Reviews of the London Philharmonic Orchestra concert of Eötvös, Liszt and Zemlinsky conducted by Vladimir Jurowski.

Tim Ashley in The Guardian (4 stars) on the Zemlinsky:
It’s heady stuff, at times extravagantly written, yet underpinned by perceptive insights into post-coital tristesse and the masculine conflict between ideas of sexual possession and fears of emotional entrapment. Jurowski was wonderfully alert to its sensuality, the fierce workings of its internal drama and its patterns of convulsion and stasis. The orchestral sound glowed, glittered and swooned, and Thomas Hampson’s insistent, ecstatic declamation perfectly balanced Melanie Dieners’s spine-tingling top notes and liquid tone.

Edward Seckerson in The Independent (4 stars) on Eötvös:
Shadows owes much to the memory of his great Hungarian predecessor reflecting on the febrile “night music” which became such a feature of Bartok’s writing. Eötvös plays out his nocturnal drama in a theatrical arena at the heart of which a solo flute (Sue Thomas) and Clarinet (Nicholas Carpenter) are shadowed by their orchestral counterparts, backs to the audience, teasing the eye and ear with shifting sound perspectives, ricochets and echoes.

Peter Eötvös Shadows (UK premiere of the orchestral version)
Liszt Piano Concerto No. 2
Zemlinsky Lyric Symphony

Vladimir Jurowski conductor
Alexander Markovich piano
Melanie Diener soprano
Thomas Hampson baritone
Sue Thomas flute
Nicholas Carpenter clarinet
London Philharmonic Orchestra

www.lpo.org.uk

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