• Blog
  • Clients
  • About Me

Richard Bratby

~ Classical music writer, critic and consultant

Richard Bratby

Tag Archives: Chopin

Review: Louis Lortie at Birmingham Conservatoire

17 Friday Mar 2017

Posted by richardbratby in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Birmingham Conservatoire, Birmingham Post, Chopin, Reviews

The Birmingham Post isn’t always able to post online everything that I’ve written for its print edition, so – after a suitable time lag (ideally you should go out and buy the paper) – I’ll be posting my recent reviews here. As per the print edition, they’re all fairly concise – just 250 words. This is of a performance at Birmingham Conservatoire on Tuesday 17 March 2017.


 

ABH

Not in here. It’s just a huge hole in the ground now.

These are the end times for the old Birmingham Conservatoire building. The demolition crews circle, and all eyes are already turned to the promised land of Eastside. But artistically, the Conservatoire is already well more than halfway there. For proof, look at the sheer calibre of the artists giving this spring’s concerts in the doomed Recital Hall: Jennifer Pike, the Heath Quartet, and on this occasion the eminent French-Canadian pianist Louis Lortie, playing music by George Benjamin and Chopin.

This is not a time for sentimentality, and Lortie’s Chopin was defiantly unsentimental. No romantic languour here; the emphasis was on tone-colour and rhythmic clarity. Lortie instantly and unfussily found the character of each of Chopin’s 24 Preludes Op.28: letting the melodic line of the swifter pieces glint like a darting fish in a crystal stream, making bass notes snarl and thunder, and in the gentler Preludes, allowing the melody to find its own level: falling easily over its accompaniment without any undue prodding or tugging.

Lortie can generate a blindingly intense tone on a single note, and after an emphatic finish to Prelude No.12, he seemed to expand into the second dozen. These were freer, more fantastic, and often fierce, and the cycle peaked with a Prelude No.15 that moved from limpid tenderness to a central climax of blazing severity. The softness and transparency of No.23’s spring shower felt all the sweeter for it.

George Benjamin’s Shadowlines – frigid, angular studies in grey – didn’t hold up well next to Chopin. But Lortie approached them with the same focus, offsetting the harshness of the musical foreground with misty echoes in the left hand. A musical reminder that there is, after all, a world elsewhere.

Contact Details

38 Beacon Street
Lichfield
United Kingdom
Staffordshire
WS13 7AJ

07754 068427

Follow me on Twitter

My Tweets

Archives

  • June 2020 (1)
  • October 2019 (2)
  • January 2018 (1)
  • December 2017 (2)
  • November 2017 (2)
  • October 2017 (1)
  • August 2017 (2)
  • July 2017 (1)
  • June 2017 (3)
  • April 2017 (2)
  • March 2017 (2)
  • February 2017 (2)
  • December 2016 (1)
  • September 2016 (3)
  • August 2016 (1)
  • July 2016 (1)
  • June 2016 (2)
  • May 2016 (1)
  • April 2016 (3)
  • March 2016 (6)
  • February 2016 (1)
  • January 2016 (3)
  • December 2015 (6)
  • November 2015 (4)
  • October 2015 (6)
  • September 2015 (5)
  • August 2015 (5)
  • July 2015 (8)
  • June 2015 (12)
  • May 2015 (12)
  • April 2015 (1)
  • February 2015 (1)
  • January 2015 (2)
  • December 2014 (4)
  • November 2014 (3)

Archives

Blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Richard Bratby
    • Join 26 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Richard Bratby
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...