Martha Argerich Edition (EuroArts)
It looked as if the Royal Opera might be trying to keep its distance with the first new production since lockdown.
From a distance, the pianist Christian Blackshaw bears an uncanny resemblance to Franz Liszt, silver hair swept back à la 19th century. At the piano, though, you could scarcely find two more different musicians. There seems not to be a flamboyant bone in Blackshaw’s body.
For its latest production, unveiled on Sunday evening but recorded in November, Scottish Opera toys playfully with the absurdities of Covid-compliant performance practice. But maybe sensing our weariness with the whole business, it is not overdone.
With the wealth of online performances during the pandemic, it is easy to forget the regular offerings from the Wigmore Hall. The Hall found itself in a better position than most, as it was able to present its autumn schedule largely unchanged, the only programming issues arising from international travel limitations for the performers. And the finances somehow permitted them to give concerts even without audiences when restrictions dictated, but broadcast everything live on webstreams.
Brahms: Symphonies 3 & 4 Australian Chamber Orchestra/Richard Tognetti (ABC Classic)
How does Mozart do it? His music can provoke deep emotions even in the unlikeliest operatic situations, if well done, and present circumstances stirred them up all the more on Sunday afternoon. Those flirtatious ladies flouncing around the prone prince in the first musical number of The Magic Flute – no overture here – only had to sing “although it breaks my heart in two/I have to bid farewell to you/until we meet again" for another tearful turn of the screw.
Whatever happens next – and even in Tier 3 the Royal Liverpool Phlharmonic goes on playing to carefully distanced audiences – this will be remembered by all participants as a day of dazzling brilliance, its bright autumn light matched by so much of the music in a morning service and four concerts ending nine hours later.
Wonderful as the livestreamed Proms are for players working together again and for viewers/listeners who wouldn’t be able to get to the Royal Albert Hall even if they could be admitted, I’d sacrifice them all for one evening of live musical communication like this.
Horn player Sarah Willis joined the Berlin Philharmonic in 2001. She juggles her position with spells of teaching, interviewing soloists and conductors for the Berlin Philharmonic's Digital Concert Hall and hosting an online series of Horn Hangouts, interviews with musicians streamed live on her website and archived on YouTube.