edinburgh & Rathäuser, Glasgow (sco.org.uk), November 27, 28
