Martin Fröst, Roland Pöntinen, Wigmore Hall

Clarinet capers at Wigmore Hall as Martin Fröst once again reinvents his instrument

It’s tempting to say that if Martin Fröst didn’t play the clarinet then he’d be an actor or a dancer. But he is an actor and a dancer and at one point during this scintillating recital he even sang, too – whilst playing the clarinet at the same time, of course. That’s a given. It’s an extension of his lissom body, and in his shiny grey silk suit and untucked shirt he looked decidedly feline. Ever heard a clarinet purr? Ever heard it yowl, scamper, hiss, scratch? Has anyone ever pulled so many colours from the old liquorice stick?

Classical Music CDs Round-up 5

Joanna MacGregor: her releases this month stretch from John Dowland to Moondog

This month's releases include Rachmaninov, Brahms, Joanna MacGregor and the soprano sax

This month's classical music releases include mighty new recordings of Bach, Brahms, Rachmaninov and Prokofiev by major orchestras. Other recordings shine new light on Nielsen and Dallapiccola and make a case for the genius of Bernard Herrmann. From the quirkier end of the spectrum there is choral music from the Baltic, Stravinsky's compositions for piano and violin, a trio of new and older recordings from Joanna MacGregor and Amy Dickson's playing Taverner and Glass on soprano saxophone. As ever, click on the links to buy these recordings on Amazon.

Haitink, Chicago SO, Royal Festival Hall

Octogenarian maestro still commands the podium


Strolling into the Royal Festival Hall's private function room on Level 5 last night, I naturally expected it to be crammed with freeloading hacks such as myself on the trail of free drinks, but the room was mostly populated by corporate types in suits. If you want to pull together a menu of prestigious international orchestras in these straitened times (particularly those elusive American ones),  you can't hope to do better than enlist the support of a multinational oil company, and this was the opening night of the RFH's Shell Classic International season.

Prom 74: Vienna Philharmonic, Mehta

Conductor Zubin Mehta on the cover of Time in 1968

Zubin Mehta coasts at the Proms

One sure (but expensive) way of luring Zubin Mehta to London is to hire the Vienna Philharmonic, too. He and the orchestra go way back to a time when the Indian-born superstar’s smouldering good looks might have suggested Bollywood as a more likely destination than the Vienna Conservatoire. But only the most precociously gifted 20-something conductor offers up Bruckner’s 9th Symphony for his first recording with the illustrious Philharmonic. And quite a fist of it he made, too. I still return to it from time to time.
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