Thomas Adès Day
The latest of the Wigmore’s new music days is devoted to one of the UK’s leading composers. Adès himself takes part in both concerts as pianist, appearing with the Calder Quartet in the lunchtime programme, and both the Calder and Birmingham Contemporary Music Group in the evening concert, where his music will be heard alongside pieces by Janáček, Kurtág and Gerald Barry.
Jonathan Biss: Late Style
The first of pianist Jonathan Biss’s three concerts exploring composers’ late works was devoted to Beethoven. There’s a Schubert focus in May, but this week he concentrates on Brahms, viewed from the perspective of his contemporaries and his heirs. There are works by Schumann, Chopin and Kurtág before performances of the exquisite piano pieces Op 118 and 119 by Brahms himself.
Bluebeard’s Castle and The 8th Door
Scottish Opera and theatre company Vanishing Point join forces to present a new double bill. Bartók’s imposing one-acter, Bluebeard’s Castle, is directed by Mathew Lenton and paired with a specially commissioned new work devised by Lenton and composer Lliam Paterson, which promises to go farther into the same world.
Theatre Royal, Glasgow, 28, 30 March & 1 April
New York Philharmonic
One of the US’s most famous orchestras begins a Barbican residency. Their opening concert pairs Bartók and Mahler, while the second includes John Adams’s Absolute Jest. There’s more Adams in the third: Chairman Dances and Harmonielehre frame the European premiere of Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Cello Concerto.
