Nikolai Demidenko, Wigmore Hall

Russian pianist proves himself an expert dreamcatcher

Piano ballades and fantasies are the repositories of dreams. They are the places where the mind is left to wander, to roam precipitously, unaided by known paths, undisturbed by familiar structures. The romantic fantasies and ballades of last night's Wigmore Hall recital plunge and soar, catch you by the feet and dangle you by the ankles.

Pictures Reframed: Leif Ove Andsnes & Robin Rhode, QEH

The pianist reimagines Musorgsky's masterwork with video extras

We watch and listen simultaneously so much today that it hardly seems blasphemous for a superlative pianist to decide to conceive an evening of piano music plus video installation. Leif Ove Andsnes has doubts about the transmittability of classical music to a general audience today - he calls the status quo into question, and he may be right. So he turned a concert programme into a video show, focusing on Musorgky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and Schumann’s Kinderszenen, to which would be set a visual installation around him and his piano.

Thomas Quasthoff, Barbican

Schumann song cycles end Thomas Quasthoff's Barbican cycle on an intimate note

It is probably fair to say that the concert hall at the Barbican Centre isn’t one of London’s most intimate spaces. It’s not the sort of place that would put one immediately in mind of, say, a drawing room – in fact, to do so requires a particular willingness to suspend one’s disbelief. Tonight, Thomas Quasthoff and friends endeavoured to make us do just that, and got within a hair’s breadth of pulling it off.

DVD Release: Twin Spirits (Opus Arte)

Sting and Trudie portray Robert and Clara Schumann

Having brought John Dowland to the masses with his album Songs from the Labyrinth, Sting takes another shot at presenting classical music to a wider audience which has developed the infuriating habit of not taking any notice of it. In this live performance, Sting portrays the passionate and tragically short-lived Robert Schumann by reading from his letters, while his wife Trudie Styler enacts the role of Robert’s spouse Clara Schumann (formerly Wieck).
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