Oslo Philharmonic, Mäkelä online review - focus, flair and midwinter heartbreak

★★★★ OSLO PHILHARMONIC, MAKELA ONLINE Focus, flair and midwinter heartbreak

Hyperactive filming nearly ruins musical magnificence culminating in ideal Sibelius

Artists’ management Harrison Parrott has started a concert streaming platform called Virtual Circle on emusiclive.com, launched two days ago and only available as a live event - no catch-ups. Watching its debut concert - the Oslo Philharmonic with the much-buzzed-about Finnish conductor Klaus Mäkelä - it struck me that it must be terribly difficult to film an orchestra effectively.

Album: Annie - Dark Hearts

★★★★ ANNIE - DARK HEARTS Cult Norwegian pop star makes welcome synth-pop return

Cult Norwegian pop star makes a long overdue and welcome synth-pop return

The term electro-pop has kind of lost its meaning, The Top 20 has, for many years, been full of music created on computers, from Charli XCX to BTS to Clean Bandit. Yet still, as a genre header, it's often used to refer to music that riffs on the sound of the 1980s synthesizer pioneers.

Reissue CDs Weekly: This Is Our Music - Jazz Out Of Norway

Double-disc testament to a nation’s fertile musical seedbed

The Turnamat is a type of washing machine made by AEG. In the composition titled “Turnamat”, Seventies-type synths, wobbly keyboard lines and hard-grooving drums give way to a brass-led interlude suggesting an acquaintance with the compositions of Lalo Schifrin. It’s as if a jazz-inflected soundtrack from 45 years ago has been shoved into a blender rather than a washing machine, then reconstituted and given a major buff-up.

Album: Solveig Slettahjell – Come In From the Rain

The Norwegian jazz singer's best album yet

Norwegian singer Solveig Slettahjell has a feeling for slow. Her 2001 debut album was called Slow Motion Orchestra, and in the years since then she has turned her very fine sense of how to convey the essence and the meaning of songs at a very measured pace into her calling card.

She has explained what draws her to slowness: “When I slow down the tempo, I can hear the sound in the words, there are so many little details when you play and sing slowly. These little details fascinate me.”

Andsnes, Eriksmoen and friends, Bergen International Festival online review - from Mozart to Widmann

★★★★★ ANDSNES, ERIKSMOEN AND FRIENDS, BERGEN INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL From Mozart to Widmann

Youth and experience perfectly blended in three outstanding chamber concerts

This is as close as we’re going to come now to the real festival experience. The enviably well-funded Bergen International Festival is serving up on average three or four events a day, livestreamed from atmospheric venues around the city and all available for a month.

Davidsen, Oslo Philharmonic online review - perfect programming, supreme musicality from all

★★★★★ DAVIDSEN, OSLO PHILHARMONIC Perfect programming, supreme musicality

The more-than-promising Norwegian soprano isn't the only star in enthralling 'interludes'

Could there be more tender, tactful or soul-nourishing signs of a new musical normal than these two 45-minute gems? We're nowhere near emulating the kind of live distance concerts members of the Bergen, Oslo and Czech Philharmonics have been offering for some weeks now, but it's vital to hope that we can at some point in the not too distant future.

Classical Music/Opera direct to home 9 - musicians start cautiously reuniting

CLASSICAL MUSIC DIRECT TO HOME Soprano Lise Davidsen among musicians cautiously reuniting

Selective socially-distanced gatherings in Bergen, Berlin, Birmingham, Oslo and Prague

It seems like a different world when the Berlin Philharmonic and Simon Rattle gave a full concert to an empty hall as the world began to go into lockdown. Now, on continental Europe at least, orchestral musician plus the occasional star conductor and soloist(s) are cautiously reuniting in smaller numbers, though still as yet without a live audience.

Lise Davidsen, James Baillieu, Barbican review - opulence and the promise of greatness

★★★★ LISE DAVIDSEN, BARBICAN Opulence and the promise of greatness

German song not always in focus, but the soprano's Sibelius was awe-inspiring

So much pressure is on for Lise Davidsen to be the next Kirsten Flagstad or Birgit Nilsson, but the question has to be asked: is this just The Voice - a big "just" when a dramatic Wagnerian soprano is at stake - or The Complete Artist?