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Scotsman
29-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
The best EIF classical concerts - Scotsman critic David Kettle previews the 2025 programme
Scotsman critic David Kettle picks his classical music highlights from this year's EIF programme Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... The Veil of the Temple It takes a festival with the ambition – and the means – of the Edinburgh International Festival to launch its classical programme with an eight-hour, stage-filling mystical choral meditation from one of the UK's most idiosyncratic composers. John Tavener's The Veil of the Temple straddles world religions in search of a universal truth, taking its listeners on a spiritual journey to a hair-raising, conscience-altering state of enlightenment. It's sure to be an unforgettable experience, with the combined might of the Edinburgh Festival Chorus, Monteverdi Choir (below) and National Youth Choir of Scotland plus the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and numerous international soloists – and it's surely the most profound contemplation of the EIF's theme, 'the truth we seek'. Usher Hall, 2 August Monteverdi Choir Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy Spiritual contemplations continue in a stage-shuddering two-piano recital from keyboard and life partners Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy in a rare live performance of Messiaen's mighty Visions de l'Amen. The beautiful austerity of Bach and the volatile playfulness of Kurtág join forces in a typically unconventional first half. Queen's Hall, 5 August Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy Hanni Liang: Dreams The Rite of Spring famously came to Stravinsky in a dream, as did Yesterday to Paul McCartney. The recital by German-born pianist Hanni Liang (pictured above) might give you the chance to delve into your own night-time visions and hear them realised at the keyboard. Debussy's tender Rêverie provides a starting point, but after that it's down to you, Liang and your subconscious… The Hub, 7 August Hanni Liang Aurora Orchestra: Shostakovich Inside Out Was Shostakovich an obedient line-toer or a snarling subversive in Soviet Russia? The Aurora Orchestra and founding conductor Nicholas Collon surely won't attempt a simple answer in their conversational dissection of the composer's Fifth Symphony (after all, there isn't one), but they'll set out to examine the music amid the terror and turmoil of its times. The full piece will be played uninterrupted in the evening concert along with a piece by Abel Selaocoe. Usher Hall, 18 August The Dunedin Consort
Edinburgh Reporter
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Edinburgh Reporter
Aurora is making its Edinburgh debut this August
Aurora Orchestra will be appearing at a bean bag concert in Edinburgh this August. This orchestra founded in 2005 by Principal Conductor, Nicholas Collon, memorise whole symphonies – sometimes an hour long and present music with theatrical elements to allow their audiences to get a better understanding of it. This summer Aurora marks the 50th anniversary of the death of Dmitri Shostakovich, one of the most influential and performed composers of the 20th century, with a deep-dive into his Fifth Symphony – a work born in the shadow of Stalin's regime that reveals music on the edge of life and death by a composer treading a dangerous line between political obedience and artistic defiance. Aurora will make their long-awaited debut at the Edinburgh International Festival, with two performances, including one in the Festival's Beanbag Concert Series. Shostakovich Inside Out (Monday 18 August, 2pm) invites audiences to learn more about the Fifth Symphony in a fresh and immersive way, through a conversational presentation led by Nicholas Collon as the orchestra play the symphony by memory, pausing to share insights and delve into its emotional depth and historical context. Later the same day, Aurora performs the full symphony by memory, as part of a concert that also includes Abel Selacoe's cello concerto Four Spirits, with the composer himself and percussionist Bernhard Schimpelsberger as soloists (Monday 18 August, 7:30pm). Made up of a roster of fearless musicians who have developed and grown with the orchestra, Aurora is the pioneer for memorised orchestral performance and has performed entire symphonies from memory at the BBC Proms and beyond for the last 11 years. They will play at BBC Proms on 16 and 17 August ahead of appearing in Edinburgh. The Artistic Director and Co-Director, Concept and Script for Shostakovich's Fifth by Heart, Jane Mitchell, said: 'Shostakovich's 5th symphony was written under extraordinary circumstances and has been put under a magnifying glass since the moment it was first presented. The stories surrounding the symphony provide a fascinating lens through which to look at the role of artists in a totalitarian state. Our presentation of the 5th symphony will look at these stories alongside an exploration of the score itself, and will take a look at the endless ways in which we can interpret abstract music, throwing light on both the terrifying and farcical nature of a state attempting to control a composer's voice.' Aurora Orchestra at Kings Place credit Nick Rutter Like this: Like Related
New York Times
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
A Musician on a Mission to Make Us Pay Attention to the Viola
