While I do hate the Queen Elizabeth Hall as a venue for the symphonic orchestra (it was never intended, plus cramp back stage facilities), it is a suitable venue for chamber concerts. It was a delight to hear the animatic Takacs Quartet play string quartets of Dvořák (No 12) and Shostakovich (No 11). Then Stephen Hough joined the Takacs to perform the mammoth Brahms piano quintet - so much energy and lyricism. It was a delight.
Those of us London-centric folks easily forget there are great concert halls in other parts of the world. I remember as a young kid buying DG LPs with von Karajan on the front cover conducting the Berlin Philharmonic. So as my first visit to the city, a visit to the Philharmonie to listen to the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra was a must. Ivan Fisher started the evening's concert with Haydn Symphony 88. A light and delightful work. As I'd expected, the acoustic of the hall was amazing - probably a good 2.5 second of reverberation - and much more generous than the Royal Festival Hall in London. The strings sounded sweet and the timpani came through clearly with definition. The audience was then treated to Béla Bartók's Seven Pieces for Choir and Chamber Orchestra: the Berlin Phil reduced in size occupying only half of the stage while the Netherlands Youth Choir took the other half. These young performers (all female) sang in Hungarian from memory - not easy at all - and rea...
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