Hector Berlioz's 'Harold in Italy' is full of wandering. In his memoirs he wrote that, through this symphony with viola obbligato, based on the mood of Lord Byron's poem 'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage' and inspired by the composer's unfruitful time in Italy, he sought to make the viola 'a kind of melancholy dreamer.' The violist Lawrence Power has spent his whole career playing 'Harold in Italy.' But, he said in an interview, he has always been 'completely uncomfortable and just confused by the whole piece.' It's essentially a symphony, but completely different from a conventional one, with a viola solo part that drifts in and out of the action. Berlioz 'obviously had something in mind to have the viola separate from the orchestra,' Power said, guessing that the composer 'had something theatrical in mind.' In a dramatized performance of 'Harold in Italy' with Aurora Orchestra at the Southbank Center in London late last month, Power leaned into that wandering, theatrical spirit, something that has also become a hallmark of his recent work. After whistling the piece's idée fixe, or recurring theme, while strolling from a raised platform amid the ensemble, Power recited searching sections of Berlioz's memoirs and wandered through the auditorium, playing sections of the obbligato part with a distant, slightly aloof expression. This is just another idiosyncratic project by Power, somebody who has championed the viola for the past 25 years, with a particular focus on new work. He's not alone: Viola soloists often have to become champions for their instrument, which has been underappreciated throughout its history. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
The Guardian
30-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Aurora Orchestra/Collon/Power review – Italian immersion with introspective Berlioz and extrovert Mendelssohn
So much shared, yet so utterly different. Mendelssohn wrote his Italian symphony in 1833, revising it the following year. Berlioz wrote his Harold en Italie symphony in 1834, following a stay in Rome during which the two composers had spent quality time together. Thus the Aurora Orchestra came up with the smart idea of putting the two Italian symphonies side by side. Beyond their loosely shared inspiration and form, however, the two works have little in common. Mendelssohn's is an expert and extrovert piece of symphonic writing, tight and technically impeccable. That of Berlioz, meanwhile, follows a wandering star all its own, broodingly romantic and constantly innovative, exemplified by the solo viola that depicts the melancholy of Byron's introspective hero Childe Harold. Left to themselves, these two works could have formed a well-contrasted programme of a traditional kind. But the Aurora and their conductor Nicholas Collon don't do traditional. They are above all else performance players, committed to immersing themselves and the audience in the excitement of live musical experience. It is one of the many reasons audiences love them. So in the second half, the Mendelssohn was played from memory, an Aurora speciality, the score taken at terrific tempos and with the players standing up and interacting. It was hard to resist, especially when the players then dispersed into the hall to encore the Italian symphony's breakneck final movement saltarello. Watch out for the Aurora giving the same treatment to Shostakovich's fifth symphony at the Proms this summer. Harold, meanwhile, was presented as a 'dramatic exploration'. Texts based on Berlioz's Mémoires were declaimed between movements and from amid the orchestra by actor Charlotte Ritchie. Collon and the viola soloist Lawrence Power chipped in, too. Power even whistled his idée fixe theme before wandering Byronically through the hall as he played the lonely music at the symphony's heart. It would be churlish not to be caught up in this. But it can sometimes distract. In his recording of Berlioz's symphony under Andrew Manze, Power is as poetic and nuanced a Harold violist as any on disc. But amid so much other activity, the Aurora's orchestral balance sometimes did him fewer favours. When he stood stock still to deliver Harold's skeletal arpeggios at the end of the second movement, it was a reminder that Berlioz's music provides its own theatre.
The Guardian
07-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Aurora Orchestra/Collon review – reduced Mahler still packs a punch
Back when Mahler's symphonies were still rarely played in Britain – and, yes, there really was such a time – Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth) was the most familiar of his major orchestral works. Much of that was the legacy of Kathleen Ferrier's inimitable recording of Das Leid's final song, Der Abschied (The Farewell) under Bruno Walter before her early death in 1953. But then came the Mahler renaissance of the 1960s and performances of The Song of the Earth – in effect a six-movement song symphony for tenor and alto – became part of the new and much more varied Mahlerian picture. Renewed interest in chamber reductions of Mahler has been part of this change. Iain Farrington's version of Das Lied for the Aurora Orchestra is the latest example, and formed the centrepiece of this spring-themed concert under Nicholas Collon. As with Arnold Schoenberg's 20th-century version, completed by Rainer Riehn, the reduction is abrupt, with just a handful of solo strings and winds in place of a full orchestra. But most of the detail is still there, allowing the winds to be heard with particular clarity, and, under Collon's fluent and vigorous direction, it still packs a true Mahlerian punch. Sometimes indeed, in the confined spaces of the Kings Place hall, the pummelling felt too fierce. Few tenors can expect much mercy from the conductor in Mahler's explosive first song, and Andrew Staples duly did his best to be heard, but the words were close to being lost in the mezzo's fourth song, Von der Schönheit (Of Beauty) too. Fleur Barron is a rich voiced mezzo, projecting the darker music of Der Abschied with noble effect, but it was a good idea to know the texts already in order to distinguish important passages. Before the interval, Collon offered two characteristically interesting springtime contrasts. Lili Boulanger's 1917 miniature, D'un Matin de Printemps, pulsed gently and delicately, while Jean-Féry Rebel's Les Élémens of 1737 struck sparks. The Rebel was an opportunity to celebrate one of the French baroque's most daring pieces of harmonic experimentation, with its grinding lower strings, its daring Berlioz-level orchestral harmonies and its joyful birdsong, energetically delivered by the Aurora's percussionists.
